Protesting CISPA on April 22

Tomorrow, April 22, 2013, I am joining with Anonymous in protesting against CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act by blacking out my Blogspot and dot com sites.

Why?  This act, passed by the U. S. House of Representatives on April 18th will allow corporations to share their users' personal information without the government needing a warrant beforehand.  CISPA will not only negate any privacy contract the companies have with users,  it will also directly counter the fourth amendment of our constitution which quite clearly states:

           

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Many large companies have supported this act including AT&T, Comcast, EMC, IBM, Intel, McAfee, Oracle, Time Warner Cable, Hewlett Packard, and Verizon.  Of course, this act will give these companies complete liability protection when releasing information. 

Fortunately, many other groups fiercely oppose CISPA,  These include numbers of civil liberties organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, library associations such as the American Library Association and the American Association of Law Libraries,  the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reporters Without Borders, Reddit, Mozilla, as well as quite a few security experts,  and academic leaders. 

I hope you will join me in this venture.  Individually, we bloggers are a tiny fraction of the internet.  Together, however, we have the potential to make an impact.