CISPA is the New SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/etc. etc. etc.

[Renegade]

Well, you knew that the psychopathic control freaks wouldn't wait long before their next attack on your freedom of speech, and this time around, the name is "CISPA - Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act". So, they're dressing it up as "cyber security" now... Oh puh-lease... <insert mouth-frothing string of obscenities and profanity here />

It's seriously getting difficult to track the sheer number of pieces of legislation designed to strip our freedoms...

Anyways, here's an article on the newest attempt to assassinate freedom of speech:

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/04/fascism-comes-to-internet-introducing.html

The CISPA acronym is probably the most honest of those proposed thus far, and certainly is self-explanatory: the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. Cybersecurity initiatives themselves are framed in such a way as to declare the free and open Internet to be subsumed into national security infrastructure, thus giving it over to the Pentagon, NSA, and other agents for use in surveillance and even offensive war.  However, CISPA goes one step further to suggest that all information transmitted on this national security infrastructure is fair game for the prying eyes of the State. Most likely the private sector must bow to any and all demands made, or face being labeled as supporters of terrorism.

They're never going to give up.

• SOPA
• PIPA
• OPEN
• ACTA
• Bill C-11
• HR 1981 PC-FIPA (thanks to TaoPhoenix)
• CISPA (H. R. 3523)
• PrECISE Act (H. R. 3674)
• SECURE IT (S.2151)
• Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (S.2105)
• Online Safety Bill (HL Bill 137) (thanks again to TaoPhoenix)

Am I missing any? Please feel free to add to the list as I know that there are similar pieces of evil legislation in different countries...


EDIT - Updated list.
EDIT - Added several more. (2012-04-06)
EDIT - Added HL 137. (2012-04-11)

[TaoPhoenix]

Looks like you missed HR 1981 PC-FIPA.

[Renegade]

Looks like you missed HR 1981 PC-FIPA.

Thanks. I updated the list. I'm sure there are more... unfortunately...

[zridling]

[attach]

[TaoPhoenix]

They have "improved their model" too.
Witchcraft & Communism was the 1.X model that proved vulnerable to both the passing of the chief opponent (Soviet Union) and it was always a little brittle because it was "binary", either you were or were not Those Things, and the illusion of legitimacy of it all cracked under the absurdity.

This time they have at least a trifecta of Terrorism, Porn vs Children, and Copyright & Patents with help from DRM and TOS.

[TaoPhoenix]

More news: 

Ars Technica: Slow learner? MPAA chief hints at talks to revive SOPA
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/slow-learner-mpaa-chief-hints-at-talks-to-revive-sopa.ars

Hollywood Reporter:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mpaa-christopher-dodd-sopa-bully-harvey-weinstein-ratings-308359
MPAA Chief Christopher Dodd Says SOPA Debate Isn't Over

----------------------
UK Bill Again Demands Web Pornography Ban
"A new bill presented to the House of Lords demands both ISPs and device makers filter adult content. The Online Safety Bill, raised in the Lords by Baroness Howe of Ildicote, asks for ISPs and mobile operators to 'provide a service that excludes pornographic images' and for device makers to include ways to filter content at the point of purchase.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/373951/lords-bill-demands-isps-and-device-makers-block-porn

---------------------------

[TaoPhoenix]

Followed by this counterstrike!   

---------------------

Pirate Bay Promotion Attracts Over 5000 Artists
The Pirate Bay introduced a new promotion platform for artists called 'The Promo Bay,' which let independent artists reach tens of millions of people by offering favorable advertising spots on the The Pirate Bay's homepage.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/324682/20120405/pirate-bay-promotion-promo-artists-riaa-mpaa.htm

[TaoPhoenix]

Here's more news on CISPA.
P.s. Congress is "depsrately trying to not make this sound like SOPA".
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120410/12180518442/cispa-is-really-bad-bill-heres-why.shtml

[Renegade]

@TaoPhoenix - Thanks for those updates.   

Well, that's 10 pieces of legislation from the US, UK, Canada, and an international treaty...

Out. Of. Control.

None of this can end well.

[IainB]

Looks like an RIAA/MPAA propaganda/indoctrination mission didn't work out too well for Paramount at Brooklyn Law School:
Paramount's Post-SOPA 'Outreach' To Law Students About 'Content Theft' Still Shows An Out Of Touch Operation

Worth a read.

[Renegade]

Looks like an RIAA/MPAA propaganda/indoctrination mission didn't work out too well for Paramount at Brooklyn Law School:
Paramount's Post-SOPA 'Outreach' To Law Students About 'Content Theft' Still Shows An Out Of Touch Operation

Worth a read.

From the prof's notes:

Perry finally discussed SOPA and PROTECT IP. From Paramount’s perspective, these were proportionate measures targeting foreign sites and providing for a measure of due process

Proportionate? Well, I don't think I need to point out how utter ridiculous that is...

"A measure of due process"? WTF? Is he on crack? Due process is kind of like being pregnant or dead. You either are or aren't. You either get due process, or you don't.

These people are completely out of touch with any semblance of reality.

[TaoPhoenix]

"While he said he didn’t want to get into copyright math,..."

Haha! So the minute a properly calculated hard number appears, it might reverse his "noted that" talking points!

And when do we get to bring Hollywood Accounting into all this, where despite all that money, the second tier actors and scriptwriters get none of it? (Same thing for music.)

[Renegade]

"While he said he didn’t want to get into copyright math,..."

Haha! So the minute a properly calculated hard number appears, it might reverse his "noted that" talking points!

And when do we get to bring Hollywood Accounting into all this, where despite all that money, the second tier actors and scriptwriters get none of it? (Same thing for music.)

+1

Hollywood Accounting is every bit as real as the A-Team~!

[erikts]

Facebook defends support for CISPA monitoring bill
Other tech sponsors strangely silent

"HR 3523 would impose no new obligations on us to share data with anyone – and ensures that if we do share data about specific cyber threats, we are able to continue to safeguard our users’ private information, just as we do today,' said Facebook's Joel Kaplan, vice president of US public policy in a statement on the site.

"We recognize that a number of privacy and civil liberties groups have raised concerns about the bill. The concern is that companies will share sensitive personal information with the government in the name of protecting cybersecurity. Facebook has no intention of doing this and it is unrelated to the things we liked about HR 3523 in the first place."

[IainB]

And when do we get to bring Hollywood Accounting into all this, where despite all that money, the second tier actors and scriptwriters get none of it? (Same thing for music.)

+1
Hollywood Accounting is every bit as real as the A-Team~!

I disagree. The reality of Hollywood accounting would seem to be none too far removed, theoretically, from Government Accounting, according to this economist's amusing overview of the latter:
Why the State Demands Control of Money
It's all a useful fiction.

[IainB]

Not understanding US politics very much, I couldn't understand why the US Government seem so intent on shoving this difficult-to-digest invasive censorship and control legislation down the public's collective throat. Why must it be done?
Well, now I think I understand, after reading this post: Revolving Door Between The MPAA And The Federal Government
The post uses this informative image:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[attach]

[IainB]

Meanwhile, Google co-founder Brin is worried about internet freedoms
This is a public statement by Brin. I think he is probably genuinely concerned, and probably for good reason too.

[Renegade]

Not understanding US politics very much, I couldn't understand why the US Government seem so intent on shoving this difficult-to-digest invasive censorship and control legislation down the public's collective throat. Why mst it be done?
Well, now I think I understand, after reading this post: Revolving Door Between The MPAA And The Federal Government
The post uses this informative image:If this is true, then the Music/Media Industry apparently is the Government, and vice versa.
Good, at least that seems to be clear now.

Now though, what I don't understand is: How can this situation occur - apparently in full public view - without it being regarded as potentially corrupt practice, or at least brimful of rigging with conflict of interest?
I am genuinely mystified by this. Is it quite legal?

Washington D.C. seems to feed off of conflict of interest. It's simply appauling that it hasn't been made illegal.

Meanwhile, Google co-founder Brin is worried about internet freedoms
This is a public statement by Brin. I think he is probably genuinely concerned, and probably for good reason too.

Not so sure about that... If you dig a bit deeper there, Brin has some financial motives for all of that. He's just playing the, "Oh~! Think of the children," card there.

Perhaps I'm a tad cynical about his motives, but seriously... how can anyone not be? Google does what is good for Google. Playing the "nice boy" is one of the things that is good for them. After all, they're at least "not as evil as Apple" or whoever.

In short, there's a conflict of interest there for Brin. Yeah, sure it's somewhat not totally on the dark side, but still...

I would like to direct people to Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

I think Kant is bang on, and that failure to understand it is failure to understand morality.

Here's a very short summary:

Do what you could will to be a univeral law.
Doing good things because they benefit you isn't morally praise-worthy.
Doing good things for no other reason than because they are good is praise-worthy.
Treat people as an end.

That is by no means complete, but it's close enough to "get the jist".

When I see that Brin (or whoever) actually does anything simply because it's "right" (inline with the categorical imperative), then I'll have a bit more faith. For now, I just don't see any of that happening out there in the corporate/business/political/finance world.

One of the biggest problem that I see is that "treat people as an end" has been perverted to "treat money as THE end".

[IainB]

Meanwhile, Google co-founder Brin is worried about internet freedoms
This is a public statement by Brin. I think he is probably genuinely concerned, and probably for good reason too.

Not so sure about that... If you dig a bit deeper there, Brin has some financial motives for all of that. He's just playing the, "Oh~! Think of the children," card there.
Perhaps I'm a tad cynical about his motives, but seriously... how can anyone not be? Google does what is good for Google. Playing the "nice boy" is one of the things that is good for them. After all, they're at least "not as evil as Apple" or whoever.
...
One of the biggest problem that I see is that "treat people as an end" has been perverted to "treat money as THE end".

Well that's really an ad hominem - a logical fallacy.
What he said seems to stand up on its own, though I did wonder about the motivation for his saying what he did, being skeptical, but I usually tend to presume that people are probably telling the truth until such time as it seems that they are deliberately disingenuous (dissembling, or have told or are telling a lie). Then you cannot rationally believe anything they say is true, after that (like the Mann Hockey Stick "trick" in Climategate).

That is quite different to someone saying something irrational/stupid - they are probably just being irrational rather than disingenuous. I put that sort of thing down to our three old companions - ignorance, stupidity and bigotry.

I therefore would give Brin the benefit of the doubt, since I do not see that he has made any irrational statement.

[Renegade]

Well that's really an ad hominem - a logical fallacy.

It's not an ad hominem. I didn't attack him. I only pointed out that there is a conflict of interest, and I questioned his motives. I then pointed out my cynicism and reluctance to believe that he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart.

Here's a nice ad hominem:

Brin is selfish and greedy, so this must be financially motivated.

But as for Brin's rationality, I don't think that it's particularly relevant to his intentions. It's perfectly fine to be completely rational and utterly selfish at the same time, even while professing to be altruistic, which would only make you a liar about your motivations, and not necessarily about whatever you'd actually argued.

So, at the end of the day, whether what he's professing is good or not is one thing, and his motivations are another. It is certainly possible that his motivations are "pure", but given past decisions from the executive officers at Google, I have a bit of a hard time swallowing that. They've got a clear history. Ignoring that is being willfully blind.

I would hope that his motivations are to "treat people as an end". But like I said, that cynical part of me is screaming, "Don't be an idiot Ryan!" It's just too loud at the moment, and I can't ignore it.

[IainB]

It's not an ad hominem. I didn't attack him. I only pointed out that there is a conflict of interest, and I questioned his motives. I then pointed out my cynicism and reluctance to believe that he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart.

Oh, sorry, I thought you were probably unintentionally making an inference that his argument/statement may have been invalid.
I don't think you need to attack him for it to be an ad hominem.

For example, from my old lecture notes:

Logical Fallacies - Argumentum ad hominem:
Let us suppose that a poor man is discussing the question of a capital levy with a rich man. The rich man, we will imagine, has produced a number of valid arguments which show, he claims, that the economic consequences of a capital levy would, on the whole, be bad for the community at large.

The poor man might be very likely to reply simply: "You would say all that, you're rich." Now such a method of argument is unfair and dishonest because:
(a) it carries an invitation to assumptive implication by inference that the rich man's arguments must be invalid because of something external to the construction of those arguments - i.e., he is personally prejudiced because of his wealthy status - though actually this has nothing to do with the the arguments themselves, which remain valid. (Remember that "valid" means logically valid, not whether we agree or disagree with them.)

(b) it does not in the least help to solve the question at issue, which is whether a capital levy will or will not benefit the community.

What Brin said was apparently quite valid.
Sorry if I was mistaken.

[Renegade]

It's not an ad hominem. I didn't attack him. I only pointed out that there is a conflict of interest, and I questioned his motives. I then pointed out my cynicism and reluctance to believe that he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart.

Oh, sorry, I thought you were probably unintentionally making an inference that his argument/statement may have been invalid.
I don't think you need to attack him for it to be an ad hominem.

Oh, no! Not in the least. I didn't comment on his argument at all. He's a smart fellow, so I'm quite certain that he can present a decent argument. (That was a pro hominem argument~! Well, kind of...)

Nah, if I go the ad hominem route, I'd do a much better job. (I have a degree in this stuff - literally. )

[IainB]

Looks like Brin may have felt he was misquoted or quoted out of context, or something. See the clarification on his G+ here.

[IainB]

CISPA Sponsor Says Protests Are Mere 'Turbulence'

CISPA Sponsor Says Protests Are Mere 'Turbulence'
Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 18, @02:14AM
from the don't-make-us-shut-down-the-internet-again-buddy dept.

SolKeshNaranek writes with news that Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI), sponsor of CISPA, has decided to tempt fate by referring to the protests that are springing up as 'turbulence on the way down to landing.' From the article: "What really comes through in the article — which mostly talks about how Rogers has been supposedly working with Google to change some of the language in the bill to make it more acceptable -- is how little concern Rogers has for the public. Instead, most of the article just talks about how he's been working with tech companies to make sure they're okay with the bill. And while that's a start, it's no surprise that lots of tech companies would be okay with CISPA, because it grants them broad immunity if they happen to hand over all sorts of private info to the government. But to then call the protests mere 'turbulence' is pretty damned insulting to the actual people this will impact the most: the public, whose privacy may be violated."

Such churlish disregard for the proles!

Translation:

"This bill is going through whether you like it or not, so shove it."

[Renegade]

Such churlish disregard for the proles!

Translation:

"This bill is going through whether you like it or not, so shove it."

Well, if enough people scream about this, they may make *him* shove it~!

I started a thread with a link where people can sign a petition against CISPA here. Hint hint.