Please take some time to contact your representatives folks, this ones likely to lead to sweeping changes if implemented.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004864.phpThe Convention on Cybercrime is a sweeping treaty that has been waiting in the wings of the Senate for nearly three years. Now the administration is putting pressure on the Senate to ratify it in the next two days. If it does, it would mean the U.S. would enforce not just our own, but the rest of the world's bad Net laws. Call your Senator now, and ask them to hold its ratification.
The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries' "cybercrime" laws - even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdiction's requests to log their users’ behavior without due process, or compensation.
The treaty came into force last year on the international front, but not in the US, where it needs to be ratified by Congress first. So far, ratification has been blocked thanks to a "hold" placed by conservative lawmakers. But Republican senators this week are now being heavily pressured by the administration to drop their objections, and let it fly.
Ratifying the Cybercrime treaty would introduce not just one bad Internet law into America's law books, but invite the enforcement of all the world's worst Internet laws. Call your senators now, and tell them to hold this invasive treaty at bay
I'm sure you can all see the dangers involved in handing out powerful legislation to overseas governments that may not be available in their own country, this gives them a blank cheque on who can operate a website and what you can say on it to strangers who do not share your view of free speech, this seems ludicrous law, free speech will die if this sort of law hits the books.
I wonder what websites the Iranian government or the Taliban would like closed down in the US, this law could see that happen. :shock:
