Obama Vs Freedom of the Press

[festus]

Obama vs. press freedom
By **** Morris - 06/15/10 05:22 PM ET
Obama vs. press freedom - TheHill.com

Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of Obama’s Federal Trade Commission, is at the epicenter of a quiet movement to subsidize news organizations, a first step toward government control of the media. In our book, 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan, we reported that he had commissioned a study to examine plans for a federal subsidy for news organizations. Among the measures under consideration are special tax treatment, exemption from antitrust laws and changes in copyright laws.

Now Leibowitz has begun to pounce. A May 24 working paper on “reinventing” the media proposes that the government impose fees on websites such as the Drudge Report that link to news websites or that it tax consumer electronics such as iPads, laptops and Kindles. Funds raised by these levies would be redistributed to traditional media outlets.



While Leibowitz distanced himself from the proposals for the taxes, calling them “a terrible idea,” his comments appear to be related only to the levies proposed in the working paper. Nobody is commenting on the other part of his proposal — a subsidy for news organizations.


By now, the Obama MO should be clear to all. As he has done with the banks, AIG and the car companies, he extends his left hand offering subsidies and then proffers his right laden with regulations. Should the government follow through on Leibowitz’s ideas and enact special subsidies and tax breaks for news organizations, it will induce a degree of journalistic dependence on the whims of government not seen since the days when the early presidents bestowed government advertising on favored periodicals.


Is it too difficult to imagine that the Democrats might pass laws favoring news organizations, only to question — as former White House communications director Anita Dunn did — whether or not Fox News is a news organization or an “arm of the Republican Party”? We can see a future in which news media are reluctant to be too partisan or opinionated for fear that they would endanger their public subsidy.


Once such a subsidy is extended to news organizations, every company in the business must have it. Otherwise, the competitive advantage for the subsidized companies would prove too steep an obstacle to overcome.


In all the attention that has been given to the idea of an Internet tax on news aggregation sites and on tech equipment — trial balloons that would obviously be shot down — very little attention has been focused on the expenditure side of the proposal — the subsidy of news organizations.


But The Wall Street Journal reported six months ago that Leibowitz had commissioned a study to determine “whether the government should aid struggling news organizations which are suffering from a collapse in advertising revenues as the Internet upends their centuries-old business model.” Among the steps under consideration are changing “the way the industry is regulated, from making news-gathering companies exempt from antitrust laws to granting them special tax treatment to making changes to copyright laws.”



These are exactly the kind of subsidies that could and would trigger government oversight and control.


Look at how radio stations squirm when their licenses are up for renewal before the FCC. We can imagine news organizations pulling their punches in order not to antagonize the hand that feeds them.


The Leibowitz study, and the subsidy proposals that are likely to emerge from it, represent a chilling threat to the First Amendment and to our civil liberties.

Morris, a former adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Outrage, Fleeced and Catastrophe. To get all of his and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by e-mail or to order a signed copy of their latest book, 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan, go to dickmorris.com. In August, Morris became a strategist for the League of American Voters, which is running ads opposing the president’s healthcare reforms.

[Ektarr]

And in other news...
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From the Dallas News:


Internet 'Kill Switch' Proposed For President

Updated: Friday, 18 Jun 2010, 11:03 AM CDT
Published : Friday, 18 Jun 2010, 11:03 AM CDT

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - A new bill introduced in the Senate would give the president the equivalent of an Internet "kill switch" if passed. The concept has some communications companies hoping that legislators would rather kill the bill.

The bill is known as the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. See the proposed legislation [PDF format] .

CNET , a publication that covers computers and the Internet, reported that the bill would give the president emergency powers to seize control of or shut down portions of the Internet.

Broadband providers, search engines, software firms and other similar companies would be required to "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Failing to comply would lead to a fine.

CNET stated that primary sponsor Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security committee, introduced the bill on Thursday.

According to the Huffington Post , it would create a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security named the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications. Any private company reliant on "the Internet, the telephone system or any other component of the U.S. information infrastructure" would be "subject to command" by the agency.

Some would have to share information with the NCCC.

The Escapist Magazine quoted Lieberman as saying the act would let the government "preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people."

"For all of its 'user-friendly' allure, the Internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets," the senator said. "Our economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies - cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals."

The Huffington Post said that TechAmerica, a technology lobbying group, and other groups are warning of the "potential for absolute power" and "unintended consequences that would result from the legislation's regulatory approach."

ZD Net reported that there is a paragraph in the bill that states the NCCC could not order broadband providers or other companies to "conduct surveillance" of Americans unless there's another way to legally authorize it.

[fuhr52]

As usual the Democrats can not compete on a level playing field. They have to shut down as much opposition as they can. Then count as many votes as they can dig up. That's why the dead can vote and if you are a minority it's ok to vote several times as long as you vote Democrat and if you are illegal you can vote because you will vote Democrat because they are the only party that cares.

[Boomer]

Internet 'Kill Switch' Proposed For President

They might as well call it "Revolution kill switch" as that is what it really is to them.

9/11/01 was a rude awakening because we did not know that Islam had been at war with us. I cant help but to wonder what event will awaken the American people to the fact that our government has already adopted a war footing against us.
Make no mistake about it, this is nothing more than a move to take control of lines of communication in a conflict that is all but inevitable.

I believe November will be to late, our nation will already be lost by that time.

[HK4U]

Little by little tyranny sweeps across this once great Republic.

[handgonnetoter]

Little by little tyranny sweeps across this once great Republic.

Lets not hang up our spurs quite yet. I still feel, and I can't explain how, that Obama and all his minions will end up burying themselves. I think November will tell us the story. One thing I cannot figure out though is the Jews in America. It is obvious that Obama does not like them, so why are so many of them getting to work for him and do his bidding? I thought Jews kinda "stuck together". It seems to me a lot of the little bastards, that Obama has doing his bidding, are Jewish. I'm for the Jews personally, but I think a few of their kind are selling the rest out.

[Conservative Wife & Mom]

Lets not hang up our spurs quite yet. I still feel, and I can't explain how, that Obama and all his minions will end up burying themselves. I think November will tell us the story. One thing I cannot figure out though is the Jews in America. It is obvious that Obama does not like them, so why are so many of them getting to work for him and do his bidding? I thought Jews kinda "stuck together". It seems to me a lot of the little bastards, that Obama has doing his bidding, are Jewish. I'm for the Jews personally, but I think a few of their kind are selling the rest out.

I feel the same way! That's why organizations like JPFO (Jews for the Protection of Firearm Ownership) have my respect and support. Because of the Holocaust, I have a hard time grasping the fact that so many Jews have forgotten the slogan "Never again"!

[HK4U]

Unfortunately many in the Jewish community in America are very liberal, very pro big brother.

[oldvet53]

Lets not hang up our spurs quite yet. I still feel, and I can't explain how, that Obama and all his minions will end up burying themselves. I think November will tell us the story. One thing I cannot figure out though is the Jews in America. It is obvious that Obama does not like them, so why are so many of them getting to work for him and do his bidding? I thought Jews kinda "stuck together". It seems to me a lot of the little bastards, that Obama has doing his bidding, are Jewish. I'm for the Jews personally, but I think a few of their kind are selling the rest out.

Karl Marx was a Jew.