Stop the Great Firewall of America [ Huffington Post rules to be applied over entire web ]

nytimes.com ^ | Nov 16 2011 | By REBECCA MacKINNON

[NoLibZone]

China operates the world’s most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China’s Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America.

The legislation — the Protect IP Act, which has been introduced in the Senate, and a House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act — have an impressive array of well-financed backers, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech as China does, but to protect American intellectual property. Alarm at the infringement of creative works through the Internet is justifiable. The solutions offered by the legislation, however, threaten to inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world.

The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

See also:

Dictatorship.

Or if you like: Hugo Chavez

[South40]

Kuff the PuffingtonHo.

[HiTech RedNeck]

This is, very sadly, a common problem with Republicans “as we know them.” Draconian IP proposals have time and again gotten close to passage, if not actually passed (like the Mickey Mouse copyright extension that Disney bought) with little thought to how that would play out in a litigation-laden world, and the climate of paralysis it would engender. This is one of the very few areas where Democrats are laxer about the government hand.

In the meantime, virtually nothing is done (by either party) about the open robbery committed abroad by countries like China.

[af_vet_rr]

Any politician that represents me and supports this, they will not be getting my support or vote in the future. This legislation would make it easy to block Free Republic.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Most of the education about the inadvertent ills of overly enthusiastic approaches to copyright protection ironically comes from the left, people like EFF. The occasional Libertarian has a say but they are few and far between. So the Republicans who advance this hear only cheerleading from vested interests who would probably see their own losses fall by a miniscule amount at best. IP rights being something that is entirely created by government (to point out that the US Constitution authorizes them misses the truth that the government must actually legislate them into existence and dictate their scope), it is no surprise that all kinds of unintended consequences result if the matter is not handled carefully.

[TBP]

I’m a copyright holder and obviously I want my rights protected, but this is just using copyright as a backdoor way to control speech and evade the First Amendment.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Stop the presses! The author of this article has in the past been associated with

GEORGE SOROS' OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/fellowship/fellows/mackinnon_2009

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

According to the bottom of the NY Slimes article:

============Rebecca MacKinnon, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a founder of Global Voices Online, is the author of the forthcoming “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom.”===============

The New America Foundation is funded by George Soros. As I look at this list, I see a lot of foundation names I recognize.

http://newamerica.net/about/funding

$1,000,000+
The Ford Foundation
The New York Community Trust
The Rockefeller Foundation

$250,000-$999,999
Blue Shield of California Foundation
Broadmap, LLC
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Foundation to Promote Open Society
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The James Irvine Foundation
Peter G. Peterson Foundation
The Pew Charitable Trusts
Wendy and Eric Schmidt
Bernard and Irene Schwartz

$100,000-$249,999
Analytic Services, Inc.
Arizona State University
Atlantic Advocacy Fund, Inc.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Citi Foundation
Community Foundation for National Capital Region
Foundation for Child Development
William Gerrity
Google, Inc.
Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
The Hauser Foundation
Leo Hindery
Carolyn and Jeffrey Leonard
Lumina Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Microsoft Corporation
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Smith Richardson Foundation
W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation
Surdna Foundation
United States Institute of Peace
Richard Vague
Visa Inc.

$50,000-$99,999
Consolidated Contractors Corporation
Walter and Elise Haas Fund
Florence W. Haase
The HAND Foundation
The F. B. Heron Foundation
Knight Foundation
Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ploughshares Fund
Proteus Fund
The Christopher Reynolds Foundation, Inc.
Save the Children
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Stuart Foundation
Urban Affairs Coalition
The Wyncote Foundation

$25,000-$49,999
Meena and Liaquat Ahamed
Arnhold Foundation
The ARCA Foundation
Neal Baer
Bank of Palestine
Colombe Foundation
Council on Foundations
The Family Independence Initiative
Fourth Freedom Forum
Zachary Karabell
Justine Kilpatrick
Ruth and David Levine
Levi Strauss Foundation
Lexington Institute
The A.L. Mailman Family Foundation, Inc.
MARS
Lenny T. Mendonca
Open Society Institute
F. Noel Perry
Lois Quam and Matt Entenza
State of California
Van Evera Family Account
George Wasserman Family Foundation

$10,000-$24,999
American Association for Advancement of Science
American Osteopathic Association
Cynda Collins Arsenault
Anonymous
Ben & Jerry’s Foundation
The Colorado Trust
The Commonwealth Fund
Consumer Electronics Association
Craigslist Charitable Trust
Global Environment Fund
Janelia Foundation
Richard Lounsbery Foundation, Inc.
Peter Marber
National Campaign to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancy
Parsa Community Foundation
Ann Phillips
The George and Rhonda Salem Family Foundation
TICAS, Inc.
Time Warner Cable
United Nations Development Programme
Daniel Yergin

$1,000-$9,999
Barry B. Anderson
The Asia Foundation
Benton Foundation
Christopher Reynolds Foundation
Columbia University in the City of NY
Dan Crippen
Robert H. Dugger
The Ettinger Foundation
Victor H. Fazio
Free Press
Frank Fukuyama
Fund for the City of New York
George Mason University
Georgia State University
G. William Hoagland
Japan Bank for International Cooperation
Kerr Foundation
Alan E. Kligerman
Leif Haase
The Leon Foundation
Liberty Hill Foundation
London School of Economics
Benjamin Lumpkin
Myron Sponder Family Trust
PN Corporation
Jon Oberg
The Obernauer Foundation Inc.
Robert Rynbrandt
Rutgers University School of Law
Samuel Rubin Foundation
Social Science Research Council
Stewart R. Mott Foundation
T-Mobile USA

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

============Rebecca MacKinnon, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a founder of Global Voices Online, is the author of the forthcoming “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom.”===============

http://friendsofglobalvoices.org/board/

Rebecca MacKinnon (Chairman)

...

-—————In 2009 she continued her research and writing as an Open Society Institute Fellow, and in——————

[onyx]

Please Donate!!

FReepathon Day 47!!

[Boogieman]

Guilt by association doesn’t invalidate the truth of the article. The government has no business censoring the internet, any more than they have business censoring the traditional press. That is something the right and left should be able to agree on.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Stop the presses! The author of this article has in the past been associated with GEORGE SOROS' OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE

I don't care if she's been associated with the Nazis, the Communists and Penn State football - about this issue, she happens to be right. This legislation will be an absolute disaster for Internet users in the US, and it's being done at the behest of the usual suspects - Big Media trying to preserve it's decrepit business models.

[JoeA]

The effect of the legislation in place is only slightly less pernicious. Upon any challenge to content by attorneys, web sites and hosting services remove content to protect themselves from civil liability. It's a far cry from freedom of the press, where content --the printed word-- continued in production until a clear case of libel or defamation was proven. Currently, I'm involved in a David vs Goliath battle in distributing a book that attorneys claim may be harmful or defamatory. That charge can be leveled at much content, too easily, and often is, to stifle dissent or the truth.

[DH]

Control:

Entertainment
Education
The media
The internet
Free Speech
Guns

.....and you control the people.

Any questions?

[Retro Llama]

The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech

BS! That may not be their rationale, but it most certainly is their aim.

[Retro Llama]

[af_vet_rr]

SOPA can still be easily used to shut down Free Republic.

All it takes is a FReeper posting a YouTube video with a background song that was posted without the permission of the copyright holder, and some liberal reporting it, and FR instantly becomes an accessory to copyright infringement, and it's blocked. And there is no system in place where Jim Robinson can go to court and get such a block reversed.

And if you think liberals won't try and use such tactics against sites like FR, you're smoking something that is probably illegal.