Congress wants the right to take down websites, what now?

There has been a very disturbing trend regarding the internet over the past couple years. The discussion concerning net neutrality could be far better, the French are now cutting off internet based on three allegations of file sharing (not convictions, allegations). People and companies are sitting on copyrights, much the way that they sit and wait with patents, looking for potential infringement and suing both artists and individuals (http://torrentfreak.com/us-lawmakers-want-to-quash-pirate-websites-100920/). ACTA (http://www.eff.org/issues/acta) is being pushed at the UN with the full diplomatic force of the US.

And now the US Congress wants to push through a law that would allow them to force the take down of websites that they deem to be harmful with the COICA? (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/censorship-internet-takes-center-stage-online ). The government has no right to attempt to censor the internet.

I pray to God that the tea baggers are to stupid to realize this is happening, I can see the backlash from them now.

But seriously, this is an issue, and we cannot allow our congress to push this piece of trash through the COICA needs to die.

again sidetracked from the flavor of the week's newest episode brought to us by our friendly media nor by the internet trolls who are now becoming worse than an infestion of bedbugs...I say bedbugs simply because that seems to be the hardest pest to exterminate and ensuring the internet does not become censored we in effect have to learn to either live with these pests or find a way to limit their annoyance...I would have called them roaches, worthless and unmindful of the damage they cause but they are fairly easy to rid ones self of..

if there is bipartisan support for such a bill - my guess is Wikileaks is why.

because Wikileaks justifies censorship. I know that you were just pointing out a reason for bipartisan support and may or may not support the bill, but come on.

Congress has no right to censor the internet just because they don't like what's on it.

but Wikileaks scares them by its success. They don't know how it could be used against them and their quest to continue perpetual wars and their march toward fascism.

With the collapse of MSM and other cultural "forums" like the Top 40, there is really quite little for ANYONE to coalesce around in terms of community and its legitimizing function.

Frankly, this is the biggest issue facing the U.S.: with the demise of the old mass-media model, what constitutes a social cause, movement or even a shared philosophy? Would we recognize such if we saw it? In all my time on DU and in face-to-face discussions with "enlightened" folks, I find very little comeback on my "big" issue. Just shrugs and back to the social network.

is that the refuse to report on something of this magnitude because bad press for it negatively effects them.

I have gotten a hold of senators, congressmen, local media, national media and still they ignore it.

.

Ink and paper are cheap.

Zines are the future.


Or, there's Usenet........

but they know it is the web that is allowing info to flow... and I hate to say it, not a good thing if you are the state... insert state here.

wouldn't be so afraid of information.

historically. We are on the edge of the fall of Empire.

<---------------- supreme cynic at this point.

historically...

What can we do? I'm not trying to play devil's advocate, I'm honestly asking if anyone has any ideas for action besides just calling representatives, or marching after the fact.