CISPA, what it is and what is happening - Nerd Age

Unlimited surveillance of your internet activities is the future. Or, at least that is what our lawmakers really want it to be. In a very quick and underhanded move, lawmakers pushed CISPA through the house.

What is CISPA?

In both wording and reality, CISPA creates a law environment where the government and businesses have full access to your information. They already have significant access within limits. However this bill will allow them to label anyone they do not like as a perpetrator of cyber-crime. Doing such a thing will allow them to basically do whatever they want to gather information about you.

Just One in a Sea of Surveillance Bills

SOPA was already stopped by the efforts of the community. However as you can see, it is just one of many bills. After CISPA is defeated, another bill will be proposed. And another and another. There is no end in sight to this, but it does not make the fight any less important.

CISPA and other bills are dangerous on many levels, to everyone

They all border on people having information they really do not need about you. Did someone go to a site on your computer without your knowledge? You are in trouble now. Did a hacker make your computer into a bot? Better hope you can prove it, because you now have some records of some very interesting and disturbing porn, and maybe not just the type you’d find on m-porn.xxx and other normal, legal adult entertainment websites.

How CISPA and other bills are dangerous to our nerd culture

The other way this hurts everyone is that big business will have access to it. Say goodbye to streaming anything that is not triple-approved by them. Say goodbye to a basic spread of information that displeases them. Fansubs and pretty much everything they do not like will be gone.

Other civilizations that liked unlimited information gathering

Germany and Russia, in their darkest days, had secret police which gathered information just to have it. We are seeing this in America today. If you want to destroy a country, this is the fastest path. So we all need to stand up and say no to these ridiculous bills. But what can you do? Well you can check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Other than that, you can work every day to stay on top of events and contact your lawmakers.