Save the Internet

[goodboy_mentor]

Right now, the US Congress is debating a law that would give them the power to censor India's Internet -- creating a blacklist that could target YouTube, WikiLeaks and even groups like Avaaz!

Under the new law, the US could force Internet providers to block any website on suspicion of violating copyright or trademark legislation, or even failing to sufficiently police their users' activities. And, because so much of the Internet's hosts and hardware are located here in the US, their blacklist would clamp down on the free web for all of us here in India.

We only have days before the vote but we can help stop this -- champions in Congress want to preserve free speech and tell us that a global outcry would strengthen their hand. Let's urgently raise our voices from across India and and build an unprecedented global petition calling on US decision makers to reject the bill and stop Internet censorship. Click below to sign and then forward as widely as possible -- our message will be delivered directly to key members of the US Congress ahead of the crucial vote: http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_intern ... 77&v=11255

[dr.jayakumar]

friend,
just done what you asked for.
regards

[Hammerhead]

Although keep in mind that this Avaaz is very anti-gun and has worked to save the Canadian Gun Registry - Haji

I just kill the link but ...

Think before you donate to any of them, doing so will be digging your own graves

ottawa-blues-jazz.ncf.ca/KeepItOurOhCanada.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Found a good article though
ww w.popularmechanics.com/science/mythbusters/articles/mythbuster-adam-savage-sopa-could-destroy-the-internet-as-we-know-it-6620300

MythBuster Adam Savage: SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It

Soon the U.S. Congress will reconvene to consider the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) . Mythbuster and PM contributing editor Adam Savage says that if these sweeping pieces of legislation pass, the U.S. will join the likes of China and Iran in censoring the Internet, and destroy the openness that made the Web perhaps the most important technological advance of his lifetime.

Mythbuster, and PM contributing editor, Adam Savage

December 20, 2011 3:00 PM
Right now Congress is considering two bills—the Protect IP Act, and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)—that would be laughable if they weren't in fact real. Honestly, if a friend wrote these into a piece of fiction about government oversight gone amok, I'd have to tell them that they were too one-dimensional, too obviously anticonstitutional.

Make no mistake: These bills aren't simply unconstitutional, they are anticonstitutional. They would allow for the wholesale elimination of entire websites, domain names, and chunks of the DNS (the underlying structure of the whole Internet), based on nothing more than the "good faith" assertion by a single party that the website is infringing on a copyright of the complainant. The accused doesn't even have to be aware that the complaint has been made.

I'm not kidding.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed in 1998, is a lousy piece of legislation and a very useful lens through which to regard these two new pieces of legislation. Think of all the stories you've read over the past 14 years of people slapping DMCA takedowns of content that they didn't own, just because they didn't like what it had to say. One that comes to mind is Uri Gellar, the popular psychic who performed spoon bending and other tricks on TV in the 1970s. Using a DMCA claim, he had YouTube pull videos of him being humiliated during a 1973 appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, when he had no copyright claim to them at all.

This is exactly what will happen with Protect IP and SOPA. We've seen it again and again. Give people a club like this and you can kiss the Internet as you know it goodbye. It's really that bad. And it's a clear violation of our First Amendment right to free speech.

The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard. Like the printing press before it (which states also tried to regulate, for centuries), it democratizes information, and thus it democratizes power. If we allow Congress to pass these draconian laws, we'll be joining nations like China and Iran in filtering what we allow people to see, do, and say on the Web.

And we're better than that.

Please don't just take my word for it. There's tons of information out there about these two bills out there. Google it. Read the Stanford Law Review's take on it. And read what Cory Doctorow has to say .

Educate yourself. Call your congressperson or senator and make your voice heard. You can make a difference.

Read more: MythBuster Adam Savage: SOPA Could Destroy the Internet as We Know It - Popular Mechanics

[xl_target]

I wouldn't give Avaaz a drink of water if it was dying of thirst in the desert. They are anti-gun, socialist, entitlement seeking scum. This (below) should tell you all you need to know about Avaaz. These guys are the Babu's of the western world.

Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a "community of public sector professionals dedicated to promoting good governance, civic virtue and deliberative democracy",[4] and MoveOn.org, an American non-profit progressive public policy advocacy group.[5][6] Avaaz's founding President and Executive Director is the Canadian-British Ricken Patel.[6]
The organization was also supported by Service Employees International Union, a founding partner,

The Internet was created by DARPA (Defense Research Advance Projects Agency) during the cold war to provide multiple redundant pathways for defense communication in the event of a Nuclear conflagration. As the cold war eased, alternate methods of communication were found and the (then) Internet was used mainly by educational institutions. In the '90's, private networks were allowed to connect up to it. Pretty soon it went world wide and allowed pretty much anyone to hook up to it.



The government of China refuses to crack down on rogue elements like (or in fact actively encourage) hackers, etc. but they control every bit of what and where their users can browse. Not much goes on on the Chinese internet without their government knowing about it.
Individual ISP's fail to crack down on Spammers and mass mailers. For example the mail coming into my company yesterday had 917 clean emails (out of 7,190), 32 were viruses, 11 were phishing attempts and the other 6232 were spam. The expense of filtering this stuff daily is huge. The amount of $'s and man hours spent in US business to combat this carp is astronomical.
Governments in many countries, especially the countries that used to be behind the former iron curtain, refuse to crack down on viruses (and the people who make them) emanating from their countries but they censor everything.
Internet property rights? No one seems to care. "What are you going to do to me, I'm in China" is the general attitude.
Constant attacks on business infrastructure, denial of Service attacks. Can't do anything because they're in China or Russia.


I hate censorship but everyone is getting tired of a broken Internet.
Voluntary compliance and self governance hasn't worked so I wouldn't be averse to seeing offenders punished by being blocked from access to the US market. I'm not saying that censorship is a good thing and I sure hate to see government poke its nose under the internet's tent flap. The legislation is not good news but you can see where the frustration is coming from.

Here is what the protect IP Act says:

The PROTECT IP Act[8] defines infringement as distribution of illegal copies, counterfeit goods or anti-DRM technology, and infringement exists if "facts or circumstances suggest [the site] is used, primarily as a means for engaging in, enabling, or facilitating the activities described". The bill says it does not alter existing substantive trademark or copyright law.[9]
The bill provides for "enhancing enforcement against rogue websites operated and registered overseas", and authorizes the United States Department of Justice to seek a court order in rem against websites dedicated to infringing activities themselves, if through due diligence an individual owner or operator cannot be located.[10] The bill requires the Attorney General to serve notice to the defendant.[11] Once the court issues an order, it could then be served on financial transaction providers, Internet advertising services, Internet service providers, and information location tools to require them to stop financial transactions with the rogue site and stop linking to it.[12] The term "information location tool" is borrowed from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is understood to refer to search engines, but could cover other sites that link to content.[13]
“ The Protect IP Act says that an "information location tool shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order". In addition, it must delete all hyperlinks to the offending "Internet site".[14] ”
Nonauthoritative domain name servers would be ordered to take technically feasible and reasonable steps to prevent the domain name from resolving to the IP address of a website that had been found by the court to be “dedicated to infringing activities.”[15] The website could still be reached by its IP address, but links or users that used the website’s domain name would not reach it. Also search engines—such as the already protesting Google—would be ordered to “(i) remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the [court] order; or (ii) not serve a hypertext link to such Internet site.”[16] Furthermore, trademark and copyright holders who have been harmed by the activities of a website dedicated to infringing activities would be able to apply for a court injunction against the domain name to compel financial transaction providers and Internet advertising services to stop processing transactions to and placing ads on the website, but would not be able to obtain the domain name remedies available to the Attorney General.[17]

So nothing is really banned by this act just that US search engines will not link to those offending sites. The bill is also stalled right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act

It sounds like I am in support of this bill but I am not. I am attempting to place both side of the story in front of you. I, however, am definitely not a supporter of Avaaz