Stop SOPA Before Congress Destroys the Internet

This is embarrassing to admit but I wasn’t extremely educated on the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act that is being thrown around congress.

I decided to do some digging at PCWorld and StopCensorship.org and here is what I found:

From StopCensorship.org:

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) would ruin so much of what’s best about the Internet: They will give the government and corporations new powers to block Americans’ access to sites that are accused of copyright infringement, force sites like YouTube to go to new lengths to police users’ contributions, and put people in prison for streaming certain content online.

PCWorld said it best:

You only really need to know one thing about SOPA to realize that it’s bad legislation that must be stopped: it is supported (and probably written) by the RIAA and MPAA. These organizations are like crotchety old men yelling at the neighbor kids to get off their lawn. But, in this case their “lawn” is the Internet, and instead of “yelling” they’re threatening to fill it with landmines that effectively make it useless.

An open letter was recently written to the “powers-that-be”  by some Internet rockstars such as Vint Cerf–co-designer of TCP/IP, and Robert W. Taylor–founder of ARPAnet among others. The letter states, “If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure.”

I’m not sure about you but I’m not willing to let the government control any aspect of my digital browsing or life. I would encourage you to go to StopCensorship.org or just call your Congressman. We need to put a stop to this.