Summary:
In the United States, a new law proposal called The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced last week, andthere will be a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee thisThursday.
If passed, this law will allow the government, under the command of themedia companies, to censor the internet as they see fit, like China andIran do, with the difference that the sites they decide to censor willbe completely removed from the internet and not just in the US.
Please see the following article from the Huffington Post for more information.
Stop the Internet Blacklist
And if you are a US citizen, please take the time to sign this petition
DemandProgress.org - Petition to Stop the Internet Blacklist!
When it really matters to them, Congressmembers can come together -- with a panache and wry wit you didn't know they had. As banned books week gets underway, and President Obama admonishes oppressive regimes for their censorship of the Internet, a group of powerful Senators --Republicans and Democrats alike -- have signed onto a bill that wouldvastly expand the government's power to censor the Internet.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act(COICA) was introduced just one week ago, but it's greased and ready tomove, with a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee this Thursday.If people don't speak out, US citizens could soon find themselvesjoining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broadchunks of the public Internet...
Help us stop this bill in its tracks! Click here to sign our petition.
COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could addsites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control overthe second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcastto PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains onthe first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably thegood favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.
The lists are for sites "dedicated to infringing activity," but that'sdefined very broadly -- any domain name where counterfeit goods orcopyrighted material are "central to the activity of the Internet site"could be blocked.
One example of what this means in practice: sites like YouTube could becensored in the US. Copyright holders like Viacom often arguecopyrighted material is central to the activity of YouTube, but undercurrent US law, YouTube is perfectly legal as long as they take downcopyrighted material when they're informed about it -- which is whyViacom lost to YouTube in court.
But if COICA passes, Viacom wouldn't even need to prove YouTube is doinganything illegal to get it shut down -- as long as they can persuadethe courts that enough other people are using it for copyright infringement, the whole site could be censored.
Perhaps even more disturbing: Even if Viacom couldn't get a court tocompel censorship of a YouTube or a similar site, the DOJ could put iton the second blacklist and encourage ISPs to block it even without acourt order. (ISPs have ample reason to abide the will of the powerfulDOJ, even if the law doesn't formally require them to do so.)
COICA's passage would be a tremendous blow to free speech on the Internet -- and likely a first step towards much broader onlinecensorship. Please help us fight back: The first step is signing our petition. We'll give you the tools to share it with your friends and call your Senator.
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