The hacktivist group Anonymous is hoping for a big response today after launching an appeal for websites to ‘black out’ their home pages in protest at the US government’s proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which was passed by the US House of Representatives last week.

As previously reported on SiliconANGLE, the bill was passed by the house in a 288 to 127 vote, in spite of numerous privacy concerns raised by groups like Anonymous and civil libertarians. Following this vote, Anonymous announced its plans to go into dark this Monday.

In a stark warning posted to the Anoninsiders.net website last Friday, the collective insisted it would not sit idly by and watch as people’s rights are eroded:

“Again, you are trying to pass this ridiculous CISPA law in order to control and censor the people. This will not stand. You already control the media, the economy, the criminal underworld, your national plots and our energy. YOU WILL NOT GET OUR INTERNET!”

CISPA passed the House of Representatives despite facing some significant opposition, including that of President Barack Obama himself, who once again reaffirmed his position against the act last week, asking for stronger consumer protections to be built into it. The next step for CISPA is to pass by the Senate, after which Obama will face a decision on whether to sign the act into law, or veto it.

Supposing CISPA is signed into law, websites would be allowed to pass on their user’s personal information to the US government without needing to inform anyone. Lawmakers claim that the measure is all about preventing cyber attacks, but unsurprisingly Anonymous isn’t best pleased at the news. It’s statement continued:

“We are going dark on MONDAY April 22nd at 6 AM GMT for 24 hours to protest your illogical and terrorizing bill against the Internet itself. Even with the whole Internet crying out to stop this BILL, the US House of Representatives failed to do so blinded by lobbyist’s money and cum in your eyes. So we will take action ourselves and open your eyes. Every popular/mainstream websites will be black until you, Mr. DronObama promise us to use your VETO power to stop this bill at Senate. Take this as a protest or a warning, as you wish. One thing is for certain, neither you or anyone else in this world can control the Internet, so don’t even try.”

The call to protest is similar to a previous action that took place on January 18, 2012, when more than 7,000 websites joined forced to protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Major websites that took part in that action included Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, Wikileaks and Mozilla, and it’s believed that their protests played a big part in that bill being shelved.

So far, more than 200 websites have officially signed up for the blackout (see a full list of sites involved here), but Anonymous doesn’t appear to have secured the backing of any of the web’s big boys this time around. Of course, we’ll keep you updated if anything changes.