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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.
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.
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'
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?
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.
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
Umm... two wars including war crimes, ignoring the Den Hague court, Guantanamo and you needed THAT to come to that conclusion?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
That's the part neither legislators nor industry really got about the internet. Yes, it's a great medium to spread your propaganda, but it works bidirectionally. Meaning, people can't only listen to your droning, they can reply too. And they can spread their own information without asking you first whether you're ok with it.
That this doesn't sit well with people who are used to having a monopoly on information is a given.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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?
You do realize No Child Left Behind means no child can succeed either . All that program does is bring the bright students down to the level of their idiot brethren. They cannot stop piracy without straight up breaking the internet and trampling the constitution. This is not hyperbole.
Good-bye
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!
There will be one good consequence of SOPA: The US will lose control of DNS.
Rethinking email
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.
Yeah, it will do a lot of good. Like finally replacing the DNS system and moving torrents to shadow-nets. Oh, I would so like to see if the rest of the world will finally make their own DNS infrastructure and SOPA will just create a Great Firewall of USA. Way to go.
Heck, I think if we introduce 5 year prison sentence for everyone who downloaded the movie, everyone will just rush to the stores to buy their limited edition blueray for 100 dollars. Or maybe it will decrease the indirect advertising the movies get from torrents and the industry will finally die without the income. Or, more likely they will just tax everyone because if the companies are losing sales it is not because they have a crappy business model, it because of the people, who copy information and share it.
There is rarely something without good and bad consequences. The problem is that in the examples you present the bad outweighs the good by some margin. I won't get into detail about Nixon (too easy).
No child left behind sure made grades more comparable. For the price of dumbing down the curriculum to the point where the kids we get out of it are by no means close to what they could be. By artificially lowering the bar, sure, we managed that everyone's a winner... or more exactly, that the brighter kids are the losers. They could have gotten an education worth the name instead. Now all they have is an education that is on par with the lowest common denominator. If it had been coupled with a gifted handup program, we could talk, but alas, that would be against the ideals of NCLB, making everyone equal.
That a conservative government embraces a principle of communism...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is that if SOPA gets passed that it could have positive consequences.
Yeah, like finally waking up a populace that's been asleep for many years. If this shit passes, the U.S.'s days are numbered. If you consider that a positive (and given the nature of our government, I absolutely fucking do) then that's probably about the only positive effect this shit is going to have.
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!
Is that if SOPA gets passed that it could have positive consequences.
Yeah, like finally waking up a populace that's been asleep for many years. If this shit passes, the U.S.'s days are numbered. If you consider that a positive (and given the nature of our government, I absolutely fucking do) then that's probably about the only positive effect this shit is going to have.
You''ve got to be kidding! If you think SOPA and PIPA are going to "wake up" the populace, you need to adjust your medication. The Patriot Act was *welcomed* by many Americans. If the Patriot Act wasn't enough to wake people up, they're out for the night, bud. Yes, it's sad.
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/
I am anticipating a lot of positive consequences from SOPA. More funding for Internet-based businesses, more income for hosting companies from international customers and more interest from foreign companies in selling their products here.
I should probably mention that I don't live in the USA...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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.
The US does not have control of DNS right now. All they have control of is a few name servers.
Anyone can (and I hope will) put up alternative name servers.
Imagine the shit hitting the fan when the Congresscritters realize that SOPA is useless.
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."
Imagine the shit hitting the fan when the Congresscritters realize that SOPA is useless.
They don't care if their legislation is useless. They wrote what they were paid for and until they get paid again they don't give a $hit. "Your government at work for you"
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
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.
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.
Indeed. My hope is that it will force the casual pirates to get off their asses and take security seriously.
As a long-time dabbler in anonymizing peer-to-peer networks (that could really use more nodes with fat pipes), I, for one, welcome our new media conglomerate overlords.
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.
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!
The USA will force an equivalent law down the throat of your government, as well.
The threats are probably already being made to your governors, in fact.
Imagine the shit hitting the fan when the Congresscritters realize that SOPA is useless.
Imagine the shit hitting the fan when the Congresscritters realize that they are useless.
After the approval of the NDAA, the Cons(gress) of the corporate states of America have shown their contempt for their employers and would choose treason over a just government.
Yes, yes, bashing the corrupt political hacks makes me a " terrorist?", however, what does it say about a true representative government? These corporate career criminal types believe they have the will of the American voters, shows just how delusional power and money can be. It's January 7th, and the snow is melting. I believe this summer will be just as hot.
Read the Constitution, Understand the Constitution, Enforce the Constitution.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
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
Unless you're ready to take up a steak knife, grab someone whom you have never known and who has done nothing to you directly, push him against a wall and tell him "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, but you must die in order to save Internet freedom" and then behead him with the aforementioned knife, don't even bother. This is not a Big Media-sponsored fantasy like The Matrix. "The resistance" will be classified as "tawrr awrr reesm" by the Lords of Money and you will have to be prepared to live off the grid. You will be hunted down. You will be killed. You must be prepared for this. You must be ready to bomb offices full of people, to set fire to schools so that you can kill the kid of some Big Money's hired thug. You must be ready to set off a homemade poison gas in a shopping mall full of people to disrupt sales, knowing someone will die. By the way you write I can see you have no clue on how to even begin, so leave the fighting to people who are actually prepared to shed blood and stand aside, and be careful not to be caught in the crossfire. Revolution is Serious Business.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
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...
Right, because throwing out the old tyrants and putting in newer, more technologically hip tyrants will spontaneously result in utopia. How did that work out for Libya?
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.
You do realize that ICANN is headquartered in the US, right?
As is Verisign.
Like those of Spain for example?
...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.
I'm not saying I personally support assassination. I'm just saying that once people decide they have nothing to lose, is when the government will lose. You can't threaten jail if people aren't afraid of jail. We just saw it happen in other countries just this past year.
Whilst I agree with you, there's also the (slim) chance that the populace are going to be pissed off enough at disruption of their online entertainment to get upset about it.
Abstract concepts like "freedom" and "civil liberties" and "habeas corpus" are one thing, entertainment is quite another. But as long as most people have their Facebook and their cable or Netflix they'll be happy either way.
But what if you live in a place without any elected officials?
For instance, I'm in Massachusetts.
No child left behind sure made grades more comparable. For the price of dumbing down the curriculum to the point where the kids we get out of it are by no means close to what they could be. By artificially lowering the bar, sure, we managed that everyone's a winner... or more exactly, that the brighter kids are the losers. They could have gotten an education worth the name instead. Now all they have is an education that is on par with the lowest common denominator. If it had been coupled with a gifted handup program, we could talk, but alas, that would be against the ideals of NCLB, making everyone equal.
Harrison Bergeron at its finest.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
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....
Do you realize that people aren't required to trust ICANN, right?
Rethinking email
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.
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.
Somehow, I don't see Congress letting one of their own laws shoot them in the foot.
Besides, the regulators are just as much in bed with corporations as legislators are. Even if they accidentally DID incriminate themselves, they'd wiggle out of it.
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.
At least the bankers likely don't give two shits about copyright.
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?
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.
... 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
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.
And in places like Spain and France, they might get it, at least for as long as the current administrations last (which probably won't be very long given the other troubles in Europe right now).
Most of us are just going to tell them where to go, though. There is definitely a feeling of resentment building among the people who care that there are too many one-sided deals with US going on here in Europe, often to do with privacy (travel data, banking data, etc.). For now, they get away with it because there are not enough people who care to bring down governments at the next elections. If you switch off Facebook for a day to make the point, the wailing from the population will increase from a few percent to all-but-a-few percent.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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.
You''ve got to be kidding! If you think SOPA and PIPA are going to "wake up" the populace, you need to adjust your medication. The Patriot Act was *welcomed* by many Americans. If the Patriot Act wasn't enough to wake people up, they're out for the night, bud. Yes, it's sad.
While I agree with you for the most part, the reason that something like SOPA could possibly "wake up" the populace is that this is going to hit them in their "bread and circuses".
The Patriot Act only applies to "bad people" and "terrorists". The consequences of this unjust law will be directly visible to the general public, and will in fact directly impact them. Even if that impact is only that they can't download free copies of shit they weren't going to pay for in the first place.
Not that I believe that the American people are going to suddenly "wake up" over this, it's one more ingredient in the "revolution stew" so to speak. This stupid, unconstitutional law isn't actually going to materially impact piracy or copyright infringement. It's just going to make the war against the people much, much more obvious.
Then again, maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe "we" will wake up. And maybe it'll rain pancakes tomorrow.
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
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..
So I wasn't the only one who got reminded of that when he first heard about NCLB...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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
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.
Europe also depends on the U.S. militarily, however, and the two economic blocs (one national, one supranational) are dependent upon each other, with Europe needing banking adjustments and manipulations here, and the U.S. wanting to ensure efforts are undertaken there, to re-assure all the absentee owners of financial assets and shares that their "wealth" is somehow secure despite being backed by mountains of uncollectible debt, bad mortgages, and a lot of speculation. These owners are not just the super rich, these "assets" are nest eggs for the middle class, benefits of jobs provided to all classes, ways by which governments from national to local village assemblies tried to ensure they could get returns on monies collected, or to pay off benefits promised, whether to avoid paying their workers much, or to get themselves elected by a populace wanting more. The U.S. is probably getting the deals because they are convenient to the politicians there, not simply for the U.S. putting pressure on them. "You want us to provide intelligence, then we need access to data streams." Stuff like that. On top of it, Europe isn't exactly a conglomerate of nations forged on the basis of protecting the rights of men rather than welfare of the state (individuals--in the last century), so all the outrage there with throwing governments out in favor of putting in whoever promises to meet the outraged's' demands would perhaps do as much good there as it does here in the U.S. with politicians (and people) who do not actually care about rights anymore, at least not the rights of the other guys.
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.