There is an awful bill making its way around congress.  I first wrote about this when it was called COICA and was thankfully defeated due to opposition from Senator Ron Wyden.  Then it returned as the PROTECT IP act or PIPA.  Now we have the house version which is in part called, I kid you not, the E-PARASITE act (scroll to page 3 and you will find the name for Title I).  

I won’t make an effort here to go into detail as to why this is a terrible idea.  In addition to the previous posts that I have linked to, you can read Mike Masnick’s take over at Techdirt or the EFF’s.

So what should you do?  Here are three steps that everyone should take today

1. Call and fax your representative’s office and tell them that you are against SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act (that is the name of the entire bill).

2. Email your 10 best friends and ask them to do the same.

3. Buy and read Larry Lessig’s excellent new book Republic, Lost to understand how we wind up with such terrible legislation and what we can do about it.

I am off now to let my representative, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, know how I feel about SOPA and then send some emails.  Please do the same!