**Posted by Phineas
Quite a few sites, including the perennially smug Wikipedia [1], are “going dark” in protest of the proposed SOPA and PIPA acts (background here [2]). I won’t, because of my distaste for the sanctimonious political theater the Left is so fond of. (1) (And even if some Right-sites are joining in.)
However, this issue is one of those rare ones that brings both Right and Left together: both bills are badly drawn and grant far too much authority to the federal government to block web sites [3] suspected of piracy. While I have little to no sympathy for copyright pirates, one does not fight it by giving the government power to shut anyone down at any time on just a complaint, with no due process. There is a real threat to free speech in these bills, and they must be defeated.
So, while I won’t be draping this site in black, today, I do urge you to contact your senator to urge the withdrawal or defeat of PIPA. (SOPA is, for now, dead [4].) Senator Marco Rubio, who had distressingly co-sponsored PIPA, has realized his mistake and withdrawn his support [5].
Here’s a list of remaining cosponsors [6]. If your senator is on the list, contact him or her to make your opposition known. (2) And if Republicans vote for these bills, regardless of who they are, primary them [7].
Footnotes:
(1) They like to do strange things such as protesting threats to free speech by doing passive-aggressive stuff such as… suppressing their own free speech. As a friend [8] notes, “Seems a bit like giving up your guns to protest a gun ban.” Must be a quirky “moral authority” thing.
(2) Yeah, I know. I’ve got Boxer and Feinstein. A forlorn hope, but letters sent, nonetheless.
UPDATE: From Moe Lane, a list of Republican senators who’ve changed their minds [9] about protecting free speech.
(Crossposted at Public Secrets [10])
Update – 5:34 PM – from ST: Obviously, I didn’t fade the ST blog to black today, either, mostly for the same reasons as Phineas listed. 