Don't want the government to censor the Internet? Come here!

[Perihelion]

Read about the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) here and here and here and here. In a nutshell, this would allow the government to create two blacklists of sites that are "dedicated to infringing activity," which is defined very vaguely. All service providers in the US would be required to block access to sites on the first blacklist, which get added via court order, and they would be heavily encouraged to block sites on the second, which get added by the Attorney General without even due process.

If you care about access to an uncensored Internet, I really strongly urge you to sign this petition and share it with everyone on Facebook and Twitter and whatever else you use.

 

[Brewmeister]

Even better yet, read the bill Here, and form your own opinions

If you care about illegal access to Copyrighted Intellectual Property & Counterfeit merchandise, sign the petition.

The only problem I have with the bill is that it's redundant. It's already illegal to steal copyrighted material or make & sell counterfeit goods.
And, there are already provisions in the law to shut down merchants (physical or virtual) that break copyright or trademark laws.

It appears that the only thing this bill solves (attempts to solve) is the current inability to go after 'foreign' sites that break our (US) copyright & trademark law by blocking access to them. (with the side-effect that it can also block domestic sites that are "Dedicated to infringing activity", which to me is pretty clearly defined.)
Of course, by blocking DNS resolution they would only be blocking access using the domain name. Direct IP access or proxy access would still be possible.

...without even due process.

The process is also pretty well defined... roughly...

1) Copyright or Trademark owner complains, with proof of ownership
2) AG investigates, documents findings, and if determined valid, places domain name on 'list 2'
3) AG notifies domain owner that they will be blocked unless they comply with the law
4a) Domain owner complies, they get taken off the list
4b) Domain owner thumbs nose at AG, they get moved to list 1 (with due process), and the site gets blocked.

The record keeping defined provides at least a minimal level of checks & balances. It's actually a relatively well written law.

Could it be abused? Yes, but it would have to be by someone in the Attorney General's office. Possible, but not likely.
And since the "list" is public, any abuse would most certainly be discovered rather quickly.

 

[Ellie]

I'm highly sceptical over these things and I think there's a bad case of cry wolf syndrome. People have talked about net neutrality being taken away for like, ten years now, and nothing has come of it in our country.

This might be legit, but people (like me) will dismiss it and not do anything about it because these things are brought up yearly and nothing happens.