The US government, through our ambassador to Spain, threatened that nation with being put on a trade blocklist if it did not adopt SOPA-like legislation. It appears that Spain succumbed to the pressure and passed the "Sinde" law which provides SOPA-style powers on domestic sites.
SOPA stands for the Stop Online Policy Act and sounds like a reasonable thing since we don't approve of pirating copyrighted material. The problem with the wording of the legislation is that it seems to allow companies to, upon finding a site that they either believe has been using copyrighted material, is capable of using the same, or encourages others to do so, shut that site down by blocking it.
Once blocked, the internet users will only be able to access that site if they know the internet IP address. They will no longer be able to click on that ".com" link as this will pull up a message/page that notifies the user that the site is blocked.
Below are links to three articles on this topic:
http://lifehacker.com/5860205/all-about-sopa-the-bill-thats-going-to-cripple-your-internet
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2829424/posts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/spain-passes-piracy-law-some-draw-parallels-to-sopa/2012/01/05/gIQA2a2PdP_story.html
The US has been edging closer and closer to becoming a nation where the state and federal government assume a tremendous amount of control over the activities of its citizens. Now an oligarchic-type of corporate power power can reach out and shut down private individuals from what may very well be simply an issue of free speech. Stopping/suing/seeking damages for infringing on copyright laws is the domain of the civil courts. It is not a a Las Vegas hotel room where a company can walk in OJ Simpson-style and hold the suspected wrongdoer at bay until the company is satisfied. OJ Simpson rightly went to jail for doing what he did and it wasn't just because he was armed at the time.*
*At least he was actually convicted that time. One of the first times that I noticed the tragic decline in honest thinking and opinion-making was during the OJ Simpson murder trial in the early 90s. I encountered shocking amounts of apparently lucid and capable people who could actually look you squarely in the eye and say that "He didn't do it". This was not an issue of claiming that the cops messed up - they forcefully willed themselves to be incapable of drawing the conclusion that the did not want to have. OJ was just so likable that they could not bring themselves admit that he was a murderer. The High school-age youth at the time had been indoctrinated for so long by the Leftist influence in schools, and all the anti-police rhetoric included there, that they too willingly allowed themselves to hold to the position that OJ was innocent. Listening to this was sort of like the Monty Python Holy Grail scene (I hope that I am not infringing on copyrighted material) where King Arthur tells the Black Knight that he, after having his arms cut off by Arthur, can no longer fight since "You've got no arms left". While standing there with both arms cleary missing and experiencing arterial bleeding from his shoulders, the Black Knight answers "Yes I have".
The Hot Gates - 480BC. An event that was to determine what path much of the Western World would follow occurred as the Persian army threatened to overwhelm Greece in 480BC. The West today again faces both external and internal threats to its identity and existence.
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