Stop the Internet Blacklist

[Dark Asylumn]

Just the other day, President Obama urged other countries to stop censoring the Internet. But now the United States Congress is trying to censor the Internet here at home. A new bill being debated this week would have the Attorney General create an Internet blacklist of sites that US Internet providers would be required to block.

This is the kind of heavy-handed censorship you'd expect from a dictatorship, where one man can decide what web sites you're not allowed to visit. But the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to pass the bill this week -- and Senators say they haven't heard much in the way of objections! That's why we need you to sign our urgent petition to Congress demanding they oppose the Internet blacklist.

PETITION TO THE SENATE:

Censoring the Internet is something we'd expect from China or Iran, not the U.S. Senate. You need to stop this Internet blacklist in its tracks and oppose S. 3804.

Add your name and we'll deliver your message to Washington.

Read more about the bill: COICA Fact Sheet.

In the news: BoingBoing, Daring Fireball, Reddit, Salon.com.

"We all use the web now for all kinds of parts our lives, some trivial, some critical to our life as part of a social world," says Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web. "In the spirit going back to Magna Carta, we require a principle that: No person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty. Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the Internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims."

 

 

 

 

Sign Here Please

[Lady Asylumn]

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     lol

[elzaco]

i signed i cant afford them to try and blacklist my midget porn :) lol jk jk but thats no bueno

[Milky]

Thank god for living in the country that were the first country to allow porn!! hahahaahahah

[HarryWeezer]

Thanks Dark. Hadn't see that and it gave me fodder for my tech column, to wit:

.........

It's always the same approach to chipping away at our constitutional rights: there's a great evil upon the land and for the greater good, government has to act.

Several weeks ago I wrote about the so-called Internet Kill Switch - legislation that would allow the president to shut down some or all of the Internet when he/she determines some emergency requires it. Now, it's the Internet Blacklist - legislation that would allow the government to order Internet Service Providers to block access to web sites it determines contribute to copyright infringement.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act was introduced last week by U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.) It would give the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) authority to file a civil action against web sites it, and only it, says are are involved with selling copyrighted materials and/or counterfeit goods. At that point, DOJ could shut down access to the sites - without due process of law.

There's even a second blacklist in this bill, one that lists sites DOJ, at its whim, believes "infringe" on selling copyrighted materials and counterfeit goods. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) wouldn't be required to block access to the lesser offenders but the bill holds them harmless if they do. So, if an ISP, for instance, blocked access to eBay because one of tens of thousands of sellers listed a Beatles disc DOJ thought might be pirated, eBay could not then sue the ISP for damages.

This bill actually has supporters, other than the misguided senators who introduced it. They say it's necessary to protect U.S. jobs and innovation by blocking access to an estimated $100 billion in intellectual property theft that occurs annually online, including pirated movies and music and counterfeit drugs and consumer products.

Sen. Leahy says "ignoring the problem, or saying it is too complicated, can no longer be an option."

Wrong - government can't and shouldn't try to protect people from themselves and shutting down a web site which either intentionally sells bogus goods or unintentionally allows someone to do so through them, without a finding of fact, without a court order, is power the government doesn't need and shouldn't have.

The potential for abuse for political reasons is enormous. For instance, only last week, the president railed against Fox News, claiming it is "destructive" to America. Would a government feeling heat from a news organization find an excuse to shut it down, if it could?

On its face, this bill would indeed allow DOJ to close access to, for instance, eBay because of one seller's illegal activity, thus also depriving all legal sellers access to the global Internet market. And indeed, the Internet is a global marketeplace; this legislation would do nothing to shut down these web sites outside the U.S. where most originate, and would continue to operate.

This is nothing more than an Internet Censorship bill on the order of the Internet Kill Switch bill, both of which are part of a continued attempt by the U.S. government to gain control over the Internet in some form. It is precisely because there is no such control that the Internet has thrived.

The Internet Kill Switch bill would give the president freedom to shut down any part of the Internet for up to 120 days in an "emergency." What contsitutes an emergency is not clearly defined - as in our foxnews example, it may be the whim of the president to find conservative voices on the Internet are undermining the administration's policies and thereby threatening the health and welfare of the nation at large: zap - they're gone.

The public must be alert to these attacks on our freedoms.

Connect Anywhere: We're a mobile society for sure, but keeping in touch digitally requires a laptop Wi-Fi connection - unless you have PdaNet installed on your iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile or PalmOS Treo or Centro.

This software turns your 3G cell phone into a router that connects your laptop to the Internet from wherever you have cell service. And it's free for non-secure connections and not very expensive - $30 - for a permanent license allowing you to bank online.

A product of www.junefabrics.com, it gives you full Internet access without the hassle of configuring various proxy and IP settings and supports any PC or Apple WiFi device. I haven't tested this software but junefabrics says that once installed on your phone and laptop, it will connect you to the Net with one or two clicks.

Installation seems simple, except for iPhone since Apple won't sell it at the Apple store and you have to do what's called a "JailBreak" to install it on your iPhone. You download the software to your laptop and install it, then connect your cell phone to your laptop to install the PdaNet mobile client.

When you're on the road, you need only hook your laptop to your cell phone via its USB cable, and click connect on both devices, avoiding any "tethering" charges from your cell phone provider. Depending on your cell phone speed, some users claim to be able to stream live video - certainly not a problem next year when 4G networks are deployed.

Tethering is the use of a mobile device to serve as a gateway to connect to the Internet via cellular service. My take is that you should be at liberty to use the cell phone service you pay for any way you wish, but use of PdaNet may violate your carrier's terms of use agreement.

E-mail Spoofer: You're at a web site that asks for your e-mail address but you're not sure you should give it out. You don't want to end up on some spam list.

The solution may be found at http://tempalias.com. Enter your real e-mail address, and the site will deliver an alias e-mail address. You may set either a time for that alias address to expire in days, or, by number of responses.

Any e-mail sent to the alias address is automatically forwarded to your real address until either the time expires, or the number of set responses is reached. This does not affect e-mail that you regularly receive - it only works for sites where you enter the alias.

There's no cost, and no registration requirement. The site forwards e-mail without examining it or keeping a record of it, and does not give out your real address to anyone, nor even keep it after the alias expires.

Keep this site in mind the next time you need to give your address online.

Bible Maps: Google maps has been used for a variety of purposes but here's a useful one: mapping biblical locations. At biblemap.org, you enter a book and verse and a map of the Holy Land will show places mentioned.

The site was put together by He Lives Ministries as a free Bible atlas to help undestand the geography, and to learn. It's a great tool to each children about the Bible.

[Lady Asylumn]

i think this is bull shit.

[Dark Asylumn]

bump bump bump.  if this is passed  with the amount of remarks we make xtremeidiots could be blocked out to all of us US members

just think about that next time you dont forward this to all of the people you know and the people you dont know also lol sign it   sign it  signit

[jackncoke]

lol thanks for the link dark... its the 15th petition ive signed against it

[Dark Asylumn]

well find number 16 lol the more the better   (right) lol