Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 2 months , then you have heard about SOPA aka “The protect IP Act”. It would give the dept. of justice certain powers to blacklist certain IPs and Domains to be blacklisted off of the internet. This would put the governments hand directly into every webmasters daily grind. Even the average user of the internet, yes you, the one reading this article about SOPA right now, would be effected.
Imagine going to one of your favorite websites, one you have had bookmarked for years. Perhaps this site has an unlicensed picture of lets say the Fox news logo or something major and you find the site has been black listed from every search engine and taken offline due to being sued by Fox, as well as the justice dept. blacklisting their IP. This would give the justice dept. the right to give no explanation to the consumer electronics association or the webmaster , and they can just shut down the entire network. Can you imagine how out of control this would get?
Do we really want to turn into China as far as our censorship laws are concerned? Where is the line in the sand drawn by whomever, that webmaster should be blacklisted and responsible for content put onto their site, knowingly or unknowingly. i think this is a major outreach of the government to impede on basic rights. The internet in general is a free for all of lawless cowboys raping and pillaging. But thats not ALL the internet is about. The internet is simply just me and you, it is people interacting and sharing ideas with one another. Some of those good, some of those bad. Do you really want to have to worry about having your facebook account shut down and blacklisted because you posted some picture from a chain mail you got on your wall? Seriously think about this and keep an eye on the development.

Surprisingly, every single day people on the house and senate are making moves to cut this bill down. It should not even exist in my opinion. CLICK THIS LINK to sign the official SOPA blacklist. Get this bill annihilated!
Very rarely does a government so blatently over reach their powers, but what is rare about our government now a days? Absolutely nothing, so it really is not all that surprising, that this bill would even come to the floor in the American system in general. The fact that it was more or less hidden behind a package of lies, perpetrated by those who probably have a very elementary understanding about the way the internet works in relation to the users of the internet. You cannot seperate the Internet from Us. I hate to make such a basic analogy but The Internet = Us. Thats all it is, just us, doing what people do, human nature at its finest. Although the one unique thing about the internet , is that you can say whatever you want online. The ego defenses normally brought up in awkward situations within your every day life, can be discarded behind an avatar or a character in the virtual world. So I think addressing the basic concerns and issues facing why the government even thinks the internet should be censored to begin with, is worth looking into. I think in situations like these, the psychology behind the people pulling the strings, is just as important as the ‘user’ of the internet, as defined by SOPA.
As always, Keep an eye on this! But just ask yourself one simple question, Do you really think we should hand such an awesome power to our government, the same government that could not even effectively run a ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program just a few years ago… Scary to think about isnt it?