Thought Police

You may have noticed that there was no clever blackout or "site closed" sign on this page last Wednesday. This is due, in large part, to a lack of commitment on the part of the site's web designer: me. The idea was appealing enough, making a point about the possibility of Internet censorship via the upcoming SOPA bill that is winding its way through congress. The Stop Online Piracy Act, if it is passed, would prosecute Internet users for sharing what would ultimately become "privately owned" content.
I understand just how slippery a cyber-slope we are on here. If it's okay for me to share photos of my son online, why wouldn't it be okay to share the music from his yet-to-be-formed punk band? As long as they were original compositions, I suppose, but their ska-flavored cover of "Walk This Way" would be verboten. I acknowledge that we are dealing with one of the last frontiers for open exchange and I understand the need to regulate the content passing through the series of tubes that make up Al Gore's genius invention, but when Congress gets involved in regulation, things get a little scary.
If there was going to be a force protecting intellectual property on the Internet, I would prefer that they didn't appear like something out of "Brazil": Information Retrieval. Instead I would prefer a nice sunny office manned by somebody like Andy Taylor and Barney Fife. These good-hearted and well-intentioned crime fighters may look pleasant enough, but they are more than a match for the most hardened criminals. They're also not going to lock up the town drunk unless he asks for it, but they will shut down the still. And my money is on them to round up the idjits who hacked my e-mail account.
I don't know how many regulations this post has broken, but I hope that I live in a world that will maintain perspective and remember the difference between piracy and sharing links to sites with pictures of funny cats and dogs.