Archive for the 'Freedom of Press' Category

Comcast Blocks Internet and Public

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

“Honestly, I’m just getting paid to hold someone’s seat,” said one person attending the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing in Boston last week (on 2008-02-25). “I don’t even know what’s going on.”x30 The FCC called the hearing to investigate citizens’ complaints that Comcast, the nation’s second largest Internet service provider (ISP), was blocking [...]

Supreme Court Skips Amendment 4, Keeps Catch-22

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to hear a case to stop President Bush’s domestic warrantless wiretapping, and let stand a 2-1 Appeals Court ruling that threw out the case on a technicality—a catch-22.x20 The ACLU brought the case on behalf of some journalists, scholars and lawyers, who claim that the specter of [...]

Big Brother Bad Idea Still Breathing

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

In 2002, John Poindexter, a major outlaw in the Iran-Contra scandal, took the reins of the U.S. Defense Department’s Total Information Awareness project (TIA).x10 One of the features of TIA, was the “Terrorism Futures Market”, which would set up a web site to allow people to bet on future violent events, such as terror [...]

Senate and Prez ‘Over the Top’ with Slaps at MoveOn

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

Republican leaders and news outlets whipped up a little furor over MoveOn.org’s ad headlined “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?—Cooking the books for the White House.”x01 A common comment was that the ad was “over the top.”x02. The ad came out in the New York Times September 10th, the day of Petraeus’s testimony [...]

Will Bushies Sell Iran War ‘Product’?

Saturday, September 8th, 2007

In September 2002 a reporter asked President Bush’s Chief of Staff Andy Card why the administration was suddenly pushing for an invasion of Iraq70×71. Card replied: “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.” Shortly before that push, Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech to the V.F.W., [...]