Free Talk Live

Through domain seizures, ISP blockades, search engine censorship, and cutting funding of allegedly copyright infringing websites, the bill takes Internet censorship to the next level. The U.S. Government is determined to put an end to online piracy. In an attempt to give copyright holders and the authorities all the tools required to disable access to so-called rogue sites, lawmakers will soon introduce the PROTECT IP Act.

For years, China’s net nannies turned the other cheek to a loophole in their vast online censorship apparatus. Anyone who wanted access to blocked overseas websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and more recently, the New York Times, need only download foreign software called a virtual private network (VPN) to circumvent the Great Firewall. But in recent weeks, even these tools have begun to falter, frustrating tech-savvy Chinese and foreign businesspeople who now struggle to access Internet sites as innocuous as gmail.com and imdb.com.

STOP INTERNET CENSORSHIP—TWO BILLS IN CONGRESS UNDERMINE THE PRINCIPLES OF THE WEB
On November 16th, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" will be heard in Congress. This legislation, in addition to the Senate's "Protect IP Act," completely undermine and fundamentally change the core principles of the Web. They have the potential to radically alter or shut down sites like YouTube, Flickr, 4chan, others, and all new companies that follow.
See americancensorship.org for more and help us stop these bills from becoming law.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) sets up a system through which the US government can blacklist a pirate website from the Domain Name System, ban credit card companies from processing US payments to the site, and forbid online ad networks from working with the site. This morning, COICA unanimously passed the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The political system is broken partly because of Internet," Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow said. "It's made it impossible to govern anything the size of the nation-state. We're going back to the city-state. The nation-state is ungovernably information-rich."

[NB: you need the Google translator tool (http://translate.google.com/) to translate this from Swedish to English] When SOPA have caused an internet strike, the EU plans for even more internet censorship. Libertarian activist and chief of staff for the Swedish Pirate Party in the European parlament in Bruxelles, Henrik Alexandersson, have written this report.

When I have asked if I was free to import unique resources from off grid, or grow my own vegetables, I was told that this would be unnecessary or systemically impossible, because the system should fulfill all demand. If the assertion is that this system will be able to satisfy 100% of demand for 100% of the population 100% of the time, then it is a Utopia by definition. However, if the system is imperfect, as some have admitted, then there is going to be some percentage of demand that is not satisfied by the system, and that has some economic ramifications.

When it really matters to them, Congressmembers can come together -- with a panache and wry wit you didn't know they had. As banned books week gets underway, and President Obama admonishes oppressive regimes for their censorship of the Internet, a group of powerful Senators -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- have signed onto a bill that would vastly expand the government's power to censor the Internet.

The Transportation Security Administration will block all websites that contain “controversial opinion” from its federal computers in the latest example of how Internet censorship is expanding in both the private and public sector as the federal government prepares to push through a power grab that will empower President Obama to shut down the world wide web with an emergency decree.