It's ON!

Looks like the PIPS/SOPA blackout is ON.

The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy. Congress is considering legislation that will dramatically change your Internet experience and put an end to reddit and many other sites you use everyday. Internet experts, organizations, companies, entrepreneurs, legal experts, journalists, and individuals have repeatedly expressed how dangerous this bill is. If we do nothing, Congress will likely pass the Protect IP Act (in the Senate) or the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House), and then the President will probably sign it into law. There are powerful forces trying to censor the Internet, and a few months ago many people thought this legislation would surely pass. However, there’s a new hope that we can defeat this dangerous legislation.
We’ve seen some amazing activism organized by redditors at /r/sopa and across the reddit community at large. You have made a difference in this fight; and as we near the next stage, and after much thought, talking with experts, and hearing the overwhelming voices from the reddit community, we have decided that we will be blacking out reddit on January 18th from 8am–8pm EST (1300–0100 UTC).

Emphasis in the original.

Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action. We will showcase the live video stream of the House hearing where Internet entrepreneurs and technical experts (including reddit co-founder Alexis “kn0thing” Ohanian) will be testifying. We will also spotlight community initiatives like meetups to visit Congressional offices, campaigns to contact companies supporting PIPA/SOPA, and other tactics.

This is the part I think is great - the more people see the sausage making that goes into the Legislative process, the more outraged and engaged they will end up being.

Tina Korbe at HotAir does not think that FaceBook or Google will join the blackout....

From the sounds of it, Google, Twitter and Facebook won’t join in — their consideration seems to be more of the polite than the serious variety — but Wikipedia might really be on board. We shall see.

And it appears that the White House is signalling it's displeasure with both bills.

Update: I’m not quite sure what to do with this. It’s a new sensation to find myself on the same side of an issue as the president. Nevertheless, it looks to be the case:

In an unusually blunt statement, Obama administration officials signaled that the White House would not support parts of two bills wending their way through Congress — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) that critics say would limit freedom of speech on the Internet and unfairly punish legitimate websites.

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet,” said a statement from Victoria Espinel, intellectual property enforcement coordinator; Aneesh Chopra, U.S. chief technology officer; and Howard Schmidt, cybersecurity coordinator for the national security staff.

The statement is a setback for the major Hollywood studios and unions that have been mounting a lobbying campaign in support of the bills, which would give the Justice Department more tools to shut down foreign websites involved in the piracy of movies and TV shows.  Google, Facebook and other tech companies, however, have been fiercely opposed to the bills, particularly provisions that would allow the Justice Department to obtain court orders requiring internet search engines and payment processors to block access to websites involved in piracy.

It's another one of those "Obama is right" moments for me as well.

Indeed, the SOPA debate has been notable for its ability to make strange bedfellows. When was the last time The Heritage Foundation and the Obama administration actually agreed about something?

Opposition to SOPA/PIPA is this way because it is the RIGHT thing to do.  While piracy is indeed wrong, this bill is equally wrong.  So what do you suppose that makes Mark Shurtleff, Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch?