Hello old world, just thought I'd drop a visit with this bit of information I'm trying to get out...
A quick link to the act including a summary of what it means can be found in the following link. Please read it to get your own opinion.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110511/...ibly-ugly.shtml
For those who didn't follow, or didn't want to read it, I'll try my best to sum it up for you.
The United States Government is trying to pass this bill which would allow them to shut down sites that infringe intellectual and copyright property. If they can not simply "shut it down", they would have legal access to make ISP's block the site. This bill is the opening for the American government to allow censorship. While many people and companies, such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay, American Express, and Paypal, all are fighting this bill, it is largely going unnoticed in the media. The reason of this is because the media supports it! They don't want people to know about because they realize that the general population would be against this. Many people who are against it support the reasoning that it against the first amendment (freedom of speech). Many of those people also mention that this is against the second (right to bear arms; will explain) and fifth (right to defend yourself in front of a jury; will explain) amendments also.The second amendment is the right to bear arms. While many people argue that this is specific to guns, many people say that the internet can be used 'in arms'. Many people compare this bill to what Egypt was doing earlier this year. When the revolts were happening, information was being passed through the internet, and the government was shutting down all the sites that were fighting against them. Many people say that the USA government may be going to the same line as this. The fifth amendment allows people to not be incriminated without being first presented in front a grand jury. Many people say that taking a site down or blocking it would only be crossing the "innocent until proven guilty" line. One amendment is for sure, and that just happens to be the first. The first allows the people to have a freedom of speech. In the words of the ONLY senator (Sen. Wyden; Oregon) to object to this bill (99:1 vote, I believe) "I understand and agree with the goal of the legislation, to protect intellectual property and combat commerce in counterfeit goods, but I am not willing to muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth to achieve this objective. At the expense of legitimate commerce, PIPA’s prescription takes an overreaching approach to policing the Internet when a more balanced and targeted approach would be more effective. The collateral damage of this approach is speech, innovation and the very integrity of the Internet."
Not too many people know of this bill, and I'm just trying to make it known.
I urge ALL of you if you don't support this bill and want to fight it, to call you representatives office and such and tell them!
Here's a page with the representatives by state: http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/
Clicking their name will bring up their phone number.
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_info...enators_cfm.cfm
Senators list to do the same. ^