Oregon Senator Wyden effectively kills Internet censorship bill

From: Raw Story

By Stephen C. Webster
Friday, November 19th, 2010 -- 4:27 pm

It's too early to say for sure, but Oregon Senator Ron Wyden could very well go down in the history books as the man who saved the Internet.

A bill that critics say would have given the government power to censor the Internet will not pass this year thanks to the Oregon Democrat, who announced his opposition during a recent committee hearing. Individual Senators can place holds on pending legislation, in this case meaning proponents of the bill will be forced to reintroduce the measure and will not be able to proceed until the next Congress convenes.

Even then, its passage is not certain.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) would have permitted a blanket takedown of any domain alleged to be assisting activities that violate copyright law, based upon the judgment of state attorneys general.

"Deploying this statute to combat online copyright infringement seems almost like using a bunker-busting cluster bomb, when what you need is a precision-guided missile," Wyden said.

The act was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.

"Few things are more important to the future of the American economy and job creation than protecting our intellectual property," said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who co-sponsored the bill.
"That is why the legislation is supported by both labor and industry, and Democrats and Republicans are standing together."

Opponents of the bill insist that many sites which contain allegedly infringing materials also traffic in legitimate data that's constitutionally protected. There's also a fear that whatever action the US takes, other countries will seek to emulate, and some to a much more zealous degree.

Activist group DemandProgress, which is running a petition against the bill, argued the powers in the bill could be used for political purposes. If the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks is found to be hosting copyrighted material, for instance, access to WikiLeaks could be blocked for all US Internet users, they suggested.

A group of academics, led by Temple University law professor David Post, have signed a petition opposing COICA.

"The Act, if enacted into law, would fundamentally alter U.S. policy towards Internet speech, and would set a dangerous precedent with potentially serious consequences for free expression and global Internet freedom," Post wrote in the petition letter (PDF).

"Blacklisting entire sites out of the domain name system," explained the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF), a privacy and digital rights advocate group, is a "reckless scheme that will undermine global Internet infrastructure and censor legitimate online speech."

The EFF has published a list of Web sites it believes are at highest risk of being shut down under the proposed law. Included in the list are file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Mediafire, music mash-up sites like SoundCloud and MashupTown, as well as "sites that discuss and advocate for P2P technology or for piracy," such as pirate-party.us and P2PNet.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, often cited as the father of the world wide web, has called Internet disconnection laws in the name of copyright protection a "blight" on the net.

With prior reporting by Daniel Tencer

A prior version of this report cited Sir Tim Berners-Lee as "the creator of the Internet." He is in actuality the creator of technologies central to the world wide web, namely hyper-text markup language (HTML).

Let's thank him. Write an email/letter.

We need to thank this fine man.

Here's the link for that.

done

had to butcher my address and phone details as it didnt like the uk format
thanked him and left a link to building what

A late thank you to Orangutang

It's late to thank you for that, but I felt bad that someone else, you, fine fellow, had to find it. I started to, got busy, and then you saved the day.

Hallelujah

For now...

Eventually...

This is just delay. Eventually, I think we're going to have overlapping laws that effectively render every single right we have moot, and at the caprice of the upper class. I once though things like naked body scanners were unthinkable. That forcing people to adapt to body scanners by groping their children or threatening them with arrest was a scenario from some kind of fictional horror futurama. But... that's how it works, one step at a time. If you fail to get one of your totalitarian initiatives passed, then rework it and present it again. And again. And again. And again, possibly abusing the vacation season to pass bills furtively, or, even better, exploiting a crisis. Eventually, they always get all of it passed. In the time span of ten years, you can reduce a blossoming democracy to an authoritarian farce.

"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."

— Gideon J. Tucker

And... astonishingly:

"Our history has shown us that insecurity threatens liberty. Yet, if our liberties are curtailed, we lose the values that we are struggling to defend."

— 9/11 Commission Report

The gall!

...

In theory at least, every single loss of liberties requires our acquiescence.

For example, with TSA body scanners, we can refuse to travel by air. Granted, that is a big renunciation. And who 'we' is in terms of how many do that would be critical. But I at least plan to take a train now instead of flying, if body scanning remains a requisite for air travel.

My logic doesn't quite get there vis-a-vis Internet access. That is, I can't imagine any collective act of of non-compliance -- except maybe widespread hacking, to set up alternate webs and the like. What do Chinese hackers do I wonder? They already face this same kind of authoritarian control over web use.

Chinese hackers

...conspired with an Australian hacker to conceive Wikileaks. (crudely interpolated) They are now accused of being CIA by people who don't understand Tor, promote speculation as fact, and believe the only explanation for somebody disagreeing with you is that you are a government operative. (Couldn't resist a snark)

As to what hackers do, well...they have a variety of underground systems to fend off state interference. But eventually, they can be shut down and eradicated as well. It's just that right now, the upper class are too stupid to understand or know about this underworld and so it still has some sovereignty. Their infinitely more aware NSA/CIA/DOD/NRO/Echelon minions and their subcontractors have only a limited amount of human and computational resources, although ever growing. Eventually, the hacker stronghold will evaporate, because (1) the middle class and lower class are equally or even more stupid than the ruling upper class, and so they won't object to any of the retarded, broad brush legislative proposals (2) the vast majority of older people desperately want to be slaves, and enthusiastically endorse totalitarianism and (3) the youngest generation doesn't know any better, and focuses on looking good, lots of sex, drugs and buying stuff.

That about sums it up. And excuse me for my cynical tone lately, it's not you at all, it must be my mood. I'm sharing my chagrin with you. (Lucky you! ;-) Because, regardless of some pyrrhic victories here and there, the net movement of humanity as a whole has been backwards for the past ten years, and with conviction.

...

I honestly think your "1,2,3'" describes 'mankind' as it has always been, and always will be -- and not just since the past ten years. And yes, putting it into words really looks dark and cynical.

Always will be?

Sorry Student but I don't agree with your assessment of mankind. I think we are entering a period of great change. I call it "Childhood's End". I think the human race is growing up and experiencing growing pains. I see the end of the NWO within about 10 years. I also see a new Golden Age for all of us. Actually I am sure of it.

...

Very good. I respond to up-beat assessments, developed by smart people and despite clear-headed vision of what is going on. Thanks.

Abraham Lincoln's old style greenback system is alive and well..

...in China.

Please read Ellen Hodgson Browns book The Web of Debt.

The old style greenback system of currency.
Taught to Dr Sun Yat Sen in Hawaii by Lincoln's economists.
Installed in China and left running to this day despite the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.

Lincolns system haunts and taunts the western oligarchs as IT WORKS.

The Secret of Oz documentary decodes the book The Wizard of Oz.

Explains green is what you need, not gold or siver backing the currency- written before the US was made a debt slave by the Fed.

Governments dont need to borrow.

They dont need to enslave us by taxing our income and passing it on in interest charges on the national debt to private hands.

Relevancy? I think the world IS waking up.

9/11 is perhaps the death throes of the American Empire.

A last flailing grasp at power.

I think more people like Ahmedinejad need to brave-up and speak out.

A reinvestigation, albeit a little late will possibly be part of the collective waking up of the world.

The Chinese see the madness of the oligarch-controlled debt currencies and endebted governments of the west and they're unhooking slowly from the dollar.

There is a global shift towards something more solid where nations can trade without fear of a rich few sending shockwaves and debt through the system- starting depressions so they can forclose, buy up companies and land and properties for pennies on the dollar.

We need a shift to a more efficient system.

Snark This!

"conspired with an Australian hacker to conceive Wikileaks. (crudely interpolated) They are now accused of being CIA by people who don't understand Tor, promote speculation as fact, and believe the only explanation for somebody disagreeing with you is that you are a government operative."

When Julian Assange gets annoyed by the heroic fight for 911 truth, yet portrays himself to be such a hero for truth can only leave me scratching my head trying to wrap my mind around this obviously stupid and uniformed remark, and your apologist reply. 911 Truth involves not mere speculation, it contains facts and evidence. No one can deny (not even the good ole' hackers at Wiki-Leaks) the scientific evidence presented nor contend that physics and gravity didn't behave the same as they do every other day. Poor Wiki-leaks guys, everybody won't believe everything they say and that annoys Julian. Either Julian has made a proclamation into something he knows nothing about and is relying on the world to believe his viewpoint, or he's a CIA stooge. I think the latter.

Apologist?

Where did you first learn about Assange's annoyance with 9/11 truth?

Do tell. And don't tell me it was the Belfast Telegraph, because you don't read it.

CIAssange

Assange discredited himself, I can't believe you are going to bat for his warped logic. What else can I say? Do you really think he has an argument? Please tell me that.

http://911blogger.com/news/2010-07-22/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-a...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-kSuuJrzMo

Thought so.

And who wrote the 911blogger article (which predates the Youtube clip)?

Help Me Out

Should I feel sorry for him, why do you, please explain. Wow check out this--- Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is 'annoyed' by 9/11 truth ...
Jul 26, 2010 ... Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is 'annoyed' by 9/11 truth By SnowCrash 22 Jul 2010 In this interview ['Wanted by the CIA: Wikileaks ...
I guess it was you!

I'm looking in the other direction

that is: a massive psyop against Wikileaks, and Adrian Lamo (ex-hacker turned snitch with proven intelligence ties), Kevin Poulsen (ex-hacker turncoat who writes for wired.com, a national security mouthpiece) and Project Vigilante as key players in this attack.

Assange is wrong about 9/11. I believe that is all. I actually believe that people can disagree with us without being CIA agents. Therefore, I don't use disagreement as a basis for determining if somebody is a CIA agent; I use direct evidence for ties to intelligence, the nature and the context of those ties.

Yes, But...

When a person of his influence say's what he said, the level of repercussions to the truth movement can be immense, especially when were talking about the masses of uninformed populace. You see that is the greatest share of his audience, (ABCNBCBSFOXCNN) they all parrot him and give him a platform. So if under these circumstances you want to support him in any way confuses the shit out of me. But when it comes to Psyops, that is the intended result.

Man overboard

Lets accuse only when there's evidence or good people will be demotivated.
When I started doing street actions a young lady truther asked me if i was MI5- I think as I was older, and wore a suit nearly all the time (at the time post divorce i had been working 7 days a week for practically 2 years and literally only had work clothes - 2 suits for private cab work)
There's no need to infiltrate us when we're doing their work for them and attacking good people.
Just give us 5 fab frames and we'll eat ourselves for years.

V for victory

I'm personally thinking about dropping a V before I go through one of those crotch scanners to stand up in defiance.

Wear a kilt

I like the idea of wearing a kilt. Then enthusiastically invite the pat down.

But then again, ultimately I'd prefer not to take a plane anymore and certainly not to travel to the US. Americans are already rummaging through our bank accounts without any impediment whatsoever, then we have to be looked at naked by some pervert in a box, who saves the scans even though his bosses say he can't.

If we don't want to, we'll be bullied into doing so by sexual intimidation, and during the flight, we have to answer tons of personal questions to prove our innocence. When we arrive, our fingerprints are taken, and perhaps an iris scan.

This is the ongoing reversal of the burden of proof, where everybody is guilty until proven innocent.

This is a nightmare. We need action, constant, unremitting action. Alternatively, those of us who want to live free must relocate. The fascists can have their totalitarian dystopia. I wish them, and the idiots who wish to conform, much luck.

Our biggest enemy is apathy.

Wo xiang qu...

...Zhong Guo (中国)

Another great action. I kept

Another great action. I kept getting warnings from a P2P site I visit and they seemed genuinely scared that this would pass. I signed their petition but I was mostly pessimistic, like, "Well, it's the government. That's what they do. The internet was great while it lasted."

So, when I heard this, it was completely surprising 'cause the trend is always toward a bigger government and very, very, very rarely does somebody succeed when they stand up at the government's growth and their attempts to take our liberties. So, congratulations and thanks to Mr. Wyden for standing up to the bully and preserving our freedom.

(Although I'm still a little confused how just one senator turned the entire tide. But I'll do more research to figure that out.)

...

I think this has to do with the 'committee hearings' feature. The bill had to pass this particular committee, which Ron Wyden is on.

The same bill will be before the same committee, next session. Wyden is still the senator from that state. So he should still be on that committee, but the committee membership may change some. We are definitely not out of the woods.