NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Meet the Real Parasites: Congress Declares Nuclear War on the Global Internet
Meet the Real Parasites: Congress Declares Nuclear War on the Global Internet
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000908.html
We don't have health care. We don't have jobs. Our civil liberties
are being quashed. Income and wealth disparities in this country are
immense and growing more pronounced as each hour passes, making the 1%
richer and the rest of us ... dirt.
So what are our elected representatives in Congress doing to help us
in our time of need?
They're actively working to hand control of the Internet over to law
enforcement and the entertainment industry, to make sure the latter
gets even fatter, and free speech on the Internet becomes a obsolete
concept.
While Congress can't seem to act in a bipartisan manner to do anything
to help the 99% that really need it, the two parties are managing to
join hands to help crush freedom on the Net -- yes, they are equally
culpable in this Orwellian thrust.
You probably already know about the terrible PROTECT IP Act in the
U.S. Senate ( http://j.mp/legUSl [Lauren's Blog] ).
But now the House of Representatives has upped the ante, with their
own "how stupid an acronym can we come up with" anti-Internet
abomination as a companion piece to PROTECT IP. The House's gift to
the 1% is called E-PARASITES (Enforcing and Protecting American Rights
Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act).
I won't even take space here to explain in detail how incredibly,
utterly awful this legislation is, other than to note that it
contemplates a vast U.S.-controlled Web site takedown regime, guts the
DMCA, enforces censorship on search engines like Google, and even
criminalizes attempts to work around censorship -- and much more.
An excellent write-up on this horror can be found here:
http://j.mp/s5RDdM (TechDirt)
Whether all provisions of such legislation can actually become law and
survive court scrutiny is almost beyond the point. The fact that
Congress in a bipartisan manner is willing to even consider such
abominations is a travesty that we must not, can not ignore or forget.
Congress is not only aiming their nuclear anti-freedom bombs at its
own citizens, but at the entire world through the U.S.' control of
large parts of the global domain name system (DNS).
Efforts in E-PARASITES to enact censorship, takedowns without due
process, and to ban circumvention techniques seem more akin to the
kinds of foreign government actions that the U.S. government continues
to officially condemn!
Through PROTECT IP and E-PARASITES, Congress is showing us more about
where their loyalties reside than all of their duplicitous speeches
and position papers put together.
I'll be back on "Coast to Coast AM" radio late tonight with host
George Noory to discuss Congress' attempts to control and censor the
Net, plus other issues (around midnight to 2am PDT).
Please see this list of stations: http://j.mp/aa2R2N (C2C) and
background info about the show: http://j.mp/blIexO (Wired).
Congress chose the names for these terrible legislative efforts. But
to find the real parasites these days, all Congress needs to do is
look into the mirror.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com