Amid significant pressure from tens of thousands of internet users and major web behemoths like Google, Facebook, and Reddit, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is, in its current form, Dead on Arrival:<\/p>\n
Misguided efforts to combat online privacy have been threatening to stifle innovation, suppress free speech, and even, in some cases, undermine national security. As of yesterday, though, there\u2019s a lot less to worry about.<\/p>\n
The first sign that the bills\u2019 prospects were dwindling came Friday, when SOPA sponsors\u00a0agreed to drop\u00a0a key provision that would have required service providers to block access to international sites accused of piracy.<\/p>\n
The legislation ran into an even more significant problem yesterday when the White House\u00a0announced its opposition\u00a0to the bills. Though the administration\u2019s chief technology officials officials acknowledged the problem of online privacy, the White House statement presented a fairly detailed critique of the measures and concluded, \u201cWe will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.<\/strong>\u201d It added that any proposed legislation \u201cmust not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the administration did issue a formal veto threat<\/strong>, the White House\u2019s opposition signaled the end of these bills, at least in their current form.<\/p>\n A few hours later, Congress\u00a0shelved SOPA, putting off action on the bill indefinitely<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Sourced From\u00a0Washington Monthly<\/a>\u00a0via\u00a0The Daily Sheeple<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Sponsored primarily by purported free speech advocates that include democrats and republicans alike, the SOPA would have fundamentally transformed the internet as we know it today. As Daisy Luther writes at Inalienably Yours<\/a>, the bill was nothing short of \u00a0a direct attack against the first Amendment and the right to free speech:<\/p>\n On closer inspection, the legalese in the bill has the potential to eviscerate free speech\u2026.and like NDAA, without proof\u2026only with suspicion of \u201cwrong-doing\u201d<\/strong>.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about copyright infringement.\u00a0 If you tick off the powers that be, and you\u2019ve quoted someone, somewhere, saying something, you may have infringed on their copyright.<\/strong>\u00a0 As a defendant, you are not even present at the legal proceeding allowing \u201cthem\u201d to shut you down until you prove yourself innocent.<\/p>\n How do they shut you down?\u00a0 Search engines are required to remove you from their listings.\u00a0 Internet Service Providers can be ordered to block access to your site.\u00a0 Advertising networks and payment providers can also be forced to cease doing business with you.\u00a0 This continues until you are proven INNOCENT.\u00a0 Wait \u2013 I thought it was innocent until proven guilty\u2026.oh\u2026.that was \u201cbefore\u201d the NDAA.<\/p>\n Source: The Internet: The Last Bastion of Free Speech<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n While this bill of goods was being sold to the American public as a way to reduce online piracy originating on foreign shores, in essence the legislation would have made it possible for any organization (with the financial assets and access to attorneys to do so) \u00a0to target web sites (foreign or domestic) using excerpts, quotes, and videos without express permission of the authors or producers of such content. Furthermore, any web site linking to suspected copyrighted content would be guilty by association for fascilitating the infringement.<\/p>\n By linking to and\u00a0excerpting\u00a0Daisy\u2019s article above, for example, this particular web site, and anyone who republishes this article, excerpts it, or pulls a link from it, could be shut down on the service provider level until such time they prove their innocence. (*Note to DHS, et. al.: Daisy has given us permission to reprint her article or portions of it, and the excerpt from Washington Monthly has been reprinted under\u00a0Fair Use to\u00a0advance understanding of this political and Constitutional issue*)<\/em><\/p>\n The scariest part of the legislation, as Daisy points out above, is that due process would have been eliminated (just like in the NDAA), forcing internet providers, search engines and ad networks to simply shut down a web site(s) based on just the complaintant\u2019s accusations, leaving those web site owners who were shut down to deal with the fallout with costly legal expenses and lengthy court battles.<\/p>\n You may recall that in 2010 the government shut down 73,000 web sites<\/a> in exactly this manner. Though the owners of the \u00a0majority of the targeted sites were not technically infringing copyrights, some were linking to other sites that did, making them an accessory.<\/p>\n Even more alarming is the ability, under legislation such as SOPA, of the government to control the flow of information across major internet providers. Articles or videos\u00a0criticizing\u00a0political figures or policies could easily be targeted, as they were in October of this year when the government moved to shut down rogue publishers<\/a> of critical content .<\/p>\n What it boils down to is that SOPA was an attempt to put the power of information back in the hands of an elite few who are rapidly losing the ability to control what the masses are reading, hearing and seeing. Alternative news and \u2018extremist\u2019 information was the target (and still is).<\/strong><\/p>\n While we applaud President Obama (yes, we agree with him on this move) for formally issuing a veto threat, we remain skeptical of his motivations. This being an election year, the last thing the President needs to be dealing with along with the economic crisis and tensions in the middle east, is the protests of millions of voters who would have undoubtedly taken to the streets when access to their favorite web sites like Youtube, Google, Facebook, and Twitter were shut down because of alleged SOPA violations.<\/p>\n Moreover, we aren\u2019t one bit convinced that this veto was done in the interests of free expression, as the administration may claim. In November, the President issued a similar veto threat about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows for the detention of American citizens determined to be threats to national security and public safety on the domestic (U.S.) battlefront. He flip-flopped on the issue just a couple of weeks later<\/a>, and signed the bill into law over New Year\u2019s weekend to complete silence from the mainstream media.<\/p>\n It is our view that SOPA, in one form or another, will return with a\u00a0vengeance.<\/p>\n ______________________<\/p>\n Copyright Information:<\/em> Copyright SHTFplan and Mac Slavo. This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to www.shtfplan.com. Please contact us for permission to reproduce this content in other media formats.<\/em><\/p>\n