18 January 2012
Wikipedia Blackout Against SOPA and PIPA
Posted by Terrie Soberg under: Nanny State .
Wikipedia, one of the largest sites on the internet, is fighting back by imposing a blackout today in order to protest two bills up in Congress that will drastically change how we access the internet. Good for them! I can’t even guess how many times I used their site – at least once or twice daily, for FREE! Even though information there is not totally trustworthy, it is always a good jumping off point for further studies.
Big Brother is at it again and sites like InGodWeTrustBlog.com will be affected if these bills pass. The mainstream media is trying get us to believe that SOPA is no longer an issue because Obama has agreed not to sign it into law if it passes. Do not believe this! Once again, we are playing word games, ala Greg Brady’s “exact words” fiasco.
This is the notice I received from Politico:
Obama administration officials said in a blog post today that they would “not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” The White House did not take a definite position on SOPA and the PROTECT IP Act, but said “the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online.” The officials said, however, that legislation is needed to combat online piracy.
Here are two FAQ’s from Wikipedia’s site:
What are SOPA and PIPA?
SOPA and PIPA represent two bills in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate respectively. SOPA is short for the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” and PIPA is an acronym for the “Protect IP Act.” (“IP” stands for “intellectual property.”) In short, these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in our opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet. Detailed information about these bills can be found in the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act articles on Wikipedia, which are available during the blackout. GovTrack lets you follow both bills through the legislative process: SOPA on this page, and PIPA on this one. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for the public interest in the digital realm, has summarized why these bills are simply unacceptable in a world that values an open, secure, and free Internet.
Isn’t SOPA dead? Wasn’t the bill shelved, and didn’t the White House declare that it won’t sign anything that resembles the current bill?
No, neither SOPA nor PIPA is dead. On January 17th, SOPA’s sponsor said the bill will be discussed in early February. There are signs PIPA may be debated on the Senate floor next week. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. In many jurisdictions around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation that prioritizes overly-broad copyright enforcement laws, laws promoted by power players, over the preservation of individual civil liberties.
Be sure to read the entire article and then please, contact your legislators and tell them you are against SOPA and PIPA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
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