- Carl Franzen at TPM gives a rundown of SOPA opponents’ plans to deal with the bill’s supporters, including going after two Republican legislators. If you’re curious about who is undeserving of political support in this next election, consider rewatching the SOPA markup hearing to get some insight.
- Joe Brockmeier at ReadWriteWeb calls 2011 “the year the free ride died.”
- Charities are investigating whether contributions they received were the result of the Anonymous STRATFOR hack. They’ve pledged to refund any such money.
- Finally, a couple stories that aren’t entirely tech related but nonetheless relevant reading:
- First – Egyptian military forces raided the offices of over a dozen NGOs yesterday, seizing computer equipment and documents. From the article:
The raids, particularly those on American pro-democracy and human-rights organizations, mark a significant deterioration in the relationship between Washington and one of its closest military allies in the Middle East. The U.S. government has supported Egypt’s military since the 1970s, with $1.3 billion in annual funding that now amounts to an estimated 20% of its budget.
- Second – Vidgar Helgesen writing at ISN heralds 2012 as the beginning of the Age of the Citizen. From the article:
It’s true also that the idea of the free citizen as the source of all political power is age-old. But never has it been applied so directly as in 2011. What happened first in Tunisia and Egypt were called leaderless revolutions, but really what we saw was ordinary citizens taking the lead.
Marvin Ammori 