Have people been following this today? It's a new version of COICA that is yet another attempt to censor the internet on the basis of "protecting copyright." This bill would be a disaster for a free and open web.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/revised-net-censorship-bill-requires-search-engines-to-block-sites-too.ars Surprise! After months in the oven, the soon-to-be-released new version of a > major US Internet censorship bill didn't shrink in scope—it got much > broader. Under the new proposal, search engines, Internet providers, credit > card companies, and ad networks would all have cut off access to foreign > "rogue sites"—and such court orders would not be limited to the government. > Private rightsholders could go to court and target foreign domains, too. > As for sites which simply change their domain name slightly after being > targeted, the new bill will let the government and private parties bring > quick action against each new variation. > Get ready for the "PROTECT IP Act." http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110511/00115314234/full-text-protect-ip-act-released-good-bad-horribly-ugly.shtml Also on the "horribly ugly" side of things is the extension of this bill to > cover search engines. That is, when the Attorney General uses the law, one > of the things that can be done is obtaining an order saying search engines > must no longer link to certain sites. This seems like a massive form of > meddling in how a search engine operates. I also can't see how it could > survive First Amendment scrutiny. It's a blatant case of the government > telling a search engine what it can and cannot link to in its index.
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