Anti-SOPA filibuster name list is almost at a million

WITH THE VOTE in the US Congress on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) growing closer, its opponents are stepping up their activities to stop it.

A list of names that a Senator has promised to read out as a way of preventing the vote on the MAFIAA copyright cartel inspired bill has close to one million people on it, and the organisers are looking for more.

The list will be used to do what is known as 'filibuster', a parliamentary procedure employed by politicians that want to delay a vote to defeat something or annoy their peers. At the time of writing, the count of names on the list is going up all the time, and when we looked the number of names was at 978,947.

"The vote could happen at any time now, and free speech champions in Congress say our outcry is crucial. Senator Wyden is even planning to block the vote by reading out our petition names for hours!" says a post on activist web site Avaaz.

"We are meeting with the White House this week - and members of Congress have asked to be updated daily on exactly how many signatures we've got. Let's reach 1.5 million before this important meeting."

The idea is that no one wants to listen to such a long list of names being read out, and kudos to the Senator prepared to do it, meaning that SOPA could be defeated by interminable debate. µ