Apparently congress would like to censor the web. This is a very controversial topic. How this works is that if you Google illegal movies and some website comes up it makes it legal to sue Google for helping you find said site due to"copy right issues". This also allows the government to call materials contraband and block it from all users. Foreign sites can be blacklisted and will not show up. That means foreign search engines, sources, or stores will no longer be available. also this changes the domain-name of many websites.Many say censorship belongs to the owner of the computer. Others disagree and say the internet
is a government owned tool and should be managed by the government. If that were the case many of the workers and providers of the services online would be government workers.
The reason the internet is so popular is because it isn't censored unlike t.v. We have spent years building free unbridled, open minded, information available to anyone and everyone. Giving the power to block this out is handing someone the key to selective knowledge.
President Obama stated in his speech Thursday,
"We will promote new tools of communication so people are empowered to connect with one another and, in repressive societies, to do so with security. We will support a free and open Internet, so individuals have the information to make up their own minds. And it is time to embrace and effectively monitor norms that advance the rights of civil society and guarantee its expansion within and across borders."With that said it sounds like we have a solid no on this internet censorship deal. Even if the bill passes congress it will be vetoed. SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a website among many like Google, Wikipedia, and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) are against this bill. These websites are in black out or doing other means of protesting.Here is a link of how to help fight the bill.
https://news.google.com/news/section?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&csid=fcfc173a01cb4111&redirect=true
I believe that you will not be able to stop people, even if attempt to block IP's and websites people will find a way around it. In my opinion its a way to divide us from knowledge they don't think the public should have. Wiki leaks was an example of such a thing.
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