Call To Action Against Internet Censorship: Stop SOPA & PIPA
Dear Warriors---
As many of you are already aware, the open-source internet freedom that we presently enjoy (and bank our livelihood upon) is in jeopardy. Two U.S. bills, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) & Protect IP Act (PIPA) seek to curtail our open-source freedom by a posing a serious threat of censorship and curbing on-line freedom of speech that violates our constitutionally-protected rights.
These bills are backed by media corporations who want to put a stop to online piracy of their movies, music, etc. Though they mainly seek to shut-down these sites, these bills introduce sweeping new laws that are not only inept in shutting down these sites (they'll just go to alternate ISP located in other countries), but also introduce provisions that can seriously harm innovation, freedom of speech and our livelihoods.
ISPs will be forced to police content, shut down whatever they think violates these proposed laws and have broad-based immunity if they get it wrong. So, if GoDaddy thinks your site violates one of these acts, they can shut it down without giving you a chance to protect your interests and you will not be able to take any legal action against them.....you will have no protections! This is called the "vigilante provision". Moreover, even if you only have links to these parasitic sites, the government will force the ISP to delist your site leaving you without any recourse.
A powerful net-coalition of ISPs (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, etc.) are unifying against these two bills. Wikipedia is planning a blackout of their site on 1/18 and if further progress is made on these two bills, this net coalition may follow suit and also shut down at the same time.
Obama has spoken out against SOPA and threatened to veto it if passed because of it's infringement on free speech and censorship. Additionally, millions of emails, tweets and texts have bombarded the Senate, House and White House speaking out against it. Luckily, we are in an election year, so citizen protest will carry more weight this year. Our work, however, is not done. SOPA will still be heard and voted upon on 1/24. Moreover, PIPA has had less attention but is similarly written and it has not yet had the same level of opposition, nor threat of veto.
Please take a moment now to protect our constitutional rights to free speech, the open freedom of the internet and your livelihood by visiting these two sites which provide additional information and calls to action against these internet censorship/blacklist bills.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
(This is a highly-regarded group of pro bono lawyers who have opposed laws that infringe on internet/speech freedom. They are smart, talented and passionate).
Stop American Censorship
(Organized by Firefox, Wikipedia, EFF, etc.)
Thanks!
Daniella
As many of you are already aware, the open-source internet freedom that we presently enjoy (and bank our livelihood upon) is in jeopardy. Two U.S. bills, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) & Protect IP Act (PIPA) seek to curtail our open-source freedom by a posing a serious threat of censorship and curbing on-line freedom of speech that violates our constitutionally-protected rights.
These bills are backed by media corporations who want to put a stop to online piracy of their movies, music, etc. Though they mainly seek to shut-down these sites, these bills introduce sweeping new laws that are not only inept in shutting down these sites (they'll just go to alternate ISP located in other countries), but also introduce provisions that can seriously harm innovation, freedom of speech and our livelihoods.
ISPs will be forced to police content, shut down whatever they think violates these proposed laws and have broad-based immunity if they get it wrong. So, if GoDaddy thinks your site violates one of these acts, they can shut it down without giving you a chance to protect your interests and you will not be able to take any legal action against them.....you will have no protections! This is called the "vigilante provision". Moreover, even if you only have links to these parasitic sites, the government will force the ISP to delist your site leaving you without any recourse.
A powerful net-coalition of ISPs (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, etc.) are unifying against these two bills. Wikipedia is planning a blackout of their site on 1/18 and if further progress is made on these two bills, this net coalition may follow suit and also shut down at the same time.
Obama has spoken out against SOPA and threatened to veto it if passed because of it's infringement on free speech and censorship. Additionally, millions of emails, tweets and texts have bombarded the Senate, House and White House speaking out against it. Luckily, we are in an election year, so citizen protest will carry more weight this year. Our work, however, is not done. SOPA will still be heard and voted upon on 1/24. Moreover, PIPA has had less attention but is similarly written and it has not yet had the same level of opposition, nor threat of veto.
Please take a moment now to protect our constitutional rights to free speech, the open freedom of the internet and your livelihood by visiting these two sites which provide additional information and calls to action against these internet censorship/blacklist bills.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
(This is a highly-regarded group of pro bono lawyers who have opposed laws that infringe on internet/speech freedom. They are smart, talented and passionate).
Stop American Censorship
(Organized by Firefox, Wikipedia, EFF, etc.)
Thanks!
Daniella
Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.