Another bipartisan erosion of our liberties, supported by the Chamber of Commerce, was stopped by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Thank God someone stands up for internet freedom:

A U.S. Senator from Oregon has once again taken a stand against his own party to defend what he sees as the inherent right to free speech on the Internet, placing a hold on a bill that could force search engines and Internet service providers to block websites deemed to be "infringing" on copyrights.

The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act -- or "PROTECT IP" for short was part of a second attempt to pass provisions of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which failed to clear Congress during its last session thanks to a parliamentary maneuver by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

And once again, Wyden has stepped forward to ensure those measures do not pass.

"In December of last year I placed a hold on similar legislation, commonly called COICA, because I felt the costs of the legislation far outweighed the benefits," he said in a prepared statement. "After careful analysis of the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, I am compelled to draw the same conclusion."

"I understand and agree with the goal of the legislation, to protect intellectual property and combat commerce in counterfeit goods, but I am not willing to muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth to achieve this objective," Wyden added.

Internet freedom advocates claim the proposed laws could be used to shut down websites that link to other websites that authorities claim to be carrying out infringing activities. Internet advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation said it was "no less dismayed by this most recent incarnation than we were with last year’s draft."

I know we'd all like to think there are ways to protect our privacy online, but there really aren't any - at least, any we have access to. And as long as Congress is too afraid of seeming "soft on terror," it's unlikely that legislation protecting our privacy will be passed. From Democracy Now!:

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Josh. Explain what they’re doing in Iran and then how the same technology is being used here.

JOSH SILVER: Well, yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Iranian government had secured this system from a German and Finnish company that will look through everything, both land line telephones, mobile telephones, email, websites, looking for keywords and actually monitoring the entire traffic going through one chokepoint in Iran. It’s been disputed by the European company, but the validity of the report seems solid.

What’s scary about this is that this technology that monitors everything that goes through the internet is something that works, it’s readily available, and there’s no legislation in the United States that prevents the US government from employing it. And that’s what’s really the cautionary tale here.

AMY GOODMAN: Your report is called “Deep Packet Inspection: The End of the Internet as We Know It.” Why does it threaten the internet, overall?

JOSH SILVER: Well, the problem is, is that, you know, if you look back to the 1930s, when telephone service became ubiquitous around the United States, lawmakers realized then that there was this new communications infrastructure and there needed to be consumer protections so that the government and others could not unlawfully or unethically monitor and listen in to the private conversations of American citizens. They established laws that prevented that from happening. In those laws, it made it so that the government requires a legitimate warrant, issued by a judge, that lets them do such monitoring.

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