I’m coming out of dormancy to sound an alarm at the behest of Daisy Deadhead and ballgame. These two friends of mine have sniped at each other at times but agree 100% on this: The Internet as we know and love it is in serious danger.
Congress is considering an atrocious act, PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261), that would enable censorship of any website that provides copyrighted material. Those sites could be summarily shut down at a judge’s order; they could only be restored through litigation, which is bloody expensive. Not only the big guys like Google, Facebook, and YouTube would be affected. Itty bitty startups could be stifled, and even humble catty blogs such as mine could be shuttered.
I once celebrated the end of a basement flood by playing “Bridge over Troubled Water” on my piano and posting it to Kittywampus 1.0 (the old Blogger version). Perhaps fortunately, the link to that stellar performance is dead (has Box.net stopped serving bloggers?). Were it still live, I’d be committing a copyright violation – not that I imagine Simon and Garfunkel give a rip. Every mommy blogger who posts her child singing Lady Gaga could be shut down. And what of all the copyrighted content that we routinely embed, from SNL to Jon Stewart?
Here’s the bottom line (from the video below):
The ugly details, including potential five-year jail sentences:
What to do? Spread the word through your blog, Facebook, or Twitter account. Bay at the moon. And contact your congresscritter. They’ve not gotten much pushback, so they need to hear from worried citizens. I just called all three of mine.
I hope to get back to more regular blogging once I get my workload under control. Let’s not allow the Internet to be broken in the meantime!
Update 11/16/11, 2:45 p.m.: Daisy has lots more detail on SOPA/PROTECT IP.
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
You know, I don’t usually contact mine, but inspired by your example I did. Sadly, one of my senators — Sen. Cardin, who in a sane world would be considered a middle-of-the-road Republican but in this one is viewed as a ‘liberal’ Democrat — is actually one of the co-signers. At any rate, I did make it clear that I thought it was a very bad bill. At any rate, I didn’t get the impression that they’re getting a lot of calls on this yet, so hopefully others will start to make their opposition known as well.
Phooey! At least you know his position. I couldn’t get staffers to tell me where either Sherrod Brown or Rob Portman stands. I too got the impression that they weren’t deluged by calls on this. I had to spell out the information for my congressman’s office.
I’m grateful that you alerted me to this.
I just added you to my roll call!
My senator, Lindsey Graham, is busy toting water for Newt, so dunno if he is available to do his actual job or not, but I did drop him a line. (insert unprintable rant here)
THANKS FOR THIS!!!
I’ve signed more petitions and sent more letters — including to the worthless Cardin and Mikulski — on this than I can count.
This is yet another attempt by the elites to shut down discussion and eviscerate our rights. It’s all of a piece with everything else that’s happening in this country — the rise of surveillance and the National Security State, the violent reaction by the powers-that-be to the Occupy movement, the shredding of the social safety net, the consolidation of corporate power. These are all efforts to stifle ordinary people. The net is one of the biggest threats to the power structure because it’s so wide-ranging, so unpredictable, so free. Until now.
We’ll see what happens.
In a cyber dispute about the US Chamber of Commerce pushing laws to censor the internet, Anonymous put out a video yesterday threatening the Chamber if they don’t back off.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/17/anonymous-takes-aim-at-chamber-of-commerce-again/
Also, it looks like the bill dead in the water as Dems (Pelosi) and Repubs (Issa) are now speaking out against it.
……this crap goes on and on yet we don’t have the intestinal fortitude to organize primary challenges against Congressmen and Senators that are little more than plutocrat tools. These particular bills are yet another Trojan horse against the First Amendment. The freedom the internet confers allows us to escape the propaganda we’d otherwise be spoonfed. Should PIP/SOPA be passed I’d have no doubt they’d be used to do way more than protect copyrighted materials.
Lisa, I would love to believe the bill is DOA, but given the nature of some of the people involved, it strikes me as an optimistic assessment.
This update from FireDogLake makes it clear that the bill is still very much alive (though opposition to it has forced proponents to delete some of its more noxious elements).
Thanks for the update, ballgame. I wish it were a happier one. I got fabulously mealy-mouthed responses from my congressman (who actually spent a stamp on me) and from Sherrod Brown (via email, combining a defense of the bill with some half-hearted acknowledgement of First Amendment concerns). Rob Portman did not both to reply.
Here’s another update: This excellent episode of Search Engine features Jesse Brown interviewing the editor of TechDirt about the current status of the SOPA bill. The episode was just released today (Monday 2011-12-29), and has the latest info about how the pushback has gone. (Not very, apparently; proponents are trying an emergency session to move it out of committee on Wednesday.)
That link goes directly to an MP3, which is released under a Creative Commons copyright, BTW.
Thanks for keeping me updated, ballgame. I appreciate it. Continuing to keep my fingers crossed …
Then again, the NDAA has been passed and Obama is set to sign it, so we’re fucked fifty ways to Sunday.
So much for this “liberal,” “progressive” president.
I know. I was hoodwinked by his veto threat – thought he might actually have a principled objection for once. Instead it turn out to be a mere power grab for the president.
And for the icing on the cake:
“Obama Again Unconstitutionally Claims Unconstitutional War Powers in a Signing Statement”
http://warisacrime.org/content/obama-again-unconstitutionally-claims-unconstitutional-war-powers-signing-statement