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SOPA/PIPA - do unto others?

SOPA and PIPA are all about giving corporations and governments the right to control what *YOU* can access in the online world.

In short -- it's censorship driven by (initially) commercial imperatives.

There are many however, who are 100% sure that once the basic mechanisms are in place, that censorship would eventually be extended to cover political imperatives as well -- thus giving "the powers that be" the ability to corrupt freedom of speech and strike a blow at the whole concept of a free democracy.

Today, a number of websites have either gone black or "blackish" in protest at the provisions of this proposed nasty legislation -- but what if that fails to stop the progress of these censorship laws through the US legislature?

Well I have an idea...

I believe "if you can't beat them, join them!"

It's become increasingly apparent that governments around the world are seeking to reduce the cost of transacting with the public and one of the best ways to do this is via the internet.

Everywhere you look, the various arms and agencies of governments are asking people to "go to our website" or "use the online service" -- as a way of helping reduce their workload and perhaps also keeping a better audit trail of events.

Well if SOPA or PIPA make it into law in the USA or if similar legislation makes it into law here I suggest we simply boycott these online arms of government in protest.

If/when a government agency says "go to our website" -- tell them "I'm sorry, I can't do that - since the SOPA/PIPA/whatever laws were passed, I no longer use the Net for dealing with government."

Even better -- how about we convince carriers to simply block .gov/.govt.nz domains in protest?

If they won't oblige, perhaps we can set up "freedom filter" proxies who simply block those sites for us.

As I trawled the web for news this morning, I only encountered one single site (Arstechnica) that was in "partial blackout" mode -- the rest of the webisphere seemed unaltered.

The good thing was that most all the news sites were carrying some coverage of the blackout though.

However, I really do believe that if this raising of public awareness is not enough to change the minds of governments who appear to be in the pockets of movie/music-publishers and who see SOPA/PIPA as a wonderfully "thin end" of a nasty wedge then the only real way to teach them a lesson is to turn the whole censorship concept around and apply it to them.

Would this work?

What are the implications for ISPs if they chose to block .gov/.govt.nz domains?

And would governments simply legislate to make such blocking illegal?

Do I recall that some aspects of interaction with our own IRD must be done online? If that's the case -- how do companies without internet access (and I'm sure there must be one or two out there) manage?

If the Net becomes a mandatory requirement for interaction with government service such as the IRD, ought not the government provide connectivity at no cost?

If it's a fight the governments of the world want, it's a fight they'll likely get -- and I suspect that today's blackout is just the start. The Net is filled with some very clever people -- far more clever than any of the dull knives in the draws of politics.

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