January 25, 2012 9:02AM 

# SOPA/PIPA: Harbinger or Aberration? 

By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) 

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He’s not unrestrained, but [Larry Downes sees the remarkable downfall of legislation](http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/01/25/who-really-stopped-sopa-and-why/) to regulate the Internet’s engineering as a harbinger of things to come. Jerry Brito, meanwhile, tells us “[Why We Won’t See Many Protests like the SOPA Blackout](http://techland.time.com/2012/01/23/why-we-wont-see-many-protests-like-the-sopa-blackout/).”

They’re both right—over different time-horizons. The information environment and economics of political organization today are still quite stacked against public participation in our unwieldy federal government. But in time this will change. Congress and Washington, D.C.‘s advocacy and lobbying groups now have some idea what the future will feel like.

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) 

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