NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Battling Internet Censorship: The Long War
Battling Internet Censorship: The Long War
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000931.html
There's a lot of understandable enthusiasm about today's array of
anti-SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), anti-PIPA (Protect IP Act)
demonstrations and protests.
But there's a real risk as well. When the big home page banners come
down, and the site "blackouts" are lifted, the urge for the vast
majority of Internet users to return to "business as usual" will be
very strong.
Perhaps you've signed an online petition or tried to call your
Congressman or Senator today, and you've probably already heard that
DNS blocking provisions (at least for the moment, pending "further
study") were announced as being pulled from SOPA and PIPA several days
ago.
So you might be tempted to assume that the battle is over, the war is
won, and that -- as Maxwell Smart used to say -- "Once again the
forces of niceness and goodness have triumphed over the forces of evil
and rottenness."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the forces arrayed in favor of Internet censorship are not
only powerful and well funded, but are in this game for the very long
haul indeed. A day of demonstrations to them, as annoying as they may
be to these censorship proponents in the very short run, are in the
final analysis more like a single human lifetime compared against the
centuries.
PIPA is coming up for an important vote shortly, and word is that SOPA
will likely reemerge (with its horrific search engine censorship
provisions intact) next month.
Even if there are further delays and changes, it is inconceivable that
pro-censorship forces, given the depths of their economic beliefs and
disdain for Internet free speech, will ever give up.
Like zombies rising repeatedly in an old horror movie, they will keep
pouring money into Congress and be continually working on strategies
to remake the Internet in their own images.
This may involve SOPA and PIPA. It will likely also involve new
legislation down the line that hasn't even yet been introduced, some
standalone, some possibly buried in other bills. Censorship arguments
will expand to include law enforcement wish lists, "protect the
children" arguments, and every other pro-censorship stakeholder wish
list that you can imagine.
The battle against Internet censorship is literally a war without end.
Pro-censorship alliances will shift and change over time, the names of
involved legislation may be different, but the overall thrust will
stay essentially the same, and the trend will always be toward more
censorship, not less.
All of this is true even if we ignore the possibility of a horrific
triggering event like a terrorist attack that enables vast new
knee-jerk civil liberties crackdowns.
We must be prepared to battle censorship on the Internet as a matter
of our everyday lives. That means a continual presence in Washington
and other capitals around the world, not just collectively but in
terms of constant long-term campaigns of individually written letters
and direct phone calls to our own elected officials -- both among the
most effective techniques -- short of suitcases full of cash.
Educational campaigns explaining why the battles against Internet
censorship are so crucial must continue on our sites, and in our other
personal and professional communications as well, every single day.
We cannot be complacent. These efforts to preserve free speech on the
Net can never end, or we will all lose one of the Internet's most
important wonders, and our civil rights -- both off and on the
Internet -- will be snuffed out like a candle in the darkness, with
only a waft of digital smoke left behind as a memory of what might
have been.
Today's anti-censorship demonstrations were but the first sounding of
the bugle, the first loud call to arms.
The war to protect free speech and fight censorship on the Internet is
guaranteed to long outlive us all.
--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
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