SOPA Repeat? I think NOT

So today has been a pretty bad day. Got humbled by an exam, postponed merriment, got spat on, realized that I'm nowhere near as 'together' as I thought I was. Such revelations raise their head every so often.

EU anti-TPP/ACTA Protesters  - Source 

To top it of, the politicians' [when are they going to realize that they're elected representatives and not clowns?]  antics have really taken an interesting turn. From porn watching ministers of woman and child welfare in sessions of the Karnataka state assembly (they claim that they were trying to explain to each other, through a very graphic video, the meaning of gang rape - as a case of rave party turned gang rape had occurred) to the US lobbyists allegedly supporting 'trade agreements' that curtail internet freedoms just like SOPA, it's been a bad day for my faith in the political process.

Disclaimer: I support the protection of intellectual property, despite the fact that I secretly find stories of hackers and the things they can do, pretty enthralling [Julian Assange was a hacker] and the fact that I've been saved a lot of money and wasted a lot of time from things that are products of these online pirates. These should [officially] be curtailed. That being said, if any of the laws trying to curtail the above also impinge upon internet freedoms, I will do everything I can to make sure that they don't come into being.

From Fight for the Future, here is an excerpt of what is happening.  

Together, we beat SOPA in a huge victory for internet freedom.  But this Saturday, internet freedom protests are breaking out in over 200 cities across Europe.  Why? 

 Because the companies behind SOPA are using international trade agreements as a backdoor to pass SOPA-style laws

SOPA's supporters are pushing two agreements: ACTA and TPP¹.  ACTA would criminalize users, encourage internet providers to spy on you, and make it easier for media companies to sue sites out of existence and jail their founders.  Sound familiar?  That's right, ACTA is from the same playbook as SOPA, but global.  Plus it didn't even have to pass through Congress².
TPP goes even farther than ACTA, and the process has been even more secretive and corrupt.

 Last weekend (we wish this was a joke) trade negotiators partied with MPAA (pro-SOPA) lobbyists before secret negotiations in a Hollywood hotel, while public interest groups were barred from meeting in the same building.³

Trade agreements are a gaping loophole, a secretive backdoor track that--even though it creates new laws--is miles removed from democracy.  Trade negotiators are unelected and unaccountable, so these agreements have been very hard for internet rights groups to stop.
But now the tide is turning.  Fueled by the movement to stop SOPA, anti-ACTA protests are breaking out across the EU, which hasn't ratified ACTA.  The protests are having an impact: leaders in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have backtracked on ACTA.⁴  Now a massive round of street protests in over 200 cities is planned for this Saturday February 11th.

We're planning an online protest this Saturday to support the protests in the streets.  Why?  Because together we can drive millions of emails to key decision makers--and start tipping the scales like we did on SOPA.

Can you take part?  Click here to get the code to run on your site!

We just built an ACTA & TPP contact tool, and it's not just a petition.   It's code for your site that figures out the visitor's country and lets them email all their Members of European Parliament--the politicians who will be voting on ACTA in June--or the trade negotiators behind TPP.  This direct contact between voters and their officials, driven by websites of all sizes, was instrumental in the fight against SOPA. 

We can use the same tactics to defeat ACTA & TPP, but we need your help!

Support the street protests with a flood of emails to the officials responsible for ACTA & TPP.  Get the code for your website!

Don't have a website?  Tell officials in your country to scrap ACTA & TPP!   And spread the word about Saturday's protests! 

This is going to be tough fight.  But we need to make secretive trade agreements harder to pass than US law.  If we don't, our internet's future belongs to the lobbyists behind SOPA.  
This is just the beginning,

--Holmes Wilson, Tiffiniy Cheng, Joshua Blount & the whole Fight for the Future team. 

Stop ACTA & TPP: Tell your country's officials: NEVER use secretive trade agreements to meddle with the Internet. Our freedoms depend on it!
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Most Inspirational Photo of 2011

The above is a photo credited to Patrick Baz/AFP/? taken during the Egyptian Arab Spring protests. These men, on the floor of a dimly lit, grimy room with their laptops and phones connected to overburdened power strips were responsible for the organization of the masses of people who came out to oust the unfair regime that had ruled them for years.

As a blogger, I stand in absolute support against efforts by any government for measures to control the freedom of expression on the internet. If the Arab Spring, Anna Hazare and Occupy protests have proved anything, they have proved the power - once again - that a united people can represent against a dynastic and fractious government. No government or and most importantly, a government that declares that they are democratic and free, should undertake measures that stifle their people's freedom of expression.

All of the above being said, I also realize the raw power of the internet and the very expression of freedom that a government must protect, to make it easier for the facilitation of messages of violence, injustice, hatred and bigotry. [Look at user comments on YouTube videos of any Justin Bieber song to see what I mean.] In all seriousness, I guess what I am trying to say is that it's important not to muzzle the power Information Technology provides us to connect with each other in new ways [My Telemedicine job - will blog about it later - has had a significant impact on my views on IT]. But at the same time, we still live in an unremorseful world and just because it has become easier to connect with one another, humans have not changed. We're still as capable of committing unspeakably horrible crimes on one another and the ideal of world of peace remains utopian in it's reach. The internet and IT only increases the ease with which we have the ability to access information that helps us make our decisions. It still isn't the arbiter of right and wrong. That's down to us, and that's part of the beauty of a thinking human mind.

I think that the aim of IT is education, awareness and openness - three ideals that really do have the power to change the world. And if when considering how to 'regulate' the internet and other new technologies, governments and vindictive Indian journalists keeps the above in mind, it will provide a much clearer and easier path for its' people to the future.

IT gives us innumerable chances to make decisions every day with respect to what we choose to know and see about the world around us and how we want to participate in global dialogue. Narrow mindedness is no longer an option that can sustain itself without coming against a wall of changed mindset. Which is why it is important, more so than ever, for the equitable distribution of IT and the education of people in it's ways.

I hope, that in the future - everyone can get reliable, responsible and accurate information at the click of a button. And I hope that it empowers them to think for themselves. Leading to whatever it may.

Perhaps even for lawyer in saucepan battlegear - if he's fighting for the right things.