Privacy has been obliterated, Russians hack our elections, Facebook buys information about women’s periods, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) want to charge more to access certain websites, culture industries want to restrict access to content, the Internet has become a giant mall, free speech has been limited, algorithms feed us the worst of humanity. What does Congress want to do to regulate the Internet? Make the Internet more punitive for people that share cultural content.

Today, the US House of Representatives passed The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act 410-6. Whenever something passes Congress close to unanimously with little debate, it must be about copyright. As I discussed in iTake-Over, Congress allows copyright “stakeholders” to negotiate copyright law and hurriedly pass it. This is the quintessential example of this process discussed by Jessica Litman.

Witness the sponsor of the bill’s language. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) states: “The internet has provided many benefits to society. It is a wonderful thing, but it cannot be allowed to function as if it is the Wild West with absolutely no rules. We have seen that there are bad actors throughout society and the world who take advantage of the internet as a platform in a variety of ways. We cannot allow it.”

Yes! We cannot allow internet companies to operate in a Wild West of unregulated capitalism. I couldn’t agree more! But the solution? Create a small claims tribunal that ignores due process and will allow cultural industries to issue take-down notices. This legislation will do nothing to regulate the Wild West and everything to shutdown free speech further.In all of the public uproar of unregulated tech companies, I’ve never once heard someone say, “we need to make it easier to sue people for uploading unauthorized content.” In fact, most of the arguments have been the opposite — i.e., the Internet provides a place for people to express themselves freely.

Public: We want Congress to regulate tech companies to make the Internet more open.

Congress: We’ll pass a copyright law that makes it less open!!!

The CASE Act will be the hill that Internet regulation dies on.