Internet Blackout Highlights Failure of American Politics

Source: Activist Post
J.G. Vibes

Our whole lives we have been told that we have “freedom”, that we live in a “democracy”, that “we the people” have the ability to choose the kind of society in which we want to live.

However, if you ask most Americans what kind of place they want, I guarantee you that a vast majority would disagree with almost every government action that has been put forward in their lifetime.

If we truly lived in a free society, we would not be in a half-dozen wars across the planet; we would not be subject to authoritarian policies such as the PATRIOT act and the NDAA; and the government would not have grown to become the biggest and most menacing dictatorship in the history of the world.  It seems that in the past year these major events have really resonated with a great number of people, not just in this country, but throughout the world.

In the past, the oppressed would beg and plead with the very people who were responsible for their condition because they knew no other way of affecting change in society.  People would ask the government to change their ways because they were under the impression that those in authority actually cared about them.  After generations of failing to create change through politics, people are now shifting the direction of their message towards one another, instead of pleading with politicians and organizations that don’t care about anyone but themselves.

With the recent protests surrounding SOPA and PIPA, we have really seen this new method of protest becoming more pronounced.  Sure, there are still millions drafting petitions and thousands joining marches and making signs.  However, nowadays these people don’t seem to be petitioning their government; it seems that more and more they are petitioning their fellow citizens.  This is because the government is an obstacle; one which stands between the people and their freedom.  Therefore, it is completely impossible to solely use the government as a tool to achieve freedom; this would be like trying to use a hammer to fix a broken computer, in both cases you’re only going to make the problem worse.

Luckily, most Americans have learned all of this just in time for the pivotal votes this month regarding online privacy.  SOPA and PIPA may seem unimportant when compared with the police state, the military industrial complex, genetically modified food and banking cartels, but if you think about it, without the Internet we would have an immense amount of difficulty dealing with any of the aforementioned problems.  Thanks to the Internet, these issues have gone from taboo subjects to national issues in just a matter of years, which is the whole reason for the rollout of the SOPA and PIPA acts to begin with.

Many of us sat and watched horrified from our homes, as Obama signed the NDAA into law, after he promised us that he wouldn’t.  With this betrayal still fresh in the public consciousness, fewer people are downplaying the authoritarian moves that our government is making, and of those people even fewer are considering politics as a viable method of achieving social change.

The Secret Behind SOPA

Source: Prison Planet
Paul Joseph Watson

It’s the end of the Internet as we know it

The secret behind SOPA, the so-called anti-piracy bill which is today the target of an unprecedented backlash with Wikileaks and other major websites ‘going dark’ to protest the legislation, has nothing to do with piracy or copyright theft – it’s about the formal effort to mimic Communist China’s system of Internet censorship.

But don’t take our word for it, listen to what Joe Lieberman, co-sponsor of PIPA, SOPA’s sister version in the Senate, said about the purpose behind the US government’s efforts to control the Internet under the guise of cybersecurity.

Lieberman characterized fears that the US government would use such powers to censor political content as “total misinformation,” yet goes on to admit that the purpose behind the agenda is to mimic China’s ability to “disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war,” adding, “we need that here too”.

Of course, Communist China’s “war” is not against foreign terrorists or hackers, it’s targeted against people who dare to use the Internet to express dissent against government atrocities or corruption. China’s system of Internet policing is about crushing freedom of speech and has nothing to do with legitimate security concerns as Lieberman well knows.

Having largely failed in his bid to use fears over cyberwarfare, bearing in mind it was the United States and Israel who launched the Stuxnet attack, to achieve the ultimate goal of Internet control, Lieberman has returned with the same agenda only under a different guise – the Protect Intellectual Property Act – of which he is the co-sponsor.

Whether the justification is cybersecurity or anti-piracy, the end game remains the ability to seize control over the Internet and shut down websites on a whim.

Senator Wyden Call To Arms — Ask Him To Read Your Name During Filibuster Of SOPA/PIPA Censorship Bills

Source: The Intel Hub

http://StopCensorship.org — Sign up to have your name read during Wyden’s filibuster!

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) would ruin so much of what’s best about the Internet: They will give the government and corporations new powers to block Americans’ access to sites that are accused of copyright infringement, force sites like YouTube to go to new lengths to police users’ contributions, and put people in prison for streaming certain content online.

There’s a good chance this legislation will pass — but Senator Ron Wyden is a steadfast opponent, and he says he’ll try to block it by filibustering if it comes up for a vote.

Sometimes filibusters last hours — or days — leaving Senators reading out of the dictionary or cookbooks to pass the time. But we’ve got a better idea:

Millions of Americans support Internet freedom. What better way to demonstrate our strength than to ask Senator Wyden to read our names into the record during his filibuster? He’s agreed to read as many names as possible, and to enter the rest into the Congressional Record.

Save The Internet and Boycott These Companies

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

The following are companies that signed this letter which was written in support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which is the House’s equivalent of the PROTECT IP Act, which I have previously exposed as China-style internet censorship on steroids.

I encourage everyone to not only boycott these companies but flood them with letters, e-mails and phone calls telling them why exactly you are boycotting them.

SOPA would put completely legitimate sites, like End the Lie and countless other alternative news outlets at risk of being shut down, along with literally any site that freely allows users to post content.

That includes YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Blogger, Craigslist, Dropbox and literally any website or service that allows users to upload content.

The United States Attorney General can not only seek court orders against “foreign infringing sites,” meaning any website with a non-U.S. domain name, but can also demand that internet service providers (ISPs) would have to cut off access to the site by not resolving domain name requests.

Furthermore, if served with one of the Attorney General’s court orders, search engines would have to remove any links to the site, payment networks would have to stop all payments to the site from U.S. customers and advertising networks would be forced to stop serving advertisements about the website or for the website.

But wait, it gets even worse. SOPA would require that within five days of receiving an allegation by a copyright holder, payment services and advertising networks would have to cut off all business with the site either U.S. based or foreign.

All the copyright holder has to do is allege that the site is “dedicated to the theft of property,” and if the payment provider and advertising networks don’t cease business within five days, the copyright holder can file a private lawsuit against the site compelling the payment service and others to cut off relations.

US Prepares to Censor Internet Access While Urging Internet Freedom for the Rest of the World!

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Linda Lewis

At the London Conference on Cyberspace, November 1-2, Vice President Joe Biden urged other nations to protect internet freedom of expression.

“Biden did not name countries he felt were offenders. But he criticized the efforts of some nations pursuing an “international legal instrument that would lead to exclusive government control over Internet resources, institutions and content and national barriers on the free flow of information online.” (PCWorld)

Meanwhile, back in the US, Congress was preparing to pass a law granting extraordinary powers to censor the internet. The proposed law, described as “the Great Firewall of America,” has the support of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also favors Internet freedom for other countries. If the US government still had any credibility on this issue after banning access to websites posting leaked cables, the latest hypocrisy should have killed it.

Last week, Representatives Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced a House bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). A Senate version, called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), had been introduced last May by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Charles Grassley (R-IA). The bills propose to let the federal government block public access to websites accused of violating intellectual property rights. They would also require Internet access providers, search engines and payment providers to deny services to websites upon request from rights holders.

A devil in the lack of details
The bills have been criticized for their vague language and lack of due process, making them ripe for abuses.