House Kills SOPA
By Josh Wretlind
Examiner.com
January 16, 2012
In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to several things. One of those things is that SOPA and PIPA met huge online protest against the bills. Another reason would be that the White House threatened to veto the bill if it had passed. However, it isn’t quite time yet to celebrate, as PIPA(the Senate’s version of SOPA) is still up for consideration.
The online protests about the bill were surprising and large. They ranged anywhere from calling Representatives, companies, and senators to get them to change their mind, to actively moving domain’s away from and targeting the business model of the companies that supported/lobbied for the bill. GoDaddy lost well over 100,000 domains in the space of about 10 days due to their involvement with these bills, along with other various targets. Reddit in particular has been influential in turning the tide against SOPA and PIPA, and is a good demonstration of how the Internet enables Democracy.
PIPA is less well known than SOPA, but the provisions are basically the same. It still includes the same DNS blocking and censoring system that the original SOPA did, just without the SOPA name. There are around 40 co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate so far, with no word on how many senators support the bill in addition to that. There will most likely need to be 60 votes in the Senate in order to invoke cloture and end an almost guaranteed filibuster.
[CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE]
[hat tip: Before It’s News]
———————————————————————
[Potent News Editor’s note: IN LESS THAN 13 HOURS, THE ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA WILL BE BLACKED OUT GLOBALLY TO PROTEST SOPA AND PIPA. Their own website says so. View the screenshots I took bellow.]
cropped website screenshot taken at 1PM January 17th, 2012
Free Speech Is On Thin Ice
- Dees Illustration
By Amir Alwani
Potent News
January 13, 2012
Is anybody noticing all the flak journalists are getting for trying to do their jobs lately? Free speech of any kind seems to be under attack. It is fairly common now to see people getting arrested for video-taping police officers. To add insult to injury, SOPA/PIPA threatens free speech and spells RED ALERT to almost everyone willing to look at the facts. Do any of you think you’ll get anywhere by submitting to any of this, sugar coating it, or looking the other way?
Now is the time to make ourselves heard. When someone encroaches on our liberty we have a duty to fight back.
The role of the mainstream media has traditionally been to limit debate and to basically be the mouthpiece of government. Conversely, the role of the responsibly minded media is to take advantage of technology and opportunities to spread important/urgent information – being our eyes and ears when we can’t be there.
In the Arabic language, when you Love someone you call that person “ee-oo-nee” which means my “eyes” (probably because they offer you another perspective which you see as crucial and valuable). Hijacked governments are taking our eyes, leaving us blind, deaf and dumb – politically impotent.
There is a lot to look forward to in the times ahead but we must first deal with history’s immense baggage which is manifesting in all sorts of grotesque ways now, allowing us to see our true colours. I see a lot of beauty in the world but our present situation is also a nightmarish science fiction scenario for many reasons. At this point we are about to marry that scenario’s much uglier cousin. We must speak now or forever hold our peace (pun fully intended). If you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about at this point, you have some catching up to do.
Those who witnessed the recent NDAA arrests shouldn’t be surprised at all. Here’s a brief glance at the political climate that has endured in the past couple years and what one might be faced with when trying to record a video, cover an event, attend a protest, have one’s voice heard in a public meeting, etc:
June 26 / June 27, 2010
November 22, 2010
January 7, 2011
June 8, 2011
June 24, 2011
August 22, 2011
August 31, 2011
December 16, 2011 – Culture has succumbed to the point where even a priest was practically kicked out of a town hall meeting recently, probably because they merely didn’t like the sound of his voice.
January 9, 2012
So it’s bad, right?
Don’t you think it’s a slippery slope if we keep letting this kind of thing slide? Over a year ago, State Sen. Bruce Patterson was proposing legislation that would introduce government-registered reporters. Mac Salvo wrote,
Once a reporter is licensed, the public would have the comfort of knowing that the writings, opinions, and insights being presented have been thoroughly sifted, filtered and edited to ensure the information is truthful and easy to understand.
The same population of gullible idiots that require government intervention when it comes to smoking cigarettes, drinking sodas, and salt intake, also need to be told what news they can consume.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the current state of affairs are regarding this legislation, but I agree with Salvo and here are my thoughts on the matter.
What was being proposed, albeit “voluntary”, was nothing more than government filtration of information. Our awareness is already extremely narrow and many human beings sadly go from the cradle to the grave without ever experiencing true happiness/bliss (except maybe as children). We need all the help we can get but we don’t need the style of help offered to us by government. The argument often used seems more or less like, “there’s a lot of stupid people out there and you can’t trust everybody so allow us to make sure the biggest and brightest get the spotlight and a chance. Have you no heart? For the love of GOD, let us help you by limiting your options and thinking for you. Let us be your God.”
Even if that argument was somewhat accurate – that is, even if the internet or the general arena of written work was in fact full of crap and you, for whatever reason, feared that people would take some unsavory (possibly dangerous) characters seriously – then it might be worthwhile to take a quick glance at Charlotte Iserbyt’s work because it might shed light on the why people are so ignorant these days and why there may be so much crap to filter through (if there even is indeed that much crap floating around shrouding the truth in a sea of mediocrity).
However, I personally don’t think it’s difficult for anybody to sift through the crap, whether it be online, in a physical library, or a newspaper. Furthermore, nobody is putting a gun to anybody’s head and saying, “believe Joe Blow’s blog or else”. It’s our responsibility to come to our own conclusions and if we’re never given the opportunity to practice that discernment and be able to say, “I did this research on my own”, then we are robbed of yet another freedom. If absurd laws like this were in place, nobody anywhere would be able to say they did the research on their own. You would have to say, “I did this research on my own, but every article I came across was preselected and hand-picked by my government” and so your government would be acting as a middle man.
More importantly, at the end of the day the whole idea of free speech is meant specifically for unpopular speech (probably because times of great change are usually led by a minority). Think about it. We need a great change right now. You’re not going to get it with the help of CNN.
Sometimes the presence of a middle man doesn’t work out so well. Why have a “middle-man” between you and reality? Why are so many people so desperate for powerful people, “experts”, and people with degrees to rule over them?
There is no real danger and there never was, except for maybe the danger posed by a psychopathic government’s obsession with control. Writing about what you see in your world is not the same as performing medical surgery or driving a vehicle. The world is not going to fall apart if one guy posts a slightly inaccurate blog every now and then by mistake. When you read a piece of news, you should critically think about it for yourself because you matter in the grand scheme of things. Chances are that your opinion of whatever piece of news comes your way is actually much more aligned with reality and conducive to genuine growth and maturity (for you and our species) than your government’s version of the events (at least when you can think clearly anyway).
If that still doesn’t make sense to you, consider the following. What if you even already have a degree (which some consider a scam in and of itself, by the way). What assurance can you honestly say you have that this “committee” Patterson is talking about, this bureaucratic arm of a monstrously corrupt and rampaging hijacked government will be fair when contemplating your qualifications (or that any future administration wouldn’t abuse those powers)? This is a hijacked government which, by the way, is controlled by a banking cartel which is hellbent on robbing people of their ability to eat real food, breath untainted air, and drink untainted water.
I would bet that if you did your homework you would have zero assurance that any “committee” like this would be looking out for your best interest.
A recent article titled “Mainstream Media To Bully Bloggers Out Of ‘Fair Use'” mentions,
The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, along with 28 other news organizations, are launching a company which hopes to further profit on their news reporting, by seeking to make paying customers out of websites or blogs which reproduce their content, either in full or in part.
So even if that Detroit legislator mentioned above didn’t get his way, we can see that the corporate oligarchy’s wheels are in motion and that the fight to suppress free speech is ever present.
When people’s websites get torn down or when reporters get arrested for filming a public event or for filming a police officer abusing his/her authority, the message there is simply. “shut up, slave. We own you.”
Sure, if all your life you’ve had a tendency to conform, you might be shortsighted enough to come up with some sort of rationalization for that kind of assault on your freedom but at the end of the day there is no justification for these pompous acts of domination, and worse, they are intertwined with an entire system of domination that has world depopulation at the heart of its agenda. Seen in this light, World War 3 is also not surprising.
Furthermore, when you look at the fact that many honest small businesses actually had their websites shut down and replaced with Department of Homeland Security logos falsely accusing them of being pedophiles and violating child porn laws that is obviously quite another story. I don’t think that’s a fumble. I find it difficult to believe such a mistake could be made. It is like saying, “Oops, I tripped and fell on the button that falsely accused your website of violating child porn laws”. I mean I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure this is a joke or on purpose.
The solution? Do you even have to ask? What could it be?
Simple: Do not shut up. They can’t shut us all up.
I’m already seeing a huge surge of various names in the alternative news media expanding their operations. We do outnumber those pushing for the global genocidal tyranny.
If you do shut up, the powers that be say, “mission accomplished” and celebrate. Instead, listen to your “gut feeling” and act on it, please. You’d be doing me (and all of us) a huge favor.
Related Articles:
- Hosting Company Says al-Qaeda Website Reason for Removing 73,000 Blogs (July 20, 2010)
- Every email and website to be stored (October 20, 2010)
- Metered internet a colossal failure (January 26, 2011)
- Egypt’s Internet Kill Switch: Coming To America (January 28, 2011)
- Algeria Shuts Down Social Media Websites As Protests Grow (February 14, 2011)
- VeriSign Demands Power To Kill “Abusive” Websites (October 11, 2011)
- Thousands leave GoDaddy over registrar’s support for SOPA (December 30, 2011)
- WordPress Comes Out Against SOPA Internet Censorship Bill (January 11, 2012)
- Reddit to shut-down over SOPA (January 11, 2012)
- Activist Appeals Felony Ruling for Exercising Free Speech (January 13, 2012)
Amir Alwani is a psychonaut who makes metal, electronic and hip-hop music. He is also the founder and editor of the online independent media outlet known as Potent News.
NDAA Protests End In Ironic Swarm Of Arrests (video)
- Dees Illustration
by Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com
January 10, 2012
The absurdity of America today never ceases to amaze. In fact, it has become so elaborate that one might even suggest it has reached a kind of poetic symmetry.
When a protest group is willing to stick their necks out to expose the horror of the National Defense Authorization Act and its open door strategy for unconstitutional arrest and indefinite detainment of American citizens, I have to stand up and applaud.
This is the kind of protest we need to see all over the country. Of course, any establishment system which is willing to dissolve the inherent liberties of its citizens certainly isn’t going to stand by quietly while they blatantly point out the injustice.
The Grand Central Terminal action featured in the video below is a perfect example of the swift and immediate stifling of peaceful dissent by an increasingly totalitarian government:
Responses to the event vary. Most people who have actually been exposed to the facts on the NDAA have expressed utter disgust and fury. Rightly so.
Some, however, have taken the old elitist mantra, perpetuated effectively by the Neo-Cons in their heyday, that if you are not for the system, then you are a danger to society. Not surprisingly, there are still plenty of useful idiots out there buzzing about like parasites in search of blood.
For those who would applaud these arrests, and suggest that they are well deserved, I would have to ask very pointedly; why?
Is it right to crush free speech as long as the message is offensive to you personally? Do peaceful protestors really present a legitimate threat to our national stability? Are they truly more dangerous than a corrupt government hellbent on assassinating the legal protections of our natural rights which have existed for centuries?
Would any supporter of the jackboot methodology like to explain to me in a coherent manner why they believe their skewed world view should be shielded from sincere questions? Please, I can’t wait to witness the kind of ridiculous mental gymnastics required to make such arguments palatable. If this kind of ignorance wasn’t so destructive, it might actually be entertaining.
The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter if these activists were in Grand Central Terminal, on the streets, or busting through the doors of the Oval Office. While New York authorities will attempt to argue property loopholes in free speech protections for Grand Central, or national security because of the vulnerability of the terminal, really, this has nothing to do with either.
This is about the removal of American voices from a room, and nothing more. If the message is going to be suppressed by the mainstream media, and shrugged off by representatives, then protesters must go to where the people are, and make the truth heard by whatever means necessary.
Ultimately, activism is about disturbing people’s normal mundane routines and shocking them out of their pop-culture stupor, even if for a moment. If we aren’t allowed to do that without constant police intervention, then the First Amendment is not being served, and then, my friends, we have a problem, a problem which should be forced down the throat of government with even more public action.
————————-
(hat tip: The Intel Hub)
Understanding North Korea
Analyzing social engineering through domestic propaganda & official mythology
Written and Photographed by Nile Bowie
Editor’s note by Nile Bowie: After years of fascination, I had the opportunity to spend eight days in North Korea in September 2011. At the moment, it is only possible to visit North Korea through a highly organized government-sanctioned tour. Perhaps the most incredible thing about my time there was the genuine authenticity of the emotions displayed in ordinary people towards their leaders, who are viewed with the utmost piety. The degree to which the Korean people are motivated and inspired by the State’s official media and mythology is unparalleled in contrast to any other country. I wrote this article in an attempt to define their worldview as I have come to understand it, because it remains one of the world’s least understood (and most fascinating) societies.
by Nile Bowie
NileBowie.blogspot.com
December 28, 2011
These portraits of the Great Leader, Kim il Sung and the Dear Leader, Kim Jung il are required to be hung in the home of every Korean by law.
The recent political transition in North Korea has once again focused the world’s attention towards the least accessible society on earth. Its epitaphic spectacle of mourning for the Father Leader, the Great General Kim Jung il, has invited a torrent of conjecture and analysis from the peering spectators of the outside world. While the majority of experts speak of issues such as the possibility of a failed succession, followed by a military coup d’état or a “Pyongyang Spring”, it becomes apparent that so few outlets take the domestic North Korean worldview into account. While all parties exchange wild rhetoric, Washington’s insistent stance on denuclearization is a clear demonstration of its incoherency in diffusing tension, reaching a common resolution with Pyongyang and most importantly, understanding how the regime views itself.
While the country is referred to as the twenty first century’s last bastion of Stalinism, the internal propaganda to which the domestic population is exposed suggests an antipodal ideology intrinsically irreconcilable with the worldview of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Under the surface of immense concrete monuments espousing Communism and the rambling doctrine of Juche Thought, North Korea’s domestic propaganda suggests that its identity is derived from a staunchly race-based brand of nationalism, at times channeling a rhetoric of ethnic superiority, similar to that claimed by the Nazis. While the propaganda designated to foreign scrutiny dryly champion’ principles of self-reliance in vague humanistic themes, as found within the Juche doctrine, the least accessible propaganda intended for internal consumption is a uniquely Korean brand of racist orthodoxy.
 |
|
Image: “The Korean people are too pure-blooded and therefore too virtuous, to survive in this evil world without a great parental leader.”The servicemen depicted on this Korean banknote share identical physical characteristics; great pride is taken in the homogenous & mono-ethnic features of the Korean race.
|
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE…
————————
(hat tip: Land Destroyer Report)
Why We Must Stop SOPA
End of the American Dream
December 29, 2011
Right now, there are two pieces of legislation in Congress that would change the Internet forever if they are enacted.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) would give the federal government the ability to potentially shut down millions of websites.
SOPA (the version being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives) is the more dangerous of the two. It would essentially be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Internet.
It would give government officials unlimited power to very rapidly shut down any website that is found to “engage in, enable or facilitate” copyright infringement. That language is very broad and very vague.
Many fear that it will be used to shut down any websites that even inadvertently link to “infringing material”. Can you imagine a world where there is no more Facebook, Twitter or YouTube?
Sites like those would be forced to hire thousands of Internet censors to make sure that no “infringing material” is posted, and many prominent websites may simply decide that allowing users to post content is no longer profitable and is just not worth the hassle.
Are you starting to get the picture? That is why we must stop SOPA. If SOPA is enacted, it could be the death of the free Internet.
But this is exactly the kind of bill that the establishment media has been waiting for. It would give them back control. SOPA is being heavily promoted by big media corporations.
If they are able to shut down free speech on the Internet, then suddenly everyone would be forced to rely on them for news and entertainment once again.
That is why SOPA and PIPA must be stopped. A recent editorial in the New York Times described how these new laws would work….
The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar.
Everyone would be deathly scared of allowing anything to be posted on their websites in such an environment. Free speech on the Internet would be a thing of the past.
An article on lifehacker.com explained how easy it would be to bring a claim against a website under SOPA….
If it’s possible to post pirated content on the site, or information that could further online piracy, a claim can be brought against it. This can be something as minor as you posting a copyrighted image to your Facebook page, or piracy-friendly information in the comments of a post such as this one. The vague, sweeping language in this bill is what makes it so troubling.
Fortunately, some of the biggest names on the Internet are rallying to defeat SOPA. For example, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says that he believes that SOPA will actually “criminalize” links….
“By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet”
Another huge name, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, is alarmed that SOPA would give the U.S. government the power to censor search results without even having to go through a court trial….
“Imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States. Two bills currently making their way through congress — SOPA and PIPA — give the U.S. government and copyright holders extraordinary powers including the ability to hijack DNS and censor search results (and this is even without so much as a proper court trial)”
In the United States, we used to believe that the government should not take our property away without a fair trial.
But now SOPA would allow the U.S. government to hit Internet websites with a “death penalty” without even having to go to court.
If SOPA becomes law, the Internet will change dramatically.
If there were no websites where people could post thoughts and ideas, what would the world look like?
Over recent months we have seen how sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook can literally change the face of the globe. The following comes from the same New York Times article referenced above….
YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have played an important role in political movements from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. At present, social networking services are protected by a “safe harbor” provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which grants Web sites immunity from prosecution as long as they act in good faith to take down infringing content as soon as rights-holders point it out to them. The House bill would destroy that immunity, putting the onus on YouTube to vet videos in advance or risk legal action. It would put Twitter in a similar position to that of its Chinese cousin, Weibo, which reportedly employs around 1,000 people to monitor and censor user content and keep the company in good standing with authorities.
Do we really want Chinese-style Internet censorship in America?
Thankfully, the Internet community is fighting back against SOPA really hard.
Initially, GoDaddy.com was publicly supporting SOPA, but a boycott organized on Reddit has hit them really hard. In fact, GoDaddy lost more than 70,000 domains just last week.
All of this pressure forced GoDaddy to renounce its support for SOPA. However, they are not actively opposing the bill at this point.
Congress is in recess right now, so action on SOPA and PIPA is stalled for now. But the battle is far from over.
And the stakes are incredibly high. One blogger recently put it this way….
“If either the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) & the U.S. House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) become law, political blogs such as Red Mass Group [conservative] & Blue Mass Group [liberal] will cease to exist”
Yes, the free Internet that we all love and enjoy today is under assault.
If we do not stand up now, we may lose it forever.
Every single day, control of the Internet gets tighter and tighter. For example, did you know that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now watching everything that is said on Facebook and Twitter?
The following comes from a recent Daily Mail article….
The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for ‘sensitive’ words – and tracking people who use them.
Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS’s ‘watch’ list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group.
But it is one thing for them to watch the Internet.
It is another thing for them to shut down free speech on the Internet entirely.
Please do what you can to save the open and free Internet.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is helping to organize users of the Internet to protest this draconian legislation. The following is from a statement that the EFF recently put out….
As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet’s domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users’ attempts to reach certain websites’ URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.
It gets worse: Under SOPA’s provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the “U.S. authorized version”).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a page that makes it very easy to send a letter about SOPA to your representatives in Congress. You can find it right here.
There is also a website called “Stop American Censorship” that has even more ways to let the federal government know that you do not want SOPA to pass. You can find that site right here.
We must stop SOPA. The Internet has made it possible for average people all over the world to communicate with one another on a grand scale, and this is a direct threat to the establishment and the big media corporations that they control.
They are going to try again and again to take back control over the flow of information. We must not allow them to succeed.
Please share this article with as many people as you can, and please do what you can to help defeat SOPA.
—————————–
(hat tip: The Intel Hub)
The End of America as We Know It: Obama Signs NDAA Indefinite Detention Bill
- Dees Illustration
The Intel Hub
December 31, 2011
On the eve of 2012, President Obama has, with the stroke of a pen, ended America as we know it.
With the National Defense Authorization Act now signed into law, American citizens can and possibly will be indefinitely detained by the military if they have been “accused” of any terrorist related activity.
In a press release published today, the ACLU further outlined their opposition to this unconstitutional law and highlighted the fact that Obama will now be known as the president who signed indefinite detention of Americans, far from any battlefield, into law.
“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director.
“The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”
******
“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today.
Although the president and the corporate controlled media have tried to pretend that he only signed the bill because Congress took out the indefinite detention provision, the fact remains that this bill DOES give the government the ability to detain any American they claim to be a terrorist without so much as a trial.
Obama’s claim that he had reservations about certain provisions also rings hollow considering the fact that the White House actually asked for the indefinite detention provision to be added to the bill in the first place!
As we all celebrate the new year we must reflect back on 2011 and realize that it is absolutely imperative that we speak out and expose these police state measures like never before.
If we do not, this country will continue on its path towards destruction and before the end of 2012 we could find ourselves in a full scale police state that has completely outlawed the alternative media and free, outside the box thinking.
Grassroots Internet freedom movement slams GoDaddy.com, lawmakers for their support of SOPA
- Dees Illustration
by J. D. Heyes
Natural News
December 28, 2011
(NaturalNews) The Internet is the “final frontier” when it comes to pure freedom of speech and expression, which is why authoritarian regimes in places like Iran and China either severely limit or ban access to much of it.
Having said that, you wouldn’t think that here in the cradle of democracy and freedom, American lawmakers would be attempting to pass legislation that, for all intents and purposes, kills Internet freedom of expression.
Enter the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which is a piece of legislation currently gaining favor in the House of Representatives that would, according to the bill’s language, hold Internet Web hosting companies and their users liable for everything they post.
According to lawmakers supporting the bill, its chief aim is to target foreign Web sites “primarily dedicated to illegal activity” or foreign sites that “market themselves as such.”
“There is a vast virtual market online run by criminals who steal products and profits that rightly belong to American innovators. These foreign rogue websites not only steal movies and music, they offer counterfeit medicine, automobile parts and even baby food, which harm American industries and put American lives at risk,” says Rep. Lamar Alexander, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “Because the U.S. produces the most intellectual property, our nation has the most to lose if we fail to address the problem of rogue sites.”
Sounds fair enough, right? Only, the devil is in the details and, quite frankly, can you remember the last time a piece of legislation came out of Washington, D.C., without a softball-sized spool of string attached to it? Here’s a much more accurate assessment of what the law will really do, from someone who would be affected by its provisions:
SOPA explicitly states that companies will be liable for everything their users post. Sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Wikipedia, or any sites that allow user generated content CANNOT exist under these laws. Immediately after this bill is passed, you will see the media mafia (MPIAA, RIAA, etc) replacing websites like Wikipedia with commercialized encyclopedia software. Mainstream media outlets will not cover this bill because they are the ones lobbying for it.
CBS News even speculated on the law’s implications: “YouTube videos of your kids dancing to Katy Perry songs could land you in jail, or at the very least, cost you a hefty fine. Sounds like a Big Brother-inspired vision of the future? It’s actually only a few steps away from a reality. If a House committee votes to support the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), you could be committing a felony.”
Lawmakers who support the measure are quick to pooh-pooh such assessments, but Internet sites dedicated to freedom of expression aren’t taking any chances – and they’re voting with their wallets. So much so, in fact, that many have pulled their domains away from GoDaddy.com, one of the Web’s bigger hosting services, because the company initially supported the legislation before announcing it would no longer do so.
The damage caused by that initial support, however, may be irreversible. Scores of companies have already moved thousands of Web sites, including Reddit and Wikipedia. And there’s little evidence to suggest GoDaddy.com will get them back.
It’s a Bizzaro World, indeed, when a premier Web hosting service would ever think to support even a semblance of legislation that sought to criminalize Web hosting firms for something a user/customer posted.
Unless that company was, say, exempt from the legislation?
Sources:
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.co…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-5…
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_…
http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/201…
PN 