News from Google via https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
(Reprinted below for your convenance.)
Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.
Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.
The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.
The Google Team
Link to PDF below
https://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/landing/takeaction/takeaction.pdf
Will it matter what the public thinks? Hardly. And all the government has to do in order to change the opinion is to say "but think about
teh TERRORISTS!!11!1", and the public will let them do anything they want, including listening in to every phone call, every e-mail, monitoring every book loaned from the library, taking your fingerprints at the airports, etc. And then putting preassure on other countries (like European) to play ball and take similar actions, and cooperate.
This SOPA or PIPA or whatever is just one of many measures taken to censor, restrict, monitoring and controlling the Internet. The public doesn't really know what's happening, some don't care, some opposes it but can't do anything about it, some other opposes it but get converted as soon as the "terrorist card" is being played out (which is a universal card you can play out that trumps anything else in any and all context). The totalitarian Orwell society is in large parts already here, these SOPA/PIPA are merely pieces in the bigger jigsaw puzzle that's almost finished.
I don't really care what happens in the USA, as long as they keep the madness at their border. But I hate it when this kind of **** is being forced onto us living in the free world, just because the US is a long term traditional ally and important trading partner. I hate it to see my children having to grow up and live in an Orwell world shaped by George Bush Junior's paranoia and his other weaknesses. I'm not an American, and living in my own country - why should my life, both on and off the Internet, be affected by mad US legislation?
