I frequently and publicly (Usenet, IRC, web forums) encourage others to support official products instead of pirating them. Some of the things I’ve said about it over the years have been really cold and elitist, and would likely make people think I worked for some kind of media company. (I don’t remember if I’ve ever actually been accused of such, but it’s very possible.) So one might expect that I’d be a fan of this new COICA bill.

But I have also never been a fan of censorship. And this bill reeks of potential censorship. Claims of piracy have been used to target political activists in Russia, after all. I’d like to think the US government wouldn’t do things like that, but if this bill gets passed, especially with such vague wording, what’s to stop them? It has very unsettling implications, and I’m not the only one who thinks it could crap all over the First Amendment.

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