Stop COICA!

So, as many of you know, the government of America is seeking to pass COICA: a Bill that will effectively allow them to take any website they like off the web, without any process. And when I say website, I mean website, not illegal content on a website.

Here, have some carefully cooked pasta:

The "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on 11/18. The COICA, designed to stop internet piracy, is among one of the most vaguely worded and draconian pieces of legislation ever proposed.

We firmly believe in compensating artists for their work.
We firmly believe in paying for content.

This bill goes far beyond stopping pirates.

This bill gives the federal government the right to shut down websites based on vague and arbitrary evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved. We need to rally and let the world know. If this becomes a law, the government could immediately remove any website. They would be able to prevent access to anything from youtube to google.

This law would apply internationally as well. The entire internet would fall under the purview of this bill. The potential for abuse is staggering. There are no hearings. There's no due process. Any site that offends the sensibilities of the federal government would simply be gone.

Aside from that, here are some other articles to read about COICA: EFF, BlawgIT , Now, I cannot speak for their integrity, though they seem fairly unbiased, but these are the ones I have seen and I'm too tired to find any others before I go to bed.

We would, however, like to emphasises that though some of us may inhabit 4chan, or be pirates, that we are not representing 4chan, /b/, nor are we part of Operation Payback. This is NOT a raid, we are not trolling, or doing this for the Lulz. We are instead merely concerned citizens of the internet, standing up for our right to freedom of speech.

If this bill goes through, this is what the future of web surfing could look like. You know when you were at school and every time you went to a site where it mentioned games you got blocked by the schools web security? Imagine that, but you can't get round it with a proxy. Video very much related.

Internet Freedom Under Attack - The best bloopers are here

The Petition against COICA is here, but that is by no means all that is needed to stop it; If the Government listened to advice(That is, non corporation advice) this Bill would never have got off the drawing board.

For those of you have Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, these are all good places to start, and I urge you, as a fellow internetter, to not pass this by, don't leave it to other people, don't expect this problem to disappear, because the only thing that is going to disappear is our rights.

I also want to highlight that just because you are not American(I'm not :P) does not mean this does not affect you, and even if websites are just blocked and not taken down,( the wording is somewhat ambiguous, from what I have seen) there is no doubt this will cause other countries to pass similar acts, and even if that were not the case, Freedom of speech and non censored internet is(or at least should be) a human right.

Right, now the DnD I was going to attend has fallen through, so, goodnight, Internet :)