"That the value of a telecommunications 
network is proportional to the square of 
the number of connected users of the system (n2)."
   - Metcalfe's Law

A Facebook entity known as "Revolution News Network" posted this extremely thought-provoking article, which I personally believe every US citizen ought to be reading and commiting to memory. I also believe every US citizen ought to take to heart the very real possibility that until we demand accountability from our government and our representatives, down to the penny, we can't expect anything to change.

There is a very simple, and we think overlooked, reason why the abominations of SOPA and PIPA have appeared like cancerous growths in the House and Senate, and it has more to do than just censoring the internet. It goes deeper than that. It hits a nerve. The very idea of a bottom-up, people driven internet clashes violently with the ideological and political worldview that surveillance should only exist in one direction: From the top down. 

You see we've overlooked what it really means in terms of discomfort and career risk to those who normally bask and benefit from the art of statecraft. You see, the ordinary, unwashed masses - that would be you and me - are in possession of one of the most powerful forces the earth has ever seen. 

And you have learned to use it in a way that is indeed alarming. 

Ordinary people, with little or no political knowledge or even education, are using it to keep their elected employees under surveillance 24 hours a day seven days a week - like real hiring managers should. 

You see, you're all figuring out that your computer desk at home is now headquarters - it's now the head office - and your acting like the boss, and these employees don't like it one bit. 

You're calling them out for having a business on the side. For taking long lunches with your competitors. For using the company car and copy machine for their personal use without telling you. For improper conduct that would violate any employee ethics manual. For noticing that they exempt themselves from it, but not you, the boss. 

In other words you are finally (as the founders intended, and would be ecstatic to see) holding your elected Federal and State employees accountable beyond their wildest imagination. 

You're watching "the help" like any good supervisor, manager or owner would and THEY DON'T LIKE IT. 

Why? You're tirelessly performing hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual performance reviews. You are writing them letters of praise or reprimand. You are sending them the equivalent of performance improvement plans ("improve or remove" coaching letters). You are expressing your anger or disappointment for lying to you during presentations (i.e., debates on the floor of the House or Senate, during interviews with the press, or during campaign speeches) since you're able to compare a report they delivered a year ago, or a month ago to one they gave today. And even post a clip of them lying that they cannot deny or hide from. You're catching them lying on or padding their expense reports or catching them investing or accepting rewards or favors where it's a conflict of interest to you personally as the real CEO of this country. 

You have harnessed a resource at your fingertips - Google alone processes 24 petabytes of data alone per day - that you can use to micromanage them, in a way that they prefer to use instead to micro-manage you. 

In other words, you are doing things that they prefer to DO TO YOU INSTEAD, AND TO YOU ONLY, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. 

SOPA and PIPA have been introduced (along with other abominable legislation of late) to keep you and the Constitution of the United States from activating at a level that they will never be able to suppress unless they act now. A tipping point in what they believe is the wrong direction is at hand. A tipping point that could restore the Republic to its original Constitutional form and end a 100 year reign of the kleptocracy. 

You and your use of the internet have inadvertently leveraged an 18th century Constitution, a Bill of Rights, the Privileges and Immunities clause, and powers reserved to the States or the people themselves, and raised them all to an unprecedented, almost astronomical power. 

You have accidentally taken the rights and powers in these old parchment documents all to a level several orders of magnitude above the most basic objections against the divine rights of kings and despots that were so eloquently expressed, even in the Declaration of Independence, to a dizzying height never thought possible by the Founders. 

You have arranged yourselves in direct competition to them, into virtual Senates, virtual Houses of Representatives, virtual Judiciaries, and virtual Inspectors General's, all in a manner that redefines what consent of the governed will mean from now on. You can all now deliberate every decision, every move, every dollar, every law, beyond the mere vehicle of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. 

You have arranged yourselves into a neural net, or brain of the actual Republic, as originally intended. but never foreseen. 

And it is from that height, that the internet has allowed the US Constitution and you as the owner to, almost without being fully aware of it, to decimate the worldview -the philosophy of empire - that to this day would prefer that the nuisance of the cult of liberty vanish from the face of the earth along with its insufferable US Constitution once and for all. You have it on the run. 

And there you have the real reason for SOPA, PIPA, and the NDAA provisions and other laws that the House and the Senate have had the temerity to introduce while simultaneously flouting these words written by giants that will forever tower over them and cast long shadows over their dealings... 

"Congress shall make no law....." 

STOP SOPA. STOP PIPA. HOLD ONTO THE INTERNET TIGHTLY AND DON'T LET GO.

It's not about SOPA and PIPA, it's about holding onto what our nation values as precious.

Excuse me. I'm about to exercise my rights as a free citizen.
R.B.