SOPA Could Destroy The Internet As We Know It

We rarely  get involved or have a voice in politics, however we are making a exception in this case as the bills listed below could (and likely will) ruin  the internet as we know it.

The SOPA or Stop Internet Piracy is a bill currently in the USA Congress that would require ISP's to remove TOTAL access to a site via DNS if they were even accused of having something illegal on their site.  While the DMCA can requires take down of suspected illegal content this removes the entire site. 

In other words lets say someone filed a complaint against Google.com or Secondlife.com, the internet providers would be forced to remove their DNS listings meaning that if you typed in Google.com or Secondlife.com nothing would come up (you would most likely get a 404 error).  No investigation is needed.  It is guilty until proven innocent.  It would also force all providers to be police.  Most companies that carry user generated content (youtube, second life, forums etc) do not have the manpower (or cannot afford) to police/find every little thing on their site and therefore would likely go out of business rather than try to continue.  And another bill called Protect IP Act is just as bad.

These bills if enacted/made law will destroy the internet as we know it in the USA and will likely affect the rest of the world in a large way.  This bill must be stopped.  If you are in the USA call your congressman and representatives and tell them you DO NOT want these bills and for them to vote unanimously NO.  Check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation for information on how to do this https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173 and do so as soon as possible as much as possible.  This is scheduled to come up for vote on January 24th.  Please note phone calls carry much more weight than email or letters.  If you are in the USA it is best if you call as soon as possible as much as possible, lets overrun their phone lines and let our voices be heard against this threat to the internet as we know it.

Other related links:
http://americancensorship.org/
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/01/eff-says-sopa-threatens-second-life.html
http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_internet/

UPDATE:   While they have been "shelved" or "Tabled" they are not dead and could return at any moment.  Sadly we still need to be vigilant.