‘A few months ago, the proposal of an anti-piracy bill by the name of SOPA caused a great deal of controversy and protest due to the fact that it allowed the snooping of web users while opening the door to the censorship of the internet. The proposal of this law caused companies and internet giants such as AOL, Facebook and Google to openly oppose the bill – some even went as far as making their sites “go dark” for a day as a form of protest. The bill was eventually shelved and internet users rejoiced. But it was a very temporary victory. A new law is set to make the internet a highly monitored place.

Were the anti-SOPA companies genuinely concerned about your privacy? Not really. SOPA simply went against their best interests as it placed the burden of internet surveillance on them.

Now, a new bill by the name of CISPA will be proposed this week and its unprecise wording will make legal all kinds of abuse against privacy and free speech. Is there outrage from internet giants or are there corporate websites going black? Not at all. In fact, several companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Intel, AT&T, Verizon openly support the bill.’

‘Months before the debate about Internet censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users, President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was signed by Obama on October 1 2011, yet is currently the subject of a White House petition demanding Senators be forced to ratify the treaty. The White House has circumvented the necessity to have the treaty confirmed by lawmakers by presenting it an as “executive agreement,” although legal scholars have highlighted the dubious nature of this characterization.’

‘Many of us breathed a sigh of relief when an overwhelming amount of Americans banned together and voiced their opposition to Congress over both the Stop Online Piracy Act, and Protect Intellectual Property Act.

Sites that dimmed the screen for a day or two have gone back to normal — Facebook users have swapped their anti-SOPA images for their previous profile pictures.

We may have even believed that the postponement of the vote originally scheduled for January 24th was some sort of white flag of capitulation. But that is certainly not the MO of most lawmakers. While the outcry did get the attention of Congress, they are simply returning unflinchingly back to the drawing board to wait out our attention spans.’

‘The official website for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation is the latest victim in a massive online attack against both the government and entertainment industry.

The Bureau’s official website, FBI.gov, went down Thursday evening after hacktivists participating in campaigns waged by the loose knit collective Anonymous attacked a series of sites in retaliation for a raid earlier in the day against the Megaupload service.

‘Despite Google’s much-heralded support for the anti-SOPA movement, the web giant is already enforcing SOPA-like policies of its own, blacklisting legitimate websites from its news aggregator and following government orders to remove material from its search results and You Tube.

As major Internet giants joined forces yesterday to protest legislation that would hand the U.S. government power to arbitrarily seize websites with no legal process under the pretext of copyright infringement, Google slapped a black censorship image over its logo and urged people to sign an anti-SOPA petition that has accrued over 5 million signees.

However, Google’s main issue with SOPA is seemingly not related to their concerns about Chinese-style web censorship becoming commonplace, but rather which entity gets to wield those powers – large transnational corporations or governments.

While Google criticizes SOPA publicly, it is already privately using SOPA-like powers to unfairly marginalize legitimate web content.’

A screenshot from tumblr protesting against SOPA

‘SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a proposed bill that has the potential of ending freedom of speech on the internet. While it appears to be about piracy and “protecting copyrights”, the bill gives the power to corporations to complain to law enforcement to have websites shut down. To many, this is a step too and goes way beyond fighting illegal downloads. Here’s an article from CNN Money about internet companies (many of which have close ties to the government) opposing this bill.

Tech giants say SOPA piracy bill is ‘draconian’

A proposed new bill intended to combat online piracy has sparked a giant backlash from big tech companies, including Google and Facebook, who say the proposals are far too strict and rife with unintended consequences.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was introduced in the House of Representatives in late October, aims to crack down on copyright and trademark issues. Its targets include “rogue” foreign sites like torrent hub The Pirate Bay.

Protecting content is a worthy goal, but here’s the flip side: Opponents say SOPA — and a similar bill called the Protect IP Act that is making its way through the Senate — effectively promotes censorship.

If SOPA passes, copyright holders would be able to complain to law enforcement officials and get websites shut down. The law would also force intermediaries like search engines and payment processors to withhold their services from targeted websites.

That would be quite a change from the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which mandates that companies “act in good faith” to remove content that infringes on copyrights and other intellectual property laws.

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt called the bill “draconian” during a speech in Boston on Tuesday.

Google and other tech behemoths — AOL, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga — also lodged a formal complaint on Tuesday in the form of a letter sent to key Senate and House lawmakers.’