Imagine ... take downs and seizures of web sites by the D.O.J. without judicial review just for linking to something deemed a copyright infringement by ... a corporation that complains to the Justice Department.
What could go wrong?
I am sure you have heard of this by now: SOPA/PIPA and its assault on liberty in a misguided attempt to end piracy. Not only does it trample on the First Amendment, but it also will not work in achieving its desired and stated outcome.
Regardless, I wanted to give you a round-up from those who write about this every day as well as some humor from the web to go along with it.
First from Wired, here is an explanation of the "blackout":
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/websites-dark-in-revolt/
Also, Wired's in depth explanation of why they censored their own web site Wednesday, January 18th, 2012:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/why-weve-censored-wired-com/
And watch the video on that page above.
In that article are also links to the why and the how of this legislation being so darned bad if you are unclear.
To lighten the mood, but to still be serious about this, and Anti-SOPA song set to "American Pie":
Now, serious:
From Wired.com ::: SOPA, Internet Regulation, and the Economics of Piracy:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/sopa-piracy-costs/
Most importantly …
Don't declare victory yet. It is not enough to put black bars on stuff you post. Write your Congressperson:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/internet-revolt-follow/
Here is where you can write your Representative(s):
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
And hit the Senate up too:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&;Sort=ASC
And finally, one of the videos that started this all has been rebooted to deliver some very salient points.
Yes, you guessed it, Hitler responds to SOPA: