Where Do Rosemont's Reps Stand on SOPA/PIPA?

It's going to be a tough day for students doing research online. Wikipedia has gone dark for 24 hours, and sites like Reddit, Wordpress, Mozilla, Wired and more are joining in, blocking their users and encouraging action against two anti-piracy bills pending in Congress.

So where do Rosemont's congressional representatives stand on the bills, which would allow private companies a short path to block, blacklist and force sanctions against websites suspected of hosting or linking to copyrighted material?

(Click here to read the Huffington Post's explaination on Wednesday's protest and the two related bills)

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento), who currently represents Rosemont in the House of Representatives, opposes that house's version of the bill, known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

In November, she was one of 11 representatives to sign onto a letter urging the bill's authors that the legislation would create "an explosion of innovation-killing lawsuits and litigation."

"You've previously stated that this legislation is intended to target 'rogue' foreign websites engaging in copyright infringement," Matsui, Rep. Anna Eshoo and others wrote. "While this is a laudable goal and one we support, the SOPA's overly broad language, in its current form, would target legitimate domestic websites, creating significant uncertainty for those in the technology and venture capital industries."

But Matsui's time representing Rosemont is limited. Because of new redistricting maps, . One incumbent running for election in that district is Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Gold River).

Lungren has been publicly skeptical about SOPA, saying it's rushed and will interfere with an Internet security effort known as DNSSEC.

Lungren said this week on a Sirius Radio talk show that when he came to a recent SOPA hearing, none of the people speaking were technical experts and none could answer his questions about possible implications of the bill.

"My real problem with this bill is we don't do an intellectually honest way of actually achieving what we want: protect intellectual property but do not put ourselves to the point where we here are looked at the same as China in terms of censorship," Lungren said Tuesday on the Politics of the United States show. "And at the same time, (we) have this question about undercutting the security efforts we've made with respect to fighting cyber security through a–really, a voluntary effort between the federal government and the private sector."

Lungren said the issue of stopping copyright infringement and intellectual property theft online is an important one, but there's no need to rush a bad bill through Congress.

"We cannot afford to get it wrong," he said.

Meanwhile in the U.S. Senate, both Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) are among the co-sponsors of the Protect IP Act (PIPA), a related bill.

A Boxer spokesman last month told the Hollywood Reporter that Boxer supported the bill and "has a long record of working to protect intellectual property and fight piracy."

Feinstein drew criticism around the web when she mistakenly told the Huffington Post last month that Hollywood and Silicon Valley leadership were not on opposing sides of the issue.