SiSU: - Homeland - Cory Doctorow

Homeland
donated to the president's campaign and explain how what they wanted -- the only thing
they wanted -- was for this bill to pass.
But the public pressure kept building. To try to throw people off the trail, they kept changing
the name of the bill -- calling it PIPA and SOPA and even the E-PARASITES Act -- but no
matter what they called it, more and more people kept telling their friends about it and
getting more and more people opposed. Soon, the signers on our petition stretched into
the millions.
We managed to stall them for over a year through various tactics, but they realized if they
waited much longer they might never get their chance to pass this bill. So they scheduled
it for a vote first thing after they got back from winter break.
But while members of Congress were off on winter break, holding town halls and public
meetings back home, people started visiting them. Across the country, members started
getting asked by their constituents why they were supporting that nasty Internet censorship
bill. And members started getting scared -- some going so far as to respond by attacking
me.
But it wasn't about me anymore -- it was never about me. From the beginning, it was
about citizens taking things into their own hands: making YouTube videos and writing
songs opposing the bill, making graphs showing how much money the bill's cosponsors
had received from the industries pushing it, and organizing boycotts putting pressure on
the companies who'd endorsed the bill.
And it worked -- it took the bill from a political nonissue that was poised to pass unanimously
to a toxic football no one wanted to touch. Even the bill's cosponsors started rushing to
issue statements opposing it! Boy, were those media moguls pissed...
This is not how the system is supposed to work. A ragtag bunch of kids doesn't stop one
of the most powerful forces in Washington just by typing on their laptops!
But it did happen. And you can make it happen again.
The system is changing. Thanks to the Internet, everyday people can learn about and
organize around an issue even if the system is determined to ignore it. Now, maybe we
won't win every time -- this is real life, after all -- but we finally have a chance.
But it only works if you take part. And now that you've read this book and learned how to
do it, you're perfectly suited to make it happen again. That's right: now it's up to you to
change the system.
Aaron Swartz
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Powell's: Portland, OR
SiSU www.sisudoc.org/ 271