US Senate Committee Passes PROTECT IP Act 338
angry tapir writes "A US Senate committee has unanimously approved a controversial bill that would allow the US Department of Justice to seek court orders requiring search engines and Internet service providers to stop sending traffic to websites accused of infringing copyright."
Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World! (Score:5, Insightful)
Guilty without trial (Score:3, Insightful)
The sites merely have to be ACCUSED of being copyright infringers. Remember when Homeland Security yanked thousands of websites off the net, including several that were merely personal blogs or news sites?
This is no good. We have courts for a reason - to protect the citizenry from overzealous leaders assuming guilt and enacting punishment against innocent persons.
the internet and the govt (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet was better off before the legal and judicial systems were even aware of it.
The boffins at DARPA came up with it, and for decades, all was well - from the 70's up until the mid 90's at least. It succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams *because* no one was in control of it. It was an anarchy. If you don't want to see something, don't look, and if you do, then do.
It will die in practice because of people who, for one reason or another, think they have the right to tell other people what they can and cannot do.
Upgrade network infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
Prohibition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rubber stamp (Score:5, Insightful)
It should require MORE than a court order. It should require a conviction in the traffic of copyrighted material in violation of the copyright act before a site can be black listed. Being accused of such should NOT be enough.
Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World! (Score:5, Insightful)
Apples and Oranges. In China the government decides who gets blocked. In the U.S., the government AND the corporations will decide.
So see, that's a lot better...right?
Re:Prohibition (Score:5, Insightful)
It worked so well for drugs they decided to try it on personal freedom that you now get groped and you can't say shit.
This goes after online communications.
Soon they will be tapping every phone and steaming open every letter and parcel.
Search engine over HTTPS without logs of any kind (Score:5, Insightful)
What surprises me here is that they want to block the "worst of the worst" and they haven't even mentioned the tired old kiddie porn angle... that is certainly worse than anything! The only way they could surprise me more is by being so honest as naming the future targets: all sites opposing corporations in any way and all sites that spread generic 'anti-american' messages (a.k.a. terrorists). Wikileaks will be one of the first of the sites we know that will be blocked like this... all such sites after that will not even be known to anyone when they are blocked, not listed in searches and not mentioned in media.
Doubleplus goodmove Minitrue!!!
Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd love to see this happen. It would force real compromise and talks. You couldn't buy votes with promises to send some $$$ to the senator/representative's district via a rider. (Thus, less pork.) You also couldn't try to torpedo a bill by adding an unreasonable rider that you know nobody would vote for. Instead, you would need to craft a bill that enough people would vote for. You would need to work *WITH* the minority and the excesses of each party could be counter-balanced.
If we can't do this, I'd at least like to see the President have the ability to line item veto things. So he could approve Very-Important-Spending-Bill without approving Rider-That-Restricts-Freedom-Of-Speech. To provide counterbalance, the vetoed riders could be individually voted on by Congress to override the line item veto. (Of course, if the rider has that much support, it should be its own bill, not a rider.)
Of course, none of this will ever happen because it would actually reduce Congress' power. No longer would they be able to funnel money to their districts by holding their votes for ransom and no longer would they be able to just stick any old text to a bill and have it pass because the bill *HAD* to be approved.
Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers (Score:4, Insightful)
Voting libertarian is not the answer. The libertarian party is only an experiment by the owning class to use the desire for freedom to disenfranchise the masses for personal gain. Government needs a certain amount of strength to protect people from economic predation and the return to a class based society where most people are virtual or actual slaves.
There are no parties that actually represent the people and seek to empower their freedom. We need a party that believes in personal liberty but also promotes policy to the benefit of the people instead of corporate entities that serve as the proxies of power for the elite ruling class. Democrats fail. Libertarians fail. Republicans OMG WTF fail. Greens fail just as hard as republicans, but in a different direction.