The SOPA and PIPA protests are making hypocrites of us all.
Today, many people are following the lead of major internet companies such as Wikipedia and Google by posting awareness notes on social media about PIPA and SOPA, proposed Congressional acts which could lead to the government censorship of internet content.
Like all of us are prone to do at times (myself included), we’ve taken up the cause of our favorite companies or celebrities, and decided that we’ll join in to voice our outrage. And that’s not a bad thing when there’s a worthy cause, like this one.
However, the timing of this protest is revealing our shortcomings and hypocrisy as we all stand up to shout about how our civil rights are being violated. While censorship is one of the most dangerous threats that exist to a free world and is worthy of being fought against, there is an equally big and terrifying issue that’s getting no press, no tweets, and no status updates, but is easily as big of a problem, if not more.
That’s President Obama’s signing of the NDAA 2012.
I’m not political analyst, but here it is in a nutshell: The National Defense Authorization Act gives the American government the right to have the military detain you – a taxpaying citizen of America, and a generally good person – for as long as they want to – merely because they have deemed you to be suspected of being associated with terrorist activity. No trial. No due process. No habeas corpus. They don’t have to prove it, explain it, or have any evidence in the least. It’s completely up one person, somewhere, to decide that it might be important to look into it, and then that’s it. You’re gone. For as long as they want to.
OK – so why does this affect you? You’re a good person, living in the suburbs somewhere, living your own quiet little life that couldn’t be connected in any way to terrorist organizations that seem to be based on the other side of the globe. So why worry?
Because you don’t have to actually be connected to terrorism. You only have to be “under suspicion.” And where would that suspicion come from? Maybe because someone doesn’t like you. Maybe you made someone angry once, stole their girlfriend or your dog crapped on their lawn, and they let it go to their heads. And in their anger, they decide to drop an anonymous hint to the local police hotline that you’re up to no good. Goodbye! You’re gone for as long as they want you to be, regardless of how your family, employer or children feel about it.
OK, now let’s say they’ve got you, and they’ve held you for months while they may or may not be working hard to crack this case. They offer to let you go, as long as you tell them everything you know about local terrorist activities. So what do you do? Well, you could turn in someone else you don’t like.
Does this sound familiar to you? I hope so, because that’s how the Communist witch hunt of the 1950’s went, a period largely regarded as one of the darkest periods in the history of the United States government. Or how about the internment camps that Japanese Americans were enslaved in during WWII? Those people were honest, hardworking, taxpaying, good American citizens leading quiet lives in the suburbs – just like you. There was no evidence to them having done anything wrong, but someone somewhere decided that they may be a threat, rather safe than sorry, and: Goodbye!
Forget the comparisons of PIPA/SOPA to “censorship rules employed by China and Iran” – the NDAA 2012 is something straight out of every dictatorship and totalitarian government that opposes freedom in the history of the world, something that the United States supposedly fights against. And the scariest part about it? It’s already passed. It’s enacted. Obama signed it. This could happen to you – today.
If Wikipedia and Google and the other companies, and their legions of faithful social media followers, are so concerned about the elimination of their rights and freedoms, they should be roaring about this. Unlike PIPA and SOPA, this has already happened!
But no one cares.
There’s no social media revolution.
No websites are blacking themselves out.
No one is changing their Facebook avatar.
Why?
Here’s why: Internet sites are boycotting SOPA/PIPA because it threatens their company’s profits and moneymaking abilities. The people are boycotting SOPA/PIPA because it threatens the funny and interesting websites that we waste our time on every day.
Are there nobler intentions? Perhaps in some cases, but many of the companies joining in the boycott have no history or reputation of fighting for civil liberties, and many of the people I see protesting on social media don’t either. 
Today, we’re up and arms and posting things on Facebook not because we’re strong patriots who passionately believe in the importance of freedom of speech. We’re doing it because it’s something that hits close to home and that will have a direct effect on our lives. That’s hypocritical. And it’s entirely natural. I’m not critiquing it, and I, too believe that PIPA/SOPA are acts that are wrong and deserving of all your protest efforts. Please keep it up – I support all your protests against them, and I admire that so many people are taking up the cause.
I only ask one thing of you.
And please, think about this.
It’s really important.
If the PIPA and SOPA proposals have fired you up and inspired you to protest, take one extra step and protest the NDAA as well.
Don’t forget that your rights and freedoms protect very important things that you don’t use or look at or think about on a daily basis. Like your freedom to not be arrested or held without evidence.
Maybe you use Reddit more often than you get arrested falsely. Maybe you use Wikipedia more often than your angry, overreacting neighbors lie to the police about you. And it’s hard to get upset over abstract ideas that don’t happen often.
Bust just remember: they can happen.
And they have. American history has a handful of examples of having gone down that dark path. When we learned about them in school, we wondered how people in those eras stood for such injustices.
Now we know.
(86 of the 100 American Senators voted for the NDAA. Here is a list of them and their contact information. Please contact them. And perhaps even more importantly, contact the 14 who voted against it, just to say thanks.)
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
-Martin Niemöller, 1946
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