What does Government Control of the Internet Mean?

by Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
January 18, 2012

Remember all those articles you read a year or two ago that warned us all about the end of the internet as we knew it? That moment has come. Different from what has been reported on the dying corrupt corporate media, the new legislation intended to regulate internet traffic and content, among other things, is not a threat to internet piracy; that is just the excuse to approve it. What the bill known as SOPA really threatens is the free access, posting, reading and circulation of information as we now know it.

Luckily, such legislation has met significant opposition, not only from internet users, but also from internet companies. This opposition has made the usual liberty-violating suspects, AKA Joe Lieberman and his pals, to back off their intention to discuss and pass SOPA on the floor of the Senate and House. Websites like Wikipedia warned against the bill and threatened to shut down its services Wednesday. The company said if the legislation found fertile ground in Congress, it would cause an online blackout.

“Before it looked like it would pass with 80 votes, and now [the online protest] looks like something that will suck the votes away,” said a democratic insider in Congress. With other powerhouses like Google joining the protest, many believe the bill will be shelved, at least for now. One of the points that has Internet companies on their toes is the one that imposes new requirements on internet service providers (IP’s). Bill supporters like Harry Reid adventured themselves to say that “is not perfect” but that the bill intends to ”protect American ingenuity and commerce” and that it was “too important to delay.” What this really means is that corporations in control of Congress want to have legal leverage to impose penalties on internet content, much like the United States government produced legislation obligates “Free Trade” partners to renounce to patents and intellectual property which they must sign away to off-shore corporations.

According to congressman Lamar Smith, another supporter of the bill, its only intention is to target websites that work abroad which engage in illegal activities. Smith said that the bill “does not grant the Justice Department the authority to seek a court order to shut down any website operated in the U.S.” This isn’t necessary anyway because the FBI is already shutting down websites without the need for legal authority to do it. So, the current proposal to stop internet piracy has nothing to do with copyright infringement, but with creating a legal framework to carry out internet censorship.

If you don’t think this is true, please listen to Joe Lieberman’s testimony on CNN, where he clearly states that SOPA will give the president the power to disconnect the United States’ internet from the rest of the world’s internet. Sound familiar? That’s right. This is what China does. Only certain websites will be allowed to spread their content online. What Lieberman is saying is that the government will have the power to control what information gets to everyone in the USA. Maybe it will be reduced to the “official” information, because of course, that is all you need to know, isn’t it? One of Lieberman’s gigantic lie during the interview is that this bill is needed to protect the infrastructure, which according to him is “online”. Although the infrastructure, especially basic services such as electricity and water management are interconnected into a single system in many parts of the USA, those systems are not available to be accessed over the Internet, so even if a chinese or indian hacker managed to enter US Internet, it could not physically manipulate such systems.

But if this is the congressman’s main concern, why are developed countries like the USA, and others in the third world, such as Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador, adopting smart-grid management systems, which are easier targets to be hacked into? The answer to this is simple. One of the most important aspects of global governance is to centrally control the energy resources of the planet, and in order to to this, they need a centrally managed system which will operate over what we know today as the internet. See, the world wide web was not built for us to enjoy it. It was a catch. The web is a convenient tool that was put out for everyone to get accustomed to and more importantly, dependent on, addicted to. But the net is nothing more than a part of a global infrastructure grid to as I said before, control it all.

The way Mr. Lieberman would respond to these questions is… correct again, playing the fear card. “It is a matter of National Security”. He explained to CNN that “a cyber attack on America could do much damage by incapacitating our banks, communications, our finances, our transportation…? My question to this answer is, who in the world has the power to carry out such significant attacks? Governments and Corporations only. So why do the people, who have in large part financed the research, development and operation of the Internet must surrender their free access to the web so the government [any government] is entitled to decide what I read, watch and listen to? Why aren’t the governments where the supposed threats originate at responsible for eliminating hackers who “threaten” the web? Why doesn’t the USA establishes dialog channels to negotiate with governments so they take care of those who run illegal businesses in each country? That does not happen because this bill is not about ending piracy or copyright infringement, but as I repeated many times, about controlling the web.

The so called SOPA bill is not the first attempt to censor the internet. Unfortunately, governments around the world have succeeded in passing legislation that gives them strong powers over the net. In China, for example, the government, in an effort to erase dissent, protests and hatred against government corruption. The most recent piece of legislation was the Cybersecurity Act, which congressmen said was the ultimate weapon against cyber threats. That is the problem with power, the more you give away, the more the bureaucrats want. Now it seems the Cybersecurity Act is not enough, so they want to pass the SOPA bill.

In contrast to what SOPA sponsors say, Internet threats do not come from isolated hackers in China or India. Those large threats come from governments. Take for example the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iranian infrastructure. As we now know, that virus was created and sent there by the United States and Israel, in an effort to curb the country’s thirst for nuclear energy.

In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security has already taken it upon itself to shut down websites for alleged violations of copyright laws. These supposed violations have not been proven, and in most cases they are websites that link to, not publish, copy written materials. Contrary to what it said before and during the attacks on free speech, the DHS has now retracted from many of the accusations made against several websites.

The endgame with the SOPA legislation is that once the governments are given the power to control the content on the internet as well as how and who can post it, that will make it so everyone will need a government license to post information online. Guess what information will be allowed and what won’t? Whatever information that does not comply with the government guidelines. That includes but is not limited to health, politics, war, technology, human rights, individual rights, constitutional rights and so on.