Sunday, 22 November 2009

So It Begins With Britain's Internet - America Next

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THE HARBINGER OF INTERNET FASCISM TO COME

The British government has enacted their new Digital Economy Bill. Sounds all warm and fuzzy enough... until you read that it consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry (including the "three-strikes" rule that allows your entire family to be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial), as well as a plan to beat the hell out of the video-game industry with a new rating system that has no merit.

But that's not all, how about a £50,000 fine if someone in your house is accused of filesharing. They are also mandating that ISPs spy on all their customers just in case they find something that would help the record or film industry sue them (ISPs who refuse to cooperate can be fined £250,000).

But the worst is yet to come, Britain's Business Secretary, would have the power to make up as many new penalties and enforcement systems as he likes. And he says he's planning to appoint private militias financed by rightsholder groups who will have the power to kick you off the internet, spy on your use of the network, demand the removal of files or the blocking of websites, and Mandelson will have the power to invent any penalty, including jail time, for any transgression he deems you are guilty of.

COMING TO AMERICA SOON!

Lest you American sheeple think your safe from Big Brother, Senator Jay Rockefeller ( D ) West Virginia (of course it would be a Rockefeller, you know, that fine upstanding family that wants to control everything and get rid of 5 billion humans just because there are too many of them), proposed S.773: The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 which appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency. Remember the words of Rahm Emanuel, 'Never let an crisis go to waste...'.

Gee, I wonder what fun things Dear Leader Obama would have in store for our tweets and blog entries and online conservative news sites during a national crisis?

Republicans on the other hand (amazing since I blame them and Bush for most of the problems we have right now.) have introduced legislation, the "Global Online Freedom Act of 2009" that proposes an "Office of Global Internet Freedom," which would monitor any moves by U.S. companies to filter or limit their Internet search results in foreign countries.

In addition, if a company receives a user-information request from a foreign government for "other than legitimate law enforcement purposes," such as tracking down dissidents, the U.S. Attorney General could order the company not to comply -- potentially setting it up for an impasse with local authorities.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

We can start by being informed and staying informed about legislation in our respectiive states and at the Federal level. I recommend you monitor each of the following federal government pages for proposed legislation that could abridge our rights on the internet.

You will have to search for your respective state's web pages about proposed legislation. I recommend you use IXQuick.com for searches related to our government because they don't keep track of your searches like Google, Yahoo or Microsoft. Do you really want to trust Google, whose in bed with the CIA, with your political searches?

UPDATE:

100 Day Countdown to National Broadband Policy Looms: This article details why we must have a policy, which I agree with, but we must ensure that the policy is not crafted by industry giants like Comcast. A policy would give us a better internet in terms of safety, speed, reliability. We must be prepared to say no to additions to the policy which would impinge our freedoms though.

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