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With the exception of online poker laws, DeucesCracked tends to be an apolitical organization. Today we are breaking from that trend to help raise awareness for something that critically threatens the future of the Internet. Today, Congress holds a hearing on a bill that would create America's first system for internet censorship. Stand with us to stop it.

http://americancensorship.org/

For those of you from the US: please visit, call, write or email your representative. https://sendwrite.com/sopa/ is volunteering (great site, btw) to mail physical letters to your representatives on your behalf. Please contact your representative and let them know your concerns on this issue.

For those of you not from the US, please help us get the word out - use Twitter, Facebook, or whatever means possible to help raise awareness.

Rob

For those looking for a potential template, here's my email to my representatives:

I'm a small business owner as well as an owner of a Internet content company.

H.R.3261, the 'Stop Online Piracy Act', is a severe overstepping by some members of our industry. As the founder of a company which has enforced multiple copyright violations in the past, SOPA is purportedly designed to help companies like ours. Unfortunately, the problems associated with turning over control to private actors significantly outweigh any benefits SOPA could provide.

SOPA severely curtails free speech and disproportionately represents the interests of one industry over all others, and ignores the fact that mechanisms currently exist - and are being used regularly - to help companies enforce copyright.

Please don't let this bill become law.

Very Respectfully,
Rob Cole
CEO, DeucesCracked.com

Hey guys,

This is important. Just click the links and get it out there.

Thanks,
Joe

Wow. This is very serious. They are trying to strip our liberties away more and more every day. Please, everyone click the links.

Rob/Joe - do you guys have any idea of how likely this is looking to pass as of right now?

If the fucks who want to censor the internet are successful then its essentially saying we as 'individuals' have all lost and the fucks have won


My opinion is - let's not allow that to happen

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

The very idea that this could even be a topic of discussion in the free world says a lot. Freedom and censorship are two entirely different things; if we can have a free society even entertaining the idea that censorship of an open discourse could in the least instance perhaps be possible, then we should seriously reconsider the notion of the free world. Believe me its been difficult to not use quotation marks.

EDIT: and in the future, if this proposed law passes, the above becomes perhaps illegal or what you are about to write becomes illegal.. where does that leave us. THINK ABOUT IT

this type of stuff gets me mad as hell

Watching the debate in congress now:

http://mfile.akamai.com/65764/live/reflector:39480.asx?bkup=39655&prop=n

.

EDIT: and in the future, if this proposed law passes, the above becomes perhaps illegal or what you are about to write becomes illegal.. where does that leave us. THINK ABOUT IT

I can't imagine how voters would support anyone in congress who votes for this. But then again, most voters have no idea where the politicians actually stand or what their voting records are.

If this goes through, our "free society" is officially dead. over.

could not agree more. listening to the live stream now, I am very concerned, it shows that all of these squawk boxes have no idea about the internet whatsoever, and further that they will 'refer to their experts in the future and respond in writing' ...

it tells its own tale

Wow. This is very serious. They are trying to strip our liberties away more and more every day. Please, everyone click the links.

Rob/Joe - do you guys have any idea of how likely this is looking to pass as of right now?

Dead honest. First I heard of it was two days ago. Will catch up as much as I can.

-Joe

This hearing only further proves that people are making decisions without proper information. I'd be highly concerned over how they pick these "experts" and if anyone is paying these experts to say anything. In a world where Harvard professors state claims in order to get paid, we must all be very weary of "experts" and their motives.

I don't think it's bad that it is being discussed. Freedom of speech also means showing your concerns and defending your cause.
Taking down websites like deucescracked might be the victims of a bigger issue. What about pirating? Websites that post videos and music that destroys the industry? Remember the writers stop a couple of years ago? What about books from Improva, from Baluga etc that are flying around on torrent sites? What about deucescracked videos that are flying around on those same sites? There are websites you can pay to download all kinds of poker videos and poker books, for way less that the membership of those poker training sites the videos belong too.

What about websites that are discriminating? What about sites that embrace violance? What about children picking on eachother thru sites by making sites about eachother with pictures and videos about the victim?

I don't agree with the bill. But is the freedom of the internet not too much free?

If I get flamed by what I just said, isn't that the same as not being able to freely speak what somebody has to say?
There are people that think the freedom of the internet has gone to far, and it shows democracy that this opinion has a mouth.

ps. its annoying that I cant get to the homepage of DC

If I get flamed by what I just said, isn't that the same as not being able to freely speak what somebody has to say?

No -- it's not remotely the same thing.