SOPA on the Ropes with PIPA – Censorship Without Due Process



You probably will be hearing or at least seeing much more about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act); "and such nice names they have", said Little Red Riding Hood, just before her freedoms were attacked by the wolf.





"What's all the fuss?", said the wolf, "I'm just here to stop digital content piracy and protect you". "But, don't you work for the government?", replied the now thoroughly bewildered Red Riding Hood."Yes", said the wolf, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you".


It appears there is digital evidence that members of Congress actually voting on the anti-piracy legislation may themselves be regular violators of the laws they are attempting to pass, according to an article on WND.com (WorldNetDaily).Many constitutional law specialists, technology professionals, web-based start-ups, and even some very large companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Reddit may be getting a very queasy feeling in their stomachs right about now. Congress will try to rush those bills into law.

A report issued by TorrentFreak.com had this to say: ...."we felt that there was at least one place that warranted further investigation – the U.S. House of Representatives. Since it’s the birthplace of the pending SOPA bill, we wondered how many of the employees there have engaged in unauthorized copying. The answer is yet again unambiguous – they pirate a lot."

Big media content providers have had plenty of input on the bills, and stand to gain massive amounts of apparently rather arbitrary powers over just about everyone's freedoms of press and speech on the internet. Internet technology experts and web-based companies of all sizes, however, have had little or no input in formulating the bills which may actually become laws. The consequences of those laws could destroy small and large internet-based companies alike, with greater harm done to the smaller ones and start-ups which have been some of the rare growth engines and job providers for the economy, even in difficult times.

This vague, catch-all legislation gives the Hollywood-based entertainment industry power to censor the internet. As a result, a group of well over one-hundred ideologically diverse law professors have signed a letter stating their opposition to PIPA.


Those Internet law and IP law professors state in their letter, that even the domain-blocking powers alone, amount to internet censorship which is prohibited by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Those professors "teach and write about intellectual property, Internet law, innovation, and the First Amendment".




Quoting from their letter, here are portions of what they said: "....the approach taken in the Act has grave constitutional infirmities, potentially dangerous consequences for the stability and security of the Internet's addressing system, and will undermine United States foreign policy and strong support of free expression on the Internet around the world. The Act would allow the government to break the Internet addressing system....rather than wait until a Web site is actually judged infringing before imposing the equivalent of an Internet death penalty, the Act would allow courts to order any Internet service provider to stop recognizing the site even on a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction issued the same day the complaint is filed. Courts could issue such an order even if the owner of that domain name was never given notice that a case against it had been filed at all".


The letter continues: "The Act goes still further. It requires credit card providers, advertisers, and search engines to refuse to deal with the owners of such sites. For example, search engines are required to “(i) remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the court order; or (ii) not serve a hypertext link to such Internet site.”

"In the case of credit card companies and advertisers, they must stop doing business not only with sites the government has chosen to sue but any site that a private copyright or trademark owner claims is predominantly infringing. Giving this enormous new power not just to the government but to any copyright and trade mark owner would not only disrupt the operations of the allegedly infringing web site without a final judgment of wrongdoing, but would make it extraordinarily difficult for advertisers and credit card companies to do business on the Internet."....

...."The proposed Act has three major problems that require its rejection:

1. Suppressing speech without notice and a proper hearing....
2. Breaking the Internet’s infrastructure....
3. Undermining United States’ leadership in supporting and defending free speech and the free exchange of information on the Internet...." (Emphasis added) (End of quotes from Professors’ Letter).

As a matter of pure function and pragmatism, an excellent reason to kill all of the PIPA, SOPA, and E-PARASITE Act legislation is that it simply does not prevent piracy; it does not work, and can not be implemented technically to make it work. An article on TheVerge.com put it this way: "SOPA and PIPA are the effective equivalent of blowing up every road, bridge, and tunnel in New York to keep people from getting to one bootleg stand in Union Square — but leaving the stand itself alone".


Testifying before Congress, a Viacom executive said the overwhelming majority of piracy is coming from "about twenty websites". Therefore, it is obvious that the SOPA, PIPA, E-PARASITE nuclear bombs of censorship legislation are completely unnecessary.


SOPA implementation would probably mean using something called "deep packet inspection" which analyzes content transmitted to and from the user; an obvious privacy violation concern.

Before this legislation was well understood many giant technology companies supported it. Now, however, some are getting a bit queasy about their own futures, and companies such as Google and Mozilla have expressed their concerns and have withdrawn their support. Mozilla is now strongly opposed to both SOPA and PIPA.
If PIPA or SOPA had existed at the beginning of the internet, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, DropBox, and many more, would not exist today.



Assessment


Large numbers of highly qualified observers and constitutional lawyers are vocal that SOPA & PIPA disregard and violate constitutional requirements for due process in lawful proceedings, and are a clear and present danger to freedoms of speech and press.




Do a Google search for yourself; enter SOPA PIPA CENSORSHIP as your inquiry, and prepare to be stunned.

Topics: Technology News

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