Around the Net
Activists Attack House Cyber-Security Bill
- The Hill, Monday, April 9, 2012 2:49 PM
What’s an online activist to do following the demise of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)? Sharpen his or her spear, and attack the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), of course. Showing shifting tides on Web forum Reddit, posts comparing the House cyber-security bill to SOPA recently received thousands of "up votes,” giving the discussion front-page status on the popular link and discussion site.
As The Hill’s Hillicon Valley blog notes, “Reddit helped rally opposition to SOPA and was one of the first major websites to declare that it would black out in protest of the anti-piracy bill.” With the held of heavyweights like Google and Wikipedia, the broad Web protest caused a public outcry and forced Congress to scrap the anti-piracy bill.
“Recent posts on Reddit have called CISPA the ‘return of SOPA,’ ‘the latest attempt by Congress to try to regulate and control the Internet’ and a ‘draconian privacy invasion bill,’” HV notes. Perhaps as a result, a Google search for "CISPA" now returns blog post after blog post criticizing the legislation as an attempt to censor the Internet while, one online petition opposing the bill has already gathered more than 300,000 signatures. As HV notes, however, a House aide who supports CISPA said the measure has nothing to do with anti-piracy enforcement or censorship.
