But once the infrastructure for censorship was in place, the censorship started spreading to other areas. And the censorship is getting more and more widespread.
And of course Google, Facebook and the rest of them are all "upset" about SOPA but haven't said a peer about the defense authorization bill. Because the conflict around SOPA is about MONEY and BUSINESS. Saint Steve Jobs already said it and Lo!, it shall be: http://youtu.be/AgJU59FtRRM?t=1m34s I ain't paying another red fed cent to Apple Inc. That is my new year's resolution.
I think this comment was spot-on: If SOPA were in place when wikileaks released the material from the US government last year, do you really believe that their domain wouldn't have been obliterated? Which is a very serious thing to consider. SOPA lays the foundation for government control of information. Not happy with what is being said on a website? Shut it down. Even if the government is legally in the wrong, the mechanism exists, and while the response works its way through the courts, censorship is in effect. So even unjust control would be effective. Obama currently has very little chance of getting my vote in 2012, but his signing of this would be the nail in the coffin. Is there a pledge not to vote for Obama if he signs SOPA? It might be a worthwhile strategy in this election year.
This exactly. So what if it is against the law? Nuke the site and you've solved the problem. On the (very) off chance that the target can litigate against the U.S government, and then get a successful outcome, well, it's years too late. Whatever the target of the blacklist was, it was effectively censored. Even if monetary damages occur, it would just be regarded as a 'cost of doing business' by the gov't.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/ice-admits-m...