An Open Letter To Senator John Kyl...

Dear Senator Kyl:

I’d just like to let you know, as an Arizona resident, and the owner of a small business that creates and sells software, that your support of COICA is completely and utterly misguided. Not only will it do absolutely nothing at all to stop piracy (the bane of my industry, without question), but it flies in the face of your many references to “freedom” in various speeches you’ve given. The list of countries that do this is very short; we’re in excellent company with North Korea, Myanmar, and China, a trio of freedom-loving forward-thinking nations if ever there were.

I’m a pragmatic person, and I understand the depth of the piracy problem, as I live with it every day, and it directly takes money out of my pocket. I also understand that cutting off our noses to spite our face is absolutely not the answer. You lead from the front, not from behind, and this is a ridiculous bill that will only serve to make us look foolish in the eyes of the world.

I realize that, as a US Senator, your job is to look inward, but as a business owner that relies on the internet to do business, I bring a not-inconsiderable amount of money in to the state of Arizona every year, and 90% of it comes from beyond this nation’s borders. Our state already looks xenophobic enough because of the ridiculous (yet ultimately toothless) wedge issue of SB1070. Why do we want to take this further in to actual harm?