Happy #BlackoutSOPA Day!

During the Bush years, the majority of Americans stood behind the president and Congress in support of the PATRIOT Act.  This bill was passed just weeks after the 9/11 attacks and our federal government promised that it would ensure our protection in the wake of the most horrific attack on American soil in 60 years.  Some civil libertarians were concerned with provisions in the PATRIOT Act which stripped people of their right to due process and habeas corpus, but little was done.  In 2006, there was a second wave of bills, the Military Commissions Act and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which further assaulted the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments to the Constitution.  We were told the provisions were needed to "protect" us from the big bad terrorists.  As Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, "they who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Recently, this assault on our rights has been accelerated due to the "left cover" the Peace President has provided the Powers That Be.  The National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 has suspended the right to a trial or a lawyer in the case of people "suspected" of "supporting" terrorism.  These suspects can be detained until the end of the War on Terror (indefinitely).  The language of the bill is so vague that it can be applied for a variety of reasons and even includes provisions which would allow the military to arrest American citizens in the United States - a direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.  During the debate, congressmen denied that this would apply to American citizens.  After the bill was passed, we were told that this bill DID apply to American citizens, but don't worry the President threatened to veto it.  When it came down to it, though, it was signed into law on New Year's Eve, while Americans were busy getting drunk, by the same President who promised to veto the bill.  But don't worry, he said in a signing statement that he would not use the military on Americans...

Now Congress is at it again with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).  Supporters of these bills say that SOPA and PIPA will put a stop to the illegal downloading of movies, music, and other copyrighted material.  What they do not tell anyone is that, once again, the bill is written in vague language and threatens to curtail freedom of speech on the Internet.  For example, an entire website (say, Facebook) could be shut down if a single person (one of the millions of users?) shared a YouTube clip that they did not have explicit permission to share.  This is a theoretical example, but according to many experts this could happen.

With this is mind, I am joining Google, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Reddit, hundreds of other sites and thousands of people across this country in an action to demonstrate what could happen if SOPA and PIPA pass and are implemented into law.  You will not see any updates from this site between 8 AM EST and 8 PM EST.

Learn more here:  

SOPA Blackout

Stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation

The Web To Go Black To Protest Censorship Bills