An Open Letter to the United States Congress: 
Reining In Rogue Websites Critical to Defending American Jobs, Innovation and Constitutional Integrity

Dear Members of Congress:

On behalf of the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) and its 250,000 supporters and activists across the nation, I write to urge Congress to address the growing menace of rogue websites in order to defend American jobs, innovation and Constitutional integrity.

CFIF was established over a decade ago to advance the fundamental principles that made America the most prosperous and benevolent nation in human history – property rights, the rule of law and free markets. Our Founding Fathers considered intellectual property such a critical manifestation of those principles that they specifically protected it in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution by empowering Congress, “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Today, in our increasingly knowledge-based global economy, intellectual property is more important than ever and constitutes the primary wellspring for future American growth, jobs, exports and life improvements.

Unfortunately, those same principles are under constant attack from rogue websites that wrongfully profit from pirated and counterfeited American intellectual property. Such violations not only deprive our citizens of the rightful fruits of their labor and investments, but ultimately jeopardize American security, jobs, trillions of dollars of income and even lives.

The arguments against rogue sites legislation have, in fact, gone “rogue” themselves. Carefully balanced legislation, like the PROTECT IP Act, simply applies existing property protections in the physical marketplace to that of the online sphere. There is no justifiable reason for incongruence between the online and real-world markets, and PROTECT IP would help plug up the gaping loophole through which foreign counterfeiters and pirates profit at Americans' expense. This effort is particularly critical during this period of protracted economic difficulty, high unemployment and international competition.

Accordingly, we at CFIF respectfully encourage Congress to address the rogue website threat and protect American intellectual property through rogue sites legislation like the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act. We also look forward to seeing similar measures introduced in the House soon.

Thank you very much for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,
/s/
Timothy H. Lee
Vice President, Legal and Public Affairs