Congress Debating Making U.S. Like China by Creating Internet Blacklist

[ReaPsTA]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-segal/stop-the-internet-blackli_b_739836.html

By David Segal and Aaron Swartz

When it really matters to them, Congressmembers can come together -- with a panache and wry wit you didn't know they had. As banned books week gets underway, and President Obama admonishes oppressive regimes for their censorship of the Internet, a group of powerful Senators -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- have signed onto a bill that would vastly expand the government's power to censor the Internet.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced just one week ago, but it's greased and ready to move, with a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee this Thursday. If people don't speak out, US citizens could soon find themselves joining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broad chunks of the public Internet.

COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.

The lists are for sites "dedicated to infringing activity," but that's defined very broadly -- any domain name where counterfeit goods or copyrighted material are "central to the activity of the Internet site" could be blocked.

One example of what this means in practice: sites like YouTube could be censored in the US. Copyright holders like Viacom often argue copyrighted material is central to the activity of YouTube, but under current US law, YouTube is perfectly legal as long as they take down copyrighted material when they're informed about it -- which is why Viacom lost to YouTube in court.

But if COICA passes, Viacom wouldn't even need to prove YouTube is doing anything illegal to get it shut down -- as long as they can persuade the courts that enough other people are using it for copyright infringement, the whole site could be censored.

Perhaps even more disturbing: Even if Viacom couldn't get a court to compel censorship of a YouTube or a similar site, the DOJ could put it on the second blacklist and encourage ISPs to block it even without a court order. (ISPs have ample reason to abide the will of the powerful DOJ, even if the law doesn't formally require them to do so.)

COICA's passage would be a tremendous blow to free speech on the Internet -- and likely a first step towards much broader online censorship. Please help us fight back: The first step is signing our petition. We'll give you the tools to share it with your friends and call your Senator.

Focus: Will this bill pass? What are the implications of its introduction? How bad will the fallout be if it passes? What are the broader implications?

I had this thought in my head, and this is as good an example of it in action as anything.

The political parties are useless for many reasons, and legislation like this is a major example of why. Yes, the Republicans want to cut your taxes and regulate abortions more than the Democrats, but are they going to oppose legislation like this? I doubt it. We've already seen Obama trying to expand the ability of the government to spy on and kidnap Americans.

When it comes to issues that really impact our personal freedoms and the underlying factors that create prosperity in society, both parties equally don't care. Politicians don't like freedom and societal prosperity because they're not necessary for achieving it. Businesses don't like it because a free society means they might fail if the public doesn't like them (see automotive companies). Lawyers don't like it because if people don't have problems they don't get paid.

I guess this sorta comes back to the libertarianism vs. socialism argument that has existed on this board since its beginnings and will continue until its end. I find that giving power to governments inevitably creates circumstances that allow this legislation to happen. So why give them more power than absolutely necessary to hold society together?

[Seventh Son]

If this passes I'm moving to Canada.

[Perpetual Change]

Censor what?

[Chino]

I have a really hard time seeing this happening. The American people put up with a lot of the Government's shit, but if this were to go into affect, I think a lot of people would be straight up furious. I know I would be pissed off as hell. The internet is the one of the last methods that the American people have for true free speech. If such a bill did manage to pass, I think it would be too difficult to keep track of the content they are trying to block. Look at music downloading, even with all the effort into stopping it, it still get easier to get around every year. Now imagine trying to apply that to all of the internet. Obviously too an extent it can be done, other countries are doing it, but I think there would be ways around it.

[ReaPsTA]

I have a really hard time seeing this happening. The American people put up with a lot of the Government's shit, but if this were to go into affect, I think a lot of people would be straight up furious. I know I would be pissed off as hell. The internet is the one of the last methods that the American people have for true free speech. If such a bill did manage to pass, I think it would be too difficult to keep track of the content they are trying to block. Look at music downloading, even with all the effort into stopping it, it still get easier to get around every year. Now imagine trying to apply that to all of the internet. Obviously too an extent it can be done, other countries are doing it, but I think there would be ways around it.

I would have believed this argument until the health care bill that just passed here. 57% of Americans favor repealing it, and as we can see from the news they're certainly vocal about it, but the politicians don't care. It's strange, because I have a hard time saying politicians even are trying to get re-elected anymore. The Democrats had to know that between the health care bill, the cap and trade bill, and the second stimulus, that the American people would flip out and wipe them out of Congress. So why was it in their best interests to push for these laws? Whatever that interest is, American public opinion is obviously not part of it.

[Perpetual Change]

Really, censor what?

If the content is illegal, I'd rather the government censor it than allow it to be viewed AND THAN PUNISH people for viewing it.

But I can see the danger with censoring stuff that's not illegal, obviously.

[Sigz]

From the EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/censorship-internet-takes-center-stage-online

This is a censorship bill that runs roughshod over freedom of speech on the Internet. Free speech is vitally important to democracy, which is why the government is restricted from suppressing speech except in very specific, narrowly-tailored situations. But this bill is the polar opposite of narrow — not only in the broad way that it tries to define a site "dedicated to infringing activities," but also in the solution that it tries to impose — a block on a whole domain, and not just the infringing part of the site.

We note that the DMCA already gives copyright owners legal tools to remove infringing material piece-by-piece, and to obtain injunctions requiring ISPs to block certain offshore infringing websites. The misuse of the existing DMCA provisions have had a tremendously damaging impact on fair use and free expression. By comparison, COICA streamlines and vastly expands this; it would allow the AG to shoot down a whole domain including all the blog posts, images, backups, and files underneath it. In other words, it's not just possible but probable that a great deal of legitimate, protected speech will be taken down in the name of copyright enforcement.

It is designed to undermine basic Internet infrastructure. When a user enters "eff.org" into their web browser, what responds is a domain name system server that tells the users' browser where EFF's website is located on the Internet. This bill would have the Attorney General prevent the players in that domain name system (possibly including your ISP) from telling you the truth about a website's location.

And it's not clear what a user would see in this situation — would it look like a "404 message," that simply says a site or page could not be found, without explaining why? Would users receive some kind of notice clarifying that the site they were seeking was made inaccessible at the behest of the government? Generally speaking, the bill forces all the Internet "middlemen" to act as if a part of the Internet doesn't exist, even though that page may otherwise be completely available and accessible.

COICA sends the world the message that the United States approves of unilateral Internet censorship. Which governments deny their citizens access to parts of the Internet? For now, it is mostly totalitarian, profoundly anti-democratic regimes that keep their citizens from seeing the whole Internet. With this bill, the United States risks telling countries throughout the world, "Unilateral censorship of websites that the government doesn't like is okay — and this is how you do it."

The bill's imbalances threaten to complicate existing laws and policies. The bill includes poorly drafted definitions that threaten fair use online, endanger innovative backup services, and raises questions about how these new obligations on Internet intermediaries are intended to fit with existing US secondary liability rules and the DMCA copyright safe harbor regime. Moreover, it seems easy to get on the blacklist — the bill sets up a seemingly streamlined procedure for adding domains (including a McCarthy-like procedure of public snitching) — but in contrast, it seems difficult to get off the list, with a cumbersome process to have a blacklisted domain removed.

And what do we get in exchange? Not much, if the goal is to actually limit unauthorized copying online. The bill gives the government power to play an endless game of whack-a-mole, blocking one domain after another, but even a relatively unsophisticated technologist can begin to imagine the workarounds: a return to encrypted peer-to-peer, modified /etc/hosts files (that don't rely on the domain name system for finding things on the Internet), and other tools, which will emerge and ensure that committed pirates have a way to route around the bill's damage to the DNS system.

To us, COICA looks like another misguided gift to a shortsighted industry whose first instinct with respect to the Internet is to try to break it. There are still many questions to be answered, but one thing is for sure — this bill allows the government to suppress truthful speech and could block access to a wealth of non-infringing speech, and the end result will do little to protect artists or mollify the industries that profit from them. Stay tuned for more analysis, information, and steps you can take to fight Internet censorship.

I found the second point particularly interesting. I feel like most people have no actual idea of what the internet actually is or how it works (myself included to an extent), especially the legislators who try to regulate it.

[Perpetual Change]

Let me put it this way:

I'd rather the government censor child pornography sites, rather than let people view them and then arrest them for doing so. I'd rather the government block sites where music can be downloaded illegally, then let people do so be sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But I doubt if something like the above-mentioned passes there will be any kind of reason involved with it.

[ReaPsTA]

Really, censor what?

If the content is illegal, I'd rather the government censor it than allow it to be viewed AND THAN PUNISH people for viewing it.

But I can see the danger with censoring stuff that's not illegal, obviously.

Right. And you don't see how, in the real world, creating an internet censorship board will almost inevitably lead to censorship based on the whims of the government, special interest groups, and large corporations rather than an honest attempt to keep people from viewing snuff films or child pornography.

Not to mention that, as I've said over and over again, copyright laws are outdated and need to be rewritten. We've already seen the inevitability of people using file-sharing to get what they want. And I'd argue that since the physical data is on your hard drive, it's yours to do what you want with. A law such as this prevents our overall legal and economic system from evolving.

[Chino]

Really, censor what?

If the content is illegal, I'd rather the government censor it than allow it to be viewed AND THAN PUNISH people for viewing it.

But I can see the danger with censoring stuff that's not illegal, obviously.

Right. And you don't see how, in the real world, creating an internet censorship board will almost inevitably lead to censorship based on the whims of the government, special interest groups, and large corporations rather than an honest attempt to keep people from viewing snuff films or child pornography.

Just think. PETA gets youtube blocked for animal cruelty videos. I know its a lame example, but its an example of how something wouldn't have to be illegal to be considered being banned.

[Perpetual Change]

Yeah, I see your point.

But, honestly, the government should be doing a better job of removing illegal content from the internet.

It's like this: if a armored car crashed in the middle of the road, and millions of dollars spilled out onto the street, what would you do if it was your job to protect the property? Would you wait until a crowd of looters swarmed around the car, and then try to arrest a handful of them in hopes that no other robbers will show up? Say you had the ability to get into the car and drive it away as quickly as possible? Sure, some people will have already gotten away with some cash, but wouldn't that be better?

Not sure if this is the same thing as what we're talking about, though.

[Chino]

Yeah, I see your point.

But, honestly, the government should be doing a better job of removing illegal content from the internet.

I gotcha, but this bill isn't giving the authority to remove illegal content. That has already been in going on for years now. The point of this is that literally anything the government doesn't like, they have the right to remove, regardless how the American people feel about it.

[Perpetual Change]

Yeah, I see your point.

But, honestly, the government should be doing a better job of removing illegal content from the internet.

I gotcha, but this bill isn't giving the authority to remove illegal content. That has already been in going on for years now.

They have?

You really can't tell 

If that's the case, I really wonder how effective this will be.

[yorost]

If this passes I'm moving to Canada.

Do you know anything about Canada?  They're pretty much as messed up as we are in the legal system.

[Chino]

If this passes I'm moving to Canada.

Do you know anything about Canada?  They're pretty much as messed up as we are in the legal system.

Weed is way more tolerated there though.

[Seventh Son]

If this passes I'm moving to Canada.

Do you know anything about Canada?  They're pretty much as messed up as we are in the legal system.

No, because I wasn't being serious with my initial post.

[Arcaeus]

ACTA's falling apart, so the U.S. is pulling this out of their asses instead? And since it's not international, they don't have any other countries telling them how ridiculous it is -- their only opponent is the American public, who are too ignorant to care. Ugh. What the hell is happening?

[yorost]

If this passes I'm moving to Canada.

Do you know anything about Canada?  They're pretty much as messed up as we are in the legal system.

Weed is way more tolerated there though.

I know, I lived there, so what?

[ReaPsTA]

ACTA's falling apart, so the U.S. is pulling this out of their asses instead? And since it's not international, they don't have any other countries telling them how ridiculous it is -- their only opponent is the American public, who are too ignorant to care. Ugh. What the hell is happening?

ACTA?

[El Barto]

No surprise at all.  Within weeks of taking office, Obama stacked the DoJ with lawyers from the entertainment industry.  What fascinates me is that they seem to have the same mentality as the hawks in Bush's administration.  Rarely can you actually solve a problem with brute force.  The neo-cons convinced themselves that American military mite can solve the world's ills.  Bullshit.  These new assholes seem to think at enough censorship tools can salvage the train wrecks that are the music and movie industries. 

Here's the interesting part.  The more they try to tighten down the internet, the more they'll lose control of it.  Even as we speak, pirates, hackers and child pornographers are doing whatever the hell they want in freenet.  With anonymity taken care of,  the only problem they're having is bandwidth.  As Obama's stooges continue to try and close up the easier means of filesharing, more people will get into freenet, increasing the number of users and making the whole darknet run that much better.  As I said in a different thread, there are far more ways of sharing information than anyone could ever think to shutdown.  As it stands now, they're much better off trying to deal with copyright infringement while it's out in the open rather than forcing people into the truly dark corners. 

Yeah, I see your point.

But, honestly, the government should be doing a better job of removing illegal content from the internet.

Even if you think that any content on the internet could or should be illegal,  which I don't, the government can't do anything about it without making the problem much worse. 

[glaurung]

Yeah, I see your point.

But, honestly, the government should be doing a better job of removing illegal content from the internet.

Even if you think that any content on the internet could or should be illegal,  which I don't, the government can't do anything about it without making the problem much worse. 

You don't think child pornography should be illegal?

[El Barto]

Yeah, I see your point.

But, honestly, the government should be doing a better job of removing illegal content from the internet.

Even if you think that any content on the internet could or should be illegal,  which I don't, the government can't do anything about it without making the problem much worse. 

You don't think child pornography should be illegal?

No.

[Nigerius Rex]

But its bad and encourages rape and murder and the absence of everything nice!

[Chino]

Yeah, I see your point.

But, honestly, the government should be doing a better job of removing illegal content from the internet.

Even if you think that any content on the internet could or should be illegal,  which I don't, the government can't do anything about it without making the problem much worse. 

You don't think child pornography should be illegal?

Technically, nothing should be illegal. Just heavily frowned upon by society if they choose.

[ReaPsTA]

No.

Eh. I don't like this. If you let more people watch child porn, you're creating incentives for kiddie porn directors to rape more kids in order to get material out there.

When it comes to virtual child porn, I don't really care. No kids are raped to make it. But real child porn? I don't see why legalizing it makes society better or prevents kids from being raped.

[GuineaPig]

No.

Eh. I don't like this. If you let more people watch child porn, you're creating incentives for kiddie porn directors to rape more kids in order to get material out there.

When it comes to virtual child porn, I don't really care. No kids are raped to make it. But real child porn? I don't see why legalizing it makes society better or prevents kids from being raped.

I agree with ReaPsTA.

[Chino]

No.

Eh. I don't like this. If you let more people watch child porn, you're creating incentives for kiddie porn directors to rape more kids in order to get material out there.

When it comes to virtual child porn, I don't really care. No kids are raped to make it. But real child porn? I don't see why legalizing it makes society better or prevents kids from being raped.

I think his point is nothing should be illegal. Theft, child porn, rape, murder, should have no laws against them. That being said society as a whole would still disagree with those acts. If a man released a video of him having sex in with a 3 year old, and then slitting her throat, someone would definitely kill him with no laws against murder. I know thats a simple explanation, but am I going in the right direction?

[El Barto]

Well, we're derailing the thread bigtime, but since it's Reap's thread anyway, I'll play.

Eh. I don't like this. If you let more people watch child porn, you're creating incentives for kiddie porn directors to rape more kids in order to get material out there.

If CP were decriminalized, would you run out to add videos of Preteens Gone Wild to your porn collection?  We're talking about something that the overwhelming majority of folk find abhorrent.  Decriminalizing it isn't going to change that.  As for incentive, they're already making it, despite there being no legal market for it.  Nobody decides to fuck their daughter because they're having trouble making the car payment. 

When it comes to virtual child porn, I don't really care. No kids are raped to make it. But real child porn? I don't see why legalizing it makes society better or prevents kids from being raped.

I wouldn't say that legalizing it would be an improvement for society.  I do however think that the prohibition is problematic for society.  It really only fosters and endless string of bullshit, feelgood legislation; exactly the sort you would normally criticize.  And, who's to say that a legal outlet for pervs to get their rocks off might not prevent a crime or two?

[ehra]

I think his point is nothing should be illegal. Theft, child porn, rape, murder, should have no laws against them. That being said society as a whole would still disagree with those acts. If a man released a video of him having sex in with a 3 year old, and then slitting her throat, someone would definitely kill him with no laws against murder. I know thats a simple explanation, but am I going in the right direction?

Do you really trust the people around you enough to not only be comfortable with them policing you you but to also decide what should be punishable and how severely? And if a murder or theft does happen, who's going to hold a trial or an investigation to figure out who was acting in self defense or who's lying?

[Chino]

I think his point is nothing should be illegal. Theft, child porn, rape, murder, should have no laws against them. That being said society as a whole would still disagree with those acts. If a man released a video of him having sex in with a 3 year old, and then slitting her throat, someone would definitely kill him with no laws against murder. I know thats a simple explanation, but am I going in the right direction?

Do you really trust the people around you enough to not only be comfortable with them policing you you but to also decide what should be punishable and how severely? ?

It's not like our government does the best job of it either. I not saying I completely trust everyone around me. I was simply stating what I thought barto was trying to say.

[juice]

do not want

EDIT:  Should you want to sign a petition against it here you go…
https://demandprogress.org/blacklist/?source=fb

[EPICVIEW]

The Dems/Libs always want CONTROL... so they can control what is "valid News" and what is the propoganda they want you to injest as the "so called truth"..

this is very scary..

[eric42434224]

The Dems/Libs always want CONTROL... so they can control what is "valid News" and what is the propoganda they want you to injest as the "so called truth"..

this is very scary..

Only the Dems and Libs want control?  Hmmm....interesting.

[EPICVIEW]

The Dems/Libs always want CONTROL... so they can control what is "valid News" and what is the propoganda they want you to injest as the "so called truth"..

this is very scary..

Only the Dems and Libs want control?  Hmmm....interesting.

prove otherwise?

[GuineaPig]

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh