A group of Tea Partiers and bleeding-heart liberals consisting of artists and investment bankers and they represent the left and the right, have come out in support of Senator Wyden as he comes forward, yet again, as a stalwart champion for First Amendment rights, innovation and digital security.
The problem at hand is a bill called the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act” (PROTECT IP) and it aims to permanently change our digital landscape – that’s why they’re calling it what it is: The Internet Blacklist Bill.
If passed, PROTECT IP would give the government dramatic new powers to target Internet websites. Sites could have their domain disabled and third party sites, including search engines, would be required to remove the site from their registries and disable all links to the domain in question.
Imagine you’re the successful owner of a heavily trafficked website. Your income and that of those with whom you work depends entirely on the advertising revenue and payments provided by visitors to your site. One day, without warning, your site no longer appears at its domain, your advertisers have backed out, and you can’t even find your site on Google. You’ve been disappeared – blacklisted by new regulations set by Congress in the PROTECT IP Act.
http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_letter/
