Posted on 12/01/2010 4:20:46 PM PST by Whenifhow
Censorship and suppression live on at DHS and ICE. Remember, First They Came for the Bloggers… The copyright infringement travesty just goes on and on. Another holiday and another crackdown on America. From the TSA violating your Fourth Amendment rights, to the jackbooted thugs raiding farms, to the FCC clamping down on conservative free speech, to the silencing of voices on the web – I think you know where this leads and Americans better find their voices and stop this before somebody gets cranky…
The U.S. government under the guise of DHS and ICE have just seized the BitTorrent search engine. The investigative arm of the Homeland Security Department appears to be shutting down websites that they deem to have facilitated copyright infringement.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seized dozens of domain names over the past few days, according to TorrentFreak. From TorrentFreak:
"Following on the heels of this week’s domain seizure of a large hiphop file-sharing links forum, it’s clear today that the U.S. Government has been very busy. Without any need for COICA, ICE has just seized the domain of a BitTorrent meta-search engine along with those belonging to other music linking sites and several others which appear to be connected to physical counterfeit goods."
No notice – no due-process… Just a message and a graphic telling them that the government has taken them down. I would just like to point out that the terms “terrorist” and “copyright infringement” seem to be very fluid according to our government now. They can mean virtually anything they want them to mean and target ANYONE they want to collectively shut up. Who needs the Constitution or the law, when you can regulate or use an executive directive or seize anyone/anything you want – since of course, our government is now ABOVE THE LAW. Our rights have now officially become a joke (no warrant necessary any more) and many of us are not laughing.
While I am sure a number of these sites are violating one law or another (Atlas Shrugs comes to mind – there are sooo many any more, you can’t keep track), the point is that you used to know that these things followed a set of rules; that due process ruled the day and justice (usually) was served. Not anymore. The Internet and it’s denizens including bloggers are now being subjected to the medieval whims and wishes of a federal Sheriff of Nottingham. Where art thou Robin Hood?
All this is occurring while Congress considers the Combatting Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). Critics are screaming against this bill, including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) who is saying the bill goes way too far. He has vowed to put a formal hold on the bill. While I agree with him, I don’t trust him either – me thinks there is some other progressive agenda afoot here. But even a number of progressives are ticked over this one.
COICA is the largest and most comprehensive internet censorship proposal in the history of this country. It would give Attorney General Eric Holder the power to create a blacklist of websites and force all companies that do business in the United States to comply with that blacklist. Do you really think that this will stop at music web sites?
I can foresee a morning when a blogger sits down to post and sees the same graphical message displayed on their screen. The hell with first amendment rights – they will have no recourse. Any video or graphic that is claimed to not have been public domain will give the government the right to shut you down. And you can’t defend yourself. Period. If the powers that be don’t like what you say or how you say it, you will be silenced. COICA will be used as a gigantic club to silence dissent. Copyright blacklisting will morph into political extremism blacklisting. Mark my words on this…
I suggest you read all of the following article: Stop the COICA. It lays it out very nicely and horrifically. It’s beginning to feel a lot like Nazi Germany in America.
A lot of conservatives who are unclear on the concept of ‘precedent’ should not be surprised if FR gets taken down without notice because some poster posted a portion of a copyrighted article or story on the site. COICA is not a scalpel, it is a sword and a scythe and it will be entrusted to people who hate people like us with a murderous fervor.
We’re all part of Bill Ayer’s “25 million” and to think we’d be left alone is sheer delusion.
The ones who needlessly excerpt to get hits or the ones
that rip off a video and pimp it for hits? Which ones?
Most of the bloggers I see are hit-pimping scumbags.
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