**STOP** Before you do anything else today...

dirtyblueshirt · #1 (**permalink**) 01-18-2012, 10:32 AM

Take the time to call, email, or write your congressperson and tell them that you want them to NOT support the SOPA/PIPA bills currently in the House and Senate.

These bills not only restrict free speech, but allow companies to completely circumvent due process by assuming a web site owner is guilty before they have an opportunity to defend themselves. These bills are dangerous and need to be stopped at all costs.

Many websites today are blacked out in solidarity against the most dangerous pieces of paper to ever concern the Internet and your freedom.

Visit AmericanCensorship.org for more information. Do more: pledge your entire day's worth of internet time to helping awareness of this issue.

SoCal Fiestas supports the blackout and is likewise dark today, as well as all of my web properties.

BondiBlue · #2 (**permalink**) 01-18-2012, 10:58 AM

Glad you posted this. Anyone who supports these bills should be deported.

Sterno · #3 (**permalink**) 01-18-2012, 11:01 AM

All one has to do is look at who supports this bill to realize it's something that needs to be put down.

Norm201 · #4 (**permalink**) 01-18-2012, 11:41 AM

A slippery slope either way. We're comfortable with the status quo but I sometimes wonder. The legislation can go a long way to monitor or curb crime and terrorist activity. But the big brother factor looms huge. The problem is that we will never know if it helps or hurts depending on which way it goes.
However, I am against the bills.

Audrey · #5 (**permalink**) 01-18-2012, 12:17 PM

My congressman (Wyden) is already on top of it. w00t!

I signed the Google petition too.

Also related: http://theoatmeal.com/sopa

Audrey · #6 (**permalink**) 01-18-2012, 12:23 PM

President would veto these bills anyway, according to an email I got this weekend from the whitehouse.gov petition.

Norm201 · #7 (**permalink**) 01-18-2012, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Audrey

My congressman (Wyden) is already on top of it. w00t!

I signed the Google petition too.

Also related: TheOatmeal.com blacked out in protest of SOPA / PIPA - The Oatmeal

The only problem with things like the Oatmeal video is that I think it tends to trivializes the issue. Wikapedia and Firfox actions I think have a lot more clot and makes it a more serious issue.

Not the same thing but along the same lines is the up coming release of Window 8 and the ARM chip that will prevent using a duel boot system. Here's another example of the forces that be pushing the majority around. At least this can be fought with our wallet, just don't buy into Win 8. Although this won't affect the majority of Window 8 users, that majority who will buy Windows 8 allows a strangle hold to get tighter and tighter around our freedom of choice. Now if the programers and developers and the computer manufactures put up enough protest and not buy into the ARM chip them Microsoft will back down. If not then we end up with another Apple like system, very closed and expensive. My 2 cents +1

Audrey · #8 (**permalink**) 01-18-2012, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Norm201

Not the same thing but along the same lines is the up coming release of Window 8 and the ARM chip that will prevent using a duel boot system. Here's another example of the forces that be pushing the majority around. At least this can be fought with our wallet, just don't buy into Win 8. Although this won't affect the majority of Window 8 users, that majority who will buy Windows 8 allows a strangle hold to get tighter and tighter around our freedom of choice. Now if the programers and developers and the computer manufactures put up enough protest and not buy into the ARM chip them Microsoft will back down. If not then we end up with another Apple like system, very closed and expensive. My 2 cents +1

Windows is "open architecture" while Mac OS/Apple products are "closed architecture." This has been a core difference in their business models since the 80s. Windows will run on any hardware while Apple designs its own hardware (although components have become less Apple branded over time). Microsoft, in accordance to its own TOS, can lockdown your hardware in this way if you choose to use its products; that has always been the case they just never tried to implement it. Locking down your existing hardware is quite different than the closed architecture business model Apple employs. Also, people will continue dual booting Macs and PCs even with W8 in the mix; there's always a workaround or "hack."