Prison Planet.com » Secret Plan Underway To Revive Internet Censorship Bill SOPA

Christopher Dodd, U.S. Senator from Connecticut. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Motion Picture Association of America CEO “confident” similar legislation will become lawSteve WatsonPrisonplanet.comApril 6, 2012Secret Plan Underway To Revive Internet Censorship Bill SOPAMotion Picture Association of America CEO and former Senator Chris Dodd has revealed perhaps more than he intended to in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter with regards to the much maligned Stop Online Piracy Act SOPA.Despite the fact that the legislation was indefinitely shelved in January, Dodd said he was “confident” that there are conversations going on between Hollywood and Silicon Valley to help revive SOPA.“Between now and sometime next year [after the presidential election], the two industries need to come to an understanding,” Dodd told the magazine.When asked whether there are negotiations going on now, Dodd replied:

 

“I’m confident that’s the case, but I’m not going to go into more detail because obviously if I do, it becomes counterproductive.

The Daily Bell – US Internet Criminalization Now Pursued at State Level – Conn. Attacked

ACLU Blasts ‘Electronic Harassment‘ Bill; Says It Criminalizes Free Speech … The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut is blasting a bill proposed by state prosecutors that would make “electronic harassment” a crime — including such acts as posting information on the Internet that “has the effect of causing substantial embarrassment or humiliation to [a] person within an academic or professional community.”

The bill, which comes up for a public hearing by the legislature’s judiciary committee Thursday, “criminalizes speech that is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution,” said Sandra Staub, legal director for the state ACLU. “It’s vague. It’s overbroad.” For example, Staub said, it contains “no standards for substantially interfering with someone’s academic performance.” – N Hartford Courant

Dominant Social Theme: Now SOPA moves to the states. Good.

Free-Market Analysis: These bills are all about the criminalizing of the Internet. Now that SOPA has been pushed back on the federal front, the action is turning to the states. The idea, in our view, is to whittle away at the Internet bit by bit. Create precedent at the state level and then move in again at the federal level.

The powers-that-be don’t like the Internet or what we call the Internet Reformation that has changed the context of the power debate in the US and throughout the world.

The Internet has exposed the memes of the elite, the dominant social themes that are used to promote world government by scaring people into cooperating with internationalist facilities like the UN.

The powers-that-be are using the same strategies as regards the Internet. They are trying to convince people that a series of organized electrons are as a dangerous as a dark alley on a bad side of town. The Internet needs to be seriously policed and criminalized.

Prison Planet.com » Top Social Media Websites Caught Censoring Controversial Content

Censorship (Photo credit: IsaacMao)

Facebook pays low-wage foreign workers to delete certain content based upon a censorship list. For example, Facebook deletes accounts created by Palestinian resistance groups.

Digg was caught censoring stories which were controversial or too critical of the government. See this andthis.

Now, even social media site Reddit – which helped launch the anti-Sopa Internet blackout and publicize GoDaddy’s slimy Sopa support – is doing the same thing.

As just one example, posts from this website are being censored by Reddit. Specifically, a friend of this site who has submitted stories to Reddit has received the following messages of rejection from a Reddit moderator named davidreiss666:

from davidreiss666 via /r/worldnews/

EXCERPT (LOOOONGGG!!!)

Prison Planet.com » Anti-SOPA forces have ISP snooping bill in their crosshairs

It took an Internet-wide outcry from millions of voters to prompt Rep. Lamar Smith, author of the Stop Online Piracy Act, to postpone a vote on the controversial Hollywood-backed bill.Now Smith, a conservative Texas Republican, is being targeted a second time: for championing legislation that would require Internet service providers to keep track of their customers, in case police want to review those logs in the future.

His bill is called H.R. 1981.The latest campaign is designed to build on last month’s remarkable protests, which included Wikipedia going dark for a day and Google and Amazon.com posting anti-SOPA warnings on their home pages. Irate voters overwhelmed the U.S. Senate’s Web site and, importantly, demonstrated to politicians that Internet users could be a potent political force.“This is yet another government assault on the Internet and its users,” said Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal.

“We taught Congress a lesson last month: we need to do to H.R. 1981 what we did to SOPA, and make it clear to Lamar Smith and the rest of Congress that they can’t run roughshod over Internet freedom.”

US and EU sign ACTA, global internet censorship treaty…

Gunny,

Months before websites all over the internet voluntarily went dark
in protest of SOPA, the internet censorship bill which was being
considered by congress, Obama signed onto the Anti-Counterfeiting
Trade Agreement.

He did so way back in October of last year using his claimed
authority to make ‘executive agreements‘, which basically means he
doesn’t intend to, or even believe he needs to, get the congress to
ratify this TREATY.

Yesterday the European Union signed onto ACTA without any debate.

ACTA has become a reality far worse for internet freedom than
either SOPA or PIPA ever even threatened to be.

Here’s what you really need to know about ACTA…

Video:

The Hollywood Connection Between Democrats and SOPA

The Hollywood Connection Between Democrats and SOPA

Townhall.com ^ | January 26, 2012 | Rachel Alexander

Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 8:50:05 AM by Kaslin

Congress is supposed to represent the interests of everyone. But what happens when powerful special interests contribute heavily to lawmakers’ election campaigns? Last week Americans on the political right and left lined up to oppose SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and its Senate counterpart PIPA, the Protect IP Act. Internet giants like Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla and Tumblr went black for 24 hours last Wednesday, declaring it

Prison Planet.com » The Great Internet Wars Have Begun

In the video below, we note that the massive protest this week against SOPA and PIPA should not merely be about government and corporate curtailment of freedom of expression on the internet.

It also crucial that it be about resistance against an all-out effort by the elite and their technocrats to turn the internet into an all-encompassing panopticon surveillance and control grid. Contrary to common belief, the internet was not built to be a networked computer system designed to withstand a nuclear war, but as a surveillance and control grid. It was not happenstance that the platform found its way into public use.

In addition to a master networked surveillance tool, the internet is now a weaponized system that will be used to take out enemies of the state, as the Pentagon made abundantly clear following a concerted propaganda campaign hyping the dubious threat of cyber attacks on the power grid and national infrastructure. The system is not designed to attack remote cave dwelling terrorists, as the government would have us believe, but those of us designated as domestic terrorists.

(“Web giant blacklists websites, follows government orders to remove material”) ~ Google Is Already Using SOPA-Like Censorship

Web giant blacklists websites, follows government orders to remove material

Despite Google’s much-heralded support for the anti-SOPA movement, the web giant is already enforcing SOPA-like policies of its own, blacklisting legitimate websites from its news aggregator and following government orders to remove material from its search results and You Tube.

Google Is Already Using SOPA Like Censorship google

As major Internet giants joined forces yesterday to protest legislation that would hand the U.S. government power to arbitrarily seize websites with no legal process under the pretext of copyright infringement, Google slapped a black censorship image over its logo and urged people to sign an anti-SOPA petition that has accrued over 5 million signees.

However, Google’s main issue with SOPA is seemingly not related to their concerns about Chinese-style web censorship becoming commonplace, but rather which entity gets to wield those powers – large transnational corporations or governments.

While Google criticizes SOPA publicly, it is already privately using SOPA-like powers to unfairly marginalize legitimate web content.

Google News is a content aggregator that allows users to search thousands of news sources for relevant stories. Although the aggregator includes a plethora of obscure, occasionally offensive, and barely-read websites, in November 2010 Google took the decision to de-list PrisonPlanet.com and Infowars.com from its indexed news sources.

Infowars.com alone is an internationally recognized news website that gets more traffic than MSNBC.com and innumerable other big mainstream news websites. Our articles are routinely featured on the Drudge Report, which itself is renowned as the primary agenda-setting news website in the United States, driving more traffic to individual stories than the likes of Facebook and Twitter combined.

Infowars owner Alex Jones is a nationally syndicated radio host whose broadcast appears on an ever-expanding list of big mainstream radio stations. Jones has been afforded feature profiles by the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine, who acknowledged his role as a pioneer in the media world.

Infowars.com is clearly a legitimate and important news website that features original content which routinely makes an impact and occasionally goes viral. And yet Google de-listed the website from its news aggregator on a whim with no explanation provided. Since Google and its owner Eric Schmidt are prominent financial contributors to the Obama campaign, we can only assume we were blacklisted for political reasons.

Whether you concur with our political stance or are rapidly against it, what can’t be argued is that we are a legitimate news outfit – but Google has arbitrarily banned us from appearing on their ‘news’ search results.

This is a clear example of how Google is already enforcing SOPA-like rules of its own choosing, without the need for any law to be passed by any legislative body.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

In addition, while concerns rage about the state obtaining the power to shut down websites and remove web content with no recourse, Google is already following orders from the federal government in the majority of cases in removing videos from its You Tube platform, including takedowns on the grounds that the videos contain “government criticism”.

Google-owned You Tube has complied with thousands of requests worldwide to remove political protest videos that are clearly not in violation of any copyright or national security interests and do not constitute defamation.

Prison Planet.com » Rand Paul Vows To Block Internet Censorship Bills

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul has promised to do everything within his power to ensure the draconian Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are not brought to a vote.

Image via Wikipedia

Paul says he will filibuster PIPA in the Senate owing to the fact that the bill is a direct threat to the First Amendment.

“Both PIPA and SOPA give the federal government unprecedented and unconstitutional power to censor the Internet,” Paul said in a statement. “These bills enable the government to shut down websites that it deems guilty of violating copyright laws.”

Paul continued: “While we support copyright protections, we are also concerned about websites being shut down without their day in court, and making innocent third parties bear the costs of solving someone else’s problems.

Let’s Stop the SOPA Internet Censorship Bill

Let’s Stop the SOPA Internet Censorship Bill

The John Birch Society ^ | November 23, 2011 | Ann Shibler

Image via Wikipedia

Posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 6:13:57 PM by Steve_in_AZ

There certainly hasn’t been any lack of attempts by the U.S. government — elected Representatives and Senators, and White House — to try to regulate/control the Internet in this session of Congress. It seems a new cybersecurity bill pops up at least once a week. The latest one catching all the attention is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261. SOPA is a beefed-up version of the failed Protect IP Act….

David Ulevich, an expert in Internet security calls the legislation “dangerous” for three reasons: 1) “there is no way to censor only illegal content without harming legitimate uses on sites as well,” 2) it will create a firewall to “censor websites similar to those countries we criticize for the same behavior,” and 3) it will “burden companies with an onerous level of liability for all user-generated content.”

Speak out about Internet censorship by contacting your Representative and Senators immediately, as this bill is sure to see more action before the end of the year. It is a government-interference Internet bill of great magnitude that would in fact destroy the Internet as we now know it, creating a new bureaucracy with the U.S. Government as the Internet police.

Prison Planet.com » SOPA Battle Rages: Tell Congress We Will Not Accept Censorship

The underhanded effort to fundamentally alter the internet under the guise of protecting the copyrights of Hollywood and its transnational “entertainment” corporations was delivered a distinct set-back a few days ago when Congress retreated on its full-steam ahead effort to ram SOPA down our throats.

Faced with massive outrage and a political backlash, the Obama administration threatened a veto of the SOPA legislation and in response Congress shelved it.

Even though this appears to be a victory, we cannot trust the government to not reintroduce the bill after sprucing it up as a kinder and gentler effort to rob of us our ability to freely disseminate information and speak our minds on the internet without fear of the censor’s truncheon crashing down. After all, in 2010 the government shut down 73,000 web sites under the cover of fighting copyright infringement.

We must continue to let our “representatives” in Congress know that in no uncertain terms will we accept any modification of the internet at the behest of large corporations and the globalists who intend by hook or by crook to neuter the only free communication medium left to the people.

(“Internet blackout against SOPA fails to enlist big sites”) Internet Blackout Begins in Protest of SOPA and PIPA (Wikipedia, Craigslist Shut down websites)

Internet blackout against SOPA fails to enlist big sites

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Internet+blackout+against+SOPA+fails+enlist+sites/6013854/story.html#ixzz1jpH2kJEY

A blackout scheduled for Wednesday to protest against proposed legislation on online piracy has failed to get the support of the biggest Internet players.

“the state will be able to create a far friendlier environment for controlling the flow of information, Bill Clinton’s proposed ‘Internet Ministry of Truth’” ~The Secret Behind SOPA

Whether the justification is cybersecurity or anti-piracy, the end game remains the ability to seize control over the Internet and shut down websites on a whim.

Indeed, the is merely the act of legally codifying what is already taking place. Lieberman himself was instrumental in having the whistleblower website Wikileaks shut down when Amazon axed Wikileaks from its servers after being pressured to do so by Lieberman’s Senate Homeland Security Committee.

In addition, the Department of Homeland Security has already seized dozens of websites merely for linking to copyrighted material, despite the fact that such material isn’t even hosted on the website itself, a process the Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized as, “Blunt instruments that cause unacceptable collateral damage to free speech rights.”

The DHS has also seized websites for no ostensible reason, including a popular music blog that was shut down for over a year on charges the DHS now admits were completely false.

While the likes of Wikipedia and Google have commendably protested against SOPA and PIPA, the big ISPs and domain name companies are firmly behind it. Indeed, the global authority over all .com domain names, VeriSign, recently demanded the power to terminate websites deemed “abusive” when ordered to by government without a court order or any kind of oversight whatsoever.

(Internet Freedom, But For how Long?) Dead On Arrival: SOPA Shelved Indefinitely, Obama Succumbs to Pressure, Issues Official Veto Threat by Mac Slavo

Amid significant pressure from tens of thousands of internet users and major web behemoths like Google, Facebook, and Reddit, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is, in its current form, Dead on Arrival:

Misguided efforts to combat online privacy have been threatening to stifle innovation, suppress free speech, and even, in some cases, undermine national security. As of yesterday, though, there’s a lot less to worry about.

The first sign that the bills’ prospects were dwindling came Friday, when SOPA sponsors agreed to drop a key provision that would have required service providers to block access to international sites accused of piracy.

The legislation ran into an even more significant problem yesterday when the White House announced its opposition to the bills. Though the administration’s chief technology officials officials acknowledged the problem of online privacy, the White House statement presented a fairly detailed critique of the measures and concluded, “We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” It added that any proposed legislation “must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet.”

Prison Planet.com » Dead On Arrival: SOPA Shelved Indefinitely, Obama Succumbs to Pressure, Issues Official Veto Threat

Amid significant pressure from tens of thousands of internet users and major web behemoths like Google, Facebook, and Reddit, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is, in its current form, Dead on Arrival:

Misguided efforts to combat online privacy have been threatening to stifle innovation, suppress free speech, and even, in some cases, undermine national security. As of yesterday, though, there’s a lot less to worry about.

How SOPA 2.0 Sneaks In A Really Dangerous Private Ability To Kill Any Website | Techdirt

I already wrote a big post about yesterday’s SOPA markup day one. While we’re moving forward on day two, I wanted to call out one key point that was really made clear by an amendment offered by Rep. Jared Polis late in the day yesterday, which hasn’t received nearly enough attention. As you may recall, with the “manager’s amendment” version of SOPA (i.e., SOPA 2.0), the “notice-and-shut off funding” section of the private right of action in Section 103 was removed. This was good, because we’ve seen how the notice-and-takedown provision of the DMCA has been widely abused…..

Prison Planet.com » Why We Must Stop SOPA

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.

Bloggers unite to crush SOPA | EUTimes.net

The war over copyright infringement on the Internet might seem like an easy one for some members of Congress, but for supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act, Capitol Hill is about to battle it out with some big opponents: bloggers.

From micromessages warning of the dangers of the act on Twitter in under 140 characters to affectations manifested in lengthy diatribes ripe with legalese, the blogosphere is brimming with concern over what the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, will do to the Internet. While lawmakers insist that the legislation is necessary to curtail copyright infringement, some users of the Web are writing on their sites that the Internet as we know it will be brought down by the act, weblogs and all.

“If either the US Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) & the US 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,” a blogger on the right-wing website Red Mass Group posted recently.

Prison Planet.com » Sopa Would DESTROY Jobs and the Economy … So Why are Unions Supporting It?

The promoters of the Stop Online Privacy Act (Sopa) are pretending that it would save jobs and help the economy.

But it would actually destroy jobs and hurt the economy.

No one is going to invest in the next Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Reddit, or YouTube if they know that websites can be shut down after a single unsubstantiated copyright complaint.

The only sector of our economy that’s in good shape is web technology (for example, Google is hiring like crazy right now). Sopa would put a huge dent in the web sector and destroy jobs.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson notes:

Morning Bell: The Unintended Consequences of Internet Regulation [Stop SOPA]

Morning Bell: The Unintended Consequences of Internet Regulation [Stop SOPA]

heritage.org ^ | Dec 28, 2011 | By Rob Bluey

Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2011 5:20:45 AM by Jim Robinson

Would you be outraged if the Department of Justice shut down The Foundry [1] without any warning and blocked access for more than a year?

That’s exactly what happened to a hip-hop blog called Dajaz1.com [2], which was falsely accused of criminal copyright infringement [3]. The blog posted music from artists promoting their work. But federal authorities viewed it differently. They seized the domain name, then shared virtually no information with its owner for more than year. Only recently did they quietly drop the case [4].

The government’s handling of this hip-hop blog is fueling fears about legislation moving quickly through Congress [5] that addresses copyright infringement and online piracy.

The Stop Online Piracy Act [6], or SOPA as it’s known in the House, and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act [7] would give the U.S. attorney general the power and authority to block criminal enterprises from trafficking in illegal products online.

Their cause is a noble one. Business incur significant losses when Americans buy counterfeit items. Consumers must also be increasingly vigilant about purchases they make online. Federal authorities shut down more than 150 websites [8] just last month for pirated goods.

But the two bills making their way through Congress are the wrong solution. They pose serious threats to freedom of speech and expression and raise security concerns [9]. With the Senate possibly voting on the PROTECT IP Act in January and the House moving forward with hearings on SOPA, Americans should understand what’s at stake [10].

As the case with Dajaz1.com illustrates, the federal government already has the ability to shut down U.S.-based websites. A growing number of so-called “rogue sites” are located outside the United States, however, limiting the government’s ability to block them.

SOPA would give Attorney General Eric Holder and individual intellectual property holders the ability to sue these rogue sites if they were “dedicated to theft of U.S. property.” The government, through a court order, could take these four steps:

Require Internet service providers to prevent subscribers from reaching the website in question; Prohibit search engines such as Google from providing direct links to the foreign website in search results; Prohibit payment network providers, such as PayPal or credit card firms, from completing financial transactions affecting the site; and Bar Internet advertising firms from placing online ads from or to the affected website. “The legislation addresses a legitimate problem,” wrote Heritage’s regulatory policy expert James Gattuso [9], “but it may have unintended negative consequences for the operation of the Internet and free speech.”

Prison Planet.com » SOPA: Endgame Is Total Internet Censorship

The Stop Online Piracy Act is not intended to make the internet more secure or even to protect copyrighted material. Its sole purpose is to codify First amendment killing actions already being undertaken by an out of control federal government.

Media talking heads and bloggers alike continue to debate the technicalities of the legislation, however, it is clear that SOPA and PIPA, (Protecting IP Act) the Senate version of the bill, form a double pronged attack on the free and open internet. The bills constitute weapons of mass destruction in the infowar, a huge leap forward for the long running agenda to completely re-structure and centralize the internet under government control.

As detailed in depth in an excellent article today in The Globe and Mail, should the legislation be signed into law in January, it will provide the U.S. government, through the office of the Attorney General, the power to pursue court orders against any site believed to be engaging in or ‘facilitating’ ‘copyright infringement’. The problem being that the bill’s definition of such terms is so broad that entire web sites could come under threat of being effectively seized and shut down for merely displaying one offending hyperlink.

SOPA is the end of us, say bloggers [write your reps to stop this]

SOPA is the end of us, say bloggers [write your reps to stop this]

Politico ^ | December 27, 2011

Posted on Wednesday, December 28, 2011 7:54:01 AM by upchuck

The conservative and liberal blogospheres are unifying behind opposition to Congress’s Stop Online Piracy Act, with right-leaning bloggers arguing their very existence could be wiped out if the anti-piracy bill passes.

“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,” wrote a blogger at Red Mass Group. Some have asserted that the controversial measures would criminalize pages and blogs that link to foreign websites dedicated to online piracy. In particular, this has concerned search engines like Google, which could face massive liability if some form of the bill passes, some say.

“Of course, restrictions of results provided by Internet search engines amount to just that: prior restraint of their free expression of future results. Google and others, under SOPA, are told what they can or can’t publish before they publish it. Kill. The. Bill,” conservative blogger Neil Stevens argued at RedState.

Why SOPA and Net Neutrality Must Be Stopped

Why SOPA and Net Neutrality Must Be Stopped

NS ^ | December 19th | Nephew Sam

Posted on Monday, December 26, 2011 8:13:23 AM by Halfmanhalfamazing

I think this excerpt from a comment on the Hot Air article summarizes Congress’ latest attempt to control the internet very well:

“Politicians cannot stand watching the internet go unregulated and untaxed. It drives them insane.”

And that’s exactly correct. The internet is one of the most free places on Earth, as an interchange of ideas, open source media, news, and educational content. It became that way not as a result of any single government’s efforts, but as a collaboration between the world’s brightest minds seeking profit. In other words, it was birthed as the purest form of a free market.

Erick Erickson Promises To Work Hard To Defeat Any Rightwing SOPA Supporters In Congress

Erick Erickson Promises To Work Hard To Defeat Any Rightwing SOPA Supporters In Congress

Image via Wikipedia

TechDirt.com ^ | 12/23/2011 | Mike Masnick

Posted on Sunday, December 25, 2011 1:59:15 PM by JerseyHighlander

Prominent Rightwing Blogger Promises To Work Hard To Defeat Any Rightwing SOPA Supporters In Congress

from the good-for-him,-how-about-the-left? dept

One of the more interesting things about the whole SOPA/PIPA debate (and, as I’ve pointed out for many years, about any of the intellectual property policy fights) is how non-partisan they are. In fact, I think it’s important that they’re non-partisan, because when things become partisan, they become… well… silly (on both sides). SOPA/PIPA supporters keep touting how their bills have “bi-partisan” support, but I’d argue what’s much more powerful is how the growing movement protesting these bills is almost entirely non-partisan. There are tons of people all over the political spectrum protesting, and none of the discussion has been about broad political philosophies or major party talking points. They’ve all been about the specific issues with the bill.

And that’s creating some interesting opposition that may start to wake up Congress. We’ve definitely seen people associated with both ends of the political spectrum come out against the bills. For example, how often do you see Nancy Pelosi and Darrell Issa agree on something? We’ve also seen some prominent Tea Party groups, like the Tea Party Patriots, as well as prominent “left” movements/sites like MoveOn and DailyKos come out against the bill.

All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet Very Soon (could be the end of FR???)

All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet Very Soon (could be the end of FR???)

LifeHacker ^ | 12/16/2011 | Adam Dachis

Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2011 8:07:51 AM by surroundedbyblue

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is another one of those bills that sounds like it’s going to do something mildly positive but, in reality, has serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. It puts power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” copyright infringement. This language vague enough to encompass sites you use every day, like Twitter and Facebook, making SOPA a serious problem. Here’s how it works and what you can do about it.

SOPA’s coming to a vote very soon. In fact, it was supposed to come to a vote today but was delayed, likely because of all the pushback. Reddit users have already started compiling a list of the IP addresses of popular sites in case SOPA passes and access will be restricted within the United States. A decision is going to be made soon, so if you still don’t know what SOPA is or haven’t done anything to stop it, read on to learn how you can help beat the bill.

Prison Planet.com » Don’t Be Fooled: The Horrible Anti-Internet Bill Is NOT Being Shelved Until Next Year

The Committee Members Who Support SOPA Sneakily Changed the Hearing Date to December 21st, Trying to Trick the American People Into Thinking It Was Over Until After the Holidays So We Won’t Fight Back!

Washington’s Blog

Saturday, December 17, 2011

News reports initially said that the despicable anti-Internet bill – SOPA – has been delayed until next year. As Huffington Post notes:

After two days of debate, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) abruptly halted a key hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act, postponing a Committee vote on the bill until 2012. The move marks a win for hordes of internet activists who oppose the bill, but gives lawmakers another opportunity to juice deep-pocketed corporations for campaign contributions.

Controversial Internet Piracy Act ‘SOPA’ Grinds Forward As Amendments Voted Down

Controversial Internet Piracy Act ‘SOPA’ Grinds Forward As Amendments Voted Down

Talking Points Memo ^ | Carl Franzen

Posted on Friday, December 16, 2011 2:05:27 PM by Burkean Buckleyite

Eight hours into Thursday’s marathon hearing on the controversial “Stop Online Piracy Act” not a single amendment proposed by the bill’s critics in Congress had been passed.

In fact, at the time of this posting, all of the amendments introduced by House lawmakers designed to improve the legislation for critics have so far been voted down by a core of SOPA-supporters in the House Judiciary Committee, moving the controversial bill closer toward passage. . .

Another amendment that was voted down was proposed by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). It would have allowed ISPs to refuse takedown notices that would interfere with the security of the Domain Name System (DNS).

Censoring Clicks or Saving the Web? SOPA Hearing May Shape Net

Censoring Clicks or Saving the Web? SOPA Hearing May Shape Net

Fox News ^ | December 15, 2011 | Mary Quinn O’Connor

Posted on Friday, December 16, 2011 8:28:51 AM by jmcenanly

An open letter to Washington signed by the creators of some of the web’s biggest sites argues that a new bill could dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies — and reshape the web as we know it.

The House Judiciary Committee met Thursday to decide the next steps for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which has been the center of controversy among technologists and privacy advocates for months. If the bill passes, popular sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and even Google would be held responsible for content users post to their sites.

Prison Planet.com » Google chairman says online piracy bill would ‘criminalize’ the Internet

An online piracy bill in the House would “criminalize linking and the fundamental structure of the Internet itself,” according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt said the controverisal Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would punish Web firms, including search engines, that link to foreign websites dedicated to online piracy. He said implementing the bill as written would effectively break the Internet.

“By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet,” Schmidt said, calling it a form of censorship.

The search giant has been at the forefront of a tech industry backlash against the legislation from House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas).

Internet Copyright Protection Bills Threaten ISPs, Web Sites, Users

Internet Copyright Protection Bills Threaten ISPs, Web Sites, Users

Capitol Confidential ^ | 12/8/2011 | Bruce Walker

Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2011 8:06:29 PM by MichCapCon

Two bills intended to stem digital piracy of movies, software and music are winding their way through both houses of Congress. House Resolution 3261, the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” or SOPA, was debated Nov. 16 in the House Judiciary Committee. Its sister bill in the Senate, the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act” (Protect IP), was introduced last May.

Also called the “Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act” (E-PARASITE Act), SOPA has generated opposition from a wide range of groups, including far-left Public Knowledge, libertarian Electronic Freedom Foundation, light-regulatory advocates TechFreedom, and the free-market Heartland Institute.

Both bills would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders to shut down Web sites accused of infringing on copyrights by selling pirated music and movies or counterfeit products such as clothing and medicine. Of the two bills, SOPA is far more reaching as it would permit the DOJ to target Web sites accusing of “enabling or facilitating” copyright infringement.

SOPA opponents say the bill would allow copyright holders to seek court orders targeting legitimate Web sites that feature user-generated content. As the bill is written currently, the DOJ could seek court orders requiring domain name registrars and ISPs to block U.S. access to sites accused of infringing copyright, which may prompt Internet users to attempt to bypass such blocks that may result in security issues.

“The bill makes three grave errors,” said Larry Downes, senior adjunct fellow at TechFreedom. “First, SOPA fails to identify the specific problems for which existing laws are inadequate. Second, it favors broad remedies over narrowly tailored solutions. Third, it commissions a proper cost-benefit analysis but only after the bill becomes law — too late to ensure that SOPA strikes the right balance.”

Privacy infringed upon by SOPA act (Great Firewall Of America Alert)

Privacy infringed upon by SOPA act (Great Firewall Of America Alert)

Oklahoma Daily ^ | 11/21/11 | Oklahoma Daily Editorial Board

Posted on Monday, November 21, 2011 12:01:19 PM by Retro Llama

The Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill before the House Judiciary Committee, would require Internet service providers to block access to sites that contain copyright-infringing content. These sites would be targeted by court orders sought by copyright holders.

We’re all for the proper protection of copyrighted material and intellectual property, but this act vastly oversteps this goal and dangerously broadens the power of the government to censor the internet, creating blacklists based on a vague and easily abused complaint framework.

Internet Censorship Bill Authored by Bob Goodlatte…

News Link  •  Free Speech

11-18-2011  •  Daily Paul 

Bob Goodlatte is the super regulator that authored the SOPA bill. It authorizes the Attorney General to remove rogue websites from search engines and prevent ISPs from delivering them. All it takes is a third party to say that such-and-such website is stealing my content. They don’t even have to warn you.

Here’s Kwiatkowski’s article about it on her website:

http://karenkforcongress.com/posts/congress-lies

THAT GIANT SUCKING SOUND YOU HEAR MIGHT BE E-PARASITE

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and “Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation” Act or “E-Parasite” were introduced this week in the House Judiciary Committee. E-Parasite begins with this mission statement: “To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.”

Unfortunately, nothing in this bill, and the associated SOPA, promotes prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Representative Zoe Lofgren‘s (CA-16) reaction to the bill was, “this would mean the end of the Internet as we know it.”