Understand The Times, International

Comment from Understand the Times:

Get ready. Big Brother is just about ready to take over your life and control your internet site. Now what will you do if you can not read, hear and see the truth? Who wants this anyway? Get ready, you have not seen anything yet.

November 18 - End of Free Internet: US Senate Committee Approves Internet "Blacklist" Bill

Article: Misc.

It seems the lame duck Congressional session is becoming anything but unproductive. Yesterday, we saw the closure of the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510), and today the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act was unanimously approved by the US Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday with a 19-0 vote. The COICA has been overwhelmingly viewed as a corporate hijacking of the internet by mega-media cartels. Indeed, it is the end of the free internet as we now it.

This legislation may be the most dangerous weapon against free speech in modern history. The infringing activity that may land a website on the "Blacklist" is defined very broadly. It appears that the blacklist can be enforced without a court order via ISPs. This is total information tyranny and all independent voices need to stand up and protest or surely we'll face the arbitrary blacklist. David Segal reported on the blacklist regulations:

COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.

The lists are for sites "dedicated to infringing activity," but that's defined very broadly -- any domain name where counterfeit goods or copyrighted material are "central to the activity of the Internet site" could be blocked.

Clearly this was funded by media cartels, but this has a lot more to do with internet censorship as it does about copyright infringement. Further, this law gives the Department of Justice to block access to websites located outside the United States.