Cross post\\The Net will be censored soon!! Internet freedom got the ax...

[converted_democrat]

This is a long piece, but well worth the read. The "free flow" of information is under attack. Please take the time to read the whole article!!!! I am NOT being an alarmist, the internet will be censored, soon.


Web of Deceit: How Internet Freedom Got the Federal Ax, And Why Corporate News Censored the Story

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D.

The days are now numbered for surfing an uncensored, open-access Internet, using your favorite search engine to search a bottomless cyber-sea of information in the grandest democratic forum ever conceived by humankind. Instead you can look forward to Googling about on a walled-off, carefully selected corpus of government propaganda and sanitized information "safe" for public consumption. Indoctrinated and sealed off from the outer world, you will inhabit a matrix where every ounce of creative, independent thinking that challenges government policies and values will be squelched. Just a wild conspiracy theory, you say? No longer can this be rationally maintained.

Federal government--from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to the White House--and corporate mainstream media have worked cooperatively to quietly block open access to cyberspace. Seizing its infrastructure, corporate mainstream media have censored and covered up its logistical moves—including lobbies in Congress and the FCC, the filing of suits in state and federal courts, and quid pro quo with the highest government officials--to commandeer, monopolize, and turn the Internet into an extension of itself. From Fox News to CNN, there has been dead silence as the greatest bastion of democracy in history is being torn down and resurrected in its own image. Now, as the corporate newsrooms remain mum, it has gotten the green light from the highest federal court in the land.

On June 27, 2005, in a 6 to 3 decision (National Cable & Telecommunications Association vs. Brand X Internet Services) the United States Supreme Court ruled that giant cable companies like Comcast and Verizon are not required to share their cables with other Internet service providers (ISPs). The Court opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, was fashioned to serve corporate interests. Instead of taking up the question of whether corporate monopolies would destroy the open-access architecture of the Internet, it used sophistry and legally- suspect arguments to obscure its constitutional duty to protect media diversity, free speech, and the public interest.

The Court accepted the FCC's conclusion reached in 2002 that cable companies don't "offer" telecommunication services according to the meaning of the 1996 Telecommunication Act, which defines telecommunication purely in terms of transmission of information among or between users. According to the FCC, cable modem service is not a telecommunications offering because consumers always use high speed wire transmission as a necessary part of other services like browsing the web and sending and receiving e-mail messages. The FCC maintained that these offerings are information services, which manipulate and transform data instead of merely transmitting them. Since the Act only requires companies offering telecommunication services to share their lines with other ISPs (the so-called "common carriage" requirement), the FCC concluded that cable companies are exempt from this requirement.



http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/07/con05238.html

Crosspost-- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4135806

[Triana]

1. I told ya...

..I've posted numerous times on this site and others how they next intend to censor the internet here as they do in China.

A well-informed voting public is their #1 enemy and too many people are getting information they don't want them to have - over the internet. They put a stranglehold on the media. Internet is next.

I'm not surprised.

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. We knew they would find a way to try to shut down the free internet - the

last strong bastion of the free press in this country. I was guessing it would be part of a Patriot Act update. Looks like they found another way.

We have to fight this and publicize it to the max. We need to find additional info on this planned suppression and turn it all into talking points that we can circulate far and wide. The Congress will do nothing unless it is forced. The truth-speakers need our help.

Recommended. I wouldn't mind seeing this cross-post get on the Greatest Page too.

[wli]

3. long in the coming

They're pretty stupid about computers, and so left the hole in their propaganda network wide open.

In any event, we live in rather frightening times.

Bush told the truth when he said, "History is a reminder of what's possible." You would be well-advised to take note of where he said it.

[queeg]

4. Whoever wrote this---

has their tin foil hat on a little too tight.

This is a rambling screed against censorship in the fist and last few paragraphs with a bunch of mindless blither blather in between. --- the author makes some wildly improbable leaps of faith here, and completely mis-applies much case law.---and the sownong street memo makes a guest appearance of course.

the Authors main point that he takes a wild roundabout path to reach seems to be:

Whoever controls the conduit controls the content.

All I can say to this one is No Shit Sherlock, ---took you a PhD. to figure that out all by yourself did it?--sounds a whole lot like most versions of the media--newspapers, TV, radio---why should the internet be any different?---one thing the author fails to either grasp or explain is that the internet is a global medium, and that as such there can never be complete censorship.

The old Soviet union understood this completely where access to things such as Xerox machines, fax machines, and typewriters were controled because it was understood that these were methods of transmitting information quickly. What they were unable to do however was to save their government.

[snot]

5. KICK. More analysis needed!

This stuff is extremely important. I'm not sure what the bottom line is, but better an ounce of paranoia than a pound of trying to find out about the news we don't know we're missing.

[queeg]

6. this is more like a pound of paranoia

and not an ounce of sense

[farmboxer]

7. They censored the mainstream media, got rid of the

"Fairness Act", had a coup in 2000, got away with it and have fixed the elections ever since. They will try, the only question is: Will they be successful? We should send out as many e-mails, posts as we can. Get this news to as many people as possible ASAP! It's "1984" in the year 2005, no doubt!

[Rich Hunt]

8. hmmm

I'm not sure how possible this is, but if you use the 'net, especially search tools, often, you'll see that the 'net is being perfectly 'managed' on its own, with the help of right-wing corporate interests and moralizing busybodies.