It was twenty years ago this week that Tim Berners-Lee, while working at CERN, put the world’s first website online.  It announced his new creation: the World Wide Web.  Last year while urging Internet users to sign Demand Progress’s petition against the Internet Blacklist Bill, Berners-Lee wrote this about the principles that underpin his project:

“No person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty. Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the Internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims.”

The Internet Blacklist Bill — S.968, formally called the PROTECT IP Act — would violate those principles by allowing the Department of Justice to force search engines, browsers, and service providers to block users’ access to websites that have been accused of facilitating intellectual property infringement — without even giving them a day in court.  It would also give IP rights holders a private right of action, allowing them to sue to get sites prevented from operating.  Demand Progress’s new mash-up, posted here, explains the bill in more detail.

S.968 has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Ron Wyden (D-OR) is temporarily blocking it from getting a floor vote by using a procedural maneuver known as a hold, noting that “By ceding control of the internet to corporations through a private right of action, and to government agencies that do not sufficiently understand and value the internet, PIPA represents a threat to our economic future and to our international objectives.”

The House is expected to take up a version of the legislation in coming weeks.

“We encourage Americans to mark this 20th birthday of the World Wide Web by defending the principles that underpinned its creation — now under persistent threat by overzealous governments and corporate interests across the globe,” said Demand Progress executive director David Segal.  “In particular, the Internet Blacklist Bill would undermine the basic integrity of the Web, and we expect Congress to take it up when they return from their summer break.”

More than 400,000 Demand Progress members have urged their lawmakers to oppose the Internet Blacklist Bill.  You can email your Senators and Representatives and ask them to oppose S.968 by clicking here.

Demand Progress urges Americans to defend the principles that underpin the Web’s founding.

It was twenty years ago this week that Tim Berners-Lee, while working at CERN, put the world's first website online.  It announced his new creation: the World Wide Web.  Last year while urging Internet users to sign Demand Progress's petition against the Internet Blacklist Bill, Berners-Lee wrote this about the principles that underpin his project:

"No person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty. Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the Internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims." 

The Internet Blacklist Bill — S.968, formally called the PROTECT IP Act — would violate those principles by allowing the Department of Justice to force search engines, browsers, and service providers to block users' access to websites that have been accused of facilitating intellectual property infringement — without even giving them a day in court. It would also give IP rights holders a private right of action, allowing them to sue to get sites prevented from operating.  

S.968 has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Ron Wyden (D-OR) is temporarily blocking it from getting a floor vote by using a procedural maneuver known as a "hold".  The House is expected to take up a version of the legislation in coming weeks.

"We encourage Americans to mark this 20th birthday of the World Wide Web by defending the principles that underpinned its creation — now under persistent threat by overzealous governments and corporate interests across the globe," said Demand Progress executive director David Segal.  "In particular, the Internet Blacklist Bill would undermine the basic integrity of the Web, and we expect Congress to take it up when they return from their summer break."

More than 400,000 Demand Progress members have urged their lawmakers to oppose the Internet Blacklist Bill.  Americans can email their Senators and Representatives and ask them to oppose S.968 by visiting: http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_letter/

Demand Progress is an online activism group with more than 500,000 members.  It works to promote civil liberties, civil rights, and other progressive causes.

Having trouble posting the entire text of this post for some reason, but you can read more about the proposed data retention legislation here

To follow up on our previous post about the Ten Strikes Bill (S. 978), we are happy to report that over 150,000 Americans have spoken out against this legislation.  

Hundreds of videos in opposition to S.978 have emerged on YouTube in the days since Demand Progress first issued an alert about the bill. Demand Progress has edited many of the videos into a single video which explains S.978 and its likely ramifications. You can watch the video here:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IevBHt6IKX8&feature=player_embedded  

The “Ten Strikes” bill, the legislation would make it a felony to stream unlicensed content 10 times over the course of 180 days. Violators would serve up to five years in prison.

It's getting even crazier.

Last night Demand Progress spilled the beans: Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, are planing an Anti-Neutrality policy called the “THREE STRIKES PLAN”. These Internet service providers would restrict web access for users accused of infringement. Check out our link for an overview of the policy and more info.

FIGHT THE AT&T/ COMCAST “THREE STRIKES” CENSORSHIP DEAL.

The MPAA and RIAA have convinced companies like Comcast, AT&T, and others to voluntarily create a “Three Strikes” policy. This means your Internet service provider could respond to online file sharing with censorship tools like the ones outlined on our website.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND TO EMAIL THE HEAD HONCHOS AT AT&T AND COMCAST

This week, senators will be voting on a "Ten Strikes" bill to make it a felony to stream copyrighted content — like music in the background of a Youtube video — more than ten times.

Will you email your lawmakers and urge them to vote no? Just click here.  

As the writers at TechDirt point out, under this bill you could go to jail for posting video of your friends singing karaoke:

“The entertainment industry is freaking out about sites that embed and stream infringing content, and want law enforcement to put people in jail over it, rather than filing civil lawsuits…. We already pointed to one possibility: that people embedding YouTube videos could face five years in jail. Now, others are pointing out that it could also put kids who lip sync to popular songs, and post the resulting videos on YouTube, in jail as well.”

Senator Klobuchar, who first introduced this bill, claims that “individuals or families streaming movies at home,” will not be targeted — only “criminals that are intentionally streaming thousands of dollars in stolen digital content and profiting from it.” Yet, how can Congress draw such a line, when oftentimes, a personal video (perhaps accompanied by those ubiquitous overlay advertisements) innocently goes viral and gets millions of hits?

Will you email your lawmakers and tell them to vote against the Ten Strikes Bill? Just click here.

…doesn't mean rightfully-concerned Demand Progress petition signatories do:

The Motion Picture Association of America is trying to quell the momentum of our 350,000-signature campaign against the Internet Blacklist Bill (a.k.a. the PROTECT IP Act). The MPAA themselves entered two made-up names on our online petition and are therefore claiming that the thousands of other voices who have spoken out against this extreme legislation don’t belong to real, concerned citizens.

Well, it's time to prove them wrong. We have a new system in place that makes it easy for you to email House and Senate offices directly. (This is different from signing the petition against the bill, and we urge you to take this action even if you've signed the petition.)

Will you email Congress to urge them to oppose the PROTECT IP Act? Just click here.

Thanks for fighting for Internet freedom.
— The Demand Progress team

Senator Wyden continues to be the Senate's truest champion of an open Internet.  

Yesterday, he placed a hold on Senator Leahy's PROTECT IP Act (or PIPA), which would allow the government to restrict ordinary users’ access to websites that have been accused of copyright infringement, by forcing Internet service providers and search engines to block these sites.

Though this bill was unanimously approved yesterday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Wyden has prevented it from going to the full Senate, citing concerns that it would "muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth." Wyden's full statement can be read here.

Express your opposition to PIPA by signing Demand Progress's petition here.  

To call your lawmakers directly, (3,000 Demand Progress members already have!), click here.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt publicly came out against the legislation, and yesterday, Demand Progress and more than a dozen human rights and civil liberties groups sent a letter in opposition to PIPA to Leahy. The full letter is posted here.

Earlier this week, Demand Progress was attacked by the Motion Picture Association of America because torrent site Demonoid linked to us.  This attack reveals PROTECT IP's proponents’ warped sense of how the Internet works, or should work — a world where sites that link, and sites that are linked to, are responsible for each other's actions.

If you are concerned about the government restricting your Internet access, join the 60,000 others who have signed our petition to kill PIPA.

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Demand Progress is a political action committee and online activist group with more than 400,000 members.

This week, with so much at stake for our civil liberties, Demand Progress is calling on Senate Leadership to listen to more than 80,000 of our members who demand reform of the Patriot Act.

This Friday and bin Laden's recent death, present our lawmakers with the opportunity to restore our civil liberties. We at Demand Progress have not seen the proper attention paid by lawmakers to implications that the PATRIOT Act has for our nation and our culture.  We believe that if we wish to live in a nation of liberty and justice a law like the PATRIOT Act cannot become a permanent fixture in our national character. Please join your voice to ours and sign our petition to Congress (http://act.demandprogress.org/obl_patriot).

Both Democrats and Republicans are seeking to extend provisions of the Act without any meaningful or critical discussion on their merits.  An amendment extending warrantless wiretaps and “lone wolf” surveillance has been attached to a bill supporting small businesses, in response to Rand Paul’s filibustering a debate-less extension of the Act.

The values of America are based on liberty and freedom, not fear. Let Congress know you still believe this.

Sign our petition here. (http://act.demandprogress.org/obl_patriot)

These past couple weeks have been a strange and unsettling time in the ever-more-murky world of copyright and intellectual property.  The most concerning development is the proposed PROTECT IP act, the easier to say but still difficult to swallow successor to COICA, has been submitted in Congress.  Immediately following the bill’s introduction a number of individuals, organizations and experts have expressed their discomfort with both the bill itself and the implications it has for the future of information exchange. We at

Demand Progress have been an adamant voice in opposition to both of these bills, follow the link and add your voice to ours.  (http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/protectip_docs)

Did you know that last week during a House Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on Intellectual Property, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), asserted that DHS and ICE are claiming powers that could shut down Facebook?  

Demand Progress, a Political Action Committee and activist group of nearly 400,000 members, concur: The government is claiming powers that could seize Facebook and prosecute its users just for linking to things.

Check out these key clips of the hearing in our new video: http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/facebook_sign/?source=campaigns

Last month DHS and ICE accidentally seized 84,000 innocent sites.  Over the last several months, DHS has seized at least two dozen domain names on copyright infringement grounds. Earlier this month, DHS and ICE arrested Brian McCarthy for channelsurfing.net, which simply linked to infringing content, but which housed none of its own.  In all these cases, the sites owners weren’t given any prior notice and except for Brian McCarthy, these owners weren’t even given the chance to defend the accusations against them– infringing upon their due process and free speech rights.

Watch the hearing clips and sign our petition to Janet Napolitano, Director of DHS and John Morton, Director of ICE.

Tell them there’s nothing wrong or illegal about posting a link to a website and that it’s obscene to interpret the law in a way that would give them authority to shut down Facebook and sites like it: http://act.demandprogress.org/…