By: Erick Gonzalez
During the last few months, we have been bombarded with information about the privacy-abridging bills SOPA and PIPA. In a bizarre turn of events, the Internet community – seemingly detached from social and political issues –  rallied for its “freedom.” It was quite inspiring to see a community which spends most of its time viewing pictures of cats with misspelled quotes and insulting each other, gather together to fight for a cause.
What none of the Internet’s defenders realized was that PIPA, SOPA and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) were just scapegoats, decoys to keep the public occupied with unimportant bills that didn’t have a chance of seeing the light of day. Meanwhile, other bills that would give the government more power than SOPA or PIPA could have passed through Congress without attracting too much attention. Even we, The Pan American, were guilty of giving these bills way too much importance.
While the entire world was gathering efforts into stopping a couple of lousy bills, a bigger weapon against Internet freedom was being brought up to different countries to be signed. This wasn’t a bill. A bill merely affects the nation in which it becomes law. This is a treaty, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which gives governments the power to track anyone’s online activity. The United States had been a member of the treaty for nearly four months when we began pathetically mourning the loss of Megaupload.
While ACTA is still a threat against the Internet we know and love, the point that I’m trying to make here is that this is not the time to rise up in arms again, but to be smart and become involved in what the government is doing. We worry about our Internet privileges being reduced, yet we let the government do as they please on other issues. Sadly, we are easy to fool. Every time that we focus our attention on an unimportant issue and lose sight of the big picture, we fall into their game.
We become oblivious to the world. Not so long ago, Egypt was about to be burned to the ground, and all we cared about was what Charlie Sheen was snorting at the time. We are better than that. We just proved it. We can rise to the occasion and fight for what we believe is right.
Together we have a lot of power. We only need to be heard. We just need to focus on the real issues and not be distracted by how much Kim Kardashian spent on her wedding.
We believe the Internet should stay as it is, and we are fighting for it. Good, but there are still other battles to be fought. We have the power to change things. Now let’s get to it.