And…We’re Back.
Not that I contribute to this blog enough to have had any impact yesterday, but I did shut it down in a show of solidarity with the other thousand or so websites protesting CISPA with a blackout of the internet. It wasn’t a huge impact, but I felt it was important.
If you don’t know about CISPA I encourage you to look into it. It is a piece of legislation that slowly starts to erode individual privacy on the net. It’s similar to the SOPA legislation brought up last year, but because it provides certain legal protections to internet corporations, they are far more eager to embrace it.
Here are a few other links to research:
If CISPA becomes law, the government can spy on you without a warrant: LINK
If CISPA becomes law, when the gov’t downloads your private information, you’ll never even know: LINK
If CISPA becomes law, it makes it so companies can’t be sued when they do illegal things with your data: LINK
If CISPA becomes law, it makes every privacy policy on the web useless and violates the 4th amendment: LINK
I also would like to remind people of a few quotes of some of our greatest thinkers on the subjects of freedom, liberty, and privacy:
“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” -Aldous Huxley
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” -Thomas Jefferson
“You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom.” -Clarence Darrow
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty.” Thomas Jefferson
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” -C. S. Lewis
“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.” -Thomas Jefferson
“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.” -Edmund Burke
“We must plan for freedom, & not only for security, if for no other reason…only freedom can make security secure” -Karl Popper
“It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.” -Alexander Hamilton
“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” -Edward R. Murrow
There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.” -Montesquieu
“Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny.” Gijs de Vries
“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.” -Robert A. Heinlein
“A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.” -Crystal Eastman
“Peace without justice is tyranny.” -William Allen White
“Man is not free unless government is limited” -Ronald Reagan
“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” -Plato
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy” -James Madison
“You cannot parcel out freedom in pieces because freedom is all or nothing.” -Tertullian
“Governments never learn. Only people learn.” -Milton
CISPA has already passed the House of Representatives, but still has to make it through the Senate. Please write or call your senators to oppose this violation of our liberties.