01/09/2012
On Tuesday, January 24th, congress is likely to pass a new bill called 'SOPA' (the Stop Online Piracy Act) that will allow the US government to block Americans from visiting certain websites. Similar to 'The Great Firewall of China' and countries such as Iran and Syria, SOPA will allow the government the ability to control and censor the internet by forcing internet service providers to firewall websites and IP addresses.
Unfortunately SOPA states that websites and services that enable people to bypass censorship will themselves be censored. Therefore if SOPA passes, online anonymity services such as HMA! will be at high risk of being banned in the US altogether.
Although the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Mozilla, Wikipedia, and other influential companies are strongly opposing the bill, SOPA still has a lot of support and financial backing. Please take a moment out of your day to learn more about SOPA and help protect the future of your internet; here are some links and videos to get you started:
How to take action / http://americancensorship.org/ Excellent Ars Technica article / http://arst.ch/rdk
7 things you need to know / http://goo.gl/S3eu7 VPN and anonymity providers are at risk / http://goo.gl/oMwRT 'WTF is SOPA?' Youtube video / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM
Kind regards,
Interchange Minus Team!
On Jan. 24th, the Senate is expected to pass a bill for the first ever U.S. internet censorship system. While the Senate is holding town halls and meetings at home, they need to hear why they need to block the vote and kill this bill.
