Anonymous calls for blackout against CISPA

CISPA allows firms and agencies from the private sector to acquire and search sensitive data relating to U.S. citizens. Blanketed under the guise of using such sharing — without court-ordered warrants — in order to combat cybercrime, data including heath records, banking and online activity could be shared without anonymization.

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A number of groups and firms have publicly criticized the bill, including digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Mozilla. Over 800,000 people have signed a petition in an attempt to stop CISPA getting as far as it already has in the U.S. government's law process. 

Today, a number of websites have agreed to block themselves voluntarily. A list of websites joining the protest include hacker and Anonymous-based sites, as well as a bunch of Tumblr accounts. Hundreds are joining, but the list is still woefully short of prestigous names and services that would secure at least a passing glance by those with the power to stop the bill going through.

A Stop CISPA group on Facebook has been formed, and hashtags #CISPABlackout and #StopCISPA have trended at various times this morning. It'll be interesting to see if the trends continue to gain traction as the day progresses, but the difference between this and the last 'blackout' is profound
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