A day of high-profile protests against the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills in the US appears to have had an impact on political support for the proposed legislation. Ars Technica reports that 18 Senators announced their opposition to the bills yesterday. One of them was Republican Marco Rubio, who was actually a co-sponsor of PIPA in its original form. Why withdraw his support? “Legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government’s power to impact the Internet.” SOPA co-sponsor Ben Quayle also withdrew his support from that bill. However, the bill’s prime mover Lamar Smith remains confident that it will progress next month. “I have ultimate faith that facts are going to prevail.”