Editorial
CISPA is the New SOPA
Earlier this year, strong public opposition led by several prominent websites forced congressional leaders to cancel votes on two bills known in Washington as "SOPA" and "PIPA." Both of these bills threatened search engines and websites with possible shutdowns if the Justice Department deemed them insufficiently cooperative with our phony "war on terror," or if they were merely accused of copyright infringement. Fortunately, the American public flooded Capitol Hill with phone calls and congressional leaders dropped both bills.
But we should never underestimate the federal government's insatiable desire to control the Internet. Statists of all parties, persuasions and nationalities hate the free, unbridled flow of information, ideas and goods via the Internet. They resent the notion that ordinary people can communicate and trade across the world without government filters or approvals. So they continually seek to impose controls, always under the guise of fighting terrorism or protecting "intellectual property" rights.
The latest assault on Internet freedom is called the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act," or "CISPA," which may be considered by Congress this week. CISPA is essentially an Internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight − provided, of course, that they do so in the name of "cybersecurity." The bill is very broadly written, and allows the Department of Homeland Security to obtain large swaths of personal information contained in your emails or other online communication. It also allows emails and private information found online to be used for purposes far beyond any reasonable definition of fighting cyberterrorism.
CISPA represents an alarming form of corporatism, as it further intertwines government with companies like Google and Facebook. It permits them to hand over your private communications to government officials without a warrant, circumventing well-established federal laws like the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. It also grants them broad immunity from lawsuits for doing so, leaving you without recourse for invasions of privacy. Simply put, CISPA encourages some of our most successful Internet companies to act as government spies, sowing distrust of social media and chilling communication in one segment of the world economy where America still leads.
Proponents of CISPA may be well-intentioned but they unquestionably are leading us toward a national security state rather than a free constitutional republic. Imagine having government-approved employees embedded at Facebook, complete with federal security clearances, serving as conduits for secret information about their American customers. If you believe in privacy and free markets, you should be deeply concerned about the proposed marriage of government intelligence gathering with private, profit-seeking companies. CISPA is Big Brother writ large, putting the resources of private industry to work for the nefarious purpose of spying on the American people. We can only hope the public responds to CISPA as it did to SOPA back in January. I urge you to learn more about the bill by reading a synopsis provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on their website at eff.org. I also urge you to call your federal Senators and Representatives and urge them to oppose CISPA and similar bills that attack internet freedom.
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Posted by vly on 04/25/12 06:01 AM
Mercantilism is now corporatism. Since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was illegally created to bring about the Great Depresion in order to allow the owners of the Federal Reserve thru their generals to buy America for pennies on the thousand dollars, it was mercatilism. But now CIA, NSA, FBI, all work under the control of the Masaud. All politicians work as stooges to aid companies owned by the owners of the Federal Reserve. That now is "all" companies. Forget capitalism. Hilariously the Feds stooges, mostly communists created the sub-prime under Carter. This has bankrupt the planet. There are homes owned by Greeks, Spanish, Irish all packaged by evil bankers in America following the letter of the sub-prime lending law. Hilarious!
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Posted by vly on 04/25/12 05:50 AM
Corporatism is the new term for Mercatilism. It is identical: government and corporations work together to engratiate each other. I suppose Corporatism is a wee bit different since 1913 when the Federal Reserve concerted the Great Depresion so as to buy everything in America for pennies on the thousad dollars. Since then the generals of the owners of the Federal Reserve got their stooges into political offices. Now the CIA, FBI, NSA all work directly under the direction of the Mausad. Funny how the Rothschilds and other owners of the Federal Reserve now are controlled and fearful of the those religious fanatics, Zionists.
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Posted by Dave on 04/24/12 10:42 PM
Government organizations tend to reach a sort of "critical mass" once they are large enough. Once they have reached "critical mass", with various tentacles threading through industry, they weild enough power to effectively block any opposition from the electorate.
Eventually they destroy the host civilization usually by embarking on wars they cannot hope to win [WW2 Japan, Nazi Germany] or they bankrupt the state so badly eventually even the organization finaly dies [Soviet Union]
When they start to seek control over things like the internet, the flow of capital and domestic travel you know the collapse is near.
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Posted by Bluebird on 04/24/12 08:37 PM
I am afraid I do not understand this. They have already been doing this for a long time. Is this bill just to pretend we give our permission for them to spy on us? We have already heard stories of this or that info being gathered from social media, etc as evidence in crimes. How does this differ?
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Posted by DwightMann on 04/24/12 06:39 PM
I have been sharing this ever since I read it.
This is why RP is the man that needs to be leading this country.
Honest, ethical, unwavering and constitutional.
Who could possibly ask for more?
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Posted by Frank on 04/24/12 03:12 PM
Once again, Ron Paul is on target trying to alert the public to the dangers of an out-of-control Police State full of Statists intent on stripping away our Constitutional rights & protections from Big Brother. The criminal Statists are in both Major Parties assisted by big business, crony capitalism & dumbed-down sheeple as voters.
The USA continues down a path towards an ever bigger Police State.
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Posted by nithsdale on 04/24/12 12:58 PM
We all should have known this would happen. When the US Gov gave the internet to the pulic, it had a purpose in making that gift. It knew that all the complainers would pile on this "free" news transmitter and everyone of them could be tracked, rated and then regulated or silenced. It is one of the oldest ploys for identifying the enemy that powerful leaders have used to maintain their ways. Let them sound off and then we know who to silence. The old Roman emperors used to throw great parties, get their "right arms" drunk, assess their loyalty and many disapeared, never were found the next day!
We all think we are ushering in a new age, every generation! We have such ego that we think we can move the world in our direction just by signalling our great new intellect and calling others to join us.
Scandal is amost potent weapon but not in the hands of the little people!
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Posted by Joelg on 04/24/12 01:49 AM
Mr. Paul, it sounds like your Congressional colleagues are not going to give up until they have achieved a total police state equal to East Germany and the old Soviet Union.
Defeat one bill and they rename it and change it a bit until like the EU vote in Ireland et al. they get the result that their controllers want. Congress seems composed of puppets dancing to the tune of puppeteers who want this police state to be total, even if it kills the economy and destroys the republic and its people.
One wonders why they want to destroy the country. Or maybe they think that like the Inquisitors burning people that they are saving them. Hard to figure. Perhaps Daily Bell has it right, that they want the New Feudalism in this country; to rule over a bunch of poor peasant slaves. And they must think that with American military might they can control the rest of the world: Serbia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq... And eventually roll up China and Russia. The quest for world dominance run amok. Perhaps a psychological explanation behind this pathological quest for dominance and control? Makes me think more of World War I machinations of ruling class.
