The Internet blacklist bill that we've been fighting since September is back.
We're defending the Internet against a multi-pronged attack by the big business lobby. The entertainment industry, garment manufacturers, and even big pharmaceutical companies -- who want to shut down websites that sell medicine to your grandparents -- are urging Congress to pass a bill that would censor broad portions of the Internet.
Three weeks ago the Chamber of Commerce and others sent this letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, who's the just-reelected Judiciary Chair and the lead sponsor of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), asking him to push COICA through during the lame duck session that starts next week. All signs are that he's going to oblige: He just scheduled the bill for a hearing for next Thursday.
Will you join the more than 250,000 people who've already signed on to Demand Progress's anti-COICA petition? We're going to deliver it when Congress returns, and make it clear that we're not going to let COICA just slip through during the post-election, deficit, tax cut morass.
Politico says the bill is "hotly debated" -- and that's true only because the Netroots and other Internet users geared up aggressively after it was introduced in September, and, shockingly, scheduled for passage just 10 days later.
Under COICA, the government could force Internet service providers to block access to sites like YouTube, Wikileaks, and others that the government claims are spurring the spread of copyrighted materials. The Electronic Frontier Foundation lists some vulnerable sites here. In blocking these sites, the government would be violating the First Amendment and reasonable due process, and setting a terrible precedent that totalitarian regimes across the globe would use to justify their own crackdowns on Internet freedom.
The ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and other human rights organizations issued a letter of their own in late October, underscoring that passing this legislation would put us in the company of Turkey and other countries that regularly censor access to online content.
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The human rights community has strongly condemned countries that use the tactics proposed in COICA to take down content for a site's global user base....COICA would stand for the proposition that countries have the right to insist on removal of content from the global Internet in service to the exigencies of domestic law. Nothing in principle would limit application of this approach solely to copyright infringement.
As the corporatists gain more power, an open Internet will be ever more vital to maintaining our democracy and leaving the left with a fighting chance. We need to make elected Democrats understand that Netroots activists won't be motivated to work for politicians who run roughshod over the Internet and civil liberties.
This is a big fight, but we can win it: The bill's sponsors have already signaled that they're going to amend it to make it a bit less heavy handed, and failed to take it up for an expected vote in October. There's some dissent on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and even more in the House. We need to encourage our allies to buck up and fight back: Will you help us by signing on today?
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But blocking access to entire sites is something else, indeed. This is censorship equal to anything in history. It limits our ability to speak to each other. I believe it violates the first amendment. We must defend our right to free speech. Make noise!
The man who wrote the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, signed into law by Bush pere, told Sibel Edmonds and Peter B Collins (http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/05/01/podcast-show-28, starting about 3:45 in the podcast), that "it was very clear to me the day after the attacks that the New York Times published the technology behind the letter to Sen. Daschle -- 'a trillion spores per gram, silica coating, floating in the air' -- that, uh -- this was super-weapons-grade anthrax that could only have been manufactured in a United States government weapons lab."
How now can Leahy, formerly a bulwark, be the author of this?
Are their any brakes on this wagon? Is there any reason to believe that the current bill is restricted to true copyright issues? Is there any right of appeal, any process defined? Any pledge of fairness?
Can it be that the specter of Wellstone's fatal crash has been shaken in Leahy's face by such gnomes as Cass Sunstein, the potential Obama nominee for SCOTUS, who is to the 1st Amendment what John Yoo is to the 5th, 6th, and 8th?
"Nothing in principle would limit application of this approach solely to copyright infringement."
Even if COICA were limited to copyrighted items, it would establish the principle that governments, including the US Department of Justice, could block EVERYONE'S access to any website, instead of going through the courts as is currently done in western countries. Once that precedent was established, western governments would begin defining other types of content as objectionable too, and censor those too, bringing western governments' control over the Internet closer to that of countries like Iran, China, etc. The US Dept of Justice could simply shut down websites like Wikileaks, and any that tried to co-host its files, with no recourse via the courts. And countries that currently block websites, would point to these precedents, and tell the west it has lost the moral standing on this issue, and feel no further pressure to stop censoring their citizens' access to the Internet.
There are a lot of things going on in our country that just don't make any sense. You know what I mean.
After due deliberation I am starting to believe that some of the"whacko conspiracy theories" that have been around for a long time are really conspiracies. Period.
If the absurdity of the last 20 years or so is viewed through the prism of the structure of the conspiracies --- the activities actually make sense --- God help us......
Pick a conspiracy and see if it fits the situation better than the reality you have been led to believe..
The problem with progressives is that they actually think for themselves. That is why they are a threat to the power structure that is manipulating things.