Keeping you up-to-date with the #Occupy movement.

Posts tagged internet censorship

Occupy Everywhere: News Roundup for Feb. 5th

Posted at 12:53 , February 6 2012

Somewhat of a slow news weekend for the roundup. Still, we’ve got some good stuff to share.

  • San Diego: An interesting concept has sprung up in the form of the Occupy Walk. According to the website, the Walk will leave San Diego on February 11th and attempt to go all the way to D.C. If it passes your way, they’d love to have you for “a block, a mile, across town, a couple days, or even the whole way[.]” We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one and rooting for it to go the distance.
  • Los Angeles: Flight attendants are yet another union being hit by attacks on collective bargaining rights. As a result, the Association of Flight Attendants will be holding a (cleverly named) “OccuFly” event in LAX Monday, February 6th. According to the release over at Occupy TV Stations, drastic changes have been proposed to the Railway Labor Act that would “virtually ensure that employers will tie up union elections through endless litigation. Through industry consolidation current contracts could be jettisoned and union representation cancelled.” [sic]
  • Public Opinion: Ah, yes, it’s the time of month where people declare the Occupy movement dead. Again. Like they’ve been doing for almost half a year now. It gets a little tiresome, so OccupyWallSt.org has the obligatory takedown on rumors of our demise. (Until next month, at least.)
  • The Internet: Finally, Digital Trends has a roundup of some of the most egregious anti-Internet laws out in the world right now, and not all of them are American. Turning SOPA and PIPA into a pile of radioactive waste was an impressive achievement indeed, but let’s not rest on our laurels. Click the link and know your enemy. (Definitely keep an eye on the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act. I’d be shocked if that wasn’t the next big fight, since they’re already trying to outflank us by giving it a heavy-handed “Think of the Children” name. —ed.
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Members of Congress bow to public pressure, backpedal on SOPA

Posted at 11:32 , January 14 2012

The Stop Online Piracy Act would effectively kill the free Internet. It has enjoyed near-universal support in Congress, but the American people are not nearly as keen—and now, their voices are being heard.

The public outcry over the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act seems to have gotten so loud that even members of Congress can hear it. On Thursday we covered the news that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was expressing second thoughts about SOPA’s DNS provisions. He said he changed his mind after he “heard from a number of Vermonters” on the issue.

On Friday, several Republicans started backpedaling as well.

SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced that he would be pulling the DNS-blocking provisions from his own bill. “After consultation with industry groups across the country, I feel we should remove Domain Name System blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision,” Smith said in a Friday statement.

Meanwhile, six GOP senators who served on the Senate Judiciary Committee (which unanimously approved the legislation last year) wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking him to postpone a vote on PIPA to give them more time to study the legislation.

“We strongly believe that the theft of American intellectual property is a significant problem that must be addressed,” they wrote. But since the Judiciary Committee last considered the legislation, “we have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights.”

[...] Another member of Congress that has been feeling the heat from voters is Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). After reddit members raised $15,000 in 48 hours for his anti-SOPA challenger, Ryan came out with a clear statement of opposition to the legislation.

“It appears that lawmakers are beginning to realize how much damage their anti-’piracy’ bills could cause to the Internet and to Internet-related businesses,” said Public Knowledge’s Sherwin Siy in a statement. “While we are pleased that some progress is being made, we are also firm in our opposition to both bills because some very bad provisions remain.”

Emphasis copyeditor’s. Read more at Ars Technica.

(Not specifically Occupy-related, but this pushback is very much in the spirit of the protests. —Ed.)

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SOPA Staffers Rewarded with Cushy Jobs as Entertainment Industry Lobbyists

Posted at 3:41 , December 13 2011

It’s sad that things like this are no longer surprising, but the reward for writing up SOPA is… You guessed it, a paid job helping to get SOPA passed!

Allison Halataei (former deputy chief of staff for House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas)) and Lauren Pastarnack (former senior aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee) have cool new jobs. Having written the Internet-destroying Stop Online Piracy Act for their bosses while drawing a salary at public expense, they’ve now accepted massive raises to go work for the entertainment companies who stand to benefit from the law they wrote. Their new job? Helping to run the campaign to push their law through.”

Information courtesy of BoingBoing.

(If you haven’t been following it closely, the Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate partner, the PROTECT IP bill, are attempting to grant large and unchecked swaths of power to copyright holders, essentially allowing them to shut down any site they vaguely suspect of infringement with very little due process or recourse. We mention it here not only because it deeply affects the Daily Occupation—without the ability to repost content, we’re more or less crippled—but also OWS as a whole. Once you start shutting down sites with content you don’t like, it’s not that hard to start shutting down sites with opinions you don’t like. —ed.)

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