
US Bill Creating the Great Firewall of America - stupandaus
http://theagilepanda.com/2011/11/15/us-bill-creating-the-great-firewall-of-america/
======
domador
Here's one form of protest I'd like to see:

Assuming Google wants to take a significant stance against this bill, they're
in a unique position to raise people's awareness of its awfulness. They could
put some text on the Google homepage and/or a link to a protest page informing
Americans about this threat. (Google might need to set up their own page, to
avoid overwhelming an external site with traffic.) Other creative
possibilities come to mind:

\- Changing the "I'm feeling lucky" button to "I'm feeling very unlucky" and
linking to the protest page

\- Posting a terrifying, yet appealing Google Doodle that links and lures
users to the protest page

\- Announcing and then holding a scheduled, minute-long search outage, where
all search traffic is redirected to the protest page (which would include an
explanation of why searches were temporarily redirected)

Technically savvy users might be aware of SOPA and the threat it poses, yet
the "average" American is probably unaware of what their elected
representatives are doing to their digital future. They need to know, and hold
their representatives accountable.

\----

Disclaimer: I am not an American, but feel a need to speak up, given the huge
effect U.S. law has on the whole Internet.

~~~
roc
I'd much rather see a large organized event by individual web sites than
unilateral action by Google.

Not least among my reasons being that I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for
Google to act.

~~~
joeyh
I remember a broad campaign of website blackouts, blue ribbons, etc, to
protest the DMCA in 1998. Which accomplished approximatly nothing except
raising general awareness I'm afraid.

~~~
yuhong
Luckily, Silicon Valley is a much stronger lobby today.

~~~
akdetrick
In all of the news and outcry surrounding SOPA, this is the most puzzling
thing. I would be surprised to learn that the lobby of those in support of
this bill is stronger than of those against.

Unless I'm wrong about the relative strength of these opposing lobbies, it
hardly makes sense that SOPA seems to have so much traction among legislators.

------
mmaunder
I'm worried that the approach I'm seeing to stopping this bill gives the
impression that it's supporters are simply "protesters" who support online
piracy.

The article on agilepanda is well written but the site at
<http://americancensorship.org/> focuses on website blocking, jail time if you
"stream a copyrighted work" and the very general threat of "Chaos for the
Internet". It's the wrong approach IMO.

The decision makers, or our target market for this if you'd prefer, are
congress, the senate and the president. There's an election coming up and we
have real power we can wield. So here's my suggestion:

1\. Make it crystal clear that replacing the DMCA with SOPA will kill many of
the job creation machines coming out of Silicon Valley and the rest of the
USA. It will prevent the creation of new businesses like Facebook that can
only exist through user generated content and who generate billions in tax
revenue and jobs for the US economy. If a representative supports this bill
they are making it clear they don't support job creation in the USA.

2\. Make it clear that this is not about online piracy, but about government
control of a free communications medium. It is tantamount to the US government
taking control of the country's newspapers and having the ability to
selectively block the publication of editions they don't approve of.

3\. Call your local congressman and senator and let them know that if they
support SOPA, they don't support job creation in the USA and they oppose
freedom of communication. Let them know two things: If they support SOPA you
will not vote for them and you will encourage everyone you know to do the
same. Secondly, let them know you will contact every major political donor in
the area and make them aware of the representatives stance on the issue and
how it endangers American business and innovation.

If we simply "protest" by shutting down our websites or sitting in the street,
we risk getting lumped with the Occupy movement. However you may feel about
that, what our politicians are most afraid of is losing their jobs and losing
their funding. So lets hit them where it really hurts and take the power back.

~~~
grellas
Excellent comment. Any appeal to Congress that disrespects the value of
copyright will not fly because, as the general public sees it, it is a serious
problem when people have the value of their creative efforts diminished as
they are spread across the web without compensation. The DMCA was never
intended to protect infringers. It was designed to ensure that ISPs did not
get caught in the cross-fire as copyright holders sought to protect their
interests against those who did infringe. To do that, the ISPs had to abide by
certain rules aimed at protecting copyright holders and their reward for doing
this was to get "safe harbor" protection that shielded them from liability for
the infringements that did occur on their sites. SOPA seeks to rip those
protections away by effectively removing that shield. It also allows for what
amounts to the creation of blacklists that will force search engines to ban
allegedly transgressing sites from public view. All in all, then, it gives to
the copyright holders (and to the Justice Department) a set of tools that will
enable them to attack the websites directly for the infringements of others.
In essence, this flips the DMCA on its head. Whereas DMCA nurtured the growth
of the web by shielding innocent conveyers of information from liability as
long as they played by the rules, SOPA (should it pass) will inhibit any such
growth going forward by giving lawsuits and legal proceedings a central place
in the copyright enforcement scheme across the web. This is why fledgling
startups will be vulnerable to getting killed off before they can realize
their potential: the copyright police will be there to shut them down before
they can even develop proper systems for SOPA-style compliance. In other
words, the issues here concern primarily the burden of litigation and whether,
as a matter of public policy, people who have legitimate rights (copyright
holders) should be given broad latitude to sue intermediate parties over what
usually are infringements or whether they should be restricted in their right
to impose liability on such intermediate parties, thereby giving such parties
the room to breathe and to grow as companies and to further the information
goals of the web itself. This is an important policy debate, and the people on
the other side of it are not innately evil in arguing their case. I think they
are wrong, very wrong, and that the consequences of what they are trying to do
will be highly detrimental, as a matter of policy, to the future growth of the
web. But it is important that the opposition to this not be centered on _ad
hominem_ attacks. That only detracts from the strength of the case to be made
for internet freedom and growth and does indeed allow the opposition to
dismiss bona fide complaints by casting SOPA opponents as people who are not
focused rightly on the serious issues involved in this debate.

~~~
ericd
This is a great summary of the core issues with this. If you or someone else
writes this up in an easy to digest fashion for laymen, I (and I'm sure
others) would be happy to link to it on our websites. I'm currently linking
here: <http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/> , but if that can be improved upon
with less of an occupy-sounding slant, I'd love to support it.

------
Tichy
I am very pessimistic, because it seems governments just won't stop trying to
pass such laws (the same thing is going on in Germany where I live). If this
time it fails, they will just try again, until eventually they succeed.

In Germany the law is pushed under the pretense of fighting child pornography.
Some people who are against it are now being described in media as people who
are against fighting child pornography - even by tech magazines that should
have a better understanding.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_I am very pessimistic, because it seems governments just won't stop trying to
pass such laws_

And by definition, they have deeper pockets than us -- they can afford to push
it farther than we can, because in the end, they control the guys with the
guns who can come and take everything away from us.

A few years back I was involved in a local controversy. The local authorities
made three tries to pass a referendum, being rejected each time. Finally, on
the fourth try, they were victorious. There was no difference between what was
proposed in #3 and #4, except:

1\. They changed voting hours, so that polls were only open in the afternoon;
and

2\. They sent postcards to the entire town (paid for by us, of course)
containing information that was objectively false. [1]

\-----

[1] Not relevant to this discussion, but the referendum was for school
construction. The proposal contained a bunch of frills such as expanding the
cafeteria. The false mailing I mentioned explicitly stated that the proposal
was for classroom space only, which was patently false. But the mailing was
timed to arrive the afternoon before the vote, when it was too late to do
anything about it. And they knew we couldn't afford a lawyer, and the amount
that could be done _ex post facto_ was limited anyway. No one ever held them
to account.

~~~
jbooth
Let's be honest, the drivers behind this are the content companies and various
individual legislators. They're the ones who keep pushing it every time it
fails. "Government" as it pertains to legislation is just a collection of 535
individuals (adjust figure for your nationality). Smoothing that all into a
single proper noun will hamper understanding of what's actually going on.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_"Government" as it pertains to legislation is just a collection of 535
individuals (adjust figure for your nationality). Smoothing that all into a
single proper noun will hamper understanding of what's actually going on._

That's true in one sense. However, pretending that everything would work out
fine were it not for a few bad apples will certainly hamper attempts to keep
the system running properly.

It would be far better to acknowledge that much of the behavior of a democracy
results from Public Choice Theory, and so it's going to work out this way even
if your favored politicians are lucky enough to win the election. With that
out of the way, we can start to shore up the places where the system is
vulnerable to malfeasance.

~~~
jbooth
Yeah, I agree actually, I wasn't claiming it's "just a few bad apples" when we
just had a throw out the bums election and the new bums are just as welcoming
to anyone with a check to sign. IMO the bad apples here are the lobbyists who
seem to be a permanent fixture.

So, 2 steps:

1) Call congressmen to directly remedy problem in this particular case (I
haven't done this but should, they do listen).

2) Address the problem of lobbying generally, that's a bigger discussion and
every idea I have to fix it could have unintended consequences.

------
jerfelix
It's great to see the EFF, the Free Software Foundation, and other big freedom
fighters opposing this bill. (See <http://americancensorship.org/> ).

But are any of the big corporations fighting it? Google / YouTube? Microsoft?
Apple? Come on guys! Step up! (or am I just missing their statements on this
bad bill?)

I think a "Stop Censorship" black banner across the Google logo tomorrow would
go a long way toward defeating this.

~~~
albertsun
Sad testament to the state of the policy making process in this country that
the most we can hope for to stop one terrible piece of legislation advanced by
corporations to further theirs interests is for another set of corporations to
oppose it to further their diverging interests.

~~~
jimkogs
Is it really sad? Corporations wield a lot of power; that's why we built them.
What would be sad is if they fail to stand up for our interests.

And then we might have to do something about it.

~~~
albertsun
It is. Corporations exist for the purpose of maximizing their own profits.
Government policy making should be about maximizing the people's well being.
These might sometimes be related ends, but they're far from being the same
thing.

------
shahidhussain
It's intensely disappointing to see politics conforming to its stereotype, and
making short-sighted decisions about this. It's wonderful to see calls across
the net, led by the EFF and others, to stop this craziness.

That said - I feel like we've been here before. Bills that blindly support
control of ideas and technologies seem to waft their way into Washington on a
regular basis, and each time we're angry and afraid and annoyed.

What can we do to stop this happening again?

~~~
bryanh
In all honestly, it would be by removing virtually all business interests from
politics. No corporate donations, no PAC's, extremely reduced effectiveness of
lobbyists, etc...

Good luck getting politicians to bite the hand that feeds them.

------
Aloisius
I know everyone here is busy, but call your Representatives on the phone.
<http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml>

Protesting is fine. Donating money to the EFF is fine. But truly angry phone
calls by constituents are extremely powerful.

------
zobzu
You know, they are trying to pass the same bill in France at the same time. I
wouldn't doubt other countries are concerned as well.

Pretty much a censorship worldwide effort going on.

------
philfreo
Just a friendly reminder to donate to the EFF:

<https://supporters.eff.org/donate>

------
jneal
I'm not against trying to eliminate piracy, but I don't understand how any
politicians can back this with a clear conscience. A bill that does things
without having to be found guilty is an obvious anti-constitutional bill and
should be destroyed immediately. We are innocent until proven guilty in this
country, or so we are led to believe.

------
strickjb9
Google didn't help China censor the internet (as stated in the 1st paragraph).
It makes it very hard to read the rest of the article after seeing this. In
fact, Google pulled its services out of China because it wouldn't succumb to
censorship requests. Google this --> "google pulls out of china"

~~~
stupandaus
The article linked was from 2005. They actively helped China censor the
Chinese web prior to 2010. I was actually over there prior to, during, and
after they pulled out. Prior to 2010, Google operated google.cn as a filtered
web search, similar to Baidu now.

~~~
strickjb9
Okay, that makes more sense. Google did try and play ball for a little
while...

------
bambax
> _On October 26, 2011, the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) was introduced in
> the House of Representatives..._

Mmm, no. That may be the ultimate result (or maybe privacy died long ago) but
SOPA stands for Stop Online _Piracy_ Act, not _Privacy_...

~~~
stupandaus
Thanks for catching that. Fixed now.

------
stupandaus
Wow. I did not expect this blog post to blow up like this. I wish it was under
less auspicious circumstances.

On a slightly related note, does anyone know how to fix the e-mail
subscription widget in WordPress? I'm getting complaints that it is giving
'invalid e-mail' errors when people are adding valid e-mails.

~~~
jongraehl
Auspicious is good (roughly: causing hope, or offering opportunity).

~~~
stupandaus
You are indeed correct. I was searching for inauspicious. Hah.

------
cHalgan
I think the only way how this can be fixed it that they pass SOPA since
western democracies seems to be broken beyond repair.

This bill will severely affect the very last growth engine in the US (that is
internet) and the US (and the rest of the world) will sunk into even deeper
recession. In other words, this bill will slow down or even prevent "paradigm
shift in the economy" which is needed to start recovery of the global economy.

And this prolonged deep recession will fuel occupy WallStreet and similar
movements and eventually, after a lot bad things (wars, riots, etc.), the new
version of democracy will arise: the democracy were the constituents are
people and not corporations.

This is my pessimistic view but history seems to be on my side :(

------
mw63214
why not make a "one vote, one cause, one day" type of widget that can be
easily added to any website( configurable to square, horizontal rectangle,
vertical rectangle, etc...). Similar to the HN forum, you can create a 'cause'
thread, design a logo/message for that cause, and the cause can be voted on.
The highest ranked cause of that particular day is displayed for 24 hours,
then reset back to 0 votes to even the playing field for other causes. Is
anyone else starting to see my vision for this? Does this already exist?

------
entrepreneur123
A lot of great comments. No action. When it comes to issues of a vote (like
this), im sorry to report - we've lost our say in the matter.

Some would say "that's why we elect people, to do this for us" don't you get
it? Politicians aren't out to help you. They have their own agenda. Unless
your padding their campaign coiffer, your falling on def ears.

------
einhverfr
The fundamental problem is that this is a part of a larger shift towards what
is IMO an Unconstitutional government of prosecutors instead of a government
of laws. These include mandatory sentencing guidelines, reductions in the
discretion judges have in other areas, and the like. The idea is that the
powers get shifted gradually onto prosecutors so they can go after bad guys,
but that means eventually all of us can be prosecuted too.

In addition to the real problems with this act, try reading "Three Felonies A
Day" by Harvey Silverglate (EFF and ACLU veterine, co-founder of FIRE)

------
twoodfin
> SOPA puts in provisions that allows the US to control the internet the same
> way that the PRC does in China.

I'm against SOPA, but the idea that it would permit the U.S. government,
should it so desire, to set up Chinese-style censorship of the internet is
nonsense on stilts. You can take any power of the government and theorize
about what could happen if it ran unchecked: "What if they define talking
about Occupy Wall Street to be piracy‽" "What if President Obama declared
_you_ an enemy combatant‽"

Our laws don't work that way. For one, when it ends up in the courts, they're
going to read it as narrowly as needed to accomplish its purpose (obviously,
in this case, copyright enforcement). If the law is stupidly written in such
an over-broad way that it can't be balanced against other rights and
interests, it will be thrown out. For another, we don't live in a one-party
autocracy: We have deep cultural norms favoring rights and freedoms. That
permeates not just the electorate, but the people elected and appointed to
execute the laws. Obviously we disagree from time to time about the trade-offs
to be made, but those very disagreements make it harder for some rogue
executive to go off the rails; there's always someone else ready to take his
place after the next election.

This is a long way of saying that hyperbole like this is never going to win
you a policy argument.

~~~
stupandaus
I wasn't intending to speak in hyperbole, although I understand that I may
have come across that way. I tried not to dive into too technical of stuff,
but provisions to allow control of DNS servers is not something to be taken
lightly. In addition, the SOPA model puts the burden of proof on the accused
party and allows the alleged infringed rightsholder to suspend their services
immediately upon making a claim.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that this is a huge shift in the
balance of power which makes it end up sounding like hyperbole.

~~~
twoodfin
All that is fine, but the Chinese analogy is inapt.

~~~
stupandaus
Yeah. I guess in the end I am still speaking in hyperbole whenever I compare
it to the Chinese situation. Unfortunately, I feel like the non-technical
populace simply won't understand it any other way. There are no comparable
systems. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that we have at this time the luxury of
broaching this subject lightly. I tried to avoid being heavy-handed about it
as much as possible, but I don't know how else to approach it.

------
Andrew_Quentin
It seems that what happened to wikileaks has become a blue print on how to
deal with dissent. The demos allowed such monopolistic organisations such as
visa and mastercard and the demos allowed the rest of what happened to
wikileaks. We, the people, are to be blamed for not being willing to fight to
retain our powers.

------
wavephorm
It is truly frightening to see how far-reaching authoritarian legislation like
this can get fast-tracked into law. The same thing happened with the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars, the Patriot Act, and the Department of Homeland Security.

I can confidently predict this legislation will not be stopped.

------
maeon3
Enter stage right the mellinum of the copyproof bit. Delete those words
citizen before I taze you.

~~~
Raphael
So people start speaking in code.

