Slashdot Mirror
Oregon Senator Stops Internet Censorship Bill
comforteagle writes "Senator Wyden of Oregon has objected to a bill in committee that if passed would have given the government the ability to censor the Internet. His objection effectively stop its current passing, forcing it to be introduced again if the bill is to continue — which it may not. Oregonians, please send this man pats on the back."
The free world thanks you Senator Wyden of Oregon. Senator Stephen Conroy of Australia, take note.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
it took a revolution in 1774, and then another in 1789, and then a few more others in 1848s to establish the fundamentals of the modern liberties and freedoms, and all human rights we take granted now. apparently, we need a few more in order to get one step further.
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Slashdot was in favor of net neutrality, but it's against COICA? Both involve the government regulating internet traffic. The only thing I can see that makes Slashdotters against COICA is that it specifically targets piracy.
I can't speak for every Slashdotter, but...
Net Neutrality isn't about the government controlling the internet, it's about preventing corporations using leverage to control the internet and/or hold bandwidth hostage for competitive advantage or to inhibit the flow of free information.
As for being against policies that stop policies, it's not that I'm for piracy. It's just that legislation, policies, and industry practices to reduce piracy have been ineffective, will probably never be effective, hurt legitimate content consumers more than it hurts the pirates, and continuously erode what we can do under Fair Use. That's not to mention that they create ways for corporations to try to financially ruin individuals that are accused of infringing on a rather small scale, even if the evidence that they have done so is shaky. The people are abused, and even content providers of public domain works are often caught in the crossfire. And all of this is done in the name of stopping piracy (whose actual impact is really hard to know) of copyrighted (for way too damn long) works.
I think that these views are entirely consistent. We don't want corporations and governments meddling with our legitimate access to content and information.
When the government makes regulation that censors the Internet, that's bad. When the government makes regulation that keeps corporations from censoring the Internet, that's good. Censorship is evil, freedom is good. It's that simple.
A car analogy: If the government made a law that prevented you from driving to California, that would be very bad. If a toll road operator forced you to tell your destination and charged extra if it was California, and the government would bitchslap them for that, it would be very good.
Good is good, whether it's done by the government, corporations, or anyone, and evil is evil, whether it's done by the government, corporations, or anyone. This is an entirely consistent position.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.