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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."
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.
No, no, no. We won't buy. This legislation, which is so tilted against the interests of the vast majority of the populace, which imperils the functioning of the internet, will cause piracy to explode. Because this law will give pirates something they've never had until now. Moral sanction.
More people will feel it is right to steal from Hollywood, than to buy from them. And that will seal their fate.
It'll seal ours too, more's the pity, as our internet struggles to survive.
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?
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?
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.
Really no reason for the site to be real. They won't know. Problem is they don't care. They leave congress and get a nice job handed to them along with a kilo of blow and three underage hookers.
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.
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?
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
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.
i will not vote for a Republican ever because they support so many other violations of personal liberty (same sex relationships, racism, discrimination against the impoverished) that it's ridiculous.
that being said, i'm taking a long, hard look at independents now.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
John F Kennedy, 13 Mar 1962, Address_on_the_First_Anniversary_of_the_Alliance_for_Progress
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables