SOPA - The Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261)

America is supposed to be a “role model for democracy” to the rest of the world, and recently the Internet has been one of the tools people have used to rise up against their tyrannical governments in their quest for democracy.  So why would we adopt the exact same strategies these oppressive governments use to repress their own people with an act like SOPA?

Here are some relevant links to help you understand SOPA (H.R. 3261) and what you can do to let your elected government officials know how you feel about it:

Google’s “Tell Congress not to censor the web”

Law professors explain what’s wrong with SOPA.

A graphic of how SOPA works.

Find out where your local Representatives and Senators stand on SOPA.

Some resources where you can take action.

My Delicious Link Stack (constantly updated) on SOPA

Here is the text of the video:

Currently there is a bill that Congress is trying to pass, called SOPA which stands for Stop Online Piracy Act which was brought to the table by the Motion Picture Industry who paid the congressmen around $500,000 to create this bill.

Now, this bill, if passed, could destroy the Internet as we know it.

It gives the Motion Picture Industry as well as ANYONE the right to block access to ANY website they decide to take down.

For example, if someone were to upload a scene from the next Batman Movie to YouTube, the studio simply writes an official looking letter and YouTube will cease to exist. Period. No chance for YouTube to remove the video… the website will simply go away.

This is the same process that repressive regimes like China and Iran do keep their citizens in the dark.

So if you don’t want to find yourself living in a repressive regime yourself, click a couple links above to see what you can do..