Current Community protests SOPA/PIPA – Are you In?

Congress is calling SOPA a way to prevent online infringement and piracy. However, those committed to free speech rights and creative innovation know that this is nothing more than an attempt to compromise Internet security, free speech and creative license. As currently drafted the legislation would grant the government and other parties unprecedented power to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or block users' attempts to reach certain websites. This in turn would threaten the security and reliability of the Internet as a whole in creating other third party servers besides severely limiting free speech. And under SOPA's provisions ISPs would also be pressured to monitor user activities.

YouTube Video on how PROTECT IP / SOPA Act Breaks the Internet http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HGEUhCfQ464

House Bill - H.R.3261 - Stop Online Piracy Act (aka SOPA) http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/show
Senate Bill - S.968 - PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (aka PIPA)
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/show

All in all this is a direct attempt to limit free exchange of ideas on the Internet, the truly last bastion of freedom we have. Therefore, in response to the SOPA black out day scheduled for January 18 to coincide with witness testimony in Washington DC, we were hoping members of Current would also become involved in a site wide showing of solidarity for Internet freedom against SOPA.

Therefore, we are asking those interested in participating on January 18 to respond in this thread with the following responses: "Boycotting" or "Post about SOPA" to let us know how you intend to participate. We are also urging everyone to list this in all their groups and to come on January 18 to vote up all SOPA posts. Now we cannot force or limit anyone from posting on other topics, but to make a showing where the majority of articles on the front of the Community page would address this important topic with the responses reading "Stop SOPA" would send a message that we who use the Internet are serious about preserving its freedom.

Senate will vote on the Internet censorship on Tuesday, January 24th. You can find where your Members of Congress Stand on SOPA and PIPA http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/.

Click http://my.americancensorship.org/ to see what is happening in your state.

Please then participate on January 18 and respond in this thread so we have an idea of how many people here will participate in this show of web wide solidarity for freedom.

Thank you,
MotherForTruth / JanforGore