Editors Note--This is something I'm personally concerned about and want others to be aware of, but I should be clear: the information below is from a website called Demand Progress  and does not necessarily reflect Patch's opinion.

Stop the Internet Blacklist!

UPDATE:  Lots of coverage of our efforts this week. THE HILL: Groups slam online piracy efforts; TECHDIRT: People Across Political Spectrum Come Out Against COICA Censorship Bill; CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY: Online piracy bipartisan domain.

ORIGINAL: Our leaders always urge other countries to stop censoring the Internet. But now the United States Congress is trying to censor the Internet here at home. A new bill would have the Attorney General create an Internet blacklist of sites that US Internet providers would be required to block.

This is the kind of heavy-handed censorship you'd expect from a dictatorship, where one man can decide what web sites you're not allowed to visit. But the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to pass the bill quickly -- and Senators say they haven't heard much in the way of objections! That's why we need you to sign our urgent petition to Congress demanding they oppose the Internet blacklist.

PETITION TO THE SENATE: Censoring the Internet is something we'd expect from China or Iran, not the U.S. Senate. You need to stop this Internet blacklist in its tracks and oppose S. 3804.

Just sign on here and we'll make sure your lawmakers get the message.

Read more about the bill: COICA Fact Sheet.

In the news: BoingBoing, Daring Fireball, Reddit, Salon.com, Huffington Post, Washington Post, PC World, PC Magazine, FireDogLake, Computerworld, Fox News, Nerdvana [MP3], Judiciary Committee schedule.

"We all use the web now for all kinds of parts our lives, some trivial, some critical to our life as part of a social world," says Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web. "In the spirit going back to Magna Carta, we require a principle that: No person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty. Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the Internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims."