PC Magazine: Are Hacker Attacks Government Operation To Push Internet Censorship Laws?

Link to PC Mag ARTICLE 

Comments From: The Alexander Higgins BLOG:

Written by: Alexander Higgins - July 6, 2011 at 4:20 pm

An article in PC magazine shows that the corporate media is starting to ask the same question that the alternative media has been asking. Are the recent string of hacker attacks a false flag operations meant to drum up support to push through Internet censorship laws that the public would otherwise protest?

Are the recent string of hacker attacks a government sponsored operation meant to rouse public support for internet censorship bills in Congress that public would normally protest against?

Just think about some of the bills congress is trying to push through in the name of anti-piracy and cyber security.
The ProtectIP act would allow the government, even on behalf of requests of corporations to seize websites without the due process of law, entirely sidestepping the constitution and even allow complete censorship of search engines and the media.



For example, I recently wrote a story on an ABC news piece in which the news anchor announced on air there was a 10 mile evacuation issued around the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant. In that article,  I embedded the video of the ABC news story that someone else recorded and posted on YouTube. I then received a phone call from ABC news demanding that I remove the story and all references I posted online. ABC explained they made a mistake in reporting the story, have redacted it and demanded that I remove all references to the story  including from “YouTube, Twitter, and anywhere else the  story was posted”.

Not only does ABC not have any right to demand that I remove references to their story but embedding a YouTube video someone else recorded is not copyright infringement. If the ProtectIP Act is passed we would be living in an entirely different reality. The bill would allow ABC to privately contact the government and report that my website is linking to copyrighted material and demand that my website be taken offline, without informing me at all. The government would then have the power to seize my web site and replace it with their now infamous “this domain name has been seized” image, and then require search engines and other sites to remove all links to my site, effectively erasing all traces that my site ever existed from the internet.

To be clarify, ABC would be able to do have my domain seized under the ProtectIP if they showed I engaged incopyright infringement. But as I stated before embedding a YouTube video –  or even an image  or an iframe  — that displays the content from someone’s site isn’t copyright infringement. If I put a copy of that material on my server and display the content from my server, then that I copyright infringement. However, ProtectIP would sidestep due process, allowing my site to be shutdown based merely on the accusation.

To make the situation another bill in congress rears its ugly head to basically redefine what constitutes copyright infringement and make it a felony for those who participate. S. 978, the new “Ten Strikes” bill, would make uploading and even embedding YouTube and other copyrighted materials a felony. The bill would make the crime of engaging in copyright infringement or sharing copyrighted material a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison for anyone caught committing 10 offenses. So if you have uploaded 10 videos where you say, lip sync or do karaoke of a copyrighted  song, or even if have embedded more than 10  YouTube  videos or images of copyrighted material, which is not illegal under existing copyright laws, you may find yourself heading to court and serving a felony prison sentence.

These are exactly the types of bills that the public would be up in arms in protest over.  Is it just coincidence that the politicians are saying that such bills are needed to provide us with protection against the rogue hackers who threaten our nation’s cyber security as rogue hackers run wild hacking into every government website from the state police to the FBI to NATO and launch cyber attacks even against the CIA?

Is it a coincidence that the lobbyists pushing through the Internet censorship bills have even came forward and said the hackers are the exact reason internet censorship bills are needed?

Is it a coincidence that these hackers have been able to obtain the source code of the top secret STUXNET virus that has the ability to shut down entire power grids and even wreak havoc at nuclear power plant?