Internet Privacy and Freedom

It is important to be able to speak (or write) freely. It is, of course, also important to give people credit for the property which the are loaning you to use. Copyright infringement is illegal and has been since the inception of this republic, if not longer.

I can remember RIAA, MPAA, and other groups attempting to limit how you could use recording devices, ever since Dolby became available on cassette recorders, they have never been troubled enough to attempt to charge the guilty but they have been very quick to pressure manufacturers and governments to limit the enjoyment of your equipment to stop you from making accurate recordings.

They have done this with cassettes, CD‘s, videotapes, DVD‘s and probably other media that I have forgotten.

Now they want to censor the internet. They apparently don’t want to bear the cost of prosecuting violators. it is far cheaper to infringe on every Americans right to privacy and right to free speech. They have proposed bills in the US Senate and House of Representative that will do exactly that in their forlorn attempt to stop piracy by crony capitalism.

These bills are commonly known as SOPA and PIPA.

As an act of protest, Nebraskaenergyobserver will join many other sites in a protest blackout between 1300 Zulu 18JAN12 and 0100 Zulu 19JAN12 (8am to 8pm EST). You will find that many site are joining this protest including Wikipedia, WordPress itself and many others. According to CNET NEWS:

The tech sector is pulling out the big guns.

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)

Google, the Web’s top search company and one of technology’s most influential powers in Washington, will post a link on its home page tomorrow to notify users of Google’s opposition to controversial antipiracy bills being debated in Congress.

The company confirmed in a statement that it will join Wikipedia, Reddit, and other influential tech firms in staging protests of varying kinds against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), which are backed by big entertainment and media interests. (Read a roundup of our SOPA and PIPA coverage here.)

“Like many businesses, entrepreneurs, and Web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue Web sites without asking American companies to censor the Internet,” a Google representative said. “So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our U.S. home page.”

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In this company I’m not even a cap gun but, my sentiments are as strong as anybody else’s

Over the weekend the White House walked back its support and the House Republicans say it will not pass but, have any of us ever seen the government not gladly gather any power it could to use and misuse.

So we will see you tomorrow evening and hopefully by then the government will have figured out that:

We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

Have a good day.

Related articles

• Wikipedia to be blacked out over SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills (pennlive.com)
• WebHostingBuzz to Blackout on January 18th in Protest of SOPA and PIPA (prweb.com)
• Yes, Google Will Protest SOPA on its Homepage (techcrunch.com)
• Wikipedia, WordPress & 1,500+ Sites to Blackout Tomorrow in Protest: SOPA/PIPA (hudsonhorizons.com)
• Protest SOPA and PIPA bills (socialmediaclub.org)
• MAKE Goes Dark in Protest to SOPA/PIPA (makezine.com)
• (Internet Freedom, But For how Long?) Dead On Arrival: SOPA Shelved Indefinitely, Obama Succumbs to Pressure, Issues Official Veto Threat by Mac Slavo (gunnyg.wordpress.com)
• BitTorrent downloads linked to RIAA, DHS IP addresses (news.cnet.com)
• The RIAA Responds Lamely to Claims of Piracy Advocates (blogs.sfweekly.com)