COICA internet censorship bill is back. Help fight it!

The Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is being reintroduced and may be put to a vote before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. It already has seventeen sponsors!

What is COICA?

COICA would allow the Department of Justice (DOJ) to force ISPs to block web sites and domain names that the DOJ thinks infringe on copyrighted material. As the EFF states:

The bill creates two blacklists of censored domains. The first is longer, and includes any sites where the DOJ decides that infringement is “central” to the purpose of the site. The bill gives ISPs and registrars strong legal incentives to censor the domains on that list. The Attorney General can also ask a court to put sites on a second, shorter blacklist; ISPs and registrars are required by law to censor those sites.

It avoids due process and has no judicial review. COICA is a censorship bill, plain and simple, and is counter to our 1st Amendment rights.

As TechDirt points out, had this bill been law over the last hundred years, many of the technologies and industries we take for granted would have been considered illegal such as: Hollywood, the recording industry, radio, cable tv and mp3 players.

Help fight it!

The first battle is in the Senate, so please sign the on-line petition against COICA, and, more importantly, contact both Massachusetts Senators and urge them to oppose COICA:

Scott Brown
(202) 224-4543
http://scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/emailscottbrown

John Kerry
(202) 224-2742
http://kerry.senate.gov/contact/

If you get a response from either Senators Brown or Kerry, please email us at info at masspirates dot org. We would like to keep track of the responses our supporters are receiving.

Thanks to DemandProgress.org for keeping track of this bill.