Net Neutrality to be passed by Fiat (not the car)

The internet works just fine…I can get just about anywhere I want to and see whatever I want. So because the internet works and the government has realized that the internet works and is both open and free for exchange of ideas, they have been taking steps to fix that. The goal is to make the internet like everything else the government manages, piss poor and broken. Their tool to get there is the Net Neutrality idea. John Oliver has a good bit on it at the bottom of this page, you should watch it.

But now the government has spun this Net Neutrality idea off to the American people to be this wonderful thing that keeps the content open and free on the internet, but the content was already open and free. What the FCC and the big cable companies don’t tell you is that Net Neutrality is actually net favoritism. It lets some companies buy the fastest streaming speeds for content delivery and everyone else can just get along in the slow lane. No, Net Neutrality is a way for the government of the United States to strangle and choke off any dissenting speech through judicious use of who does and does not get the fastest streaming speeds.

This was all a moot point because Congress has been unwilling or unable, I’m never sure when they’re being recalcitrant and when they’re being incompetent anymore to play with Net Neutrality. The Net Neutrality idea by the FCC is now going to become law because the Executive branch has come up with the grand idea that we don’t have to pass legislation because the FCC has the authority to write the laws themselves. Isn’t it interesting with this administration how whenever there is a law Congress won’t pass or take up there is suddenly a law passed by an agency or an executive order passed that bypasses Congress.

Chief Justice John Roberts weigh in on the wielding of Congressional powers by government agencies when he wrote in his dissent of Arlington v. FCC, “It would be a bit much to describe the result as ‘the very definition of tyranny,’ but the danger posed by the growing power of the administrative state cannot be dismissed.”  

Since when did We the People, whom elect our representation, become We the Agency Bureaucrat, not elected, not appointed, but hired and told to go out there and get into everyone’s chili. We are talking about a fourth branch of government with no checks and balances beholden to no one except the Executive branch and even that connection is tenuous at best.

How surprising will it be to you that 40 federal agencies, including at least 12 that have no association with law enforcement, have their own armed divisions or swat teams. Agencies like the EPA, IRS, HHS, NOAA, Library of Congress, etc. So these agencies have their own private armies in some cases, write their own laws without the approval of Congress and thereby the PEOPLE, and go about enforcing them as they are wont to do. I don’t know that Roberts was being too soft when he called it “a bit much.” It is tyrannical behavior and we in the United States should really have more say into all of it.

Instead we are going to let the FCC goose step all the way to Net Neutrality because no one is willing to take them on, not the citizens, not the Executive branch (busy egging them on is more like it) and the Congress who should represent the people.

 

 

Exclusive: White House says net neutrality legislation not needed | Reuters.

John Oliver on Net Neutrality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU

 

 

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New First Amendment: You Can Only Say What We Let You

The FCC has long been at the heart of the First Amendment battle, and now they may consider arbitrarily ruling that some words are indecent and therefore can no longer be uttered or talked about on air if the broadcasters in question want to not be fines or even worse keep their license to broadcast.

The word in question that is sparking all of this now…Redskins. Yes, the name of the NFL team in Washington D.C. Now when I say Redskins do you scream and cover your mouth like I had just punched a small child? Do parents nearby reach for their children and cover their ears so they might not hear the word and repeat it? No, because honestly very few people see the word as an a) insult and b) inappropriate.  Most polls have shown more than 60% support for the name.  But here comes the FCC getting ready to slather infringement all over the First Amendment.

The FCC has received a petition from a legal activist, a life-sucking libtard, and GW professor John Banzhaf III asking FCC regulators to strip a local radio station, WWXX-FM, of their broadcast license for using the word Redskins, which he finds to be racist, derogatory, profane, and hateful…making it exactly like broadcasting an obscenity on the air. This isn’t the first ridiculous lawsuit or petition this phallus shaped human has brought up…his own website touts his breadth of his domain as the Genghis Kahn of the legal world. The FCC has agreed to hear this idiotic request despite what they know about the First Amendment.

Just in case you had forgotten the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And yes people the Federal Communications Commission is an arm of the government, so if they cover up your speech they are in fact in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.  That isn’t to say that they do not have the responsibility to ensure that those broadcasting have some modicum of decency; then again, maybe the market and the people should dictate that and not the government.

But here is where we reach the slippery slope.  The U.S. census data as updated in 2013 shows that Native Americans and other indigenous people make up only about 1.2% of the population.  I highly doubt that every single last one of them is offended by the word Redskins, or in fact by one of the roughly 2,500+ other high school and college teams that use a reference to the indigenous people of North America for their team name or mascot; seriously look it up. But here in America we are not ruled by minority tyranny. Just because you find something offensive doesn’t mean I have to stop saying it. Just because it might hurt your super sensitive feelings and give you a bubbly tummy does not make the word invalid in and of itself. Just because you gather up a thousand crunchy people and hold a rally along with a march against injustice and call the word hate speech doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. Why?

“HATE SPEECH” is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: “The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable.” Federal courts have consistently followed this.In fact, the FCC has been on the other side of the ruling in several court cases. In 2010, the 2nd circuit of appeals struck down their indecency laws calling them, “arbitrary and capricious.” This was overturned by the Supreme Court, but the First Amendment issue was never addressed by them leading to the ruling that, the rules were in violation of the First Amendment and the continued use created a “chilling effect.”

The FCC, and by that I mean the government, should not be weighing in on what we can and can not say on the air.  If they do rule against the use of the word Redskins what word are they next going to tackle..moist? niggardly? freedom? choice? responsibility?

Once you start banning words all willy-nilly it becomes open season on all words. Let the FCC know that they have no business ruling on words that are part of everyday speech.

Contact info for the FCC:

Chairman Tom Wheeler: Tom.Wheeler@fcc.gov
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: Jessica.Rosenworcel@fcc.gov
Commissioner Ajit Pai: Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael O’Rielly: Mike.O’Rielly@fcc.gov

FCC Considers Ban On Use Of The NFL Name ‘Redskins’ | Truth Revolt.

Putting another round into the First Amendment

It seems like every time I turn around the First Amendment is under fire again.  This time is no different.  Hell, I dig for my news and I didn’t even know that this one was out there until just this morning.  But there it is and guess what, coming this spring,  it poses another threat to the First Amendment.  Reporters without Borders recently slipped the United States 13 places to 46th in the world for Press Freedom. This from an organization that ranked the United States 20th in 2009…How far we’ve fallen in the five short years under this administration, and we haven’t even begun this newest little intrusion.

It seems the administration wants to look into the average newsroom to see how the average news organization selects its news stories.  Seemingly innocuous enough at first glance but take a look deeper into the plan. This plan is being brought to you by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), the organization that has jurisdiction over the broadcast industry meaning that while they wouldn’t be able to monitor print or cable news any broadcast station or radio network would be subject to their surveillance, but yet print news is included in their study. This seems to be more of a watchdog tactic because participation in the study is being touted as voluntary especially for print news, but when you figure that a broadcast station needs a FCC license to be on the air and that license needs to be renewed every eight years you definitely see where the pressure to accept participation in this study could come from. Of course print news can tell them where to stick it, but then again, will they?

The FCC decided to commission this study,”Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs (CIN),” and in their own release they cited the need to, “collect data to inform: the access (or potential barriers) to CINs as identified by the FCC; the media that makes up media ecologies (i.e., what media is actually included in that ecology; ownership of that market; what specific type of content dominates those media ecologies; what is the flow of information within the ecology, etc); the use of and interaction between media that makes media ecologies (i.e., how do different layers of the ecology interact to provide for CINs; how do individuals of diverse neighborhoods/communities differ in terms of access to CINs); validate data collection tools/templates and protocols; demonstrate high internal validity and reliability of measured constructs.”(emphasis in bold my additions)

In other words the FCC wants to see what these news organizations are doing and how they are doing it so that the FCC can further regulate the industry they are over.  Perhaps some tweaking here and there is their thoughts. Here is the first and most vital set of questions.  What defines a critical information need? Who decides what constitutes any of those three words? and is this a one size fits all approach or are these tailored needs? I set before you that when someone dictates or establishes a set of Critical Information Needs that regulate how we address news we start down a path where what gets reported becomes more narrowly defined by the people at the top to the average citizen.

Imagine a world where a traffic jam was considered a CIN in Nebraska, but a Supreme Court decision about a case in Montana was only deemed a CIN for Montana and maybe Wyoming and Idaho.  Picking and choosing what news reaches who defeats the purpose of free speech, instead it serves as a repression of that very amendment.

Funnily enough, there was another country about 75 years ago that repressed freedom of speech in order to deliver what I would call critical information needs to its people.  The person in charge of delivering that information was Joseph Goebbels and the country was Nazi Germany…What did Goebbels say about critical information, well he said,

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Here in America luckily we are in the twenty-first century and have access to not only broadcast news but cable, internet, blogs, etc. In other words, there is no dearth of sources providing us differing viewpoints on various items deemed news. This is good, diversity in news leads to discussion as opposed to mere acceptance of the news that is delivered to us.

We should, as citizens, be asking pointed questions to the FCC and why they think they need to regulate the news delivered to the people.  Here is how to contact them via E-mail:

Chairman Julius Genachowski: Julius.Genachowski@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Robert McDowell: Robert.McDowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov

Let them know We The People oppose their intrusion into our First Amendment with their thinly veiled attempt at media control with the Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs