Shields Up! Help us defend the Internet Today

Do you have a question about the future of the Internet? Want to learn more about secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) Internet trap?  It’s actually a little scary.  According to StopTheTrap the terms of this secret agreement would allow for the following:

1. Criminalize⁴ some of your everyday use of the Internet,

2. Force service providers to collect and hand over your private datawithout privacy safeguards⁵, and

3. Give media conglomerates more power to fine you for Internet use,⁶remove online content—including entire websites—and eventerminate⁷ your access to the Internet.

4. Create a parallel legal system of international tribunals that will undermine national sovereignty and allow conglomerates to sue countries for laws that infringe on their profits.

A bunch of us are hosting an AMA (ask me anything) panel on the subject.  Here are the other people you can talk with:

• Grassroots Internet freedom group OpenMedia (Steve Anderson)
• Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian
• Ben Huh, CEO of The Cheezburger Network
• Digital rights advocates and experts from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Electronic Frontiers Australia, InternetNZ, Public Knowledge, Public Citizen, and Professor Michael Geist
• Online innovators Mike Masnick from Techdirt, Elliot Noss from TuCows, and me, Michael Tippett from Ayoudo
• Civil society leaders from the ACLU and Andrew Rasiej from the Personal Democracy Media

Our participant schedule is here.

Here are some resources to help you understand the issues:

• StopTheTrap.net petition
• Outreach resources
• Alexis Ohanian’s Internet 2012 Bus Tour
• Techdirt

General information about the TPP from civil society groups:

• EFF
• Public Knowledge – TPPinfo.org
• InternetNZ – A Fair Deal