Protest Against ACTA / SOPA / PIPA.

[Aegis Maelstrom]

Hello Good People of SETI.USA! To whom it may concern:

As you may be aware, legislators across the globe are thinking on implementation of new laws, which are putting more restrictions on Internet and citizen freedoms within it.

Because of this fact, a number of services are going to protest against the new legislature. This is a wide movement, including not only numerous Free/Libre/Open Source Software and civil rights sites, but big names like Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla, Reddit&ArsTechnica as well.

My team, BOINC@Poland, and our affiliated project Radioactive@home, are supporting the protest.

Our side portal www.boinc.com.pl will be blacked out, and the main services like www.boincatpoland.org and http://radioactiveathome.org/pl/ will highlight our message.

We invite all the projects, BOINC teams and volunteers to support the protest, in a way you feel would be appropriate.

Just let me pass the ask of a sysop of Radioactive@home:

Welcome

Because of acceptance of ACTA agreement, and also other attempts of forcing legal solutions targeting increase of legal control over internet, administrators of Radioactive@home decided to place note of protest on the project site, with the following information.

"With regard to the ACTA (so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) accepted by European Union, we feel obliged to warn you that our website may be unavailable in some countries soon.

ACTA Agreement was initiated by organizations describing themselves as "defending artists from bad pirates" and has been enforced on EU in secret negotiations initiated by US Government. Non government
organizations from all over the world agreed on condemning both the way of negotiations ware taken and allowing by this agreement cutting off websites "uncomfortable" for governments of countries that
signed ACTA, without proving infringements of any laws."


We would like Your project to join this action. We plan to publish this note on Wednesday 18.01.2012 on 0.00am.

Regards,

Krzysztof 'krzyszp' Piszczek

As far as I know, Krzysztof will run his message for at least three days. The action may be repeated.
You are more than welcome to join or express your concerns.

Best Regards to you all and happy crunching,

aegis maelstrom
BOINC@Poland

P.S. I am sorry I am writing you that late - I hope you got a PM before - so far we don't have professional PR services yet and we are making things ad hoc if only we have time after work / studies / family issues etc. - you know how it is.

[Slicker]

ACTA's main goal is to stop the illegal pirating of music, videos, and software. I'm OK with that -- if that's all it did. Unfortunately, it goes way beyond that. It basically allows the government to infringe on people's rights and search anything on the Internet without proof of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

We would normally call it slander followed by illegal search and seizure. But, by passing ACTA, the government officials have essentially side-stepped numerous legal issues via a treaty and essentially passed legislation without the legislature getting involved. They have declared that any data on the Internet can be searched whether there is proof or not, just on the claim that there may be wrong doing. Normally, one would need a judge to grant a warrant to search someone's premises. Not with ACTA. They can search data transmitted though an ISP without probably cause.

In my opinion, this is similar to the laws passed as a knee jerk reaction after 911. Did they work? Some. Others were either security theater or infringed upon people's rights. How many 90 year old lady's have been patted down or strip searched in airports even though everyone knows they are not a threat? How many peoples rights have been ignored "for national security". What percentage of GITMO detainees have actually done something wrong that can be proven? What's next, water-boarding of Internet music pirates?

If I write software that I don't make public domain, I'd like to get paid for it. That's how I earn my living. But, can I walk into your house and check to see whether my software is installed on your computer? Not without a search warrant. To get one, I first need to have some type of proof that illegal activity has taken place. The warrant has to be specific as to what I will be searching for and why. With ACTA, all they have to do is suspect someone. No proof needed. That's been done before. It was called the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the McCarthy Era. I wonder what they will call this one when power gets abused?

[DrPop]

What is up with politicians and their power grabs? Do they honestly think this kind of rubbish is what we wanted when they got voted into office? Why don't they try to fix some *REAL* problems like cutting our spending down to LESS than we bring in. Did they ever think of that? We did NOT vote them in office to make them fat cats and our lives more miserable. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

[spingadus]

What is up with politicians and their power grabs? Do they honestly think this kind of rubbish is what we wanted when they got voted into office? Why don't they try to fix some *REAL* problems like cutting our spending down to LESS than we bring in. Did they ever think of that? We did NOT vote them in office to make them fat cats and our lives more miserable. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

It's called lobbyists, with deep pockets promising to give $$$ to re-election campaigns. It's ok though, cuz $$$ = Free Speech!

[Maxwell]

And I think this sums it up pretty well...

[Fire$torm]

Thank you Aegis Maelstrom for starting this thread. I was thinking of doing it myself after hearing how Wikipedia and others are going to protest this POS legislation. I have added my voice in the past and will do so again.

[Crazybob]

I've been watching this for weeks and those bastards need to stay out of censoring the Internet. I've signed all the petitions that I've seen against this crap.

This is a link I received this AM to only support candidates that vote against this crap.
http://voteforthenet.com/

[YoDude9999]

What is up with politicians and their power grabs? Do they honestly think this kind of rubbish is what we wanted when they got voted into office? Why don't they try to fix some *REAL* problems like cutting our spending down to LESS than we bring in. Did they ever think of that? We did NOT vote them in office to make them fat cats and our lives more miserable. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

The problem with Democracy is that, once someone gets voted in, then we find they are a bunch of assholes, there's no way to vote their asses back out again and we are stuck with them until either their term runs out, or they die. Another problem that really ticks me off, is that laws are created by people that think they are doing something wonderful and they get put into effect without the consent of the public at large. We are not asked to vote for these new laws, they are just simply put in place without regard to the people's personal opinion.
Then, they don't bother to tell you what they've done until you find you're getting a ticket for "indecency" because someone got a cell phone pic. of you while you were pulling your underwear outta your ass in public somewhere. Another problem is that the law books keep growing in size. Old dumb-assed stupid laws that serve no purpose, remain on the book and there just continues to be more and more of them getting added all the time.

This however, is not generally a forum of politics, so, I'll get off my soapbox now.

[DrPop]

The problem ...
This however, is not generally a forum of politics, so, I'll get off my soapbox now.

Don't go so soon, I was enjoying the min-rant.

[DrPop]

I just found this site to contact your members of congress about it. Does almost everything automatically for you once you put in your address info on the right side there, it brings up your Senators and Rep for your jurisdiction. Seems to save some time looking for all that info, and you can personalize the message on the left like I did before you hit send.

LINK: http://www.opencongress.org/contact_...osition=oppose