Slashdot Mirror
Internet Defense League To Be Deployed Against CISPA
yanom writes "Slashdotters may remember the launch of the Internet Defense League, a network for website owners that would allow for the replication of a media campaign similar to the one that took down SOPA. Now it plans to spring into action in response to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which is now making it's way through Congress. The IDL wants its members to embed anti-CISPA banners into their websites, which will be activated tomorrow, March 19th."
I've said this before, but again: the Internet Defense League is doing good work, but playing defensively like this is a losing game. It's not enough to kill bad legislation, like CISPA it will just keep getting reintroduced - we need to be supporting good legislation. If people took the same enthusiasm that killed SOPA and put it into supporting something like the OPEN act we'd have a significantly stronger barrier against further negative legislation.
Aaron Swartz, not only was he very vocal about SOPA, he was at the centre of the fight against it.
I called all my friends, and we stayed up all night setting up a website for this new group, Demand Progress, with an online petition opposing this noxious billâ¦. We [got] ⦠300,000 signersâ¦. We met with the staff of members of Congress and pleaded with themâ¦. And then it passed unanimously.â¦
He won that fight, but then it meant he got the government's attention. That's how it works, you are just part of the crowd until they see you as one of the leaders and then they hammer you until you can't go any longer. He lost all of his money in that legal battle, obviously the government can just throw everything to defeat you if you are the enemy. He could have ended up in prison, just like Bradley Manning, but he went a different route.
You and your government, the relationship is not what you were brought up to believe it is.
You can't handle the truth.
What *is* ridiculous is that you elect people to make extremely important decisions when they don't have any clue about the subject matter. What is more ridiculous is that you allow them to make such decisions again and again even though many experts and many more have already pointed out how clueless this is, and after that re-elect those people to go on.
> And how medical operations work. And how financial investment works. And how farmers grow things. And...
Yes, exactly. That's why they get voted into office, and why we need many of them: So they get a clue about the topics they decide on, and so they can veto clueless or malicious decisions of other representatives.
Where is the banner on /.?