It is not over yet

Turning once again, and this time more generally, to the question of censorship, I would observe that there has never been a period in all these long years of which we boast when an absolute guarantee against invasion, still less against serious raids, could have been given to our people. In the days of COICA, of which I was speaking just now, the same wind which would have carried its transports across the DNS might have driven away the blockading firewall. There was always the chance, and it is that chance which has excited and befooled the imaginations of many Senate committees. Many are the tales that are told. We are assured that novel methods will be adopted, and when we see the originality of malice, the ingenuity of aggression, which our enemy displays, we may certainly prepare ourselves for every kind of novel stratagem and every kind of brutal and treacherous manœuvre. I think that no idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered and viewed with a searching, but at the same time, I hope, with a steady eye. We must never forget the solid assurances of man power and those which belong to will power if it can be locally exercised.

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our digital home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of The Internets — every man and woman of them. That is the will of Reddit and the web. The EFF and the Wikipedia Foundation, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.

Even though large tracts of the Internet and many old and famous Sites have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Government and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in Washington, we shall fight on the Reddits and Twitters, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength on the airwaves, we shall defend our right to speak, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the blogs, we shall fight on the landlines, we shall fight in the protests and in the streets, we shall fight in the petitions; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this community or a large part of it were subjugated and censored, then our World beyond the web, informed and guarded by their conviction, would carry on the struggle, until, in good time, the new world wide web, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.