The Withering of the Net:

How DC Pathologies are Undermining the Growth and Wealth of the Net

Watch Dana Perino Duck and Cover

After weeks of being intentionally ignored at White House Briefings, Eric Brewer of The Raw Story finally got his chance to press her on the phony "media specialists" used by the Pentagon to spread its propaganda:



At Raw Story - Link
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The Death of American Mianstream Media

Mike Papantonio, of the Ring of Fire radio show, discusses the death of Mainstream Media in the U.S.

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Dear Mr. President

How often do you hear this on the radio?
Liberal media...
Pfeh

A special hat tip to Mosquito Blog.

Freedom of Speech - Amerikan Style

In Florida:

(9/19/07 - 9:00 AM) I have chosen to remove the video of the Florida Student at the John Kerry lecture.
After further review and consideration I have come to the conclusion that the student brought on some of the police response by his actions. While I feel the police response was excessive, some of the student's actions did not work favorably for him.
Other reports have indicated that he is known as a prankster and such actions and reactions are nothing new to him.

Also Agent 99 has pointed out the vast differences between the press reactions to this incident in Florida which has been run on every network over and over and the violence against Reverend Yearwood which was virtually unseen.

(9/19/07 - 12:30 PM) OK, it's back - here is another look and analysis from the MSNBC show Hardball. This gives a better view of the actions at the rear of the room as well as some background leading up to the event. Clearly, once they had him on the ground there was no reason to taser him.

These Hardball videos also explore other means of free speech suppression by both the Republican and Democratic parties.

But then why didn't Reverend Yearwood's experience garner this much attention?

Part 1


Part 2

In Washington DC:

MORE

New National Security Threat: Putting Up Anti-War Posters

From an email issued today by ANSWER coalition:

Police suppress Sept. 15 anti-war press
conference across from White House

Three anti-war activists were arrested in front of the White House today after the U.S. Park Police moved to suppress a press conference called to protest the fines and threats against the ANSWER Coalition for putting up anti-war posters promoting the September 15 March and Die-In in Washington DC.

The arrested were Tina Richards, CEO of Grassroots America and mother of Iraq War Veteran Cloy Richards; Adam Kokesh, the Co-Chair Elect of the Iraq Veterans Against the War and member of Veterans for Peace; and Ian Thompson, an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition.

The press conference became a chaotic scene as U.S. Park Police interrupted the event on the basis that there was no permit for a folding table that was used as a speaker’s stand for media microphones. As U.S. Park Police officers surrounded the group, an officer on horseback rode into the crowd to disperse the media and onlookers.

Tina Richards and Adam Kokesh had announced that they would put a September 15 March to Stop the War poster on a lamppost following the press conference. The ANSWER Coalition has been fined over $30,000 in the last three weeks in an unprecedented action aimed at suppressing the September 15 mobilization. The three were taken to the Central District Substation of the United States Park Police. They will later be transferred to a jail in which they will spend the night before being arraigned in U.S. Superior Court tomorrow afternoon.

Attorneys at the Partnership for Civil Justice have filed a Free Speech lawsuit to strike down the unconstitutional postering law. The ANSWER Coalition has refused to pay these illegal fines.

Momentum continues to build for the September 15 Mass March, which will be led by Iraq War Veterans and their family members. More than 100 cities are mobilizing to bring people by bus, van and car caravan. The September 15 March will culminate with a large scale Die-In/Funeral for U.S. servicemembers and Iraqis who have been killed in this criminal war of aggression.

For details, go to www.Sept15.org.

Speak Out for Our Troops - Lose Your Job

The End Of The Internet - Revisited

by Bluebear2


The illustrious Agent 99 has forwarded me an article which is disturbing to say the least, and over which I am extremely mad. Mad I tell you.

I have touched upon the subject of government control over the free flow of information on the internet here. Now it seems our government is trying to bring to fruition their plan to take over the internet and force the end to free speech in this wonderful medium.

Chairman Richard A. Vigueie of grassrootsfreedom.com had this to say about this portion of the lobbying reform bill:

Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.

Did you get that? - they are trying to redefine “Lobbyist” to include bloggers:

Under current law any 'lobbyist’ who 'knowingly and willingly fails to file or report’ quarterly to the government faces criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year.

Must I therefore install some utility to log all unique IP addresses which access my blog and have some kind of alarm to let me know when it reaches 500 so I can rush out and register? Or do I need to make it a subscription only site? If I sign a petition to my Senator I'm now a lobbyist? Give me a break! It is the right of citizens in this country to petition the government! Hell - it is the RESPONSIBILITY of the citizens to petition the government when it is not performing the will of the people!

In this article by Mark Fitzgibbons at GrassrootsFreedom.com, Mark lays out the ways under which this legislation applies to bloggers, not only true lobbyists.

Mark points to the disturbing fact that it is the Democrats who are pushing this new definition of Lobbyist while trying to clean up the corruption of the Lobbying profession. While that goal is admirable, it has nothing to do with expressing one’s political gripes in an open forum. The internet is today's soap box, a once revered item in every town square! This legislation along with the proposals by John McCain to fine bloggers and website owners up to $300,000 for offensive statements posted in their message boards will put a huge damper on the free flow of information which is critical of any member of, or action taken by, the government.

Even my Sister Sites are facing their own internet censorship. In Sydney a recent court case has opened the specter of simply linking to another site as being a copyright infringement and piracy. And in Iran the bloggers were recently required to register with the government.

Dissent and the questioning of our government were once the Honorable and Patriotic things to do, but now this government wants to control every aspect of our lives while keeping all their actions secret. Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet sums it up this way:

It is also a callous reminder that the administration that has been the progenitor of the most heinous and deliberate campaign to mislead and lie to its own people is so transfixed by its own hubris that it has the temerity to accuse others of propagating deceptive information.

This is the same administration that deliberately included the Niger yellow cake fraud in a state of the union speech to sell a war - knowing that the information was completely bogus.

How dare they threaten us with the very defining characteristic of their black legacy and equate us with terrorists?

This is a direct assault on the alternative media and a continuation of the twilight zone rhetoric that saw the administration attempt to link its critics with Fascists and Hitler appeasers. The only fascists that should really concern us are not imaginary 'Blogofascists' or 'Islamofascists' but the Neo-Fascist slugs that occupy the White House and their cheerleading sycophants in the mainstream media and congress.

How dare they indeed!

If you haven't read my original article as linked above, take a glance there and then be sure to check out the other links - too many to list here - at Agent 99's Link.

Finally, go to GrassRootsFreedom.com and sign the Petition so that lowly bloggers such as myself and my blogging friends can continue to spread a little bit of the truth.

UPDATE 1/30/07 12:00PM:

No sooner had I posted this article than this news hit the headlines:

FBI turns to broad new wiretap method.

The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords.

This method is being called "The Vacumn Cleaner Method" since it collects all the information going through it and stores it for filtering at a later date.

Such a technique is broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system, later renamed DCS1000. It raises concerns similar to those stirred by widespread Internet monitoring that the National Security Agency is said to have done, according to documents that have surfaced in one federal lawsuit, and may stretch the bounds of what's legally permissible.

This administration has stretched the bounds of what's legally permissible until they snapped, yet I am still waiting for some form of action to stop them!

The End of the Internet as We Know It

In The Beginning
Jon Postel, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California, was the main person having oversight of the Internet according to this article at Foreign Affairs.org. Working during the 1960s as a graduate student, he was one of a few engineers responsible for the internet.

Until 1998 he managed it for the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Project Agency, which was responsible for the internet’s early development.

Postel decided who should operate a country-code domain. National address suffixes were allocated to private individuals rather than government because the Internet was so new that there was usually no national organization to hand a suffix to.

“Besides, governments, and particularly their monopoly telecom carriers, more often hindered communications development than helped it.”

It became clear to officials in the United States and elsewhere by the mid-1990s, that the Internet could no longer be run by a single individual.

“After a bitter series of negotiations among the business community, governments, and nongovernmental organizations worldwide, the Clinton administration helped broker a compromise and established ICANN in 1998. Because the United States' hands-off approach had allowed the Internet to flourish, it seemed appropriate that the new organization be based in the private sector. This would make it more responsive, more flexible, and less prone to bureaucratic and political squabbling. The negotiations were so tense that Postel suffered a heart attack as they were ending and never lived to see the birth of the successor organization he was instrumental in creating.”

US Leads Battle for Control
By 2004 other nations were calling for a new arrangement which would lessen the US control over the internet.

Foreign Affairs.org reveals:

“… in November 2004 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a 40-person working group to address questions of Internet governance. Washington had planned to grant ICANN autonomy from its oversight in 2006. But the more other countries clamored for power, the more the United States reconsidered its policy of relinquishing control. Ultimately, it came down to national interest: Washington, with so much at stake in the Internet's continuing to function as it had, decided it was not prepared to risk any changes. So, as the UN working group was preparing to release its report (which, unsurprisingly, favored transferring authority over the Internet to the UN), the U.S. government made a preemptive strike.”

In this article from C-Net News they discuss this preemptive strike:

“The Bush administration announced Thursday that the U.S. government will not hand over control of the Internet to any other organization”

“The new principles, outlined by Assistant Commerce Secretary Michael Gallagher, say the U.S. government will ‘maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.’ In addition, the principles say, the U.S. government will continue to maintain ‘oversight’ of ICANN and prevent its ‘focus’ from straying from technical coordination.”

US Fearful of Relinquishing Control
This year, in a July meeting of the U.S. Department of Commerce, fears were expressed over relaxing US control over ICANN.

This report from Information Week reveals their concerns:

“At a U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) hearing on Wednesday to assess whether the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) should be handed over to the private sector, most panelists indicated a preference for continued U.S. government involvement in the management of the Net.

“‘In terms of realistic alternatives, we think it's the best of some potentially unappealing options,’ said panelist David McGuire, director of communications for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-profit Internet advocacy group.

“Such ‘unappealing options’ were raised last November, at the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia, when representatives of some of the non-democratic governments in attendance such as Cuba, China, Iran, and Syria pressed for greater say in the administration of the Internet.

“In a report last summer, the U.N.'s Working Group on Internet Governance argued that ‘no single government should have a pre-eminent role in relation to international Internet governance.’

“Such sentiments prompted three U.S. congressmen—Rick Boucher, D-Va.; John Doolittle, R-Calif.; and Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.—to introduce a non-binding House resolution last October to keep the DNS servers under the control of the not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN) and the DoC.

“In a far-fetched warning on his Website, Congressman Goodlatte raised the possibility of U.N. soldiers surrounding ICANN's office in Marina del Rey, Calif., to wrest control of the Internet and turn it over ‘to the infamous international bureaucracy of the U.N.’”


The Even Bigger Issue – Direct Government Control
Law Enforcement
One form of control currently being sought is for the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to track and record internet usage.

In this USA Today story as presented by Raw Story we find that under a 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act:

“… Internet providers to retain any ‘record’ in their possession for 90 days ‘upon the request of a governmental entity.’

“In addition, Internet providers are required by another federal law to report child pornography sightings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is in turn charged with forwarding that report to the appropriate police agency.”

But the Bush administration wants even more:

“FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday called on Internet service providers to record their customers’ online activities, a move that anticipates a fierce debate over privacy and law enforcement in Washington next year.”

In keeping with the Bush administration mantra of terrorism, Mueller had this to say at a speech to the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Boston:

"Terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet, as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms.

"All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help us identify these offenders and protect future victims. We must find a balance between the legitimate need for privacy and law enforcement's clear need for access."

And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Congress last month that "this is a national problem that requires federal legislation."

According to this Raw Story report, Michael Chertoff also was on hand to play the terror card:

“‘We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet,’ Chertoff said on the sidelines of a meeting of International Association of the Chiefs of Police.

“‘They can train themselves over the Internet. They never have to necessarily go to the training camp or speak with anybody else and that diffusion of a combination of hatred and technical skills in things like bomb-making is a dangerous combination,’ Chertoff said. ‘Those are the kind of terrorists that we may not be able to detect with spies and satellites.’”

Also in the USA Today article we learn:

“Law enforcement groups claim that by the time they contact Internet service providers, customers’ records may be deleted in the routine course of business.”

But then again a more rational thinking is noted:

“Industry representatives, however, say that if police respond to tips promptly instead of dawdling, it would be difficult to imagine any investigation that would be imperiled.”

Also noted is the controversy involved:

“Justice Department officials admit privately that data retention legislation is controversial enough that there wasn't time to ease it through the U.S. Congress before politicians left to campaign for re-election.”

But the issue is not going away:

“…the idea is expected to surface in early 2007, and one Democratic politician has already promised legislation.”

There’s even more :

“during private meetings with industry officials, FBI and Justice Department representatives have cited the desirability of also forcing search engines to keep logs — a proposal that could gain additional law enforcement support after AOL showed how useful such records could be in investigations.”

Censorship
In this article from News.com we find that Iran is cutting back on the speed of their DSL and other high speed services to students and researchers:

“An official said last week that ISPs were now ‘forbidden’ by the Telecommunications Ministry from providing Internet connections faster than 128 kilobytes per second (KBps), the Islamic Republic New Agency, Iran’s official news outlet, reported. No reason was given for the restriction.”

It is speculated that this is as a means of censorship to keep control over these groups of citizens:

“Critics said the restriction would hinder the work of students and researchers but said it appeared in line with what they see as a squeeze on the media by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who rails against the West.”

European Nations Seek More Control
The Center for Democracy & Technology reports:

“Advocates for the open, lightly governed Internet were shocked last month when the European Union aligned itself with countries like Iran, China and Brazil in calling for world governments to assert control over the Internet's core technical management functions. The EU proposal, offered near the end of a two-week UN conference on the Internet, appeared to deepen the rift between those nations calling for drastic changes to Internet oversight, and those like Argentina, New Zealand, the United States and many African nations, which support working to improve existing structures.”

And they give their opinion on the ramifications of such a move:

“From a public interest perspective, any direct government involvement in the Internet's technical management is less than optimal. The Internet's success as a platform for speech and political organization can be largely accredited to the fact that the technological underpinning of the global network has not been politicized. Although U.S. public interest advocates understand the concerns of world leaders who feel the United States plays too large a role in Internet oversight, we strongly disagree with the notion that the way to 'solve' that problem is to exponentially increase the number of governments involved in the process. For all the criticism of the United States, it must be noted that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which oversees ICANN, has never vetoed a decision made by the body, which includes representatives from every region of the world.”

Government Control of Industries
Bush has just signed into law the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act which attacks off-shore internet gambling, not by going after the casinos, but rather the banks and their credit cards used to make the gambling possible.

The BBC reports:

“…within months US credit card companies and banks will be forced to check for and refuse payment for most forms of online gambling.

“We've seen this before. In 2005 the US government clamped down on the sale of cigarettes over the net by using the same strategy, successfully restricting people from buying from states that had lower taxes.

“Instead of trying to manage the technology by banning poker-playing software or insisting that service providers block online gaming sites - neither of which would be effective anyway - the law puts pressure on the banks who actually move the money around.”

But this could also create a backlash:

“We hear of threats to take the US to the World Trade Organization, the WTO, on the grounds that the new law is an attempt to protect the US gambling industry from foreign competition rather than anything to do with morality.

“The government of Antigua, host to many offshore gambling companies, has successfully challenged the US on the issue in the past, and is reported to be considering further action.”

Corporate Control
Currently there is a big push by internet service providers to develop what is being referred to as a “two tier system”. Under this system the ISPs would be able to charge content providers different rates depending on the amount of traffic or bandwidth they require.

Up to this time the ISPs have faithfully practiced net neutrality wherein they transported data without discrimination, preference, or regard for content. This concept also allowed them to assume the role of “common carrier”, under which they are at arm’s length from the content that they carry and therefore exempt from any penalties associated with that content.

This approach has also allowed content providers such as websites and e-commerce companies to flourish, regardless of their size, based solely on the quality of their product or service, rather than how much money they have.

The BBC tells us in this report:

“Internet users have similarly benefited from the network neutrality principle. They enjoy access to greater choice in goods, services, and content regardless of which ISP they use.

“While ISPs may compete based on price, service, or speed, they have not significantly differentiated their services based on availability of internet content or applications, which remains the same for all.

“In short, network neutrality has enabled ISPs to invest heavily in new infrastructure, fostered greater competition and innovation, and provided all internet users with equal access to a dizzying array of content.”

But now, in the new atmosphere of corporate mergers and exorbitant profits with little or no regard to the customer, some ISPs are anxious to make even more money by charging more from some content providers.

Another ploy is to give priority service and speed to content originating on their own system while giving slower service to content from other ISPs.

“Some ISPs see the potential for greater revenue by charging websites or services for priority access to their customers.

“In the US, BellSouth Chief Technology Officer executive William L Smith, recently mused about the potential to charge a premium to websites for prioritizing downloading, noting that Yahoo could pay to load faster than Google.

“Reports last week indicated that BellSouth and AT&T are now lobbying the US Congress for the right to create a two-tiered internet, where their own internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors.”

The Boston Globe further explains some of these issues:

“The proposal supported by AT&T and BellSouth would allow telecommunications carriers to offer their own advanced Internet video services to their customers, while rival firms’ online video offerings would be transmitted at lower speed and with poorer image quality.

“AT&T and other telecoms want to charge consumers a premium fee to connect to the higher-speed Internet. The companies could also charge websites a premium to offer their video to consumers on the higher-speed Internet. That could mean that a company like Yahoo might have to pay AT&T to send high-quality video to AT&T subscribers.”

But this is also a controversial proposition under heavy debate:

“The prospect of a tiered Internet with ‘regular’ and ‘premium’ broadband services is spawning fierce debate as Congress takes up a major overhaul of telecom regulations. The House of Representatives last month held hearings on a preliminary draft by two GOP congressmen, Joe Barton of Texas and Fred Upton of Michigan, that would give the telecom companies the freedom to establish premium broadband services. The telecom bill is due for action early next year.”

But Google and several other large ISPs such as Amazon.com are fighting the proposal fearing they will have to pay millions of dollars to have their services carried. They also point out that small and start-up ISPs would not be able to compete thereby reducing consumer choices.

The Inquirer.net discloses that the FCC has even signed on to the “two tier” idea.

“The FCC has decided to back a plan by AT&T which will mean that sites like Google which have heavy traffic will have to pay when comms companies send them customers.

“It will mean the end of a free and open internet and mean that the comms companies will be able to charge their customers twice for the same service.

“While many would have hoped that the FCC would step in to prevent what some have called ‘online extortion’ the watchdog has given its support to the move. FCC Chief Kevin Martin told the TelecomNext show that he supports such a ‘tiered’ Internet.”

What You Can Do
Sign a petition to Congress supporting Net Neutrality.
Call or write your Congressmember.


Revised 10/23/06