[Canadaka]

A message sent to the participating websites tonight.

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Today was nuts, right?

Google launched a petition. Wikipedia voted to shut itself off. Senators' websites went down just from the sheer surge of voters trying to write them. NYC and SF geeks had protests that packed city blocks.

You made history today: nothing like this has ever happened before. Tech companies and users teamed up. Tens of millions of people who make the internet what it is joined together to defend their freedoms. The free network defended itself. Whatever you call it, the bottom line is clear: from today forward, it will be much harder to mess up the internet.
The really crazy part? We might even win.

Approaching Monday's crucial Senate vote there are now 35 Senators publicly opposing PIPA. Last week there were 5. And it just takes just 41 solid "no" votes to permanently stall PIPA (and SOPA) in the Senate. What seemed like miles away a few weeks ago is now within reach.
But don't trust predictions. The forces behind SOPA & PIPA (mostly movie companies) can make small changes to these bills until they know they have the votes to pass. Members of Congress know SOPA & PIPA are unpopular, but they don't understand why--so they're easily duped by superficial changes. The Senate returns next week, and the next few days are critical. Here are two things to think about:

1. Plan on calling your Senator every day next week. Pick up the phone each morning and call your Senators' offices, until they vote "no" on cloture. If your site participated today, consider running a "Call the Senate" link all next week.

2. Tomorrow, drop in at your Senators' district offices. We don't have a cool map widget to show you the offices nearest you (we're too exhausted! any takers?). So do it the old fashioned way: use Google, or the phonebook to find the address, and just walk in, say you oppose PIPA, and urge the Senator to vote "no" on cloture. These drop-in visits make our spectacular online protests more tangible and credible.

That's it for now. Be proud and stay on it!

--Holmes, Tiffiniy, and the whole Fight for the Future team.

___

P.S. Huge credit goes to participants in the 11/16 American Censorship Day protest: Mozilla, 4chan, BoingBoing, Tumblr, TGWTG, and thousands of others. That's what got this ball rolling! Reddit, both the community and the team behind it, you're amazing. And of course, thanks to the Wikimedians whose patient and inexorable pursuit of the right answer brought them to take world-changing action. Thanks to David S, David K, Cory D, and E Stark for bold action at critical times.

P.P.S. If you haven't already, show this video to as many people as you can. It works! http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Welcome to the good ol' USA, or as it's soon to be known as, New China.

[DanSC]

PublicAnimalNo9 wrote:

Welcome to the good ol' USA, or as it's soon to be known as, New China.

So you think Obama does have an evil secret Socialist agenda?

I can't say the blackout affected me much. I still used English Wikipedia all day, and the only thing I couldn't do was access my Congressmen's websites.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

DanSC wrote:

PublicAnimalNo9 wrote:

Welcome to the good ol' USA, or as it's soon to be known as, New China.

So you think Obama does have an evil secret Socialist agenda?

I honestly have no clue what he's doing. What does disturb though is Obama is actually making me nostalgic for the Dubya days.

[Thanos]

The White House is on record as opposing this nonsense so there's a strong possibility that President Obama will veto it if it reaches his office.

[saturn_656]

Quote:

What does disturb though is Obama is actually making me nostalgic for the Dubya days.

Heretic! Obama will save us all!

FOR CHANGE! FOR HOPE!

[Thanos]

Considering that SOPA/PIPA is typical GOP/TeaParty pro-corporate boilerplate the blame for it should be aimed somewhere else than the White House. It's existentially identical to the way Henry Hill phrased it in "Goodfellas". Want to use a picture of Homer Simpson as your avatar for the discussion forums you go into even though you're making absolutely no material profit off of it? Fuck you, pay me first.

[saturn_656]

Quote:

Considering that SOPA/PIPA is typical GOP/TeaParty pro-corporate boilerplate the blame for it should be aimed somewhere else than the White House.

Pressure should also be directed at the White House because (correct me if I'm wrong) Obama has the power to veto this measure. He was very vocal about using his veto power on Keystone XL.

I don't think he has, so far, so much as whispered "veto" with respect to this entertainment industry BS.

[DrCaleb]

saturn_656 wrote:

Quote:

Considering that SOPA/PIPA is typical GOP/TeaParty pro-corporate boilerplate the blame for it should be aimed somewhere else than the White House.

Pressure should also be directed at the White House because (correct me if I'm wrong) Obama has the power to veto this measure. He was very vocal about using his veto power on Keystone XL.

I don't think he has, so far, so much as whispered "veto" with respect to this entertainment industry BS.

The White House issued a statement that basically said it won't happen. But then again, provisions could be slipped into a bill that Obama wants passed, like the Keystone 2 month decision addendum attached to a payroll bill.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#/ ... e-internet

But the Content industry will keep lobbying to exclude us from trade orgnizations until we bow to their pressure.

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6176/125/

[Thanos]

SOPA breakdown here for those who are interested. Another terrific idea for which they should be using Lars Ulrich as their poster boy with a LOL-caption of "all ur moniez beelongz tu mee".

[BartSimpson]

SOPA and PIPA give the government a power it should never have. Once that genie is out of the bottle then we'll see politically unpopular sites being shut down by fiat on such a regular basis that the Internet may seriously become useless.

One of my friends said it will be like reversing the clock to 1995 and putting us all back to AOL.

[Canadian_Mind]

Thanos wrote:

Considering that SOPA/PIPA is typical GOP/TeaParty pro-corporate boilerplate the blame for it should be aimed somewhere else than the White House. It's existentially identical to the way Henry Hill phrased it in "Goodfellas". Want to use a picture of Homer Simpson as your avatar for the discussion forums you go into even though you're making absolutely no material profit off of it? Fuck you, pay me first.

Strange thing is, if this bill passes, the tech industry, including the giant Google, will lose far more money than the industries who seek to gain from the passage of this bill ever will. This in every aspect is a special interests bill, nothing more.

[HaRdLy]

Thanos wrote:

SOPA breakdown here for those who are interested. Another terrific idea for which they should be using Lars Ulrich as their poster boy with a LOL-caption of "all ur moniez beelongz tu mee".

[Thanos]

Your rep points are turned off so I have no choice except to tell you that I love you, Oilers fan and all. So,



I'm saving this one for use elsewhere. If Lars ever sees it it's going to like totally blow his mind.

[rickc]

Thanos wrote:

Considering that SOPA/PIPA is typical GOP/TeaParty pro-corporate boilerplate the blame for it should be aimed somewhere else than the White House. It's existentially identical to the way Henry Hill phrased it in "Goodfellas". Want to use a picture of Homer Simpson as your avatar for the discussion forums you go into even though you're making absolutely no material profit off of it? Fuck you, pay me first.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/01 ... Page2.html

Kudos to the President for opposing this bullshit legislation. However it would appear that the pressure to pass SOPA is coming from the left. Hollywood is treatening to cut off cash to the Presidents re-election campaign if he does not get on board. You would be hard pressed to find many GOP/TeaParty types in Hollywood. Hollywood tends to be the Mecca of the far left.

Every website about SOPA that I visited today has told me to contact the office of Sen. Harry Reid of Nev. It seems that the Sen. has received over 3.5 million dollars from pro SOPA forces. Sen. Reid knows what side of his bread is buttered. He is not about to bite the hand that feeds. He did not get to be the Senate majority leader by pissing off powerful corporate interests. Sen. Reid is fighting for the passage of SOPA. Sen. Reid is a Democrat. Sen. Reid is on the left.

You oppose SOPA? Good! Every freedom loving person on the planet should oppose SOPA. Do not let your hatred of the right/GOP/TeaParty blind you as to who is really pushing this bullshit legislation forward. The left is in the pocket of the entertainment industry, just as much as the right is in the pocket of the manufacturing/outsourcing/union busting crowd. Lets call a spade a spade here. SOFA was sponsered by people on both sides of the aisle. People bought and paid for by greedy interest in the film and recording industries. They thought they could pass it under the radar of the American people. They were wrong! Lately I am seeing commercials trying to frame SOPA as saving American jobs from those copywrite infringing, anti-Americam communist Chinese.Its all bullshit! Greedy politicians on both sides have tried to sell us out on SOPA. Now that Americans have awoken to whats reallly going on, only the people who are really counting on that income from the entertainment industry are still on board. They tend to be on the left. There is plenty of blame to go around for SOPA. I admire the President for his stance. It takes a lot of guts to bite the hand that feeds. I admire him for that. You are correct in your stance to not blame the President for this clusterfuck. You are not correct to drop this flaming bag of shit on the doorstep of the right/GOP/TeaParty.