Stand up for your rights

My thoughts on SOPA: The Great Awakening.

As I am sure you are well aware, something has been quite amiss on the Internet lately.

Profile pictures have been changed and dissenting social statuses loom on the pages, not to mention the blackouts.

Google, Wikipedia, Imgur, Reddit and many other websites, "went black," on Wednesday in protest of two congressional bills, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP Act). These online anti-piracy bills are now making their way through the House and Senate respectively. As many people are beginning to realize, if these bills are passed, it could put the internet we have come to know and love in serious trouble.

The concept of this legislation is simple. If a website contains content that violates copyright laws, even if it contains links to such material, it can be shut down, no questions asked. If you look at websites like Google or Reddit, whose sole purpose is to provide or host links to other material on the Internet, this could prove fatal.

This has the potential to be a direct threat to free speech on the Internet.

In true American fashion, We the People have thrown a massive fit over the idea of someone taking away one of the many comforts we enjoy on a daily basis. After all, we believe it is our natural right to browse the Internet and express ourselves as we choose.

I am very pleased to see that so many people are up in arms about something they care about. However, I think is a little too late to start screaming about our rights.

Now, don't get me wrong, I believe that it is very important we stand up to Big Brother, and fight to maintain our freedom of expression through the Internet, but what truly concerns me is that widespread, passionate and well-targeted protests of this kind have not caught on sooner.

For years, our government has been whittling away at our constitutional rights, but only recently has it come into focus as the danger it really is. If you take a look at the rights they have blatantly violated, it is quite disturbing: The Patriot Act, the individual mandate of ObamaCare, and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act to name a few.

If you don't know how these pieces of legislation affect our rights, or even what they are, my point is proven. Our own government has duped us. They have fooled us into believing we are experiencing liberty at its greatest.

As Americans, we value our rights and feel we have a duty to stand up for our freedoms, but if we are not aware they are being taken from us, how can we defend ourselves from tyranny?

I think that as a result of these online protests, people are beginning to see that big government doesn't work, and only serves to oppress the nation and cripple our already ailing economy.

I think the recent outrage over SOPA and PIPA is only the beginning of a great awakening. We the People are finally starting to open our eyes to the fact that our government is failing us, failing to protect our rights, and failing to uphold their oath to the Constitution that makes our nation great.

According to CNN's online guide entitled SOPA 101, "If the goal of these protests was to get people talking, that sure seems to have worked."

And people sure are talking. The blinders have been lifted from our eyes, and we have shown we are not willing to sit idly by as our government puts our constitutional rights in jeopardy.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. If we do not act now, we will see just how far our government is willing to deviate from the Constitution and limit our rights as citizens.

I challenge you to stand up, not only for the right to browse the Internet and to freely post the pictures of what you did this weekend, but to stand up for the rights that have been swept under the rug. Demand that our government should recognize not just one of our rights, but all of them.