Using SOPA as a back door effort to control the internet is a slap in the face to writers, artists, and musicians, who desperately need some rational protections in the digital age.  The endless madness of corrupt Washington politics is irrational, hell-steered and accelerating toward self destruction. The goofy dance of rationalized denial continues to consume otherwise rational people.  Hope is a four letter word.

Deception or not, it would be smart to stomp heavily on any attempt to censor the internet.  ‘Craigslist Inc. founder Craig Newmark, who had been rallying the digerati against the legislation, called the move “a serious grassroots victory for democracy.” He said champions of the Internet now need to “turn that success into a tipping point which restores the American vision of self-government.”
  Government needs to learn to use the internet as a tool for self-correction.  By nature, the network is a tool for revealing knowledge, and knowledge ought not be kept secret. particularly by democratic governments because people need accurate knowledge of what government is doing in order to self-govern.
Also, governments need to learn how to self-correct instead of to presume they are always right and can grab the upper hand using the power of secrecy to appear to be so. 
  If politicians cannot learn to correct their own mistakes by taking advantage of knowledge learned as a result of new technologies, there is little hope for democracy extending farther than the next ten years at most.
  And in this regard also, respect and thank whistle-blowers, don’t jail them.

SOPA is a deception. The government does whatever it wants, regardless of the SOPA law. Today - “The U.S. government shut down the Megaupload.com content sharing website, charging its founders and several employees with massive copyright infringement.” (Reuters)