Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and inhibit people’s access to information online.

Why? SOPA and PIPA put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won’t have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn’t being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won’t show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.

just like with the stalinistic “patriot” act, all measures restricting civil rights come with a bodyguard of Perfectly Reasonable Explanations about why it is in Your Best Interest to give the government more control over your freedom of communication. It’s all Very Reasonable, and nobody in the government would ever think of abusing the new laws in ways not foreseen or talked about right now…