President Barack Obama

wants to control the internet.

Should President Obama Control The
Internet?
by Austin Hil, l Sunday, July 19, 2009

President Barack Obama

wants to control the internet.
And if our President has his way, this website may
soon be under legal attack from the White House.
Since the internet’s emergence in the private sector
(it actually began in the public sector, through
developments at the U.S. Department of Defense
back in the 1960’s), officials in our U.S. Government
have generally viewed the internet as a good and
necessary thing.

In 1996, when former Sun Microsystems Officer

John Gage began a movement to get high-tech
companies involved in providing internet
infrastructure for the world’s schools, libraries, and
clinics, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al
Gore marked the first ever “NetDay” celebration by
traveling to Concord, California, and spending the
day re-wiring a high school campus with computer
cables.
Similarly, both President Clinton and President
George W. Bush pushed for “every school in
America” to be connected to the world wide web, and
internet connectivity generally flourished around the
globe under the leadership of both Presidents, and by
both public and private funding means.
But today, things are different. After approximately
seven months in office, President Obama controls, in
varying degrees, General Motors, Chrysler, and a
variety of financial services companies. He is seeking
to control, among other things, the health care
industry, the energy industry, and the amount of
money that business executives are paid by their
employers.
And now it appears that the President who ran the
most successful, web-savvy political campaign in
world history, wants to curtail what other people can
do online.
Cass Sunstein, an American legal scholar and
Harvard Law Professor, has been appointed by
President Obama to head up the “White House Office
Of Information And Regulatory Affairs.” His title is
sufficiently broad and ambiguous, but he wields
plenty of power. And with advance copies circulating
of his new book “On Rumors: How Falsehoods
Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be
Done,” Americans who still care about their rights to
“freedom of speech” should be paying close
attention.
You owe it to yourself to review what has been
reported in both the New York Post and the Wall
Street Journal about Mr. Sunstein, and the ideas that
he advances in his book. And while we don’t know
precisely what Obama and Sunstein will be doing,
many of the thoughts that Mr. Sunstein expresses
about the internet seem consistent with President
Obama’s proclivity to control things, generally.
Perhaps most disturbing is Mr. Sunstein’s vision for
the future of web content, as he argues for a so-called
“notice and take down” law. Under this provision,
those who operate websites - - The Washington Post,
radio stations, private bloggers, and perhaps even
you, yourself -we would all be required “take down
falsehoods upon notice” from the U.S. government.
And not only would the original content of websites
be scrutinized by the government for “falsehoods,”
website operators would also be held responsible for
the content of “posts” created by the website’s
visitors and readers. At first blush it may seem that,
for a web operator to be held accountable for content
generated by “posters,” is completely untenable. But
that may very well be Mr. Sunstein’s goal - - to
create an “untenable situation” for website operators -
given his assertion that “a ‘chilling effect’ on those
who would spread destructive falsehoods can be an
excellent idea..”
But who shall determine what, exactly, is “true” and
“false?” Mr. Sunstein laments the supposed “lie” that
emerged during last year’s presidential race, that
“Barack Obama pals around with terrorists.” Despite
that fact that a friendship between Obama and known
domestic terrorist William Ayers was something that
both men acknowledged, Sunstein alludes to the
notion that this was one of those “destructive
falsehoods” of the sort that needs to be policed.
As I was recently talking about this matter on-air at
Arizona’s NewsTalk 92-3 KTAR radio, a caller to the
show observed that “there’s no way this could be
legal, or constitutional..” Thoughtful Americans of all
sorts will immediately view this situation through the
lenses of constitutionally guaranteed rights.
But issues of “legality” don’t seem to matter, at
times, with the Obama Administration. In March of
this year, there was nothing illegal about executives
of the AIG Corporation being paid bonuses that they
earned from their employer, but they were harassed
and publicly belittled, nonetheless. President Obama
himself demonized them, while dozens of Obama
supporters “demonstrated” in front of the private
residences of the executives, alleging that it was
“unfair” for those executives to be making “so much
money.”
In a similar way, it appears that the Obama
Administration may be ushering-in an era of
harassment for website operators. Regardless of what
U.S. courts may or may not say about this in the
future, a “notice and take down” letter from the
White House could have quite a “chilling effect” for
today.

http://townhall.com/columnists/AustinHill/2009/07/19/should_president_obama_con
trol_the_internet?page=full&comments=true

============================================================
Now Obama and his
Socialists (Sen. Jay
Rockefeller) Look to
Control the Internet …
What Happened to the
First Amendment …
Freedom of Speech?
GOVERNMENT CONTROL YOU
CAN BELIEVE IN!!!
America, wake up and take a good look at what
Obama is doing. Do you care about your civil
liberties and Constitutional Rights?
This is not CHANGE … it’s a government takeover.
CONTROL … IT’S ALL ABOUT
CONTROL!!!
Now Obama and his minions are coming after the
control of the Internet. So much for free speech.
This bill would allow a President who has already
shown a propensity to use the Internet to have
Americans nark on fellow Americans with the
flag@whitehouse.gov snitch site. And who will say
that there is a “so-called” cyber emergency, Barack
Obama? How convenient. Just what we need, more
federal bureaucracies in charge of the Internet.
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were
alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed
handing the White House the power to disconnect
private-sector computers from the Internet.
They’re not much happier about a revised version
that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia
Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed
doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-
page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears
to permit the president to seize temporary
control of private-sector networks during
a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to
“declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-
governmental” computer networks and do what’s
necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of
the proposal include a federal certification
program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a
requirement that certain computer systems and
networks in the private sector be managed by
people who have been awarded that license.
Excerpt from Bill
So President Obama have already taken over the
financial banking industry and the automotive
industry. They now look to take over 1/6th of the
nations economy with a twisted form of socialist,
government run health care. As stated by Wizbang,
the Obama gang has already professed a desire to
impose the “fairness doctrine” to stifle dissenting
media. This coming from the same White House that
wanted fellow Americans to nark on each other and
send emails of their neighbors to
“flag@whitehouse.gov“. These people just don’t
stop. This bill has all the signs of controlling political
dissent.
Stated beautifully by Right Wing News, are not
these the same people who are looking to control the
Internet the same people who were “carping” at the
Patriot Act and other actions by the previous GWB
Administration that civil liberties were being
attacked? But I guess it is different now because it is
Barack Obama and Democrats doing it. These
Liberals complained about library books, but now
look to completely control the Internet!
How does one grant a President Executive authority
when he is already in the midst of an abusive
government power grab?
Now Republic says HELL NO … Call Rockefeller and voice your
opposition.

We must call and jam the switchboard of Senators John

Rockefeller (D-W. Virginia) (202) 224-6472 - and Olympia
Snowe (R-Maine) (202) 224-5344 - and our own congress
representatives and senators reminding them that if they want
to keep their jobs they must say HELL NO to bills like this, or
be kicked out next election, voted out of office and replaced
with loyal, ethical and caring people with conscience and
compassion.

===========================================================

Regulating the Internet, One Way or the

Other
by Lori Drummer
According to Tuesday’s unanimous court ruling, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is not
above the law – no matter what Commission
Chairman Julius Genachowski or his Leftist friends at
Free Press might wish.

For the past several years, the Left has breathlessly

claimed that without the imposition of government
oversight and control, the Internet as we know it will
cease to exist.
Just try and follow the Left’s logic for a moment.
The Internet – whose ingenious development and
explosive growth has occurred almost entirely free
from the heavy hand of the government – will cease
to exist as we know it without the heavy hand of
government?
This week’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit clearly states that the FCC does not
have the authority to impose network neutrality rules
on Internet service providers. Indeed, the FCC
“failed to tie its assertion” that any law gives the
Commission regulatory authority to oversee Internet
providers’ network management practices.
That’s right: no law exists that gives the FCC the
authority to regulate Internet service providers. It’s
not that the FCC just misinterpreted their authority –
they unilaterally asserted authority where none
existed.
So, what’s this Obama FCC likely to do now? Well,
forge ahead anyway, of course!
Instead of suspending their network neutrality
rulemaking proceeding, the FCC has extended the
comment period for the proceeding (from April 8 to
April 26), seeking creative ideas on how they can
legally assert their authority to regulate the Internet.
The FCC started out its Open Internet proceeding
with high-minded rhetoric about it being a “fact-
based” investigation. But in the wake of the court
decision, the investigative process increasingly
resembles a fact-based inquiry among cats as to the
proper treatment of mice.
In the end, the Commission’s attempt to enforce a
regulatory regime over the Internet without
Congressional approval is unlikely to pass judicial
muster. But testing those limits seems to be what the
current FCC Chairman and his boss over at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue seem to have in mind: Expand
the role of government over wide swaths of the
economy by whatever means necessary.
So, instead of appropriately seeking Congressional
approval, which would be difficult, and probably
unsuccessful, expect Chairman Genachowski and the
Democratic majority at the FCC to pursue a path of
forcing Internet providers into a regulatory box
known as Title II of the 1934 Communications Act.
No, that’s not a typo. They really are talking about
applying a 1934 statute to the Internet. (Hope all
those gamers learn to love pushing hoops around
with a stick!)
What would that mean? In her own admission,
network neutrality proponent Gigi Sohn of Public
Knowledge plainly stated on PBS’s NewsHour:
“…the best option is for the FCC to reverse its 2002
decision that deregulated broadband Internet access.
If they reverse that decision, they say, look, we were
wrong in 2002 — the predictive assumptions we
made were wrong. The market has changed. We’re
going to now regulate broadband access again.”
Cramming the Internet into Title II would go against
the policy pronouncements of the Congress, the
Supreme Court, and even the FCC itself. It would
place the Internet under an outdated regulatory
scheme designed for antiquated phone monopolies –
and treat broadband like a public utility. But, it
would give these power hungry regulators a better
shot of enacting net neutrality regulations, taxing
internet services under the Universal Service Fund,
and even regulating Internet pricing. These policies
are implicitly and explicitly written into the National
Broadband Plan Chairman Genachowski just sent
Congress.
The Obama FCC, Free Press, and Public Knowledge
will not stop until the federal government regulates
the Internet. Through network neutrality regulations,
the National Broadband Plan, or shoving the Internet
into Title II, their motives are clear: to control the
Internet.
If the Left wants yet another hot-button issue to
contend with in the upcoming elections, I think they
just found it.

http://biggovernment.com/ldrummer/2010/04/09/regulating-the-internet-one-way-or-the-
other/#more-103798

============================================================
Democrats Back FCC in Anticipated
Efforts to Regulate Broadband
by Capitol Confidential

In the wake of the Court of Appeals judgment last

week that the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) lacks sufficient authority to regulate
broadband services, senior congressional Democrats
are reaffirming their support for alternative methods
of executing what some critics charge would be a de
facto government takeover of the internet.

Rep. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts

and co-author of the House’s Internet Freedom
Preservation Act, said the FCC should “take any
actions necessary to ensure that consumers and
competition are protected on the internet,” and
offered to “continue to work with my colleagues in
Congress to provide the Commission any additional
authority it may need to ensure the openness of the
Internet for consumers, innovators and investors.”
Markey, like FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, is a
backer of net neutrality, a policy that would
inadvertently be instituted were the FCC to reclassify
broadband services under existing rules relating to
telephone services, and directly instituted were his
bill passed and signed into law.
Fellow Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry,
meanwhile, insisted that while it is within the
authority of the FCC to reclassify broadband he is not
advocating such aggressive action.
“I am not advocating that the FCC reclassify
broadband services as a result of this decision,”
Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Commerce
Committee, said. “But I absolutely believe they
maintain that legal authority and it would be entirely
consistent with the history of communications laws in
our country if they did.”
Kerry went on to say that Congress did not intend
for ”cable and telephone broadband internet service
providers to fall outside of the authority of the FCC,”
and therefore that he would be willing to work with
“all interested parties” on the construction of “a new
legal and regulatory framework for broadband,
especially if reclassifying broadband as a
telecommunications service proves too difficult to
administer.”
Democratic FCC commissioners, for their part, seem
determined to attempt to reclassify broadband as a
Title II service, which (if done successfully) would
enable the agency to effectively regulate the internet
and institute net neutrality by the back door.
“The only way the Commission can make lemonade
out of this lemon of a decision is to do now what
should have been done years ago: treat broadband as
the telecommunications service it is,” Michael J.
Copps said. “We should straighten this broadband
classification mess out before the first day of
summer.”
Observers say that if the FCC does what is being
discussed, it is likely to kick off “World War III,”
with broadband providers effectively going to battle
with the agency in what could be a politically messy
showdown, in which other groups who firmly oppose
net neutrality—including, prominently, minority and
civil rights organizations— could also weigh in.
Congressional Republicans have vehemently opposed
both plans to institute net neutrality and to pursue
reclassification, with Rep. Joe Barton saying last
month that ”The worst idea I’ve heard in years is
reclassification.” He added that “I don’t want to
regulate broadband like we regulated telephone
services in the 1930s.” In addition, Republican Rep.
Mike Rogers of Michigan and Genachowski had a
lengthy exchange when Genachowski appeared
before House members to discuss regulation of the
internet. Rep. Rogers’ office says he does not believe
such regulation via direct institution of net neutrality
or reclassification is the best way to encourage
innovation and increase investment in broadband
infrastructure, two ostensible goals of net neutrality
advocates.
Observers say it bears noting in all of this, however,
that, skepticism of and opposition to net neutrality
has not been confined just to Republican ranks: Last
year, 72 House Democrats signaled doubts about net
neutrality in a letter to Genachowski.

http://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/04/11/democrats-back-fcc-in-
anticipated-efforts-to-regulate-broadband/#more-104274

=======================
American Citizens, BELOW PLEASE FIND THE LETTER
SEND TO THE COMMIE FCC czar Genachowski by the 72
HOUSE DEMOCRATS ( WHO WANT TO CONTROL
YOUR COMPUTER, YOUR INTERNET USAGE, YOURE
FREEDOM OF SPEECH AS GIVEN TO YOUU BY THE 1ST
AMENDMND OF THE US CONSTITUTION : ( Feel Free to
call these 72 Congressman who claims they represent your
interest.)
=====================================================
The right speaks out
against Net Neutrality

Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)

Thursday, April 15th at 12:30PM EDT
A letter opposing Net Neutrality went out today to
members of Congress from a number of groups on
the right. The spectrum of our movement is
represented: libertarian groups, religious and values-
oriented groups, economic and fiscal policy
advocates, large organizations, and grass roots are all
there. The entire list of signers, available below the
fold, is as diverse as it is long.
They all recognize that we’ve all benefited from how
the Internet has grown and innovated under years of
regulation with a “light touch,” because contrary to
myth the Internet has never been a Title II Common
Carrier under the Communications Act*, and that we
must continue to allow the free flow of information
without heavy-handed government interference.
Competition protects us better than empowering an
activist FCC ever could.
I’m glad to see that more of us are coming around on
this critical issue. We’re a long way from the days
when Free Press front group Save the Internet could
rattle off technobabble and convince conservatives
that their neo-Marxist regulatory plans were
harmless.
* I linked to AT&T, and now the neo-Marxists are
going to call me a capitalist lap dog! Oh no!
Everybody Panic!
Anyway, here’s the letter itself for review:
April 15, 2010
Dear Member of Congress,
We are writing to alert you of a dangerous effort
currently underway at the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC). Unelected bureaucrats are
seeking to fundamentally alter the federal
government’s role in regulating the Internet by
imposing so-called “net neutrality” mandates.
Democratic and Republican administrations alike
have agreed that a “light touch” approach to the
Internet creates competition, lowers prices,
incentivizes innovation, and ultimately benefits
consumers. The current proposal under consideration
is a harmful departure from long held successful
policies. The FCC’s attempt to regulate the Internet is
unwise and must be opposed.
The Internet is prime example of what can be
achieved when companies are free to compete
without the intervention of the heavy-hand of
government. America’s broadband service providers
have invested billions of dollars in improving their
networks and consumers are winning. The Internet is
faster than it’s ever been, we have access to high-
definition video online, and new premium online
services are made available daily. The great success
of the Internet has been made possible because the
government has stayed out. There is no evidence of a
market failure to justify the burdensome government
regulations some are proposing. Unfortunately, it
appears that a few FCC commissioners lack an
understanding of how regulations affect investment.
Net neutrality regulations also call into question how
obscenity and other objectionable content on the
Internet is treated. Let’s be clear, all content is not
equal and does not deserve equal treatment, but net
neutrality prohibits broadband service providers from
prioritizing the content consumers want and
preventing peddlers of child pornography from
having unblocked access to every home Internet
connection. It is critically important for parents and
families to continue to have access to the tools
necessary to keep unwanted content out of the home.
We ask that you support innovation, competition, and
consumers and oppose this effort to regulate the
Internet.
Sincerely,
Phyllis Schlafly
President and Founder
Eagle Forum

Penny Nance
CEO
Concerned Women of America

Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform
Tom McClusky
Sr. Vice President
Family Research Council Action

Tim Phillips
President
Americans for Prosperity

Steve Pociask
President
American Consumer Institute

C. Preston Noell III

President
Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.

Andresen Blom
Executive Director
American Principles in Action

Bill Wilson
President
Americans for Limited Government

Lisa Correnti
President and Founder
OneNationUnderGod.org

Kelly William Cobb

Executive Director
Digital Liberty Project

Timothy Lee
Vice-President of Legal and Public
Affairs
Center for Individual Freedom
Steve Elliott
Founder
Grassfire Nation

Mathew Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel

Chuck Muth
President
Citizen Outreach

Mario Lopez
President
Hispanic Leadership Fund

Joseph K. Grieboski
Founder and President
Institute on Religion and Public
Policy

Deal Hudson
President
Catholic Advocate

Phil Kerpen
Director
NoInternetTakeover.com
Andrea Lafferty
Executive Director
Traditional Values Coalition

Timothy B. Wildmon
President
American Family Association

Curt Levey
Executive Director
Committee for Justice

Rev. Rob Schenck

President
National Clergy Council

Phillip L. Jauregui
President
Judicial Action Group

Jamie Story
President
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii

Dave Trabert
President
Kansas Policy Institute
Larry Cirignano
President
Faith & Freedom New Jersey

John Taylor
President
Tertium Quids

Hance Haney
Director and Senior Fellow
Technology & Democracy Project
Discovery Institute

Dr. Carl Herbster

President
AdvanceUSA

====================================

It’s Official: Google is

censoring emails from me

Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)

Tuesday, April 13th at 6:46PM EDT
60 Comments
I guess I made one too many posts about Google,
because Google is now blockading all mails from me
to Gmail users. Then again, it could just be
incompetence that’s causing this, but I have no way
of knowing.
But what I do know is that this sudden block of a
conservative is yet another example in a long line of
conservatives being victimized by Google’s false
accusations of spam on the Google search service, on
YouTube, and on Blogger.
I warned people it would happen on Gmail
eventually. I just never thought it would happen to
me.
====================================

“We are putting the

National Broadband Plan
into action.”

Posted by Kenny Solomon (Profile)

Friday, April 9th at 12:54PM EDT
6 Comments
Obama Administration claims ownership and
total control of the internet.
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski:
“The court decision earlier this week does not
change our broadband policy goals, or the ultimate
authority of the FCC to act to achieve those goals,”
the FCC chairman said.
“The court did not question the FCC’s goals; it
merely invalidated one technical, legal mechanism
for broadband policy.”
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-
technology/fcc-presses-on-with-broadband-plan-
despite-court-ruling-20100410-rz1o.html
————————
“……the ultimate authority of The FCC……”
Nudge.
Their ends justify the means……… any means.
If this isn’t proof that they’re going to do whatever
they want, whenever they want, where they want and
to whoever they want to affect, then you haven’t been
paying attention.
The will of the people, the courts, the law, the
constitution and YOUR RIGHTS mean nothing to
even one single person within the administration.
They are fundamentally transforming America……..
Scratch that……. They did it already.
The powder keg is well past full and starting to
exponentially expand at the seams. One errant spark
is all it’s gonna take.
I wonder how long it will be until some well-known
people start getting ‘tuned up’, or even
‘disappeared’ ? The administration has their ‘civilian
defense force just as big and as well funded as the
military……. SEIU, AFL-CIO, Teamsters, Teachers’
unions, etc.
Who’s gonna be first ?……….. Beck, Rush, Hannity,
Conservative Congresspeople, SCOTUS justices ?
Kenny Solomon
DC Works For Us
www.dcworksforus.com
A South Florida-based patriots organization.

====================================
 Democrats plot two-
pronged attack on
Internet freedom

Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)

Thursday, April 8th at 2:42AM EDT
15 Comments
The Hill yesterday ran two stories that show the
Democrats are planning a two-pronged attack on
Internet Freedom, to empower the FCC to control the
Internet and everything on it, just as they do
television and radio. Yes, I’m talking about our good
friend, neo-Marxist Net Neutrality.
The first story discusses the honest approach, which
is to go to Congress and pass a law expanding the
FCC’s powers. After all, the DC Circuit Court of
Appeals refused to find Internet regulation in the
penumbra of the Communications Act, and changing
the law would be an easy way to fix that.
But of course that takes pesky things like votes, so
they have a backup plan, Deem and Pass. They call it
“reclassifying,” because they want to take the
unprecedented step of placing ISPs under Title II of
the Communications act, which would give the FCC
the same power over ISPs that the Bush-era FCC had
when it fined television stations for showing Janet
Jackson’s breast, and that FCCs in eras past had
when they imposed the Fairness Doctrine on
television and radio stations.
The justification for strict regulation on television
and radio used to be that there are only so many
frequencies useful for broadcast over the air, and that
public resource had to be managed to avoid the
tragedy of the commons. However the Internet is
privately held and expandable, so the argument just
doesn’t hold. There is no valid reason to reclassify
ISPs under Title II.
But it sounds like the Democrats of the FCC are
plotting it anyway, because they just can’t stand the
freedom enjoyed on the Internet today. There must be
commissars watching every ISP, every router, every
packet, to ensure political correctness transparency
and neutrality.

====================================

FCC loses Internet

regulation lawsuit
Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)
Tuesday, April 6th at 11:50AM EDT

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals slapped the FCC

today by ruling in Comcast v. FCC that the
regulatory body overstepped its legal bounds when it
tried to regulate Internet management practices. This
precludes Net Neutrality regulation, which is at heart
regulation of how ISPs manage their networks.
Judge David Tatel, Clinton appointed successor of
now-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote for the court
that since even the FCC acknowledged it had no
“express statutory authority” to go after Comcast for
regulating use of Bittorrent on its network, the
Commission had to show that the regulation was
“reasonably ancillary” to the authority it does have.
The FCC did not, and so the FCC’s order to Comcast
has been thrown out.
I’m no lawyer, but having lost decisively at the DC
Circuit Court of Appeals seems to set a dangerous
precedent for the FCC’s future ability to regulate
ISPs. That is why the FCC has a plan: reclassify (or
deem) ISPs to be something different under the law
(make them a Title II service under the
Communications Act, which former Chairman
Michael Powell says they never, ever have been), and
then reassert (or pass) this authority regardless of
what the court said.
We’ve got to raise the alarm and pressure the FCC
against this deem and pass tactic.

====================================

Tech Roundup

Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)

Tuesday, April 6th at 2:28AM EDT
1 Comment
Two quick hits following up with ongoing stories.
First off, Google and/or Andrew McLaughlin
(Deputy White House CTO formerly of Google)
seem to have responded to the FOIA request for
McLaughlin’s email by deleting his Buzz account.
It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up, as they say. Big
Government is doing such great work on this story.
Next we turn from the behind-the-scenes discussions
of Net Neutrality to the front lines. Reuters has a
story on the FCC’s Deem and Pass plan to reclassify
Internet services into a different category, if and
when they lose the Comcast case and the judge tells
them they have no authority to regulate the Internet.
The ISPs aren’t ready to lay down and die and
according to Susan Crawford, formerly of the Obama
White House, they’re ready to fight “World War III”
over it. I hope they remember that elections have
consequences, and spend accordingly for November.

====================================

Former Chairman Michael

Powell on Deem and Pass

Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)

Thursday, April 1st at 9:20PM EDT

Michael Powell is a former Chairman of the Federal

Communications Commission who is not in favor of
the whole Net Neutrality takeover of the Internet. So
he’s warning us about what I’m calling deem and
pass, in which the FCC will respond to a lost lawsuit
by deeming ISPs to be something different, and using
that to justify passing rules to regulate the Internet
like television.
You may remember Michael Powell because right
out of the gate during the Bush administration he was
an active regulator of content. Imagine a Democrat
having that kind of power over the Internet.
Anyway, Powell’s reaction to deem and pass is that
“I think that idea is an unadulterated disaster.” Strong
words for what is a pretty dry, technical interview.
Read the whole thing, please.

====================================
Danger at the FCC: An
Omnibus Warning

Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)

Saturday, March 27th at 2:37AM EDT

I’ve been talking about the dangers of Net

Neutrality and the neo-Marxist FCC for some
time at RedState. However events are picking up
speed, especially with Obamacare now out of
the way. It’s time I laid everything back out
from the beginning.
There are two major plans that the Obama FCC,
headed by Chairman Julius Genachowski, has in
store for us. Net Neutrality and a National
Broadband Plan. Net Neutrality is the more
misleading issue, though, and has the greater
external push behind it, so the majority of the
talk on the Internet is about that.
They’re both dangerous, though. Here’s why.
Net Neutrality is a term that has floated around
in the technical community for years. It’s a
harmless concept, but I won’t go into it because
it has nothing to do with Net Neutrality as a
regulatory practice. Seriously. The Neo-
Marxists at Free Press and the self-seeking
bosses at Google have perverted that tech-
pleasing label into something vastly different.
Here’s what it is in practice: Chairman
Genachowski made a landmark speech in which
he declared that the FCC would enforce two
new, never before used principles on the
Internet: neutrality and transparency.
Neutrality: Here the FCC is claiming the
authority to regulate how the Internet routes
packets. “Packets” are the small pieces of data
that everything is broken up into when it is sent
over the Internet: email, web pages, images,
videos, Skype phone calls, everything. Packets
are like postcards: They contain data glued to
the to and from addresses, in a manner of
speaking. “Routing” is how the Internet passes
those packets from computer to computer until
they make it to their destination.
For years now, with tools like Quality of Service
flagging, the Internet has been moving toward a
smarter ability to route packets on the basis of
what they contain, how time-sensitive they are
and, yes, how much their senders and recipients
were willing to pay for higher priority use of the
resources. Smarter routing is more and more
important as we use the Internet in more varied,
more important, and more bandwidth-intensive
ways.
Also, by making special arrangements and deals,
ISPs and Internet companies can get together
and offer services that otherwise might not be
available to users. Even Net Neutrality
proponent Google participates in non-neutral
arrangements both abroad such as in the Indian
soccer deal on Youtube, as well as at home
when Google promises to abide by any T-
Mobile restrictions on Android-based phones,
even those restrictions which are non-neutral on
the part of T-Mobile as an ISP. Freedom of
enterprise helps Americans because the
innovation enables us to have more services and
options available to us. We need those options to
remain, and that freedom to continue.
However Genachowski and the Obama FCC are
placing these kinds of sensible cost-cutting and
efficiency-gaining innovations in jeopardy with
their talk of heavy-handed government
regulation of the industry. The Internet has
flourished since it came out from the thumb of
government control when it was the ARPAnet,
and became the free-wheeling marketplace it is
today. Clearly, that scares people who want
government to be in control of things.
And it’s total control they want, too. Because the
second principle Genachowski asked for,
“transparency,” doesn’t mean transparency of
government. No, it means that the government is
to claim the right to have access to every router
in America, every switch, and every other piece
of hardware that makes the Internet go. Public or
Private, the FCC wants to be able to snoop on
how it runs, to be able to control how it runs.
Does that scare you? It should. When you
connect to the Internet, your home computer
network (even if it’s just one computer) is now
on the Internet. The Internet is not like a public
road. It’s a vast series of private networks, all
connected together. Government wants control
over the whole ball of yarn, how everyone
configures and runs their own private computers
routing the packets of the Internet.
That control will have one immediate impact:
The FCC will be picking winners and losers on
the Internet, which is why Google is 100%
behind this effort. Google will be a winner,
thanks in no small part to its close ties with the
Obama administration through Google CEO and
Obama advisor Eric Schmidt, while those who
invest in the capital of the Internet, the wires that
criss-cross the country and the planet, will lose.
If you look at any of the literature put out by the
pro-Net Neutrality forces, you’ll see plenty of
villification of ISPs, AT&T in particular.
The hope of the Net Neutrality left is that you’ll
forget that today’s AT&T isn’t the huge
monopolist of old, big and hated by many
Americans. No, that AT&T is gone, and what is
now called AT&T is actually the scrappy little
Cingular, a company comparable in market
capitalization to Internet firms like Google and
Microsoft (and in fact Cingular/AT&T’s a bit
smaller).
Of course, such class warfare is old hat to a little
left-wing organization called Free Press. Co-
founded by a man named Robert McChesney,
the organization I believe is best expressed as
neo-Marxist. While the original Marxists wanted
control of the means of production of goods,
today the groups like Free Press want the state to
control the means of production of information,
as ours is increasing an information-driven
economy. Free Press traditionally has sought
tight state controls over television and radio, but
now they have turned their attention to the
Internet. They even have a front group for that
purpose, called Save the Internet.
Save the Internet is innocuous looking at first.
They take full advantage both major deceptions
of the Net Neutrality movement. First, they
make you think this is all a harmless little bit of
technocracy, and not a power grab. In fact
they’ve used that to trick some rightys into
thinking that without Net Neutrality, ISPs might
censor content. In fact it’s just the opposite: It’s
only if Net Neutrality comes into effect that the
censors of the left will even have the power to
control the Internet.
Phase one, Net Neutrality, includes no plans to
regulate content, just routing. But just as the
FCC regulates content on television and radio,
most famously in the case of the Janet Jackson
Super Bowl show, so too will it be able to
regulate content on the Internet should Net
Neutrality be the law of the land.
The fight has already begun to prevent it,
though. Comcast has taken the FCC to court,
arguing that the FCC’s current reaches into
Internet regulation go beyond the statutory
powers the FCC has been granted. In fact, those
who watch this industry closely tell me that the
federal courts at this point are almost sure to rule
in Comcast’s favor.
Genachowski has a plan though. It’s one you
may have heard of before: Deem and pass. The
backup plan the FCC has, in the event that the
courts rule that the FCC no longer has the
authority to regulate information services on the
Internet, is to deem that ISPs are no longer
information providers, and then re-pass the same
regulations that the courts just threw out, then
pass Net Neutrality on top of that. Once that
happens, the government will be taking over
another sixth of the economy.
Verizon is taking a leading role against the new
deem and pass (demonpass?), and AT&T agrees,
calling upon the Congress to take up these issues
rather than leaving the FCC to expand beyond
its legal bounds to do these things on its own. Of
course, Democrats lack the votes for Net
Neutrality, so it’s easy to see why nothing’s
happened on that front.
We have to stop it, though. If ISPs are hindered,
then the very foundation of the Internet will be
hindered. The Internet’s backbone must continue
to grow and to innovate as needed to withstand
the ever-growing traffic burden we put on it, and
no regulatory framework can keep up with how
fast the Internet is changing. The market and
competition will stamp out any hostile behavior
faster than the government ever could, and
without even any distortions or government-
chosen winners and losers.
In particular, the coming wave of wireless, high-
speed Internet access is going to rock the
foundations of the broadband market. Sprint is
already deploying its 4G WiMax network. When
AT&T and Verizon counter with their 4G LTE
networks, cable and DSL Internet will feel
unprecedented pressure to deliver the best
service to their customers for the lowest price.
Unfettered technological advancement will save
the day, not government. As Reagan put it,
“government is not the solution to our problem.
Government is the problem.”
Ultimately, the goal of neo-Marxists like
McChesney and Free Press is to have Single
Payer Internet, with all the central government
control and lack of freedom that the comparison
with Single Payer Socialized Medicine would
imply. Just as the “Public Option” for medicine
was described as a “right” by the Democrats, so
too do the Free Press people want Internet
access to be a “right,” owned, operated, and
controlled by the government. The UK has its
doctors and hospitals controlled by the National
Health Service, and McChesney would have our
Internet under the control of a National Internet
Service.
Phase 1 of Single Payer Internet is Net
Neutrality, which establishes the baseline of
FCC authority over the Internet. Phase 2 is the
National Broadband Plan. To continue the
Obamacare comparison, the goal of the Plan is
to get “universal coverage.” Even if you live in
the middle of nowhere, in a place that’s far too
expensive to wire up, even though the
technology is right around the corner for
wireless Internet to come at high speed, the FCC
neo-Marxists want to say everyone has a right to
wired Internet access. And guess what will pay
for it?
That’s right, you and I will pay for it with new
taxes. For phones we already pay a “universal
service” tax. The FCC wants to expand that to
high speed Internet connections, thus, an
Internet Tax. This is a tax that would never see a
single Congressional vote, because the FCC
would apply it all on its own with the authority
vested in it by deem-and-pass Net Neutrality.
On top of that, prices will go up if the National
Broadband Plan becomes reality. Your Internet
bill at home could go up 25%.
And again, innovation will suffer further. Once
the FCC starts dictating control over even the set
top boxes your cable providers hand out to you,
and after they’ve already taken control over
routing on the Internet, truly there will be few or
no ways for Internet service to get better in
America without a game of Mother May I. Just
think: In 10 years maybe even Iraq would have
better Internet access than we’d have, should all
this come about.
Of course, just as with Net Neutrality’s two big
lies, the National Broadband Plan has a big lie
behind it. Namely, the claim is that America
“lags behind” the rest of the world in high-speed
Internet access, and the problem is that there
isn’t enough government involved yet. Once you
stop laughing when given this argument, ask the
neo-Marxist questioning you to adjust the
broadband statistics for demographics and
geography. Countries like Japan and the
Netherlands have better Internet access per
person not because their governments are
working better, but because they are smaller,
more densely populated countries. America will
always have a different profile of Internet access
as long as Americans are free to live anywhere
we want on the fruited plain, whether in an
apartment in a big city, on a farm on the plain, or
in a cabin in the mountains.
It’s the same reason that American Internet
access varies from Europe and Asia, that our
need for the automobile varies from the rest of
the world. We’re spread out, and we value our
freedom to be spread out. And just as you can’t
run public transit to every little suburb and rural
area, so too can’t you immediately and cheaply
get the best Internet access out to everyone at the
same time. Higher costs, delayed
implementations. These are facts of geography,
and no amount of FCC regulation can fix that.
I hope this has been a useful summary of what
the FCC has planned for us and our Internet in
the coming months. It’s harder to fight an
unelected, unaccountable regulatory agency than
it is a Congressional action, but we can try.
We’re the people and we will be heard.
http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2010/03/27/danger-at-the-fcc-an-omnibus-
warning/

===================================

Rush Limbaugh on Net Neutrality

Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)
Wednesday, March 17th at 9:05PM EDT
5 Comments
Rush Limbaugh weighed in on Net Neutrality. As to
be expected, he’s against it. A kindly listener has
uploaded it to Blip for us:

Writing quickly here, I’ve only read a transcript

given to me. Sadly I think he gets some points wrong.
First, Net Neutrality isn’t yet a content-level fairness
doctrine, but it’s true that if the FCC does as expected
and deems ISPs no longer to be information services,
then nothing will stop them from regulating content
on the Internet the same way they regulate content on
television. But they’re not trying that yet, because
they’re still just getting the camel’s nose under the
tent right now.
Basically, Rush is reading what is applied to ISPs as
applying to websites. Websites don’t yet have to treat
everyone equally under the plan of FCC Chairman
Julius Genachowski, but your ISP does. And Google
doesn’t want anyone to be able to charge you more
depending on what strain you put on the network, as
some perverted left wing notion of fairness, to echo
what Rush said yesterday.
But still, I’m heartened that Rush is getting people
thinking about Net Neutrality. Too many on the right
have bought into the bland-sounding technobabble
that Free Press and Google have been putting out,
without seeing the neo-Marxism behind it.
Traditional Marxists wanted control of the means of
production of goods. Neo-Marxists want control over
the production of information, because ours is an
information-based economy today.

====================================

This is how privacy dies: to thunderous applause

Posted by Neil Stevens (Profile)
Thursday, March 11th at 1:15PM EST
132 Comments
Back when Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith came out,
it was popular to compare the villains with the Bush
administration. But now I see Google fitting better as
Senator Amidala’s opponents, when now the firm’s
supporters cheer as Eric Schmidt refuses even to
consider the option of not storing your personal data.
Says Fortune at CNN:
In one of the sharper exchanges of the afternoon, a
questioner challenged Schmidt with the fact that
Google is collecting a staggering amount of
information about who we are, what we’re thinking,
and even where we are. “All this information that you
have about us: where does it go? Who has access to
that?” (Google servers and Google employees, under
careful rules, Schmidt said.) “Does that scare
everyone in this room?” The questioner asked, to
applause. “Would you prefer someone else?”
Schmidt shot back – to laughter and even greater
applause. “Is there a government that you would
prefer to be in charge of this?” It was quite the
effective moment that showed we still trust
government less than we trust Google. But should we
trust either?
It doesn’t even cross their minds that we might ask
Google not to build the database to begin with,
because it’s a basic law of databases that they can
always be put to another purpose.
It’s a long forgotten incident, but this concept of re-
purposing databases was illustrated during the
Clinton administration. As part of the small
intrusions into your private life that President Clinton
ran on, attacking “deadbeat dads” was something that
he and Attorney General Janet Reno spoke of often.
The result was a national database of “deadbeat
dads,” but before the end of the Clinton
administration, the database was already to be reused
to track those who owe money for other reasons. Said
Wired in 1999:
The measure would require the Department of Health
and Human Services to use a national list of current
public and private-sector employees to track people
suspected of cheating the government out of money.
You got it: That was the “deadbeat dad” database,
which once built had no idea it was meant to be used
only for “deadbeat dads,” and so became a tool for
more and more expansive intrusion. And guess what?
The same is true of any Google database. What is to
stop Google, a business partner, or the government
from using it later? Good will? Internal corporate
safeguards? The request to “Don’t be evil?” What is
to stop the government from passing a law which
grants access to the database?
The only true way to respect us and our privacy is for
Google not to build that database to begin with. But
we know why they do it anyway: the love of money.
Also from Fortune:
“Advertising that is more targeted is worth more
money. … Eventually, the revenue in the digital
world should be higher.”
Not just higher than it is now, but higher than it was
in the analog world, Schmidt said. For newspapers,
magazines and broadcasters who are watching
revenues drop in their legacy businesses, this sounds
like wishful thinking. But the Google chief
maintained that because digital advertising should
allow marketers to tailor their message to the
audience, it will be more effective and brands will
spend more money. He didn’t say how much of that
money Google would pocket, and how much would
be left for content creators.
Google expects to make too much money off of
breaching your privacy for the firm to stop doing it.
All the high minded talk goes away as soon as it
comes time to keep growing as a business. It’s time
all Americans stopped pretending that “Don’t be
evil” actually means anything, and started looking
closely at every single element of policy the firm
promotes, starting with Net Neutrality, examining for
ways that the corporation will gain at our expense.

http://redstate.com/tags/index.php?tag=net-neutrality

============================================================
 Net
Following Kerpen’s Lead Again, Beck Claims That

Neutrality Is An Attack
On Freedom Of
Speech
In September, ThinkProgress dissected how Glenn Beck’s
successful character assassination campaign against former
White House environmental adviser Van Jones was fueled
by Americans for Prosperity’s Phil Kerpen, who had taken
credit for notifying Beck of some of Jones’ past comments.
On his Fox News show yesterday, Beck followed Kerpen’s
lead once again, this time in an assault on net neutrality.
In a segment featuring Kerpen last night, Beck warned his
audience that the Obama administration “just might be
trying to take over the media.” “This is a big week, isn’t it,
for freedom of speech?” Beck asked Kerpen, who said that
it was because “the FCC on Thursday is going to decide
what the future of the Internet looks like”:
KERPEN: It is a very big week because the FCC on
Thursday is going to decide what the future of the Internet
looks like, if it looks much like the past 10 years where you
have private competition and pretty much people can do
what they want on the Internet or whether we have a much,
much heavier government hand. And they’re going to take
the first step on that Thursday.
BECK: OK. I want to start just real quick – Net
neutrality, because it happens on Thursday. This is that
everybody should have free Internet, right?
KERPEN: Well, essentially. You know, they dress it up the
way they dress up a lot of their things. They turn it upside-
down by saying that evil corporations, phone and cable
corporations are going to block what we can do block or we
can say.
Beck then used net neutrality as a jumping off point to
outline how he believed the Obama administration was
trying to shut down freedom of speech. “You have a
freedom of speech or the government. You can’t really
have both,” said Beck. Watch it:
When he introduced Kerpen, Beck described him as “the
chairman of Internet Freedom Coalition,” an alliance of
conservative groups that opposes all taxes and regulations
related to the internet. Kerpen’s group released a Beck-like
conspiracy chart today that attempts to expose the so-called
“Obama Information Control Hierarchy.” Hours before
Kerpen appeared on Beck’s show, he pushed the idea that
net neutrality is a threat to freedom of speech in his daily
podcast, warning that regulation would lead to “a
government-owned and controlled network” and eventual
“content restriction” that would “decide that certain speech
is out of bounds.”
Beck also appears to have no idea what net neutrality
actually means. Science Progress aptly explained it last
year:
At the most basic level, net neutrality is the principle that
Internet users should be in control of what content they
view and what applications they use on the Internet; all
content on the Internet is equally accessible, and once a
person pays for access to the Internet, they alone get to
choose how they use it. This means that providers
should not be allowed to block access to certain sites or
applications, or charge different customers different
amounts for services.
Kerpen, from whom Beck apparently cribbed his
understanding of the concept, claims that there is no reason
to be concerned about internet service providers blocking
access or charging customers differenty. “Proponents of net
neutrality rely on the scare tactic that big bad cable and
phone companies will block access to Web sites and cause
other mischief unless the benevolent federal government
rides to the rescue, and soon,” wrote Kerpen on
FoxNews.com earlier this month. “But they’ve been
ringing this alarm for the better part of a decade and none
of the horrors they warn us about have happened.” In fact,
in 2007 it was revealed that Comcast had disrupted peer-to-
peer file-sharing traffic on its network, leading to an FCC
investigation. There was also an incident where “Verizon
Wireless denied Naral Pro-Choice America, an abortion
rights group, access when the group asked to the carrier to
allow Verizon customers to sign up for text-messaging
alerts.”
Transcript:
BECK: You know, America, I have to tell you, I said at the
beginning, how many more wakeup calls are we going to
receive? How many? I think we have had wakeup call after
wakeup call after wakeup call. The administration, I
believe, just might be trying to take over the media.
Phil Kerpen is the policy director for Americans for
prosperity and the chairman of Internet Freedom Coalition.
This is a big week, isn’t it, for freedom of speech?
PHIL KERPEN, POLICY DIRECTOR, AMERICANS
FOR PROSPERITY: It is a very big week because the FCC
on Thursday is going to decide what the future of the
Internet looks like, if it looks much like the past 10 years
where you have private competition and pretty much
people can do what they want on the Internet or whether we
have a much, much heavier government hand. And they’re
going to take the first step on that Thursday.
BECK: OK. I want to start just real quick – Net neutrality,
because it happens on Thursday. This is that everybody
should have free Internet, right?
KERPEN: Well, essentially. You know, they dress it up the
way they dress up a lot of their things. They turn it upside-
down by saying that evil corporations, phone and cable
corporations are going to block what we can do block or we
can say.
BECK: Correct.
KERPEN: And the government must save us by stepping in
and regulating it.
BECK: Right. OK. And everybody should have it. I don’t
remember anybody saying in the 1930s that everybody had
a right to radio and we gave away free radios for the
government.
And I don’t remember anybody in the ’50s everybody
deserved a free television, but that’s where we’re headed
now. So that neutrality – I want to get to that later on in the
week.
But here it is – freedom of speech. You have a freedom of
speech or the government. You can’t really have both.
Now, I was looking at all the things that they’re doing here.
FOX – and help me out where I’m going awry. They’re
going after FOX because we’re the only ones that are
speaking out a bit against this.
They’re coming also after me because I’m just not thinking
right, I’m a danger. And this is really all about profit.
That’s all this is. We couldn’t possibly believe it. It’s about
profit. We’re dangerous, and we just – we don’t
understand.
Newspapers, however, are right thinking. They get it.
They’re helpful, but they don’t have any money. So what
does the government want to do? They want to bail these
guys out, right?
KERPEN: That’s exactly right. We’ve got a president who
has now said he’s open to the idea of bailing out
newspapers. And I’ve got a pretty interesting quote.
President Obama said – he said, “I’d be happy to look.” He
said, “I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’d be
happy to look at them,” for bailing out newspapers because,
quote, “I am concerned that if the direction of the news is
all blogosphere, all opinions and no serious fact checking,
what you will end up with is people shouting at each
other.”
So we need the government’s support in newspapers, the
right-thinking newspapers.
BECK: Well, if I’m not mistaken, they’re really going for a
new model of PBS. They believe – I mean, a lot of the
people in the FCC now believe that PBS is the way to go. It
should all be government – like the BBC, right?
KERPEN: Absolutely. That’s the model that people like
Mark Lloyd like of the FCC, as well as Robert McChesney,
the founder of Free Press, have, for years, been pushing …
BECK: Oh, yes.
KERPEN: … for huge taxes on commercial broadcasting to
pay for vastly expanded public broadcasting under control
of government.
BECK: OK. America, you need to understand this. This is
about your right to speak out, because I want to show you
all this week – in fact, let me show you this before we go to
break. Underneath here, and I was going to unveil this
today. But I decided no, no, no, we’ll wait. We’ll wait. Just
for a little while, we’ll wait – maybe tomorrow.
What’s underneath this? Oh, don’t you want to see what’s
behind curtain number one? Behind this is the architecture
– everything that they’re doing and who’s doing it and why
they’re doing it. And when you see the radicals under this,
it will make your head spin. More on your freedom of
speech and the fight between your right to speak out and
big government, next.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/20/beck-kerpen-net-neutrality/

============================================================
"Reasonable network
management": DiFi
attempting to sneak
anti-free internet laws
into stimulus?
By SilentPatriot Wednesday Feb 11, 2009 7:00pm
Is Diane Feinstein trying to sneak draconian internet
control legislation into the stimulus bill? It sure looks
that way.
The Register:
US Senator Dianne Feinstein hopes to update
President Barack Obama's $838bn economic
stimulus package so that American ISPs can deter
child pornography, copyright infringement, and
other unlawful activity by way of "reasonable
network management."
Clearly, a lobbyist whispering in Feinstein's ear has
taken Comcast's now famous euphemism even
further into the realm of nonsense.
According to Public Knowledge, Feinstein's network
management amendment did not find a home in the
stimulus bill that landed on the Senate floor. But
lobbyists speaking with the Washington DC-based
internet watchdog said that California's senior
Senator is now hoping to insert this language via
conference committee - a House-Senate pow-wow
were bill disputes are resolved.
"This is the most backdoor of all the backdoor ways
of doing things," Public Knowledge's Art Brodsky
told The Reg. "Conference committees are
notorious for being the most opaque of all
legislative processes."
This is unacceptable for any of you who value a free
and open internet, which I assume is 99.9% of C&L
readers. Please contact your representatives and urge
them to fight back against this shady backdoor
violation of the spirit of the internet.
I'm with John Cole 100% on this:
As baseball season is getting close, I would like to
propose a trade. We give the Republicans Dianne
Feinstein and a PTBNL and they give us Olympia
Snowe. This is a solid trade for us. With Judd Gregg
at commerce, we would almost complete the New
England rout, and Feinstein, as a newly minted
Republican, will go down to certain defeat in
California. Additionally, there is nothing in this
agreement that says the PTBNL can’t be Nelson or
Lieberman.

http://crooksandliars.com/silentpatriot/reasonable-network-management-
difi-a

====================================================
Is Obama Killing The
Internet , as Swine Flu Killing Thousands

October 28, 2009 by ahrcanum

The SEC and Department of Homeland Security are
saying we need a web backup plan in the event the
H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic forces people to stay in
their homes to use computers even more than usual
for work or play.
Homeland Security Department accused the GAO of
having unrealistic expectations of how the Internet
could be managed if millions began to telework from
home at the same time as bored or sick
schoolchildren were playing online, sucking up
valuable bandwidth….Private Internet providers
might need government authorization to block
popular websites, it said, or to reduce residential
transmission speeds to make way for commerce.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2620
750120091026?
pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
Are politician looking craft new ways to get more
control on the last free media frontier we have? We
believe it is essential that the Internet remain
unrestricted with an open platform. 365 days a year,
24/7. President Obama on the other hand has not
been quiet about pushing for Internet legislation.
The government wants to make sure everyone has
access to the Internet and have set aside $7.2 billion
in stimulus dollars for
construction.http://www.examiner.com/x-10317-San-
Diego-County-Political-Buzz-
Examiner~y2009m10d21-Net-Neutrality-
enforcement-may-reach-into-your-computer Again
with the stimulus dollars. Private investment and the
private sector is what has spurned it’s growth. As we
have been witness to banks and car companies who
accept bailout funds, they also accept government
control and regulations.
Last week the FCC begin consideration of the rules
that would protect and promote open broadband pipes
to the Internet. Over the next several months, an
official rule making proceeding will take place, along
with public workshops and technical advisory
discussions, allowing everyone to provide feedback
before the Commission adopts a final set of rules.
The proposed rules can be found here as a pdf
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/F
CC-09-93A1.pdf We found it interesting that on p.
97 the document quotes Thomas Jefferson, “The
course of history shows that as the government
grows, liberty decreases.”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon Wireless
CEO Lowell McAdam showed in a joint blog post
that stakeholders can work together with mutual
respect to find common ground, even as we
acknowledge and defend important policy
differences.
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/10/findi
ng-common-ground-on-open-internet.html
One significant issue, is that the government
apparently uses the same Internet protocols and the
same operating systems as the private sector, making
cyber security a universal problem as opposed to a
governmental problem. Hackers may find a greater
payload in targeting critical infrastructure such as
power grids, financial or communication networks or
air traffic control systems than in attacking the CIA
or the Pentagon. An attack by an adversary nation,
much less a cyber extortionist or terrorist, is not so
far-fetched.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/l
a-oe-zirin14-2009oct14,0,603775.story

The federally funded Next Generation Internet (NGI)

project (http://www.ngi.gov/) exists parallel to and
complementary with Internet2,
http://www.internet2.edu/ We have trouble believing
that America’s nuclear weapons arsenal operate on
the standard net. Internet2 is not available to the
general public, even though our taxpayer dollars
support it. More about that
here http://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/inter
net-censorship-shocking-treatment-of-taxpayer/ The
speed of information-sharing network on Internet2 is
now 100 Gbit!
Thomas has the draft of the Rockefeller
Cybersecurity Act S 773 here,
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.773.
It gives the president powers to “declare a
cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit
Internet traffic in any “critical” information network
“in the interest of national security.” More of our
previous thoughts here
http://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/obama-
internet-controcybersecurity/
The proposed rules claim that Cisco’s built
Internet routers have over 28.1 million lines of code-
does anyone realistically foresee the government
being able to regulated something so large? Are
attacks of the Swine Flu more common than cyber
security breaches? We we do know that the nation
has done a pretty miserable job coordinating it’s
response to past emergencies as evidenced by
Hurricane Katrina, the financial bailouts, and now the
H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic. If big brother takes over
the Internet, the last bastion of freedom of speech in
what is left of our democracy, could be gone.
photo props to Bikes Over Baghdad http://bkachinsky.transworld.net/,
Open wide, say ahhh and check out these posts on the A/H1N1 Swine Flu from
Ahrcanum, where the conspiracy spreads as fast as the virus itself.
http://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/swine-flu-report/

http://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/swine-flu-obama-killing-internet-swine-
flu-killing-thousands/

=====================================================
Like Father Like Son?

============================================================
Thursday, October 22, 2009

Obama's FCC Votes to

Consider Controlling
Internet. Elections Have
Consequences.

T
he FCC has never regulated the internet. It
has nothing to do with their charter. Today,
by fiat, they announced their intentions to
start considering rules to bring about so
called "net neutrality" rules to act as a sort of
traffic cop on the internet. The Legal Times
(here)
In a notice of proposed rulemaking, the FCC
invited public comment on six principles
intended to "preserve and promote an open
Internet." "Given the potentially huge
consequences of having the open
Internet diminished through inaction, the
time is now to move forward with
consideration of fair and reasonable
rules of the road," said Chairman Julius
Genachowski in a statement. "Indeed, it
would be a serious failure of
responsibility not to consider such
rules, for that would be gambling with
the most important technological
innovation of our time."
Now here is what the above actually means.
My commentary in brackets.
In a notice of proposed rulemaking [we're
talking about making rules on something
that's not even in our purview], the FCC
invited public comment [you have to fight for
freedom on the internet now that they've
asserted our right to control it], on six
principles intended to "preserve and
promote an open Internet" [only with
government control will there be openness
on the internet]. Given the potentially huge
consequences of having the open Internet
diminished through inaction [if we don't do
something then we can't control it and we're
the only ones who can bring openness], the
time is now [while there's an Obamunist in
the White House who has our back] to move
forward with consideration of fair and
reasonable rules [as we government
aparachiks interpet 'fairness'] of the road,"
said Chairman Julius Genachowski in a
statement. "Indeed, it would be a serious
failure of responsibility not to consider
such rules [we need to seize control
before anyone figures out that it's not
our job], for that would be gambling with
the most important technological
innovation of our time" [don't tell anyone
that since its inception the internet has been
free and unfettered and available for use by
anyone without the goverment's help or
hindrance.]
http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2010/03/27/danger-at-the-fcc-an-omnibus-
warning/

============================================================

BILL WOULD GIVE

OBAMA ‘EMERGENCY’
CONTROL OF
INTERNET
August 28, 2009 12:34 AM PDT

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were

alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed
handing the White House the power to disconnect
private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that

aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia
Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed
doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-
page draft (excerpt), which still appears to permit the
president to seize temporary control of private-sector
networks during a so-called cybersecurity
emergency.

The new version would allow the president to

"declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-
governmental" computer networks and do what's
necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of
the proposal include a federal certification program
for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement
that certain computer systems and networks in the
private sector be managed by people who have been
awarded that license.

"I think the redraft, while improved, remains

troubling due to its vagueness," said Larry Clinton,
president of the Internet Security Alliance, which
counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel,
and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. "It is
unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is
necessary over the private sector. Unless this is
clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone
support the bill."

Representatives of other large Internet and

telecommunications companies expressed concerns
about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller's
aides this week, but were not immediately available
for interviews on Thursday.

A spokesman for Rockefeller also declined to

comment on the record Thursday, saying that many
people were unavailable because of the summer
recess. A Senate source familiar with the bill
compared the president's power to take control of
portions of the Internet to what President Bush did
when grounding all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. The
source said that one primary concern was the
electrical grid, and what would happen if it were
attacked from a broadband connection.

When Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate

Commerce committee, and Olympia Snowe (R-
Maine) introduced the original bill in April, they
claimed it was vital to protect national cybersecurity.
"We must protect our critical infrastructure at all
costs--from our water to our electricity, to banking,
traffic lights and electronic health records,"
Rockefeller said.

The Rockefeller proposal plays out against a broader

concern in Washington, D.C., about the government's
role in cybersecurity. In May, President Obama
acknowledged that the government is "not as
prepared" as it should be to respond to disruptions
and announced that a new cybersecurity coordinator
position would be created inside the White House
staff. Three months later, that post remains empty,
one top cybersecurity aide has quit, and some wags
have begun to wonder why a government that
receives failing marks on cybersecurity should be
trusted to instruct the private sector what to do.

Rockefeller's revised legislation seeks to reshuffle the

way the federal government addresses the topic. It
requires a "cybersecurity workforce plan" from every
federal agency, a "dashboard" pilot project,
measurements of hiring effectiveness, and the
implementation of a "comprehensive national
cybersecurity strategy" in six months--even though
its mandatory legal review will take a year to
complete.

The privacy implications of sweeping changes

implemented before the legal review is finished
worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the
Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "As
soon as you're saying that the federal government is
going to be exercising this kind of power over private
networks, it's going to be a really big issue," he says.

Probably the most controversial language begins in

Section 201, which permits the president to "direct
the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary
for "the national defense and security." The White
House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping"
of private networks deemed to be critical, and those
companies "shall share" requested information with
the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as
anything having to do with the Internet,
telecommunications, computers, or computer
networks.)

"The language has changed but it doesn't contain any

real additional limits," EFF's Tien says. "It simply
switches the more direct and obvious language they
had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...The
designation of what is a critical infrastructure system
or network as far as I can tell has no specific process.
There's no provision for any administrative process or
review. That's where the problems seem to start. And
then you have the amorphous powers that go along
with it."

Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a

new set of regulations kick in involving who you can
hire, what information you must disclose, and when
the government would exercise control over your
computers or network.

The Internet Security Alliance's Clinton adds that his

group is "supportive of increased federal involvement
to enhance cyber security, but we believe that the
wrong approach, as embodied in this bill as
introduced, will be counterproductive both from an
national economic and national secuity perspective."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html

===========================================================
LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
Will bill give Obama control of Internet?
Proposed new powers called 'drastic federal
intervention'
osted: April 04, 2009
10:35 pm Eastern

Sen. John "Jay" Rockefeller, D-W.V.

A pair of bills introduced in the U.S. Senate would

grant the White House sweeping new powers to
access private online data, regulate the cybersecurity
industry and even shut down Internet traffic during a
declared "cyber emergency."

Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay

Rockefeller, D-W.V., are both part of what's being
called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which would
create a new Office of the National Cybersecurity
Advisor, reportable directly to the president and
charged with defending the country from cyber
attack.

A working draft of the legislation obtained by an

Internet privacy group also spells out plans to grant
the Secretary of Commerce access to all privately
owned information networks deemed to be critical to
the nation's infrastructure "without regard to any
provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting
such access."

Who might be watching you without you knowing it?

Get "Spychips" and see how major corporations and
government are planning to track your every move!

Privacy advocates and Internet experts have been

quick to sound the alarm over the act's broadly drawn
government powers.

"The cybersecurity threat is real," says Leslie Harris,

president of the Center for Democracy and
Technology, which obtained the draft of S.773, "but
such a drastic federal intervention in private
communications technology and networks could
harm both security and privacy."

"The whole thing smells bad to me," writes Larry

Seltzer in eWeek, an Internet and print news source
on technology issues. "I don't like the chances of the
government improving this situation by taking it over
generally, and I definitely don't like the idea of
politicizing this authority by putting it in the direct
control of the president."

According to a Senate document explaining the bill,

the legislation "addresses our country's unacceptable
vulnerability to massive cyber crime, global cyber
espionage and cyber attacks that could cripple our
critical infrastructure."

In a statement explaining the bill's introduction, Sen.

Rockefeller said, "We must protect our critical
infrastructure at all costs – from our water to our
electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic
health records – the list goes on."

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who is co-sponsoring

the bill, added, "If we fail to take swift action, we,
regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."

Critics, however, have pointed to three actions

Rockefeller and Snowe propose that may violate both
privacy concerns and even constitutional bounds:

First, the White House, through the national

cybersecurity advisor, shall have the authority to
disconnect "critical infrastructure" networks from the
Internet – including private citizens' banks and health
records, if Rockefeller's examples are accurate – if
they are found to be at risk of cyber attack. The
working copy of the bill, however, does not define
what constitutes a cybersecurity emergency, and
apparently leaves the question to the discretion of the
president.

Second, the bill establishes the Department of

Commerce as "the clearinghouse of cybersecurity
threat and vulnerability information," including the
monitoring of private information networks deemed a
part of the "critical infrastructure."

Third, the legislation proposes implementation of a

professional licensing program for certifying who can
serve as a cybersecurity professional.

And while the critics concede the need for increased

security, they object to what is perceived as a
dangerous and intrusive expansion of government
power.

"There are some problems that we face which need

the weight of government behind them," writes
Seltzer in eWeek. "This is not the same as creating a
new federal bureaucracy setting rules over what
computer security has to be and who can do it."

"It's an incredibly broad authority," CDT senior

counsel Greg Nojeim told the Mother Jones news
website, troubled that existing privacy laws "could
fall to this authority."

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the

Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Mother Jones the
bill is "contrary to what the Constitution promises
us."

According to Granick, granting the Department of

Commerce oversight of the "critical" networks, such
as banking records, would grant the government
access to potentially incriminating information
obtained without cause or warrant, a violation of the
Constitution's prohibition against unlawful search and
seizure.
"What are the critical infrastructure networks? The
examples provided are 'banking, utilities, air/rail/auto
traffic control, telecommunications.' Let's think about
this," writes Seltzer. "I'm especially curious as to how
you take the telecommunications networks off of the
Internet when they are, in large part, what the Internet
is comprised of. And if my bank were taken offline, I
would think about going into my branch and asking
for all of my deposits in cash."

S. 778, which would establish the Office of the

National Security Advisor, and S. 773, which
provides for developing a cadre of governmental
cybersecurity specialists and procedures, have both
been read twice and referred to committee in the
Senate.

===========================================================

Obama Giving Control of

Internet to the Gun Hating
United Nations
by Fredy Riehl AmmoLand February 22, 2010
Washington, DC
United Nations and IANSA would stop at nothing to
ban, block, reduce access too or tear down pro gun
websites

In a recent article titled Obama Surrendering

Internet to Foreign Powers by Bradley A.
Blakeman, a former deputy assistant to President
George W. Bush, he exposed the current plan in
motion by the Obama administration to “show the
world how inclusive, sharing, cooperative, and
international America can be” by moving quietly to
cede control of the Web from the United States to
foreign powers like the United Nations.

Why should that matter to Gun Owners?

Because as we all know the the United Nations, and

in particular powerful international groups like
IANSA, would stop at nothing to ban, block, reduce
access too or tear down pro gun websites.

“[The] Obama administration [has] set off on a plan

to surrender control and key management of the
Internet by the U.S. Department of Commerce and its
agents.

The key to the control America has over the Internet

is through the management of the Domain Name
System (DNS) and the giant servers that service the
Internet.

Domain names are managed through an entity

named IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority. The IANA, which operates on behalf of the
U.S. Department of Commerce, is responsible for the
global coordination of the DNS, IP addressing, and
other Internet protocol resources.

In short, without an IP Address or other essential

Internet protocols, a person or entity would not have
access to the Internet.”
What does that mean for you and me?

For one thing surfing to our favorite pro gun websites

could be restricted under various schemes or
“protocol”. From blocking access to particular IP
addresses, refusing to register or renew domain
names or blocking access to domain names that
include particular gun phrases, IE: Ar15, NRA,
Ruger, Glock, Remington.

The following domains could all be black listed:

• http://www.ammoland.com (of particular concern for the author)
• http://www.nra.org
• http://www.nraila.org
• http://www.ar15.com
• http://www.1911.com
• http://www.stagarms.com
• http://www.bushmaster.com
• http://www.thehighroad.org
• http://www.nationalgunrights.org
• http://www.gunowners.org
• http://www.righttokeepandbeararms.com
• You get the idea..

What dose that mean for freedom?

As gun owners we understand that by having the

right to keep and bear arms means we ARE FREE
and we promise to make it extremely costly for
anyone politician, government or world organization
to try and take that from us because of the arms we
legally have under our beds and concealed on our
persons.

Yes, I understand that the internet is more

complicated than my example above but the fact is if
you give a body like the Gun Hating United Nations
control of IANA you are opening up the opportunity
for them to stamp out freedom like we have in the
USA and by extension freedom like we have on the
internet.

“America needs to wake up. If we lose control over

the management of the internet, we have given away
one of our nation’s greatest assets with nothing in
return to show for it.

The Obama administration’s actions will set in

motion a slow and complete takeover of the Internet
by the United Nations or some other equally U.S.-
hostile and unfriendly international body. And once it
is gone, it will be gone forever.

The surrender of the Internet will spell disaster for

our nation, financially, as well as for safety, security
and our standing as a great power that values
freedom and the free exchange of ideas and
information.”
I more than agree with Mr Blakeman when he says
“America is still the last best hope for a more
peaceful and prosperous world and our president
should not be looking for ways to weaken us. Rather,
his job is to work to strengthen us and protect our
nation’s greatest asset our people’s creativity and
ingenuity.”

America is the last hold out for freedom and guns

make it that way.

Contact you congressmen or senator and let him

know it is unacceptable to let our president hand-over
the core operations having to do with the internet to
any group that is not 100% under American control!
Source: AmmoLand

===========================================================
*****YES, BIG BROTHER OBAMA IS WATCHING YOU !!!