The Two Blind Mice

As the 2012 presidential election draws nearer and nearer, the Republican candidates (thanks in a large part to the media) have basically been narrowed down to Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.  As these two duke it out at debates and primaries all over the country (as of writing, the next primary is in Florida), President Obama has yet to even start campaigning.

This may have a few effects.  First; Americans practically forget that there is already a president and they think that their only choices for office are Romney and Gingrich (we're speaking of the not-so-nicely-educated Americans here..)  Or, they may just toss so many insults at each other that by the time the real election rolls around, the general public has become so thoroughly disgusted with both of them that they decide to reelect President Obama.

Personally, I think something in the election system needs to change.

SOPA

First of all, what is SOPA?  SOPA is a bill that was recently introduced in the House of Representatives as the Stop Online Piracy Act.  It's purpose is plainly stated; to stop online piracy.  Because you're reading this on blog, we don't feel the need to define what online piracy is.

After filtering through paragraphs and paragraphs of bewildering attorney-speak, we've determined a few things.  Obviously, the bill is designed to stop online piracy.  This particular bill deals mostly with 'foreign infringing sites' that are being used in the United States.

Because U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction where any foreign site is located, the bill provides means to block the website.  According to the bill, search engines must remove all links to the foreign site if told to do so by the government.  All online advertising companies must remove their ads, and any funding from the foreign site.  Any payment service (such as Paypal) must stop all transactions with the foreign site.  The domain hosting service must block all American users from accessing the foreign infringing site.  All of these must occur within five days of receiving a court order.

So while it does not seem that SOPA will be able to shut down foreign infringing sites, it forces us and companies to boycott them against their will.

A lot of rumors have spread about what sites this bill will target.  Will Youtube be included? Will Facebook? Google +? Countless other massively used file sharing or social media sites?  Right now, no one knows.  All we can do is speculate, and decide whether or not we want to support this bill.

Do your research, learn what the bill says, and either back it or fight it.  You make the choice.

Read SOPA here: http://goo.gl/STbcI