http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Wvn-9BXVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Wvn-9BXVc
Now that MegaUpload got canned, the question is WHO is NEXT? and WHAT is NEXT? I'm sure I can think up of a list... it won't be long before the average joe tries to go to a porn website and instead has to wank off to a DOJ banner, or a young mother wants to look up information on abortion and instead stares at a DOJ takedown notice. This is an unprecedented slippery slope, and given the context of post peak oil collapse, it can only go in one direction: full blown censorship. Pretty soon half the sites on the internet will be blocked by the DOJ. A year from now (if we still exists post Dec 21 2012) we will be thinking back FONDLY about the days when we didn't have to worry about or wonder whether or not the site that we are attempting to visit has already been censored, seized and shutdown by the US government. The chilling effects alone from this MegaUpload seizure will compel service providers, content providers and platforms to carry the burden of self-censorship and total acquiescence to all government demands.
But before that, I remember just a few years ago back in 2009 the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was bashing the Chinese on censorship and Internet freedoms... oh the irony of double-talk and the supreme hypocrisy of it all. When China blocks a site it only affects Chinese citizens, when the US decides to target a site they shut it down for good, extradite the owners, and block it GLOBALLY. It is a US power-grab for control of the Internet and a unilateral "show of force". In some cases the US FBI/DOJ has shutdown sites that were ruled perfectly legal by the courts of that country, and US has been known to extradite citizens of other nations for merely LINKING to an alleged infringing material.
Take a good look, you'll be seeing and running into a lot more of this pretty soon!
ICE/DHS/DOJ has been blocking domains and putting up those banners since early 2010. Back then no one hardly knew about this. They only went after the small timers or nuance no-name offenders. Most Americans were still asleep and unaware that US was about to censor internet worse than Chinese government could ever dream about. People still envisioned the idea of an open internet in the US, unfettered and completely uncensored... Now all this is changing very quickly. VERY quickly.
MegaUpload is the first mainstream established website to be "disappeared" by this DNS blocking tactic. It accounted for a staggering 4% of total internet traffic, it was affiliated with popular US and global celebrities.. Millions of users had their personal files, work files, school projects hosted or stored on MegaUpload. In one fell swoop it was all gone, the stroke of anti-piracy pays no regard to the innocent people that it harms. The victims of this are not only US citizens but people of the entire WORLD. Will RapidShare, 4shared, Warez-bb, Piratebay etc be next? It is very possible, and seems inevitable. Piratebay, Warez-bb, abovetopsecret, Cryptome, the US owns .com/.org/.net TLD, its all going to get shutdown one by one. Just a matter of time.
Now it is "piracy", next it could be political dissent. What about sites that protest the government, or sites that provide alternative news or independent thinking? I suppose soon "conspiracy theories" will become outlawed, justified by the fact that they influence public thinking, and a threat to national security, with potential to stir up protests or riots... soon we will wake up one day and see 911truth, infowars, peakoil, naturalnews, and similar sites all shutdown... to be replaced by a "this domain has been seized" banner by the DOJ.
MegaUpload was just the tip of the iceberg and only the beginning. This is the beginning of the end of the free and open Internet as we knew it to be. This is all about US flexing its muscles and doing hostile takeover of TLD (top level domains) in preparation for Internet and cyber infrastructure warfare with China and Russia. "Piracy", and even "censorship" are side issues. The real issue at heart is the US power-grab of the Internet, just like the US petrodollar hegemony and American invasion and forced takeover of Middle East for oil under the guise of "fighting terrorism".. You wake up one morning and THIS site has been blocked and thousands of independent thinking websites all blocked... in the name of "national security" and its ever expanding broad umbrella definitions. First is it is "piracy", then it becomes anything that protests government, then it becomes full blown censorship of freedom of speech. They do this in stages, just like x-ray machines were first used only at airports and it was "optional"... now it is becoming mandatory and soon will be deployed at train stations, football games, amazement parks, etc.
If the US is allowed to unilaterally block and shutdown any website is wishes then other superpowers and other nations will follow the same steps... How would America like it if China shutdown Twitter because Twitter helped anti-Chinese protests and stir up dissent (which is illegal by Chinese laws)... Or if the European Unions block or censor or shutdown access to many of the Silicon Valley and US social and financial sites to retaliate for US agenda of shutting down whatever sites they so pleased, even if it was outside of their jurisdiction? This will inevitably result in cyber protectionism, an escalating internet war, and once the internet become politicized it will be fragmented, disjointed, there will no longer be a single system or platform. This will be the death of the internet as we know it to be.
The shutting down of MegaUpload is symbolic of the beginning of the end of the Internet. This is all about INFORMATION WARFARE, Propaganda, and the coming Internet 9/11 false flag operation, blaming it on Iran hackers or Chinese gov, so to start WWIII (cyber and /or outer space and/or real physical)
The precedent has been set. There is no turning back now.
