***PLEASE! If you have not signed a COICA petition PLEASE DO!***

[Earth_First]

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced just one week ago, but it's greased and ready to move, with a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee this Thursday. If people don't speak out, US citizens could soon find themselves joining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broad chunks of the public Internet.

COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.

The lists are for sites "dedicated to infringing activity," but that's defined very broadly -- any domain name where counterfeit goods or copyrighted material are "central to the activity of the Internet site" could be blocked.

But if COICA passes, Viacom wouldn't even need to prove YouTube is doing anything illegal to get it shut down -- as long as they can persuade the courts that enough other people are using it for copyright infringement, the whole site could be censored.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-segal/stop-the-internet-blackli_b_739836.html

COICA's passage would be a tremendous blow to free speech on the Internet -- and likely a first step towards much broader online censorship.

Please sign here: http://demandprogress.org/blacklist/

Thanks!

[FirstLight]

1. K&R

also posted the links on my FB

thanks for the heads up!

[Earth_First]

2. +1 n/t

[Earth_First]

3. kick! n/t

[Agony]

4. As if I would EVER want John Ashcroft deciding which websites I have access to!!!

regardless of what the criteria are, this would allow the politicization of access to information.

I signed in other words...

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Cheers,
Agony

recced

[EFerrari]

5. Done and kick.

[Crystal Clarity]

6. Signed it....very simple process folks

:kick:

[Earth_First]

7. kick! n/t