Posted on 01/18/2012 1:12:38 PM PST by Beowulf9
Tell Congress: Don’t censor the Web
Fighting online piracy is important. The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs.
Too much is at stake – please vote NO on PIPA and SOPA.
Actually, I am confused about this bill, as it was designed by a Republican Senator from Texas, Lamar Smith, and supposedly a Tea Party Member.
I noticed many Freepers against the bill, reading some of the columns here, but then I saw this article:
Which, to me, is very confusing. I am hoping to be enlightened here as regards to all this.
Shenanigans?
It won't be the first time Smith has chosen to confront Internet companies and civil liberties groups. In 2002, he used the same language to defend a proposal -- ultimately unsuccessful -- he supported that would have permitted copyright holders to disable or otherwise impair a peer-to-peer node that they suspected was distributing their intellectual property without permission.This clown repeatedly tries to undermine basic principles of Anglo-American law and replace them with guilt-by-accusation and Big-Brother surveillance. He needs to go.
In 2007, he proposed that sexually explicit Web sites must post warning labels on their pages or face imprisonment. He opposed a journalist shield law for bloggers, and pushed to expand the ability of police to conduct warrantless Internet wiretaps.
It won't be the first time Smith has chosen to confront Internet companies and civil liberties groups. In 2002, he used the same language to defend a proposal -- ultimately unsuccessful -- he supported that would have permitted copyright holders to disable or otherwise impair a peer-to-peer node that they suspected was distributing their intellectual property without permission.
In 2007, he proposed that sexually explicit Web sites must post warning labels on their pages or face imprisonment. He opposed a journalist shield law for bloggers, and pushed to expand the ability of police to conduct warrantless Internet wiretaps.
This clown repeatedly tries to undermine basic principles of Anglo-American law and replace them with guilt-by-accusation and Big-Brother surveillance. He needs to go.
I'm not sure what's "confusing". The anti-Internet special interests schmoozed Lamar Smith and gave a (no doubt well-paying and non-demanding) job to one of his buddies, so he does their bidding. He's a whore.
A rino. Was reading other articles on here about this. Is there no end to these guys? Texas, I hope, will wake up and when it’s time get rid of this guy.
I don’t look at sponsorship of bills anymore. I figure corruption in Congress goes “way beyond birthdays.” (”Patriot Games”)
SOPA in the Senate and PIPA in the House = making sure we get our information from ‘approved’ sources. Pravda is child’s play.
No, stupidity. Lamar Smith is stupid ~ that’s the most likely reason.
Sites that agregate news (like Free Republic) will be dead within days if these bills pass.
If a website like Free Republic, “allows” a user to post a link to a site that has questionable material from a copyright standpoint, under SOPA & PIPA, that site (FR) will lose its website through forfeiture and the site owners may face fines or criminal charges or both.
Foreign sites will be blacklisted, small sites will shutdown if they can’t police every link, and political sites will be in the crosshairs. You can forget about getting your news from overseas sources, from small sources, or from any place that isn’t approved of politically.
These bills have Congress doing copyright policing and asset seizure for huge media companies, which is not a small government idea in any way, shape or form.
I hope everyone here at FR gets that....
SOPA and PIPA will fall under the Commerce Department that is....being merged under 1 ‘agency’ for the ‘sake’ of combining budgets....under the control of the Executive.
So will the Census.
Ergo, the number of ‘viewable’ websites and ‘countable’ people will come under the control of the WH, should these surveillance bills pass.
Also these bills will force Google, search engines, and ISPs, to block sites like Freerepublic. So freerepublic and the whole Internet would die soon after these bills pass.
These bills are the worst attack against freedom I’ve ever seen .To think that anyone with any sense supports these bills boggles the mind.
These politicians and the mainstream media hate the Internet because people like us and sites like Freerepublic expose the truth. These bills would effectively censor and shut down the Internet which is what government wants.
The mainstream media hates this protest and the media have been hiding these bills.
This Lamar Smith is a villain that needs to go.
We can guarantee that these two bills, if passed, will be applied unevenly and with a heavy hand on the right.
These would bankrupt most news aggregation sites within weeks.
There are hundreds if not thousands of links posted on Free Republic every day (countless as articles, and an even greater number in threads). It would be impossible to go to every site posted and search it for copyrighted materials.
Lamar Smith has been bought and paid for. He needs to be kicked out of Congress and out of the GOP.
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