Internet Censorship is on Your Doorstep
A Free Internet is pivotal in the mechanics of a better, more connected future.
Yet, Internet Censorship is already here. You thought it was someone else’s problem, relegated to the likes of China, Turkey and Iran. But you’re wrong. It’s on your doorstep.
There is currently a very dangerous Bill that is quickly moving through Congress. It was introduced in the Senate and the House of Representatives as “Protect IP”, or (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011) on May 12, 2011 by Senator Patrick Leahy and 11 initial co-sponsors including Republicans and Democrats. Its goal is to give the government and copyright holders additional tools to curb innovation and free speech over the Internet.
It is also know as Bill S.968. It will cost $47 million tax dollars to implement through 2016. (Congressional Budget Office).
Basically, all that the government or a major corporation would have to do to censor entire sites is convince a judge that that site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.” Sharing a video with anything copyrighted within is it (you, your friends and a background song on the radio?!) – the very actions that have brought us the crowning jewels of connectivity; YouTube and Twitter would, under Protect IP, be illegal behaviour that could ensure up to a five year sentence.
This may sound drastic, but once you open the floodgates, who knows what will follow? If such a Bill passes in the US, it is only a matter of time before the rest of the West is subdued by censorship. So far, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but thankfully Senator Ron Wyden placed a hold on it.
The video below, by Fight For the Future explains the whole shebang with some nice visuals, and below that Vice President Joe Bidden stands up for civil rights. The crux of the matter though, is this:
Bill S.968 is not a fix! It will disrupt the internet at its very core, stifle innovation, dilute diversity and attempt to change the language pillars upon which the internet is founded. As Biden says; “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
It's a great article you wrote Ryan. It Is certainly a very concerning possibility. Something that the rational and the conspiracy theorists should stand together over. Unfortunately, as a Londoner, my efforts to speak out against the Bill are purely abstract - but I am fearful that this would bode badly for the rest of us if it was passed in the US.
I know England isn't part of the EU, but this should warm your heart: http://torrentfreak.com/eu-adopts-resolution-agai... and: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111117/1001041... Your country is having it's own problems. I'd suggest you speak out against the requirement of BT to block Newzbin http://www.itpro.co.uk/635269/bt-told-to-block-ne... and potentially other websites as well. The other really scary case over there is the O'Dwyer case where he's probably going to be extradited to the US over a website that's not even illegal in the UK.
I wrote a blog post about this very topic yesterday. I'm personally pretty terrified by the likelihood of this law passing through our Congress. In my post i explain how the threats can materialize. http://scitechkapsar.blogspot.com/2011/11/biggest...
[...] representative and let him or her know that you will not accept any legislation geared toward clamping down on the internet, such as Protect IP (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of [...]