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Lawmakers Intent On Approving SOPA, PIPA
snydeq writes "U.S. Congress appears likely to move forward with SOPA and PIPA, despite widespread opposition, IDGNS reports. The U.S. Senate is expected to begin floor debate on PIPA shortly after senators return to D.C. on Jan. 23, and supporters appear to have the votes to override a threatened filibuster. Some opponents of the bills hold out hope: 'We're optimistic that if members really understood the Internet architecture and cybersecurity measures, they would not support SOPA as written. Instead, members who are really committed to combatting online piracy would look for effective ways to do that without compromising cybersecurity or the open architecture of the Internet,' said a CCIA spokesperson. Others remain doubtful that Congress will come to this understanding."
You are free to do as we tell you. Buy BUY BUY....
Internet blackout day is sure to be a historical event for all ages.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
I think it's pretty naïve to think that SOPA passing is an issue of understanding, as though lawmakers wouldn't consider it if they knew anything about technology.
The vast majority or these people have already been bought and paid for by the entertainment industry. Their technological knowledge is irrelevant. They need to be removed from office, not educated.
competitors with little proof.
Hell apple and MS can both file claims and shut down each other web sites.
Good! I have a thing for legislation with pronounceable acronyms. In fact, that's really the only important part. I'm sure many legislators would agree.
Better known as 318230.
If this passes, I imagine the internet will eventually become a hollow shell of it what it used to be. Get ready folks, The internet is about to take an arrow to the knee.
what to stop a fake AV/spyware from useing this to Shut down the real AV / anit spyware apps? All they have to say is that they brake our apps DRM and let's uses use our app's for free.
It's a pretty geeky issue to get worked up about. Most people won't notice until Youtube gets pulled. By then it'll be on the books for months, and we won't have any recourse to get rid of it. And it's not like the Congress Critters are listening anyway. It's an election year, after all, and they need Hollywood donations....
Oh well, the internet was fun while it lasted. I guess I'll go outside now.
hookers and grits.
Well, the congress critters will never come to any understanding about how bad these bills are as long as they are being paid by their equally myopic, greedy overlords.
Soon, I expect it will be illegal for any private individual to utilize the services of a foreign DNS. Blocking by IP address will probably start happening. Owing to the lack of availability of IPv4 address space, the practicality of places using different IP's to continue to allow connectivity will be impeded, so IP address blocking may enjoy limited success. Incentives for IPv6, where there is no lack of address space, will start to quickly rise among the pirate communities to get around this limitation, but I expect this will likely be perceived as a measure that is created to bypass SOPA, and so new laws will probably be formed that will limit IPv6's overall adoption rate.
I hope I'm wrong. I just have a really awful feeling I'm not.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Nothing will change until we get rid of all these geriatric drama queens. We need to start putting Gen X'ers that at least started out in technical, "real work" fields...
I'm tired of all these old, pampered, "groomed by their daddies fortunes", jerks that keep screwing everything up.
Put up a site outing the names of every lawmaker that ever votes in favor of such a bill, and allow visitors to sign a petition pledging to vote against anybody that does so. Show the count on the site, and forward a list of those who signed to said lawmakers a week before any major vote on the issue. That should make them sweat.
Gee, if someone wrote a program to automatically submit a claim against a site, and someone else wrote an extension to use that program to submit a claim against every single internet site on the planet, and many many people used it all at the same time, I wonder what would happen?
Is that if SOPA gets passed that it could have positive consequences. Sometimes something crappy has good consequences. Like No Child Left Behind, which ended up showing that girls are just as good as boys at math. So my attitude is that it may not be the end of the world. Things are so complicated. After all, it was Nixon who started passing environmental legislation!
Has anyone written a good article on why this is so bad that non-geeks could understand? Something you could link non-technical friends to?
Whoever votes for this, their ISPs should disconnect their household from the internet entirely.
Some people on slashdot are saying things like, "this could end up disconnecting youtube!" But that's just the problem: it won't. Youtube is huge, everyone knows about it, nobody is going to want to cut it off. And that's where the problem lies: this legislation will be used only against less popular sites on the fringes and the margins - things the average DWTS watching idiot doesn't care about. So there will never be significant public support against it. THAT is why it's dangerous.
Nothing, because this bill isn't designed to help little people, it's designed to allow major corporations stamp out the little people and own the net.
I doubt that the reports are even going to be looked at unless they come from a lobbyist...us little people don't count for shit.
Education, and logical argument based on the realities of the technology, won't make our representatives budge. The only way to get them to change their position is to apply real political force. That means forming lobbies and throwing actual money at the problem, just like the large corporations do. It also means getting enough people ready and willing to vote for candidates who will actually represent them.
Of course, producing that level of political force requires a huge amount of cooperation (and hence understanding) from the governed. *THAT* is hard to do. Most American people, even the ones who vote and consider themselves politically involved, don't understand these issues well enough to self-organize properly. That is why the wealthy corporations (which for all practical purposes are already well-organized political armies with a handful of people calling the shots) have such an easy time of pushing the rest of us around.
THEY aren't the ones who don't understand. We are.
Make those people in Congress fear for their jobs. I will be out today distributing fliers urging people to contact their representatives (both my Senators support it and my Representative is a co-sponsor). At the same time I am collecting signatures to put anit-SOPA candidates into the primary. Bitching on the internet is a good place to start. Let your Social Networks know this is happening, but if you really care then you have to actually get out there. Most people don't even know this is happening. I hope Google and Wikipedia will blackout for a short time just to prove the danger, but even then you have to be willing to make a stand occasionally.
Ever notice how there's no way to record HD signals without a "service" nowadays? The internet is going the same way. The MPAA, RIAA and Congress won't rest until the internet is read-only.
I will consider US government as a terrorist organization and threat to humanity should they succeed with this.
The government is shaking down the Internet related businesses, and that's what these laws are aimed at I think. The politicians are looking at Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc., and asking themselves a question: WHAT THE FUCK? Why aren't these putzes paying us the racket money like the rest of them? Of-course those businesses are also paying something that has to do with taxes, but there is so much money there (and everybody knows about it), that the politicians want more than just tax optimization/evasion money, they want REAL money, they want - "hey, you have a nice business going here, it would be a shame if something was to happen to your entire business model and you were shut down" money.
That, and also of-course they want the RIAA and MPAA money and they want ISP money and they want your money and they want to be able to shut down the Internet because it's scaring them - just look at the way Ron Paul support grew because of the Internet.
So you have too much freedom - and that's what politicians want to take away and I had a long discussion about the fact that every single law that politicians push forward ends up reducing your freedoms and increases 'strength' of the government while weakening the individual liberties and the economy and the society of the nation, and even on this site people don't see this.
You can't handle the truth.
I'm doing what I can on the social front (emailing and calling), but if (when) this does pass, what is the best way to route around the damage on a personal level?
We got a large number of suggestions for alternate providers with the GoDaddy debacle; can we get some suggestions of good international VPN / Proxy providers? Alternate suggestions for dealing with this?
showing that most (well over 50%) of people don't feel bad when they pirate stuff? I don't think they need moral justification.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If I vote for it, I get a kickback, if I vote against it, I get squat.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm quite confused about who this serves.
Usually, moves like these are pushed as in the interests of large corporate interests - but as far as I can understand the only company interests this will actually serve will be law firms and a few confused entertainment groups that don't mind acting like public villains to punish their potential customers.
The whole thing just looks like a big legal clusterfuck - where everyone demands everyone else pull everything from the internet. The net effect will just be a huge drain on the economy, as even more resources are spent on useless legal back-and-forths, and everyone gets even more nervous before being able to accomplish something businesswise in the world.
The net effect should mostly be to deepen the recession, force more consolidation with a smaller pool of useful resources for everyone, and push more business out of the US.
It just doesn't make sense - why would any lawmaker be interested in lowering the economic tides for everyone, further stalling a huge and important part of our economic recovery just for the sake of a very small number of companies without much actual money?
From a moral perspective it makes no sense - which is what I usually expect - but even from a sociopathic perspective of gathering resources at all costs, it makes no sense.
Ryan Fenton
Some of you won't like this, but I hope you'll at least give this a hard consideration. The bottom line is that it's our fault.
For example, I know from the comments here over the years that some of you are complete partisans. I'm surprised that, even this early in this thread, we haven't already seen "It's the Evil Republicans(tm)," followed by, "no, it's the stupid Democrats," complete with scores that go up and down like a VU meter on a rap tune: troll, insightful, back to troll, then insightful, over and over, as each partisan group lashes out.
BOTH PARTIES ARE CORRUPT AND HAVE SOLD YOU OUT. This doesn't mean there aren't a few honest congresscritters running loose. But folks, there's a REASON why, during the primaries, candidates can call each other every name in the book, but once a nominee is selected, all of the losers magically say, "well, of course I'll support him/her! He/She is a fine person!"
It's all about the money and the power: Chairmanships in Congress, lucrative appointments, voting blocks and power brokers. This plays out every two years, and the best we can do is scream, "less filling/tastes great/less filling/tastes great," Dem vs. Repub over and over.
Here's the example that some of you really, really aren't going to like. I know (again, from reading comments) that there are some of you here who supported the Health Care bill, but who are vehemently opposed to SOPA. (For the record, I am in opposition to BOTH.) You can't have it both ways. Every reputable poll ever taken has shown that the American people were strongly opposed to that HealthCare bill, but there were some of you here who said, "yay!" when it passed. You called those who passed it, even knowing that they might be un-elected, "brave heroes."
(Or, a quick conservative example: Scott Brown wins Ted Kennedy's old seat in Mass, and right wingers rejoiced. A few months later, he voted for a treaty that the right wing hated. They attacked Brown and wondered why he had "betrayed" them. What they should have asked was, "what do the people of Massachusetts want?" If he was reflecting their desires, they need to SHUT UP. He represents THEM, not a party or an ideology.)
So, SOPA. If you can convince enough Congresscritters that enough of US care to un-elect them if they vote for it, it can be stopped. But if they (and more importantly, their strategists) convince themselves that they can finesse it, or find some other issue that will cause you to hold your nose and re-elect them, they'll vote for SOPA.
In plain English: some of you who hate the "Repugs" may have to vote for one in November, if your Dem congressman votes for SOPA. Will you do that?
Likewise, my conservative friends: will you vote for a "Demoncrat" if your beloved Repub congresscreature votes for SOPA?
If the answer to either question is, "no" (or even just a little hesitation), you have only yourself to blame. That's the bottom line.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Gee, if someone wrote a program to automatically submit a claim against a site, and someone else wrote an extension to use that program to submit a claim against every single internet site on the planet, and many many people used it all at the same time, I wonder what would happen?
People would be arrested for filing false reports until everyone was too terrified to keep up the effort. Filing a false report is not a form of protest; protests are supposed to be held in free speech areas where nobody has to be bothered.
Palm trees and 8
Our founding fathers declared themselves an independent country and went to war over shit like this. No taxation without representation...are we truly represented in this government? The people? Of course not. It's time to stop trying to play their stupid game, the game is rigged against us from the start. It's time to start flipping boards...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Revolution is our birthright. The Bill of Rights grants all U.S. citizens the right of revolution by guaranteeing the freedoms that facilitate it, freedoms that our government has been trying to rein in with every passing year. Every branch of this government is corrupt. We have no representation in congress anymore. History has come full circle...
Time to start looking to those 2nd Amendment solutions, boys and girls. Put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry. I never in a million years thought I would see this in my lifetime, but it seems that it is inevitable at this point.
the internet community just decided to violate SOPA and PIPA. they would be taken to court and if the general populace is strongly opposed enough to the legislation, the jury could nullify the legislation? would that be enough to overturn the new laws? or is that just wishful dreaming?
Actually, this is worse than usual--the definition of the willfulness requirement for criminal copyright, technically ambiguous for about a century, will make it absolutely clear that a massive percentage of the American population--even those who have never shared a file in their life--will be felons.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
It still needs an order from a judge to pull a domain. The judge just doesn't need to see any evidence.
Not that much evidence will be needed in most cases. I imagine the first site to come down will be TBP... and SOPA should keep them offline for at least a couple of hours before they have a hundred additional mirrors.
Looks forward to leading innovation and (naturally) getting your nice jobs as the cost of doing business in the US gets too high.
- Even Europe!
Someone would file a patent on that program and then sue everyone else, therefore stopping people from using the program and saving our Internet! It's genius, I tells ya!
SOPA sure seems unconstitutional to me.
Exactly. If in a few years Joe Sixpack can still get to facebook and youtube, well, what's the problem? It's not about freedom for most people, it's about bread and circuses. Funny how some Roman dude almost 2000 years ago nailed it so perfectly. Human nature hasn't changed since.
These days if I hand someone a flier and they proclaim "Oh, I don't read" without pride in their voice I consider that a victory. Americans aren't just ignorant, their willfully ignorant. Ask a marketer, and one of the things they'll tell you that works is an appeal against "elitism". There's just about nothing Americans hate than somebody who "knows better then them". Even if they do. On of George Bush jr's biggest political selling points is he was just a dumb as they where; American like to believe there are simple answers to problems and in the myth of 'common sense'.
My recommendation? Focus on living a life where you don't feel the need to drown out the misery in copywrited content. I find most people fall back on movies/music/TV as a way to cope with and escape from the misery that is their day to day lives. Keep needless and unpleasant complications out of your life and to hell with the rest of the world.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
what is also bullshit about this law is that it punishes the lawmakers themselves. i mean, dont the people making the laws actually, you know, use the fucking internet? and if not them, what about their spouses, children, friends, etc... dont they realize who they are punishing?
My votes in the future will directly oppose any representitive in favor of this legislation. I have never obtained media by any means other than by retail purchase. This conspiracy has gone too far and makes me want to fight back How do I join "The resistance" now? This is enough to make the average citizen "go rogue" against "the system"
Go to http://sopatrack.com/ and take a look at your state,
Here's California
Dianne Feinstein
* $1,298,218 from big media
* $796,581 from pro-PIPA groups
* $244,700 from anti-PIPA groups
Barbara Boxer
* $2,522,816 from big media
* $1,647,015 from pro-PIPA groups
* $1,144,820 from anti-PIPA groups
Here's New York
Chuck Schumer
* $1,465,160 from big media
* $1,191,700 from pro-PIPA groups
* $323,475 from anti-PIPA groups
Kirsten Gillibrand
* $747,991 from big media
* $1,682,667 from pro-PIPA groups
* $882,986 from anti-PIPA groups
Oh yeah it's getting passed,
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Think a bit outside the box. Especially, don't see it as the end product. It's the first step towards a legislation that allows to pull content off the net. Because, well, you already HAVE to implement it, why not give us the right to pull content off for ... well, we'll get to that once the whole thing is in and running.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Throw some SOPA in the middle of them.
By the way, MSM LOVE SOPA.
Pick your favorite: MSNBC, FOÐ¥, CBS, ABC, NBC - they don't talk about it, they only call Ron Paul a 'kook', while Ron Paul is the ONLY candidate in the elections who is talking about actual issues (and I mean he is the only candidate, regardless of the 'party' denomination), be it the Patriot Act, NDAA with the indefinite detention of civilians by military based on POTUS's request provision (so think concentration camps not just for funny looking foreigners, but for your own citizens).
CNN devoted an evening to mentioning SOPA.
Judge Napolitano on Fox Business talks about it often.
But that's it. Where do you think the MSMs of the world stand on the entire Internet idea? They fucking HATE IT. They can't control it, it cuts into their BULLSHIT that they are spewing and it cuts into their bottom line as few people are watching.
The only reason for SOPA not to pass is because of-course there is a lot of money on the other side of it as well, but even given Google, Yahoo, Facebook, whatever Internet company/provider/content provider, eventually in USA laws like SOPA and PIPA (and maybe these very laws) will pass, it's not a matter of 'if', it's just the question of 'when', and the 'when' will hit hard IF something happens and Ron Paul becomes too popular all of a sudden during these elections going further on and even if he doesn't win (which is most likely), to prevent anybody like that from competing with the establishment power in the future, the government will see that it is necessary to prevent people from being able to do their own 'congress' on line and to prevent any rise of popular candidates that will take the country on the course of liberty, they will build in every possible thing into the system to shut down the Internet and throw whoever they see as dangerous into their newfangled military ran concentration camps, and deny them any rights (the real name of NDAA that passed should be "Repeal the 4th Amendment Act").
You can't handle the truth.
laws, in action, are a form of PID or process control (think cruise controllers or thermostats). the law is mindless and dumb and will fuck over a lot of people. its sloppy and ugly and will cause damage. we all know this. we know it.
what has to happen is that the PID process has to run and turn off the input that causes this to run. then it will run for a while, do damage and we can try to unwind it (send a negative control signal to the system).
we have to SEE that it does damage. that will take years (I predict). then we have to have a plan to fix it (another few years and fighting). then we can change the law.
but sometimes the alg runs very slow. look at patriot: we have not backed out that badness YET! someone must have installed a stiffening cap (lol) since the alg is not adapting and its not being reversed.
the law is going to happen. its been paid for and its on the delivery truck.
our only hope is to show the country, over the next few YEARS, how bad it is. maybe we have to help it be bad. maybe some people have to have their businesses ruined or even go to jail. pain has to happen first. its the american way ;(
but we have to suffer with this, it seems.
brace yourself and lets try to undo this as fast as we can. but its a very sure thing that we WILL have to endure the pain of it before they realize how badly they farked things up.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Nothing we'd like.
The ones lobbying congress will be magically immune to any investigation.
The feds will just look the other way like they always do.
SOPA = Spanish for soup PIPA = Spanish for coconut Can't we even have English acronyms anymore?
Think a bit outside the box. Especially, don't see it as the end product. It's the first step towards a legislation that allows to pull content off the net. Because, well, you already HAVE to implement it, why not give us the right to pull content off for ... well, we'll get to that once the whole thing is in and running.
This. If, by some miracle, someone throws together an alternative DNS system that attracts users in droves, the government's only going to come back with bigger guns. I can envision people or corporations being permanently blacklisted from registering domains or running websites.
the day it takes effect, we should shut down all of the movie studio site's for infringement... There's no recourse if you're wrong after all :)
Funny thing about Slashdotters. They are all up in arms (and should be) about SOPA/PIPA because they understand and care about it. They know that congress doesn't understand the primary impacts, let alone the second and third order effects. Clearly a case where even if you agree with the nominal point, the regulatory implementation is nearly impossible and will end up harming the public.
Yet, when it comes to regulating some other element of the economy (energy, education, financial), Slashdotters assume that Congress is actually capable of doing it in away that is not ultimately harmful. I'm not a crazy libertarian (well, maybe just a little). I think there is significant value in limited government regulation. I just have no confidence that regulations implemented actually perform their intended purpose without imposing onerous costs elsewhere.
It seems the general philosophy when drafting regulation is "We want result A, therefore we will mandate A. If it costs a ton of money or a bunch of work, tough shit, they will figure it out." It's not that Congress doesn't understand the technology, it's that they consider it irrelevant.
I thought lawmakers work for us. So 'against widespread opposition' should be a clue that they no longer represent us citizens and should be tossed out of office.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When pranksters use the law to constantly remove Government and media company web sites from the internet for copyright infringement they'll probably start singing a different tune.
I E-mailed my senators about Net Neutrality stuff, and I'd very much like to E-mail them about this.
The problem is that I'm not familiar enough with SOPA/PIPA to adequately explain it to them, I'm in college and with my course load and job search now I don't have the time to research it in detail, otherwise I'd be on top of it.
Honest question: What would be the best letter to write to my state senators (and I'll try to get people I know to do similar) to sum up SOPA/PIPA and demand that they vote it down?
The transition from a republic to a Banana republic. They no longer fear the public, or its perception...5% approval and its just another day in DC. lobbyist here, lobbyist there,few hours on the floor striping rights, then back to the lobbyist. Its clear the USA experiment is failing, Its a sad thing. This was Our country, we should like our government, we are supposed to be a self ruled people and should be proud of the people we put up there...but its government for the rich now, if you dont have the money then you cant run for office...and generally speaking, wealth means a disconnect from everything else.
I think it's time you start shooting your corrupt congressmen before you lose that option as well.
Yeah, I'm actually hoping it will pass.
Every once in a while, the people need a wake-up call. Yours is long overdue. This might be it. So here is what I think would be the best-case chain of events:
* SOPA gets passed
* all the large Internet sites (Google, Facebook, Twitter, ebay, Amazon, etc. etc.) do as they threatened and shut down for at least a few days
* massive outrage ensues
* said Internet sites have the advantage of direct communication and explain to the people just what just happened, in terms they understand
* massive outrage is directed against every representative who voted for SOPA
* the entire corrupt establishment gets kicked out and replaced by other people, who will last the country a century or so before they turn into the next corrupt establishment that needs kicking out.
This is the change that everyone voted for when they voted for Obama, isn't it?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I wonder (strictly as an intellectual exercise, of course) what would happen if a Congressman/woman who supports SOPA was found dead one day, shot with a round from a common hunting rifle. Said round engraved with "No SOPA". Next day, 20 local and national papers get an anonymous Letter to the Editor from the shooter explaining that they were fed up with their 'Representatives' not actually representing them, and they were sorry to have been forced into such action to get their point across.
I further wonder what would happen if, a few weeks later, the same thing happened to another Congressman, perhaps one on the other side of the country (different shooter). And what would happen the next week, when two more are shot.
I wonder how long before Congress gets the clue that the people they (supposedly) represent DON'T WANT THIS FUCKING LAW.
"I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'" --Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Not a sentence!
Easier for companies than people to circumvent. I can't simply cap myself and start over. Well, unless I convert to Hinduism first, then maybe...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People would be arrested for filing false reports until everyone was too terrified to keep up the effort.
More like, people would be arrested until the prosecutor's workload becomes unmanageable. You can't just arrest millions of people -- where do you put them, who handles the paperwork?
You just wait for the crazy barrage of take-downs that will ensue after this passes. Their guns are already loaded and ready to go.
"before they realize how badly they farked things up."
It won't happen. The internet works to well and that must stop. They will throw their sabots into the machine to break it. To you and I it will be farked up, but to them, it's just the way the like it.
You can't just arrest millions of people -- where do you put them, who handles the paperwork?
Which country do you live in, and how hard is it to immigrate? In my country, we have plenty of experience with mass arrests and imprisonment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
Palm trees and 8
Can't someone just tweet from the middle of the debate again and have it ruled invalid?
Filing a false report en mass from a large group of people would be a form of protest. Free Speech Areas are a form of ignoring protests. They are the halfway houses of free speech. You get put there so that you can get over your addiction to having a voice. Don't forget those teachers in Ohio or going back to the civil rights era sit-ins.
I'd be funny if some old programmer out of the middle nowhere popped up with a patent for typing text into a computer, and then promptly shut down all sites. I'd laugh. As would many others.
I'm quite confused about who this serves.
The government and their cronies. Who else?
They would spin it into a story to make the law pass.
SOPA supporters are terrorists - they killed $congressperson! Support them and you support terrorism! Blah blah blah.
Problem is, this time they couldn't be argued against - doing what you suggest would actually make you a terrorist.
You can't just kill people whose opinion is opposite to common sense. Yeah, the world would probably be much better off without them, and if we had a magical button that would instantly dematerialize all corrupt politicians into nothingness I'd be the first to slam it with my whole fist, but we don't. Violence always has consequences, and they're usually not the ones you foresaw when you used it.
OK really off topic but another indicator of corruption.
But tied in sort of, the "Top 10" financial backers of the Republican Presidential candidates, note who is giving the money to Romney.
http://pastebin.com/j7PP0fuB
Mitt Romney
Goldman Sachs $367,200
Credit Suisse Group $203,750
Morgan Stanley $199,800
HIG Capital $186,500
Barclays $157,750
Kirkland & Ellis $132,100
Bank of America $126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers $118,250
EMC Corp $117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co $112,250
...and it's a good thing, because it means things may finally get done.
I have seen repeated calls for assassination of government officials on this thread.
Such a call is not only a crime in the USA, it's a felony.
It means that more and more of us are deciding we have nothing to lose. If that sentiment ends up spreading to the populace at large, the government has lost.
On the USPTO I see a letter that I wrote concerning the America invents act. If they pass SOPA, I will shutdown the uspto site.
But what if you live in a place without any elected officials?
For instance, I'm in Massachusetts.
Congress proposes bill -> The populace realizes they're getting fucked, and complains loudly about it -> Congress tables the bill -> The populace quiets down -> Congress passes the bill into law.
I am John Hurt.
You're starting far too late in our history. This started in 1794. Sovereign immunity, removal of the federal government's eminent domain privileges, giving railroads greater rights than citizens through eminent domain, abolishing slavery, US government defining what citizenship is, suffrage, banning alcohol, civil rights, the federal government overstepping its bounds and creating voting rights, corporate welfare...
In short, everything ever was a bad idea and has encroached on the rights of citizens.
Filing false reports would be illegal and easy to spot, and easy to ignore.
Now if people started reporting everything under the sun to the *lobbyists* we might gain some traction....
The largest interest is the government's status quo, that's why the MSM companies are all PRO SOPA / PIPA, because MSM is PRO government, all of them.
The real pushers behind the scenes are probably in the White House right now.
You can't handle the truth.
This can go both ways. You as an individual can shutdown the **IA's, the NFL, whatever, with the same level of proof that they use - none at all.
... they chose to exercise it. The countdown has begun and the clock cannot be stopped. The harder they try, the faster it will tick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaoXAwl9kw
Add a provision that the people who think this is such a great idea must indemnify organizations that are forced to change off DNSSEC to something less secure. Then, when the Internet goes down, everyone gets to sue the MAFIAA! Watch how fast it would get killed.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
They would spin it into a story to make the law pass.
That's why the shooter would need to get their side of the store out first. Explain that they are an 'honest', loyal, patriotic citizen who has just been pushed to the breaking point by the corruption and.... etc, etc.
You can't just kill people whose opinion is opposite to common sense. Yeah, the world would probably be much better off without them...
So, you're saying "you just can't make the world a better place"?
if we had a magical button that would instantly dematerialize all corrupt politicians into nothingness I'd be the first to slam it with my whole fist, but we don't.
It's called exposing their corruption. (Soapbox)
It's called voting the bastards out. (Ballot box)
It's called finding them guilty when they're tried (Jury box)
It's called (if all else fails, and it has) shooting the bastards. (Ammo box).
Slam it.
I'm glad it's happening. I'm sick of the thieves on the internet. These people thought they could take as the please with only minor repercussions? Bullshit. Now it's time for a serious boot to the ass. I remember the heady days of IP violations where people claimed it was a downhill battle. As if society was going to have a change in consciousness when the one billionth track was downloaded and everyone was going to join hands and copyright would be dismissed by society. Ha! Now it's time to pay the piper, motherfuckers. We won and we couldn't have done it without the self-righteous, smug sons-a-bitches who acted like anything they wanted to take should be theirs by some flawed logic.
Now I really want to see you Slashtards go in front of a judge with some of your bullshit excuses as to why you think copyright doesn't apply to you.
The battle is over. The real tacticians won the war. You fucks thought you were going to win this? Fuck.... so sad that you don't see yourselves and your fellow man for what you really are. But it's over now and the rest of us can sit back and laugh.
Thank God for this bipartisan effort!!!!!
I moved to Texas and lived there for six years. The state of education was awful, the wages were depressed, and the environment was severely polluted. Cockroaches were the only ones thriving. I left and immediately got an $8000 raise.
On the bright side, there are no State income taxes.
where are my mod points when I need them. Texas is only doing well because of a tonne of short lived oil jobs. When the wells dry up it'll make Detroit look like a summer home.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I now see SOPA/PIPA as a litmus test for whether democracy actually exists anymore. EVERYONE who has had these bills explained to them ends up being outraged, and the fact that politicians are determined to push it through, in the face of almost 100% opposition to the bills from their VOTERS, show that they no longer show any interest in representing the PEOPLE.
If these bills pass, it is incontrivertible proof that the political system is no longer functioning to serve the will of the people, and that an entirely new political system is required.
Please, write to your representative, expressing this fact. They need to be made aware how much the future of the nation as a whole is riding on these bills.
Time to vote out every incumbent, then the next elections, do it again, do this several times so no one holds office for more than 1 term consecutively.
Any person voted into office that gets any kind of money from anyone outside of their term of office's salaries will spend 10 years in prison for every dollar *donated*.
Time to end the corruption. Time to put an end to the political terrorists (our own government) by disallowing them from digging in and gaining such strong footholds.
I've written my congressmen multiple times letting them know that I will hold them personally responsible if these bills pass and that I will consider them to be evil and corrupt politicians with absolutely no moral fiber in their bodies.
Let your congress critter know that if they pass these bills, they will be branded as traitors to the people of the UNITED STATES.
Send a message to the *IAAs of America, boycott music and movies - tell the studios that you won't pay any more for any of their shit until they stop SOPA and PIPA.
They would spin it into a story to make the law pass.
That's why the shooter would need to get their side of the store out first. Explain that they are an 'honest', loyal, patriotic citizen who has just been pushed to the breaking point by the corruption and.... etc, etc.
So you want to use the exact same excuse Anders Behring Breivik used?
Just make every site say "By entering this site, you agree that you are not an employee or affiliated with [MPAA/RIAA/etc.], that you are not an attorney . Click 'I Agree' or press the back button on your browser."
Kind of like how if you are a cop you can't say that you are not when asked.
Bing will still work and all the other search engines that support SOPA.
So what monopoly? You will still be able to search.
Friend, I want you to stop for a moment, maybe have a good friend slap you in the face or splash you with some cold water, you know, get you present to the here and now. Our President just signed the National Defense Authorization Act. This bill dramatically extends the Patriot Act, and now allows the government to detain American citizens at home and abroad without due process. With the stroke of a pen, your government has just declared WAR ON YOU! Over the last decade they have constructed a completely privatized army ready and waiting, as some subsidiary of Halliburton, only too happy to shoot you as easily as they did strangers in Iraq (do you really for a moment think our soldiers needed guarding by Blackwater employees in Iaq?)
You think the wealthy and powerful are just going to sit still high on a hill and let you take potshots. You've been bled dry, used badly by a host of political whores who attained wealth and power by sucking the teat of those who now own this country. And now we sit on the verge of a new society, a fascist state where all liberty and freedom has been sequestered to those who rule. Do you think for a second this is some strange alignment of the stars or an accident of fate? In the late 70s business and wealthy conservative leaders spent billions on conservative think tanks, strategizing ways take our nation over, and move government out of the venue of politics and into the venue of Wallstreet marketing. Since then, our candidates have been bought and sold. The take-over is near complete, all they have to do is have an "Emergency" and declare marshal law.
You want to get this deep down in your bones. You are the terrorist. The wealthy and powerful are well educated. They remember what happened to the French elite during their revolution, and you best believe they like the way their heads are attached to their necks. SOPA and PIPA are just another small nudge down the road called "You are just property" and we can crush you any time we please. When you speak about shooting representatives, I say first, your gun is pointed at the puppet and not the puppet master. I say second, you justify their fear and what you start will end in horror and blood for a great many innocent people, perhaps for all of us. We have a tiny, tiny, small, little window of opportunity still open to take our government back, by ballot box. People need to be informed what it going on, and stop listening to that little lying box in the living-room which is now a wholly owned outlet of the very people of whom I speak. The internet is still free enough, you just have to pick sane sources, sadly those same people own most of the wires and they are fighting hard to rob you of that last bit of light. Its time to stand on a very high place and say, we will not give up our freedom. We are taking our nation back, and we will clean up the horror these people have made. I used to think this was just the boundless greed of a few ego maniacs. The pattern is clear now. This is a coup is slow motion. The road ahead in any case is broken and will be hard to travel, the only question left is will we travel it as free men or slaves to ungrateful despots.
Um, he killed what, like 70-80 people? Many of them teenagers?
I'm talking about killing (well, shooting) ONE. One person, who is directly responsible for supporting an illegal and repressive law.
There is a little bit of difference.
Our President just signed the National Defense Authorization Act. This bill dramatically extends the Patriot Act, and now allows the government to detain American citizens at home and abroad without due process.
Paranoid much?
"On December 31 and after signing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 into law, President Obama issued a statement on it that addressed "certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of terrorism suspects." In the statement Obama maintains that "the legislation does nothing more than confirm authorities that the Federal courts have recognized as lawful under the 2001 AUMF. I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. [...] My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law."
-wikipedia
(e) AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed
to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of
United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States,
or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United
States.
-NDAA, sec 1021, e
In other words, IT DON'T APPLY TO CITIZENS.
Sheesh.
You think the wealthy and powerful are just going to sit still high on a hill and let you take potshots.
Who said anything about it being me? And who said anything about shots. One is enough. :-)
They remember what happened to the French elite during their revolution, and you best believe they like the way their heads are attached to their necks.
That's the point- they better start actually representing the people they are supposed to represent, or else.
When you speak about shooting representatives, I say first, your gun is pointed at the puppet and not the puppet master.
The 'puppet' has free will. It chooses to be controlled, rather then do the right thing. thus, the aim is correct.
We have a tiny, tiny, small, little window of opportunity still open to take our government back, by ballot box.
I believe it's already too late. We'll see. Unfortunately, every minute we wait makes it that much harder to accomplish, by any means. So, by all means, lets waste time. /sarcasm
... you will be indefinitely detained....
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The problem isn't that government is inherently failed or bad. Its that human being are primates and that if we don't design our institutions to manage that fact responsibly, we will in the end lose our institutions to the lowest and worst of human impulses. Our wise founding Fathers built checks and balances into the system because they honestly didn't trust "Those who govern" any further than they could throw them. That is nothing less than pure genius, and may be the most magnificent single gift they gave us.
We've in our ignorance and self interest, given the inmates the key to the asylum. Human enterprise, government, corporation, even non profit enterprises are all subject to the human need to serve ego and garner wealth. By limiting government, but not corporation, we've allowed our corporations to buy our government so now they are one and the same. They've removed checks and balances. So it doesn't matter what Congress understands, only what its paid to vote for.
We can design games that work, zero sum games and a wide variety of systems that serve the intended purpose without allowing the participants from taking wealth or power for their participation. Our government needs to be engineered to both eliminate concentration of power and manage clear separation from church and business. In fact, government should be fire-walled, to ensure no other social entity other than the people can exercise influence. As well, we need to remove the rights of human beings from corporations. We need to overhaul our law to serve people and not corporations. We need to reinstate the bill of rights from the ground up, and remove any law that abridges those rights. In short we need to take our country back and clean up the mess that took 30 years to make.
I WISH people could be arrested for filing a false report. Remember, the whole problem is that there are no penalties for filing false reports, but there is a penalty for not taking the site down immediately.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
What is fair is fair. If enough of you complain by asking for a take down of a music piece, from your favourite store, because you suspect it was pirated, there must be immediate compliance. There is no penalty for making an error.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
They would definitely not benefit from SOPA and Protect-IP. I've blogged about it here: How can entrepreneurs become successful in the Internet age? Innovation Management is a key to success for an entrepreneur in today's democratised, dynamic, digital and globalized high-speed economy. Entrepreneurs, innovators, creators and artists needs to model an enterprise architecture for their business and organize in a way where they can operate on this new market and take advantage of the Internet and its users. The world is still in its tentative first steps when it comes to optimising business architecture for the age of the Internet. You will have to face that you are part in pioneering a new paradigm.
With all that gas coming out of the ground? (I assume Hawaii is #1).
Oh wait, they actually drunk their flavr-aid (Jim Jones didn't use real kool-aid) and deregulated it in full randian style.
The only possible solution I can see is to boycott Hollywood. Considering the people of this country are obsessed with anything that Hollywood spits out and adore reality stars more than they look up to the doctors and scientists I don't see that as a real possibility. Removing the corruption is impossible as it is too deeply seeded. I suppose the only logical thing to do now would be to invent a time machine and elect Ron Paul into the white house back in 1988.
First of all, the fact that Mr. Obama has made it clear he respects the Constitution doesn't mean some other idiot (let's say some clone of Mr. Obama's predecessor) who neither understands the Constitution nor respects it, won't add or remove a section of this legislation resulting in the total gutting of due processor and citizen's civil rights. Even with Mr Obama, you think if someone declared open season on the White House, that they wouldn't forget all about that "Constitutional Stuff"? The American Civil Liberty Union states that the lack of duration or geographic limitation of this law makes it particularly troubling. If for one moment, you don't think this isn't a serious brick in a wall that spells totalitarianism, you my friend need a reality check. There is no way to be concerned enough about this legislation.
As for shooting puppets vs. puppet masters, excuse me, but the line of puppets is longer than the eye can see, I hope you have a lot of ammunition. Other than satisfying your unwholesome distaste for compromised statesmen, I have to ask why plug pawns and leave the the higher point pieces walking the chess board with impunity? Anyway, the act of parting some fools hair (no matter how deserving) has never been the answer, to quote Gandhi "I appall the use of violence, because even when it seems good; the good is only temporary, the bad it does is always permanent."
You may be right, it may be too late, especially with a general populace that is superstitious, mislead, misinformed and sadly complacent. I still hope that a small dedicated group of people can move the masses. Its happened before and today more than ever, a single committed voice can make a real difference.
That is what your politicians are called, I believe.. however, it's become very clear to me now what they 'represent'.. Very sad... and frankly, here north of 49, it's no better.. except we've had plenty of time to become acclimatized to the lack of true representation..
But he was also just a loyal patriotic citizen who had been pushed to the breaking point by corruption and...etc, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_systems
An important tag is happening in the US now - almighty corrupt Industrial Society vs. CYBORGENIC Life form commonly known as the Internet, that consists of interconnected data/content/code transmission Networks, all the servers with their data and software, all the client systems, all on-line payment systems, all Humans using those as both consumers and producers of information.
Yes, in 2012 the Industrial Civilization as we know it MAY end - what is coming though? Some call it the Singularity, some called it Communism, some call it The Matrix and Bible gives a good metaphor - "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed" (Mt.13:31) - so, this anti-mustard-seed SOPA happening in the US has to end sooner or later - Life on Earth, Progress and Evolution WILL move on - with those that have ears and eyes to see and understand, WITHOUT those Homo species that don't.
Ongoing and upcoming financial mega-crisis is going to emphasize these processes and weed out ruthlessly those nations and societies that are not willing to adopt - and use of modern information technologies mentioned above in a grass-roots, decentralized non proprietary way is an absolute MUST.
US vs The Internet? We know where SOUND bet is.
Vassili Leonov
Um, no. He was:
"a Norwegian political extremist"... "diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia" ... who "acted compulsively based on a delusional thought universe. Among other things, he alluded to himself as a future regent of Norway pending a takeover by a Templar-like organization. Imagining himself as regent, his ideas included to organize Norwegians in reservations and using them in breeding projects."
That's just a teensy bit different than "Congressman Jones voted for an Unconstitutional law", so *bang*.
Breivik confessed and stated that the purpose of the attack was to save Norway and Western Europe from a Muslim takeover, and that the Labour Party had to "pay the price" for "letting down Norway and the Norwegian people" Sounds familiar?
These people thought they could take as the please with only minor repercussions?
Not at all. The entertainment industry is still not going to be punished for stealing from writers and artists.