US.gov Clamps Down on the Internet (UPDATED x2)

What the SOPA legislation allows government to do is to consign all those foolish “pulldown” requests to the dustbin, and simply to freeze the entire offending site on the basis, not even necessarily of that site having reproduced some copyright-infringing (in their judgments, of course) material, but simply to have linked to it. Once a complaint is made, there is a presumption of guilt, and the matter drops out of their hands, to be litigated in the usual ways.

Such a process clearly works against the small, independent blogger, and provides a lot of potentially remunerative busywork for lawyers. It also provides a lot of potential for professional and semi-professional “offense chasers” to get kickbacks (or referrals, if you prefer) for discovering transgressions, and for ideologically driven offense chasers to tie up sites whose views offend them personally with nuisance lawsuits.