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

[Theo10011]

On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org>wrote:

> 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.
>
>
Ah. Thanks Sue for the clarification.

I indeed missed that on en.wp, maybe communicating that they were employed
for consultation during the blackout might help, internally or even
externally?

This is the first I heard about the extent of their involvement, it would
be great if this could be communicated better.

Regards
Theo