WASHINGTON – Five days before a critical vote, several senators are abandoning an anti-piracy bill after an outpouring of online opposition to tinkering with Internet freedoms.
Senate Democratic leaders still plan to vote Tuesday on taking up the bill, and supporters were scrambling to make changes before then to answer critics. But it was questionable whether they had the 60 votes needed.
Half-a-dozen of the 40 original cosponsors of the bill withdrew their support Wednesday amid a one-day protest blackout by Wikipedia and other web giants and a flood of emails to Capitol Hill offices.
When more than 7 million sign a petition on Google saying the Senate bill and its counterpart in the House would censor the Web and impose burdensome regulations on U.S. businesses, lawmakers listen.
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