Ok, don't forget PIPA and SOPA. They're important too. But whereas PIPA and SOPA only have the potentialto be misused for censorship, RWA is designed from the ground up to block the free flow of information.
RWA, the Research Work Act, would do the exact opposite of its appellation. Its sole purpose is to keep science behind a paywall, where the only ones allowed access are either residing in an ivory tower or willing and able to pay per page. This would be bad for the public, bad for science, bad for scientists, and for the economy.
Science is published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, which traditionally operate on a subscription basis: readers must either buy a subscription or pay for individual articles. There is a growing movement toward open access publishing, e.g. the PLoS family of journals, but a lot of science still resides behind a pay wall. To address the incongruence of some publicly funded research being kept from the public, the National Institutes of Health (HIH) instituted a Public Access Policy 4 years ago. The gist is that if a paper describes research funded by public grants from the NIH, the public must have free access to it within 12 months of publication, no matter what the journal's policy says otherwise. RWA would ban this policy.
Why do we need open access to science? Well... what do you care about? Are you a tea party type, skeptical of elitist ivory tower experts? Then you want to be able to see what's actually behind these media-hyped studies. Are you an occupier of city squares? Well, what is more oppressive to the 99% than denying it knowledge itself? Are you familiar with Thomas Jefferson's quote ""? Then the fact that I've invoked it has already convinced you.
