Quote Originally Posted by LordMond63 View Post


Paint me skeptical.

After all, Infowars is still up (for example) and it blames the US government for 9/11. Radical white- and black-supremacist websites still function. We allow Jihadist websites to operate in the US. Seems to me that these would have been shut down some time ago if the government truly had the power to do so. And yet users of these sites are able to post their opinions and express themselves with pretty much total freedom.

Does the phrase 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' make sense in this case?

Under current law, the government doesn't have 'right' to shut those down. However, under SOPA/PIPA they could be shut down by someone that doesn't like what they say finding ANY infraction; regardless of size, simply by submitting a letter to the Attorney General. Jefferson made the comment 'I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.' In essence, the government should keep it's nose out of where it doesn't belong.