the day the earth stood still

It’s quite a coincidence that it’s almost exactly to the day five years ago, the internet went off-line in solidarity and protest to the US Congress censorship bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that would have place grave strictures on the open internet and free-exchange. By resisting, the people eventually won and Congress relented but the victory came at a high costs and we have to remain ever vigilant—hopefully, we are not so inured to creeping change that we haven’t quietly surrendered those freedoms in the intervening years. Liberties are always at peril and we ought to be vocal and owe it to ourselves to be our best and truest selves, but perhaps this is not the occasion for a black-out, as after the shut-down, we might not be allowed to come back on-line.