Free Internet Under Attack!
 

Everyone, this is an emergency alert. The bills have passed allowing the government to selectively target, censor, and shut down websites. The criteria in these bills is very vague and loose, and it is meant to be.

Our free internet is slipping from our fingers.

No matter your political stance, a free internet is something we all want.

Don't think this doesn't apply to you -- eventually, you will say something the powers that be do not want you to say, share something they do not want you to share.

IF YOU ARE EVER GOING TO ACT, NOW IS A GREAT TIME.

Anonymous - Operation Blackout - YouTube

Now that my most recent ordeal is at an end I'll see what I can piece together. My mobility is somewhat limited-less so than before, so we'll see if that's advantageous-but my mind and fingers are pretty nimble.

For now I've shared everything you've posted. If I come up with something you may find interesting or of use, something you'd want to collaborate on or otherwise be part of, I'll kick it your way.

Brother, thank you, but we must act most high speed, low drag on this -- if you are willing, get on every forum, twitter, anywhere, EVERYWHERE you can and spread the word.

Its called the Internet Piracy Act, and it is NOT about piracy, its about broad control. That's what I'm doing now, we gotta spread the word like HPV on a college campus.

And everyone else -- I don't know about your political views, but we ALL want the government the hell out of the internet. Do the same, spread the word. And, if you are able, make a big sign that says FREE INTERNET or something, and get to your nearest Occupy!

And, everyone, I apologize, I misspoke, I haven't slept for a while.

They haven't passed it yet, as of my posting, but I'm assuming they will by the time you catch wind of this...

...they always do that with bills like this, pass it during the night because they know what they are doing is wrong, and they want it under the radar -- did the same thing with the Patriot Act.

Either way, the sheer gall to propose it must be met with a strong call for a FREE INTERNET.

Any move against piracy has actually been about control. That, I think, will be a solid basis for anything I might write on the subject.

Anon has already made videos to spread the information. That's useful, and it's important to spread those links, and I will. The question is can I help put something else together with the potential to go viral?

Something attention grabbing that causes a chain reaction... That's what we need to cut them off at the pass. What you're asking isn't time consuming but anyone who can do more should do more.

We need overwhelming force, people. Don't take this $%^# lying down.

I'd like to get involved in the movement to protect the internet. I'll spread the news to various forums. What else can we do?

Good to see that there are some people on this forum who care about keeping the internet free. I just today decided to join the German Pirate Party, whose main agenda is based on internet freedom and popular participation. They recently entered the regional parliament of Berlin with 9% of the votes, so they are currently swiftly gathering momentum in all of Germany :) I can't wait to actively take part in this development!!!

Okay, this will be the subject of my next blog post.

But, I need some Bill numbers... HR???? S???? Is it out of committee? etc... any links here would be appreciated.

My word is out--

The Daily Chronolog

Seriously, internet won't be free anymore? I don't want that!

What does it mean to not be free anymore? Its not like you get free internet access now.

Let's be honest this bill is about cracking down on torrent sites. I'm not sure if I am for or against the bill yet but clearly that's the intent of the bill.

Give government an inch, and they'll take a mile.

Well, free is overused. Maybe we should pay instead...

True...but the government trying to protect against copyright infringement is a far cry from the destruction of the free internet.

Will it be abused by law enforcement at sometime in the future? Probably will be. Is it an incredibly slippery slope that will lead to the wide spread censorship on the internet? I'm having a hard time seeing this happening.

As far as I can see copy right holders have a legitimate claim that their rights are not properly being defended. Torrents are pretty much a free for all for anything that is digital. What are you going to do for them?

There are already laws on the books for copyright infringement. No one is saying that we should eliminate those. But this bill quite effectively bypasses that little-known thing in the Constitution called "due process."

Once due process is eliminated completely, the ground then becomes fertile for a government free-for-all clampdown on anything and everything at it's whim.

Their rights are something that has been given to them by laws passed by congress.
The thing rights that they have got is exactly the amount of rights that the laws allocated to them.

The right of due process is an element of the legal system that is a lot more central and enshrined in the constitution. It's a greater good.
We are living in a world where Apple uses their censorship power to censor homosexual content.
Facebook is fond of censuring infowars.com. You might think that Alex Jones is crazy but I don't believe that he should be censored.
Censorship powers get abused.

If you ban direct access to torrent websites they will hide behind tor hidden services or i2p.
If you have a vague law that law could also be used to censor the Tor and i2p websites. If you have no vague law people will simply switch to the slower technology and you don't do that much for "intellecutal property protection".

All right I have read the bill and I'm missing where the due process is left out. Questionable sites have to be notified that action will be taken. A court order is obtained. These sites have the right to defend their actions in court. If they are not infringing on media creators rights then everything I read says they will go back to business as usual.

The Attorny General does not get to say "I'll shut down what ever site I feel like, end of story". He does have to go through due process procedures.

In my eyes really it boils down to the larger question of when I buy a song or a movie what is the extent of that ownership. Should that ownership be totally defined by the creators or does the government have the right to define that realtionship. How much should the government get involved in enforcing that agreement.

See, this is precisely why the law has been written intentionally vague--so no one notices the effect on due process.

What I've bolded above is precisely where due process is under threat. What makes a site "questionable?"
Note that this is all before the fact. Nothing, no infringement has yet been proven by anyone.
Defend what actions? What laws have they broken? Why should they have to defend themselves at all, if they're not charged with a crime?
If legal fees don't bankrupt them, you mean. Moreover, this makes having to go to court just defend being in business to begin with. Moreover still, this doesn't consider hosting sites that must protect their interests by denying hosting what they consider suspect sites. "Sorry, we think you're suspect, so we're shutting down your site." Where's the due process in that?

This isn't about the Attorney General, this is about the government encouraging people to rat on others, shutting down sites at will, and the gradual erosion of due process of law.
There are already intellectual, copyright, and trademark laws on the books. Currently, if anyone is believed to be violating a copyright law, the copyright holder can exercise his right to file suit against that entity. That's called due process. If that is currently in effect, why, then, this law? Ask yourself what is the real need for it?

My understanding is that the bills are giving copyright holders greater power to enforce their property rights, which would impede the flow of information. I forget which bill it was, but one of them wants to reduce the levels of infringement to two. There are currently three levels of infringement carrying different court sanctioned penalties. Non-willful infringement (there is no proof that the website owner deliberated intended to break the law), ordinary infringement (I don't know what this is to be honest), and willful infringement. Willful infringement carries criminal indictment and can potentially cost a lot of money in sanctions (I don't think there is a any jail time... may be? :confused:).

Copy right law is constructed to balance the rights of copy right owners and the rest of society. To that end, there are clauses in there, such as 'fair use' and 'archival rights', that allow institutions, such as libraries and schools, to run. In the real world, interpreting 'fair use' isn't always obvious. But the proposed law wants to take out ordinary infringement and define wilfull infringement in terms of what the judge deems reasonable expectations. So even if you genuinely did not know any better, if the judge thought a reasonable person should of known better, that automatically makes you eligible for criminal indictment and huge fines. There is no middle ground. The American Library Association is worried that libraries and schools are going to self-censorship them selves basically as a risk/benefits analysis. You could be interpreting 'fair use' in a legal way, but if the judge thinks otherwise, the liabilities may far out weigh the benefits, therefore, just don't do it.

That is one aspect of the proposed law, anyway.

So if the Attorney General has the power you say it has why haven't they done anything against torrent sites. Lets take this from the realm of theoretical into the an actual case. Paramount Pictures produces the movie Iron Man. The movie shows up on the pirate bay and people start downloading it. Paramount Pictures goes to the attorney general and says people are infringe on their copyright. What recourse does that attorney general currently have to help remedy the situation.

Why are we concerned about the attorney general?

The recourse Paramount pictures has, is to file suit against Pirate Bay.

I suppose I left out a step. Paramount sends the pirate bay a cease-and-desist letter, stating their site is contributing to copy-right infringement of their product. Pirate bay sends them back a message telling them to F-off and they can’t do anything about it. Then Paramount goes to the attorney general and says can you do something about this.

Paramount can not file a suit againt the Pirate Bay since they lay outside the jurisdiction of US law. The servers for the site are not in the US.

Cool. This is actually good information, and a reason, I can see, for perhaps amending the current code. But the entirely new law goes way too far, in my opinion (and, in the opinion of many others), and, as I mentioned before, completely subverts due process.

Errr....what? I only described how things are handled now...not how they would be handled under the new law and second you haven't described at all how due process is being subverted.

Correct, which is why I said that it was valuable information, and why I could see a proposal to amend the current laws (that protect copyright infringement). But this bill doesn't amend the current code, it proposes an entirely new law, and one that subverts due process.
As for how it subverts due process, if you still don't understand how the current bill does that, maybe you could visit my blog at The Daily Chronolog. I explain it there.

Basically, what it does is get ISPs and host sites to participate in shutting down those sites that are merely suspected of infringement, before it's ever proven that they actually are.

I think the Attorney General has the power to send stop and desist letters to third parties as well, such as advertising businesses. I'm wondering if that would cause businesses and websites to engage in self-censorship as well or outright blacklisting imposed by advertising firms? There may be no discussion over whether a site violates copyright law. In a bid to keep things operational, advertising firm A might tell website B to remove links and affiliations from this list of websites as they may potentially violate copyright law. It might not be the case if they go to court, but yah, just in case... don't disrupt our advertising business...

It won't change anything. The sites can still be accessed directly by ip#. It will make it different, in that google will have a more difficult time indexing sites by name, but really. It also will only apply to those sites hosted in the US. So the new law, under their proposed reasoning is misguided to say the least or is not the full truth in their motives. So if their goal is to stop pirating, it's not a very good one as it's ineffective. I think congress just likes to mess stuff up...

I'm pretty sure he doesn't have that power with respect to copy right infringement. That really is the whole point of the bill. Giving the Attorney General the ability to compel ISPs to block non US sites that are affecting US copyright holders. If he had the ability to do that now why don't you think he's using it. Hollywood has deep pockets and they want this pretty bad.



I agree that it is a new law but I am still not seeing the subversion of due process. As far as I can tell this is still a process that requires the Attorney General to work with the court system to get things done. This is a far cry from say the Patriot-Act where no such step is needed. Now that is a true subversion of due process. Really the big add here is how much responsibility do 3 party entities have in assisting with affecting someone who may be using their service for unlawful actions. My understanding of past cases is that basically the ISPs have stood on the ground that they are like highways and you can't hold them responsible for bank robbers who might use their highway to get away. So the courts would not compel them to block the sites. If this bill passes basically its saying that you can't stand there and pretend you have nothing to do with bank robbery if the robbers are using your highway every day.


I'm pretty sure you will not be able to access the sites by ip#. The ISP will block the ip address. That is not to say it will completely stop piracy. Like Brutha said it will probably go to some kind of i2p service. That would be a pretty satisfactory outcome for Hollywood. If they can turn the torrent sites into a trickle then they are basically getting what they want. You guys are right that you can't really stop a tech savvy pirate, but you can stop masses from easy piracy. I kind of liken this situation to the PS3. Can you copy PS3 games, Yes, but it take a lot more steps than what joe public is willing to do and so Sony is very satisfied this generation on how their anti-piracy measures have panned out.