For Freedom

Friday, January 20, 2012

Why can't the US be censored?

This is an example of the government controlling the internet.

Yeah, this could happen to America.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Freedom

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security deserve neither and will lose both.

- Ben Franklin

Saturday, January 14, 2012

They came first..

"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Martin Niemoeller

Friday, January 13, 2012

Introduction to: SOPA, ProtectIP - Simplified, Explained

For those who have heard about the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) or the Protect Intellectual Property act (Protect IP) and want to know what it means for you:

What they hope to achieve:
In hopes to reduce the amount of illegal movies, music, and media across the net, a few bills have been introduced to congress and will be voted on January 24th. These bills are backed by companies like Disney, Viacom, and CBS.

Copyright Chaos
If passed, these bills will allow companies like Disney to take legal action, shut down, or sue any website or blog that has anything related to a company like Disney's "Copyrighted Material" or anything they say is close enough to their copyrighted material.

Say I were to post a picture of Woody from Toy Story on my Facebook profile, Disney could say that Woody is copyrighted material, and take legal action against Facebook for allowing this copyright infringement to take place on their website.

Personal Jail Time + Fine
Not only could they take legal action against Facebook, but they could take legal action against you personally. It becomes a felony to stream copyrighted work, with a potential 5 Year jail sentence and $2,500, even if you are not selling the copyrighted material, like singing your favorite pop song in a video on Youtube.

Website / Content Filtering
Disney could then force internet service providers to start blocking YOU and the general public from accessing www.facebook.com, or any website they decided has a problem with controlling "copyrighted material."

Websites Shut Down
If allowed to be passed, these bills will quickly shut down websites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pintrest, and pretty much any other website that people share media on.

OK, big deal? This is a very big deal. This may be the largest threat on the American Citizen's rights.

These bills allow media companies and the Government to filter, censor, block, control what you desire to see online!

If you are trying to research the holocaust, months from now you may not be able to; simply because someone in the Government deems that as "wrong" material for you to be looking at.

This is just the beginning.

Here's a great video explanation:

What you can do about it

Spread the word! Tell your friends, tell your coworkers, tell your neighbors, family, mailmen, paperboys, tell everyone.
Contact your congressman. Here is a great website to help you with that: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
Join the movement and take advantage of some helpful tools:
http://americancensorship.org/

If Facebook & Google wont...

There will be a protest held on Facebook January 18, to try and gain recognition & support from big companies like Facebook. The idea is to create some regular album names on your FB profile with names like "Sick Weekend!" or "new years party" and then upload a bunch of pictures regarding censorship such as these: