Back in August, in the heat of a debate over proposed legislation called the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA, I wrote a feature in which I argued that the act would do more harm than good, restricting school and library access to the most frequently used online social networks and profile-based sites. As I wrote then:

It appears that Representative Michael Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania and main sponsor of the bill, is using suburban voters' fear of online predation to rally conservatives for the 2006 mid-term elections.

The House had passed the bill, and it seemed like a matter of time before it was swiftly signed-off on in the Senate and reached the president. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont had shown interest in slowing it down, but many educators and techies were starting to admit it might be too late.

Then, several scandals ensued, the election season was upon us, the Dems took the House and the Senate, and now that the 110th session has been sworn in, Andy Carvin reminds us that DOPA exists.

Or did exist.

The bill wasn't voted on as the 2006 session came to a close, which means that it was effectively finished. Carvin points to a few factors that led to its death, among them Leahy's successful slowing down of the process and Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick's close relationship with everyone's favorite online predator, Mark Foley:

Even though he wasn’t a co-sponsor of DOPA, Rep. Foley was a close associate of Mike Fitzpatrick, the congressman who introduced it. The two of them had also drafted another piece of legislation called the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act, or SAFETY. Though the SAFETY Act was less controversial than DOPA, its association with Foley probably didn’t help it when he was caught sending inappropriate emails to House pages. The bill was never even placed for debate. Suddenly, even well-meaning online safety bills were seen as hypocritical, making them a political hot potato as long as the Foley scandal raged.

The last straw was the election of a Democratic majority to the House, who will be in no rush to resurrect a Republican-sponsored bill. Consider it dead.

Tags: DOPA, education, leahy

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