[Foundation-l] Politico: "Wikimedia foundation hires lobbyists on sopa, pipa"

[Sue Gardner]

On 22 January 2012 08:30, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Wikimedia foundation hires lobbyists on sopa, pipa
>        http://www.politico.com/morningtech/0112/morningtech377.html
>
> Interesting. Any details?

I thought we had already discussed this here, but maybe it was only
discussed on the SOPA pages on-wiki? Upshot: the Wikimedia Foundation
engaged a DC firm, Dow Lohnes Government Strategies, to help us better
understand SOPA/PIPA. They are the folks who've been advising us over
the past month or so, helping us figure out how big a threat SOPA/PIPA
are, where they came from, what stage they were at, how likely they
were to pass, what kind of response the blackout was getting, and so
forth.

When Geoff or anybody from the Foundation was opining on-list or
on-wiki about SOPA/PIPA, it was with the benefit of the expertise of
the DC firm.

It remains to be determined how or whether we will continue using that
firm (or any other similar firm). We don't have any intention of doing
anything secretive or underhanded.

There is probably more information on enWP's SOPA-related pages.

Thanks,
Sue