As of this mid\u00adnight, Wikipedia is not avail\u00adable on the Inter\u00adnet. This is a protest being made by the peo\u00adple who admin\u00adis\u00adter Wikipedia. It will last for 24 hours.<\/p>\n
In late 2011, the Unit\u00aded States Con\u00adgress pro\u00adposed two leg\u00adisla\u00adtive bills, the Stop Online Pira\u00adcy Act (SOPA<\/span>) and the PROTECT<\/span> IP<\/span> Act (PIPA<\/span>). This is pro\u00adfound\u00adly evil leg\u00adis\u00adla\u00adtion designed to lay the ground\u00adwork for cen\u00adsor\u00adship of the inter\u00adnet, along the lines of that prac\u00adticed by the Com\u00admu\u00adnist Par\u00adty in Chi\u00adna. The first of these acts, House Bill 3261, intro\u00adduced by Repub\u00adli\u00adcan rep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtive Lamar Smith of Texas, has been suc\u00adcinct\u00adly described by Har\u00advard con\u00adsti\u00adtu\u00adtion\u00adal schol\u00adar Lau\u00adrence Tribe in a recent open let\u00adter: this leg\u00adis\u00adla\u00adtion will \u201cunder\u00admine the open\u00adness and free exchange of infor\u00adma\u00adtion at the heart of the Inter\u00adnet. And it would vio\u00adlate the First Amend\u00adment.<\/em>\u201d If you are under the impres\u00adsion that this leg\u00adis\u00adla\u00adtion has been defeat\u00aded, look again. It has been slight\u00adly mod\u00adi\u00adfied, and its Con\u00adser\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtive and Cor\u00adpo\u00adrate back\u00aders are on the march again.<\/p>\n If you are an Amer\u00adi\u00adcan, I urge you to make it clear to your elect\u00aded rep\u00adre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtives that you know what they are up to, and will do your best to pun\u00adish them if they col\u00adlude with this abom\u00adi\u00adna\u00adtion. I am not an Amer\u00adi\u00adcan, but I have con\u00adfi\u00addence that the Amer\u00adi\u00adcan peo\u00adple will wake up and recov\u00ader the sense of jus\u00adtice and love of free\u00addom that once made them a great people.<\/p>\n Wikipedia\u2019s act of protest is clear, to the point, ratio\u00adnal and intel\u00adli\u00adgent. It will have a real effect. The peo\u00adple at Wikipedia under\u00adstand that, in a coun\u00adtry like the Unit\u00aded States, what hap\u00adpens on the floor of the leg\u00adis\u00adla\u00adture mat\u00adters. As a Cana\u00addi\u00adan, I know that any such leg\u00adis\u00adla\u00adtion in the Unit\u00aded States will pave the way for sim\u00adi\u00adlar attacks on free\u00addom in my own coun\u00adtry. It will also sharply reduce the effec\u00adtive\u00adness of dis\u00adsent in coun\u00adtries where peo\u00adple are strug\u00adgling for democ\u00adra\u00adcy against dic\u00adta\u00adtor\u00adship. If it pass\u00ades in any form, the Com\u00admu\u00adnist Par\u00adty in Bei\u00adjing, dic\u00adta\u00adtors every\u00adwhere, and every oth\u00ader Con\u00adser\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtive force will be aid\u00aded and embold\u00adened. This is the World\u2019s fight, not just an Amer\u00adi\u00adcan issue.<\/p>\n You may notice that I feel strong\u00adly about this. No decent human being can sup\u00adport this leg\u00adis\u00adla\u00adtion. Any\u00adone who would do so would be eject\u00aded from my home, and be cut off from all inter\u00adac\u00adtion with me. At the moment, the Inter\u00adnet is the crit\u00adi\u00adcal life\u00adline in the war between Civ\u00adi\u00adliza\u00adtion and Con\u00adser\u00adv\u00ada\u00adtive Bar\u00adbarism. It is the elec\u00adtron\u00adic equiv\u00ada\u00adlent of the con\u00advoys of pro\u00advi\u00adsion ships that crossed the Atlantic dur\u00ading WW2<\/span>, con\u00adstant\u00adly threat\u00adened by Nazi U\u2011boats. It must be defend\u00aded at all costs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As of this mid\u00adnight, Wikipedia is not avail\u00adable on the Inter\u00adnet. This is a protest being made by the peo\u00adple who admin\u00adis\u00adter Wikipedia. It will last for 24 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,932],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ao-blog-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4205"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4828,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4205\/revisions\/4828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}