Straight from the files of "No one could have predicted...", the Orwellian-titled agency created in the aftermath of 9/11 to safeguard Americans from massive terrorist attacks has begun seizing web domains suspected of copyright infringement and using its unique powers to preclude suspects from challenging the seizures in court. Among the imminent threats to national security was a hip hop music site suspected of enabling users to download a whopping four pre-released songs, which - according to an online Wired story - was the pretext on which FSD seized the site's domain last year through ICE and only recently gave it back, apparently grudgingly. And who can blame them? Copyrights are being infringed upon! Quick, call Jack Bauer! As long as one record label is at risk, Constitution Shmonstitution!
Fortunately, according to the same article, Senator Wyden (D-OR) - who has been leading the charge against SOPA in the Senate - is planning on getting some answers about this. But it's unlikely the limited kabuki of a Senate committee grilling is up to the task of confronting massive and constant assaults on the Bill of Rights that have continued unabated since 9/11, and in many ways have preceded it. If the Wired account is accurate, this isn't mere abuse of power - it's outright theft by an alleged law enforcement institution, silencing of attempts to seek redress in courts, and an arbitrary obstruction of private communications with zero involvement of the Judicial branch of government.
As I say, "No one could have predicted..." It's not like it's obvious that creating an all-powerful Leviathan agency to house every federal law enforcement institution under a single umbrella would be a bad idea with a high likelihood of producing lawless behavior. And it's not like mating Drug War cowboy "law" with anti-terrorism hysteria and corporate plutocracy would ever fail to bring us to this sad new low. These maniacs spent millions of taxpayer dollars pursuing Tommy Chong for selling bongs on the internet while there has yet to be a single prosecution of or even, apparently, investigation into any of the multitude of trillion-dollar acts of treason, war crimes, mass-murder, torture, perjury, obstruction of justice, fraud, and embezzlement committed in the eight years of George W. Bush's petty dictatorship over this country. Now our heroic defenders are utilizing their massive, quasi-totalitarian surveillance and property-seizure apparatus to shore up the bottom lines of failing record companies.
Again, I don't want to belabor the obvious, but there is no bottom to these people, and it's pretty clear that if they get the idea that they own the internet, Daily Kos is history. Every single liberal political website, every news source that practices anything even resembling journalism, every chatroom where discussions vaguely resembling critical thinking and citizenship take place will have no safe haven on the internet accessible from this country, because every last site will have some piece of transient web traffic going from here to there that they will claim entitles them to shut it down. And even if it didn't, it doesn't matter because all they have to do is assert that it does - in the quasi-legal Twilight Zone in which the FSD operates, all they need is a mere assertion to claim limitless power that none can hinder, question, or review.
These activities are merely a foretaste of what to expect if SOPA becomes "law" (short of a Constitutional amendment, it will never be legitimate), and that's even before they're enabled to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial under the other major piece of patently illegal legislation being considered. If you want a clear picture of the future these people are trying to erect, think about what happened to television and radio when the media companies conglomerated into the hands of a handful of powers who all work toward the same interests.
Now imagine the internet under that same regimen of tight corporate control, with the RIAA and MPAA having peremptory power to strip content and seize domains they merely claim to be in violation; the DEA and other federal narcotics bureaus having the same powers if they merely claim a website is in some way, no matter how far-removed, related to drugs; anti-terror agencies and task forces also having that power if they merely assert any relevance to terrorism whatsoever, with no need to justify themselves, and having the power to use their own claim as the basis to indefinitely imprison the owners, operators, or participants in a website; ICE having those powers over any traffic that crosses international borders, which means the entire internet; the Pentagon also having these powers to prevent leaked material from being publicized or disseminated via the internet by whistleblowers (another case in which they would find use for indefinite detention); any law enforcement or other agency anywhere, on any level, being allowed to censor the internet if they claim a public health/safety/security risk, or that an investigation is being compromised, or whatever excuse they see fit. The Internet Goes Bye-Bye.
Enough. These fucking people were way off the reservation even before 9/11, and now they're just a rogue state-within-a-state using the vulnerability of humanity's communications system to stage a slow-motion coup. If you are a member of one of these institutions and feel you cannot do your legitimate law enforcement or national security job without these outrageous powers, please quit - quit because you are a moronic thug who should be washing cars or turning tricks in an alley in Istanbul rather than raping the American republic. The travesty that is your career belongs in the discarded outtakes of a Woody Allen movie rather than dictating the information exchange of the species to which you just barely belong. Or - and here's probably the most radical idea you've ever heard - devote your time and energy to investigating the people who actually endanger us. You assholes probably see them at fundraisers.