Maggie's Notebook: Net Neutrality Assault UnderWay: Net Neutrality Needs Our Attention Now

Warner Todd Huston, the prolific conservative writer published on so many fine websites, is trying to revive our interest in Net Neutrality. It is not always easy to find credible and understandable sources for a topic like Net Neutrality, so Huston has offered some of his sources, which I will link on each of my blogs on the subject. I will be talking about Net Neutrality regularly because this is a dark looming threat to our freedom of speech and freedom of press. See two videos below.

Net Neutrality

The place to get started is a video with Adam Thierer concisely introducing what Net Neutrality advocates hope to regulate and/or steal from us, and how dangerous the movement is. This from Huston:

Adam Thierer is one of the sharpest folks working to inform the nation about how bad Net Neutrality is for our nation. One of his best pieces is The 5-Part Case against Net Neutrality Regulation. He shows that the oppressive regulations that the left-leaning Net Neutrality supporters want will stifle innovation and invention right as the age of the Internet is just lifting off.

Michael Copps the FCC Commissioner is currently onboard for Net Neutrality. In January 2007, FCC Copps unveiled a new American Media Contract 2007 at a gathering of the National Media Reform Conference in Memphis. In the audience that day was Jane Fonda, Danny Glover, Geena Davis, Senator Bernie Sanders, Bill Moyers, Helen Thomas and Jessie Jackson. Does that get your attention?

In the "Contract," Copps gives us a good look at his goals and ambitions, and there is nothing decent in them. Here are portions of the Contract:

We expect these:

1) A right to media that strengthens our democracy

2) A right to local stations that are actually local

3) A right to media that looks and sounds like America

4) A right to news that isn't canned and radio playlists that aren't for sale

5) A right to programming that isn't so damned bad, so damned often

At the time, I asked who decides what America "looks" and "sounds like?" Who decides if the news is "canned" or not?" Who decides what "strengthens our democracy?"

Michael Copps further asked:

"And what do the American people -- who own the public airwaves, by the way -- get in return? Too little news, too much baloney passed off as news. Too little quality entertainment, too many people eating bugs on reality TV. Too little local and regional music, too much brain-numbing national play-lists. Too little of America, too much of Wall Street and Madison Avenue...."

Too much "baloney passed off as news?"

Flash forward to today, and Michael Copps has Net Neutrality on his mind. From Media Freedom:

How many times can FCC Commissioner Michael Copps declare the Internet dead? Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher bombastically bellowing sermons warning of the impending End Times, Commissioner Copps has made a hobby out of declaring the Internet dead and buried unless drastic steps are taken right now to save cyberspace! The problem is, he’s being saying this for the past decade and yet, despite generally laissez-faire policy in this arena, the Internet is still very much alive and well.

His biggest beef, of course, is Net Neutrality regulation—or the current lack thereof. He fears that without such a “Mother, May I” regulatory regime in place, the whole cyber-world is heading for eternal damnation. Echoing the fears of other Internet hyper-pessimists, Copps concocts grand conspiracy stories of nefarious corporate schemers hell-bent on quashing our digital liberties and foreclosing all Internet freedom.

~~Regulating~~ Controlling our internet and radio through Net Neutrality and a so-called Fairness Doctrine go hand-in-hand. Obama appointed D.C. attorney Henry Rivera to guide his FCC transition team. Rivera, in-step with the Obama administration, believe "communications" is a "civil rights issue." Not to stray too far off the subject, it is good to note within the topic of Net Neutrality, the administration's goal to give broadcasting licenses to ethnic minorities. These are Rivera's goals:

1) funnel more "federal advertising" to minority media

2) allow foreign ownership; relax U.S. trade barriers to provide "overseas capital," for minority broadcasters

3) develop "constitutionally permissible yet non-dilute method of defining" the class [race] of licensees, i.e., "an applicant's race would be one of the numerous factors considered when the Commission reviews a license application."

4) change the FCC Commission to a more diverse Commission - it should look like America

Free press, free speech, the Internet, radio and television is under assault, and is all apart of one fabric. Net Neturality is on the front burner. I hope you will listen to Thierer in the videos below as he explains exactly what we are facing.