The New York City General Assembly has passed the following statement against the Stop Online Piracy Act. The openness of the internet and our right to free speech is threatened by SOPA and Protect IP. They must be stopped.

For more information and to take action against this Act, visit:
http://vimeo.com/31100268
http://americancensorship.org/
https://www.eff.org/document/aclu-letter-sopa

 

We, the 99%, call upon our elected representatives to oppose censorship, and reject the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.

SOPA and the Protect IP Act would make it possible for the federal government and judges to censor content on the Internet. The government would be given the power to block access to websites and to put websites on a DNS blacklist. Potentially, anything from Facebook to your friend’s blog could be shut down for possible “copyright infringement.” If SOPA becomes law, posting a video with any kind of copyrighted material could be considered a felony.

Civil rights groups, leading technology companies, and hundreds of law professors and lawyers oppose SOPA and the Protect IP Act. They recognize that these bills threaten to break the internet’s infrastructure and stifle the rights of people to freely express themselves. We know multinational corporations have spent lots of money lobbying our representatives to pass this legislation – legislation that is clearly counter to the interests of the 99%.

Over the last decade, digital information networks have made it possible for people around the world to communicate with each other more freely than ever before. We have begun to truly realize our shared humanity. But, the technology that has helped make this possible is not yet under our control. So far, that infrastructure has been operated with an eye toward liberty and justice; but, now we find that our rights to privacy, assembly, and speech in cyberspace are under attack.

We, the New York City General Assembly of #OccupyWallStreet, recognize the critical importance of a free and open internet. The openness of the internet and our right to free speech is threatened by SOPA and Protect IP. They must be stopped.

To check on the status of the bills:
SOPA: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/show
Protect IP: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/show

For more information visit:
http://vimeo.com/31100268
http://americancensorship.org/
https://www.eff.org/document/aclu-letter-sopa