SOPA and PIPA represent two bills in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate respectively. SOPA is short for the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” and PIPA is an acronym for the “Protect IP Act.” (“IP” stands for “intellectual property.”) In short, these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in our opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet. Detailed information about these bills can be found in the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act articles on Wikipedia, which are available during the blackout. GovTrack lets you follow both bills through the legislative process: SOPA on this page, and PIPA on this one. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for the public interest in the digital realm, has summarized why these bills are simply unacceptable in a world that values an open, secure, and free Internet.
The Pirate Bay: PIPA/SOPA Won’t Stop Us!
The Pirate Bay is no stranger to being censored. Finland, Denmark and Italy are just a few of the many countries where ISPs have been ordered to make the website inaccessible to their users.
But on the horizon looms threats of a different kind, the PIPA and SOPA bills.
While SOPA has been put on hold temporarily, the PIPA bill is going full steam ahead. If it passes, The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites may be the first to be targeted. Depending on the final text of the bills, these sites may be blocked by ISPs, censored by search engines, and in some cases they may even lose their domain names.
Posted in Bittorrent
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Too-Big-To-Fail-Bailed-Out Banks Use Drug Money They Launder To Keep Afloat In Crisis
UN crime chief says drug money flowed into banks Jan 25, 2009
(Reuters) – The United Nations’ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year.
“In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital,” Costa was quoted as saying by Profil. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”
Posted in Banking
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