When a petition isn't enough: SOPA protestors raise money to hire lobbyist firm

An enterprising group of techies who oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is taking a page from corporate America with a fundraising campaign to hire its own lobbyist firm.

With millions of dollars being thrown at members of Congress on behalf of corporations that want the power to shut down websites suspected of intellectual property infringement, an eight-person team calling itself "We The Lobby" is trying to give ordinary people a similar way of influencing votes in Congress. Since getting the site online on Jan 16, the group has raised more than $1,300 toward its goal of $10,000, which will be used to lobby against both SOPA and PIPA (the Protect IP Act). "99% of the time this type of lobby representation is only available to corporate interests. It's never really available to the common person," said We The Lobby's legal advisor Adam Dunn, who has a law degree and said he used to work for a law and lobbying firm in Washington, DC. The rest of the New York City-based We The Lobby team is mostly made up of Web developers, designers, and software engineers.