Here's what I want you to do, America.
Go to that website—it’ll let you look up the representative for your Congressional District (if you click to look up your +4 zip code, it’ll take you to the USPS website, so do that first). After you’ve put in your information, it should give you the page for your district’s representative.
If your representative has a decent webpage, you should be able to find contact information there, including their local and DC office addresses and their email addresses.
If you are capable and willing, I want you all to write or type or otherwise create a physical snail-mail letter to your representative. It’s easy enough for our government to ignore the outpourings of emails and electronic petitions they’ve been getting from us—one click, and you can delete all of those emails without looking at them. (Maybe not the best thing to do when you should be listening to your constituents, but I don’t doubt that it happens.) Snail mail is a lot harder to ignore.
Write a letter to your representative telling them why you oppose SOPA/PIPA/OPEN (and ACTA, and PCFIPA, if you’re so inclined, though the USA has already signed ACTA and has already enacted PCFIPA) and explain that if they vote for or otherwise back this sort of legislation without further review and without listening to the people addressing the problems it could cause, then you will see to it that they do not continue to represent you, as they are not representing your interests as it is. (For that matter, you might want to address why NDAA and the Enemy Expatriation Act are terrible and terrifying as well, and why you want to see NDAA repealed and the Expatriation Act dropped.)
Ultimately, if your representative chooses to ignore you, then follow through on that threat, and don’t vote for them, if you are of a voting age. And if you are of a voting age and aren’t registered, then register. Elections can be powerful forces. See to it that you are fairly represented by Congress.
I think it’s time that we take the fight for the internet (and for our right to freedom and privacy) off of the internet.
