Winning the battle, but we need to win the war!

Recent news that SOPA has been slowed down is good, but there is still the PIPA bill to contend with.

I received a well-worded email from  http://fightforthefuture.org which I won't share here, but I will share their press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT

Fight for the Future

Tiffiniy Cheng

Holmes Wilson

press@fightforthefuture.org

(614) 465-6371

(508) 474-5248

January 20, 2012

Fight for the Future, which ran the largest organizing sites for the recent SOPA protests (sopastrike.com and americancensorship.org), applauds the announcement that the Senate and House have postponed action on the proposed web censorship bills.

“We sent the MPAA back to the drawing board,” said Fight for the Future Co-founder Holmes Wilson, “But any law that lets the copyright lobby block our websites, censor our search results, or cut off our Paypal accounts--without even going through a judge--will be soundly defeated.”

“This was the largest online protest in history,” said Fight for the Future Co-founder Tiffiniy Cheng, “The MPAA was trying to quietly force this bill through Congress, but when internet users started paying attention, real democracy happened.  This is a watershed moment in the fight against lobbyists’ influence on politics.”

“The MPAA could have proposed a law to address copyright infringement,” said Holmes Wilson, “Instead, they proposed giving rightsholders veto power over online innovation and free expression.  At that point, it was just a matter of getting the public involved.”

A timeline of the SOPA protests: http://sopastrike.com/timeline

Statistics from the January 18 protest: http://sopastrike.com/numbers

Statistics from the November 16 protest: http://americancensorship.org/infographic2.html

http://fightforthefuture.org

Click to see the full infographic

This isn't over yet.....not by a long shot.  What has been accomplished so far is pretty good, but there is still the PIPA bill over in the Senate. Thanks to a TON of calls and emails we've managed to get the word out to about 13 million people.  That sounds like a lot, but it's only about 4% of the US population.

This shouldn't be a "fire & forget" campaign.  We all need to contact our Representatives and our Senators everyday until both bills are DEAD.

Not "slowed down", not "shelved", but DEAD....as in "if you are dumb enough to revive these bills, kiss off any chance of re-election"

Yes, SOPA and PIPA need to be political death sentences. 

Click for full infographic

Please don't forget that this threat isn't over just because Wikipedia and Google have given up their blackouts.

Email your Representatives and your Senators.  Feel free to call them up.  The US Capitol switchboard is

(202) 224-3121.

I highly recommend not only putting some pressure on their place of work, but feel free to call their home offices.  Let them know that you have a long memory.  There is no need to threaten your congressmen, but if they cannot get the job done, feel free to let them know you'll support someone else who you think can.

PIPA and SOPA need to be political suicide....period.