[willamedwardwallace]

I see a lot of hyperbole in the thread, but no real answers. Is this a “pandora’s box” argument? Or something else.

I am not saying that SOPA is a good thing, but can you point to a specific section of the law that would authorize the government to mandate that Free Republic be blocked?

[BuckeyeTexan]

Yes, here is some information posted by JerseyHighlander:

Video explanation of SOPA & PIPA

While watching this video, keep in mind that SOPA and PIPA

• give the US government the right to force ISPs to block access to FreeRepublic.com.
• give the US government and private corporations the right to sue US based search engines from listing FreeRepublic.com in search results.
• allow the US government to force payment services (such as Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, etc.) to block all financial donations transaction from freepers to FreeRepublic LLC, and shutdown accounts and confiscate all monies in FreeRepublic's accounts.
• allow any and every media copyright holder to sue FreeRepublic.com for infringement and FreeRepublic.com LLC will be given no notice of the lawsuit, five days after the lawsuit is filed, FreeRepublic.com will be put on the blacklist and all US based ISPs will have to block access.
• establish that for FreeRepublic LLC to regain control of the FreeRepublic.com domain name, Jim Robinson, John Rbinson will have to sue in court under the pretense of guilty until proven innocent.
• create the scenario that repeated lawsuits could see Jim and John and other LLC boardmembers threatened with legal fines and jail time, depending on how the committee conference bill is written up in conference.
• establish that every website becomes responsible for every single piece of user content posted on the website. A Single infringing link or copyrighted piece of media posted on FreeRepublic.com will be enough to permanently shutdown FreeRepublic.com.

PIPA and SOPA break the foundational technology of the Internet, it's technical and I'll just post a link to an open letter from dozens of the founders of the Internet. Open letter re: SOPA & PIPA