Allison Bricker

WASHINGTON D.C. -In an unprecedented move, the Federal Trade Commission¹ (FTC) successfully shut down internet service provider (ISP), Pricewert LLC. Pricewert operates the “Triple Fiber Network” or 3FN which according to public registration records² operates out of San Jose, California. Pricewert now stands accused of providing hosting and bandwidth to a litany of spammers, child pornographers, and malicious hackers. None of which comes as surprise to this blogger, as this is he standard “War on Terror” type of soundbite that is always used in circumventing 1st Amendment protections of free speech and censoring the internet.

However, it took less than five minutes for me to find at least one legitimate website caught up in the FTC’s blanket shutdown of Pricewert’s servers, and it is almost certain more website owners are still scrambling to move thier sites to new hosts in a mad dash to get back up online. One such company, Free Software Magazine³, suffered 3 days in damages and lost revenue from the unilateral shut down. According to their website they are still in the process of salvaging and transferring files over from Pricewert.

Now please do not misconstrue my editorial, because as a parent of two boys if Pricewert/3FN are indeed complicit or accomplices in knowingly hosting child pornography and the spread of viruses then they should be shut down due to untold human costs in supporting the exploitation of children and personal property damage of countless personal computers. Additionally the corporation’s executives should be given the longest incarceration possible.

However, there needs to be a trial, not merely the suspicion provided by a bureaucrat drafted warrant. It is dangerous indeed to liberty and the free flow of information provided by the internet, if it can be censored ‘carte blanche’ merely under the suspicions of an accusation. Moreover, this type of unchecked unilateral authority exercised by the federal government is a patent violation of the business owner(s) 6th Amendment right to a speedy and public trial in all criminal prosecutions coupled with the ability to cross-examine those parties who are accusing the business owner(s) of committing the acts in the first place, prior to being found guilty or suffering any consequences business, personal, or otherwise.

A system in which a government bureaucrat can draft a warrant and have a Federal Judge issue an injunction without a trial is exactly why we have the 6th Amendment. The founders knew that all too often government was prone to exact revenge against political opponents or individuals of which they had an axe to grind. We have seen this tactic utilized over and over in the drug war with some disastrous consequences.

The claim to child porn and viruses are the rubber stamp standard used by both the Chinese and Australian governments in justifying their blanket censorship of the entire internet.

According to the FTC’s website there is a hearing scheduled on the injunction for June 15th, 2009. Regardless of whether or not the injunction is stayed or if Pricewert is guilty, they will almost certainly file for bankruptcy. Suffering 12 days of downtime in the internet economy is a death sentence unto itself for all practical purposes.

Source(s): ¹Federal Trade Commission Press Release (3FN) 06-04-2009 • ²WHO IS LOOKUP, Pricewert, LLC. • ³ Free Software Magazine

Allison Bricker

Once again, current and former hack politicians are calling for a reinstatement of the “Fairness Doctrine,” or in short and contrary what the title advertises, censorship. Joining the plutocrats in their chorus call for a government mandate, are many of the failed or failing “progressive” talk radio hosts, ergo Bill Press.

Every time Mr. Press gets the chance, he whines incessantly about how unfair it is that radio stations are dropping “socialist” talk radio in favor of another format. One recent victim of the pathetically low ratings in the “socialist” talk radio graveyard is Obama 1260 AM out of Washington D.C. As of February 9th, less than four months since its birth as a progressive bastion of all things Obama, the station had such pitiful ratings, WWRC decided to drop the format and focus on the imploding economy instead.

However, Mr. Press seems more concerned with the loss of his own salary than actually trying to develop a working business model. He has literally begged Senators Harkin (D-IA) and Stabenow (D-MI) to have government grant him job protection vis-à-vis the “Fairness Doctrine”, as his ilk’s brand of talk radio hemorrhages affiliates around the country.

Unfortunately, for Mr. Press however, it was recently revealed that Senator Stabenow’s husband; one of the biggest supporters of progressive talk in the Senate” according to Mr. Press, is the “Father of Progressive talk,” former Vice-President of the bankrupted Air America, and remains a top level executive in the television/internet industry.

As recently as last week, even President Clinton jumped on the bandwagon calling for a reinstatement of the Federal censorship policy. Additionally, recently confirmed Attorney General, Eric Holder has publicly commented upon expanding the reach of the “Fairness Doctrine” to the internet.
Thus, we present Phase One of Operation: Solvo Sermo, Stop the Fairness Doctrine. Please stay tuned to The Smoking Argus Daily, as we get ready to launch Phase Two in the coming weeks.

Allison Bricker

The impetus behind our founders warning government to keep its hands off the press comes not from a love of newspapers per se, but rather the necessity of free and uncensored mass communication. Newspapers just happened to be the only form of mass communication at the time.

Prior to the American Revolution, journalists who dissented against the royal governments, its decrees or public office holders often found themselves imprisoned and their equipment destroyed. One of the most famous trials of a journalist falsely charged is that of John Peter Zenger.

Mr. Zenger published criticisms of New York’s “Royal” Governor, William Crosby. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Zenger found himself imprisoned and charged with libel. His attorney, Philadelphia lawyer, Andrew Hamilton successfully argued that one could not commit libel merely by publishing opinion or fact.¹

It is my opinion that the The first Amendment to our Federal Constitution is too narrowly interpreted. Thus, had the internet, television, or radio, been present during the drafting of our Constitution, it is clear that the Founding Fathers would have extended government prohibitions on censorship to these mediums as well. However, the FEC has already attempted to sidestep the 1st Amendment and censor blogs under the auspices of McCain-Feingold.² Now the FCC is set to rule on the creation of a free nationwide filtered internet under the guise of “protecting the children”.³

It is also obvious by a candid reading of the uncensored historical record, that the plutocrats made massive inroads in their attempt to centralize Federal power from the beginning of the 20th Century. After the passage of the 16th and 17th Amendments, we then see a massive encroachment upon our unalienable rights with the passage of the “Espionage Act of 1917″⁴ and “The Sedition Act of 1918″⁵. The Espionage Act was passed at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson who felt that dissent during war could jeopardize our potential for victory. His flawed logic still exists today and is echoed by hacks like Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT). This belief is a stark contrast to the Founding Fathers who were all too familiar with the oppressive hand of government censorship.

The best known victim of prosecution under the “Espionage Act of 1917″ is Eugene Debs. Mr. Debs had previously run for President as the Socialist Party’s candidate and publicly denounced the U.S. involvement in World War I. He was charged with “obstructing military recruiting” after a speech in 1918. Mr. Debs was found guilty of sedition and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After serving three years, he was pardoned by President Harding and released.⁶ It is immaterial to me that I would vehemently debate and ultimately disagree with Mr. Deb’s socialist philosophy. His imprisonment merely demonstrates the lengths politicians will go to in order to silence opposition.

We the People, have failed to be vigilant as the guardians of our own liberties and we must bear some of the burden. In addition to the Espionage and Sedition Acts, by allowing the FCC to declare the airwaves publicly owned and therefore subject to regulation we do ourselves a massive disservice in pursuit of the truth. The consequences of this massive failure, was to allow the creation of broadcast licensing. By allowing the dissemination of information to be controlled by an ever decreasing amount of individual corporations via licensing we lose our ability to make proper judgments on matters of national importance, such as the invasion of Iraq or the disgusting pursuit of legalized torture by the Executive Branch.

Tyrants and their sycophant sympathizers love to claim that the FCC grants licenses to those who “serve the public interest”. However, the historical record contradicts this altruistic pursuit and in the end it merely grants licenses to those who serve to swell the bank accounts of both the bureaucrats and politicians.⁷

Fellow readers, the internet has allowed for the greatest expanse of news, opinions, and knowledge humanity has ever known. Abuse by some in the form of unsourced or libelous news reports does not justify statements by the traitor to the Constitution known as Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who in a letter to Google regarding YouTube videos wrote:

“In other words, Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training – activities that are all essential to terrorist activity. According to testimony received by our Committee, the online content produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations can play a significant role in the process of radicalization, the end point of which is the planning and execution of a terrorist attack.”⁸

There is indeed great danger in the notion that a hack Senator and two-time loser such as Joe Lieberman should be telling a private corporation what should be censored for the sake of national security. The biggest dangers to national security are the power-hungry ambitions of terrorist politicians like Joe Lieberman and his insurgent bureaucratic operatives who seek to wage their personal jihad on the 1st Amendment and our inherent liberties.

Further, President-Elect Obama has selected Eric Holder as Attorney General. The Plutocratic fundamentalist, Eric Holder has also spoken publicly about his desire to censor the internet and further erode the 1st Amendment via his interpretation of “reasonable regulation”.

The time is now upon us, to beat back the ever encroaching hand of government and amend the Constitution to expand the scope of the 1st Amendment, thus ensuring all forms of communication both current and those not yet fathomed are protected from those who seek to stifle the free exchange of ideas and expression.

In closing, my only regret is that I have but one life to blog for my Republic.
Don’t Tread on Me!

Source(s): ¹University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law • ² FEC Agenda Document Number 05-16 • ³ CNET – “FCC Cancels Meeting for Free Interent Vote” • ⁴ Espionage Act of 1917 • ⁵ Sedition Act of 1918 • ⁶ DEBS v UNITED STATES of AMERICA No. 714 • ⁷ McCain Denies Pushing FCC on Paxson Behalf • ⁸ Dialogue with Senator Lieberman on Terrorism Videos

Allison Bricker

GOOGLE, Inc. acknowledged this week that its employees do have the ability to alter search results and rankings. For a company who claims their mantra to be “Do no Evil” this is a troubling admission, albeit not too surprising. Most are already aware that Google along with a consortium of other companies helps the Chinese government (and now Australia and Italy) censor the internet in a scheme dubbed “The Great Firewall of China.”

However, for a company which once claimed to rely solely on their proprietary “PigeonRank”¹ system, a computer generated algorithm developed by Google, Inc.’s founders, it sort of makes their disclaimer at the bottom of the Google news page disingenuous.

From Google News:

“The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. The time or date displayed reflects when an article was added to Google News.”²

During the LeWeb ’08 conference in Paris, France in an interview with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Marissa Mayer, GOOGLE Vice-President of Search and User Experience said:

“..I do think there is a possibility of us looking in aggregate when we see large signals [in GOOGLE Search Wiki], you know, a thousand people deleted this result from a search, those will start to be signals that could be used in search.”³

While Google is a private company and no way bound to free speech as a public government entity would be, the fact that the company admits to the likelihood of fudging search results is a substantial backtrack on the company’s previous statements. Google rose to capture 60% market share on the false promise of unfettered search results by algorithm.

This also is troubling since GOOGLE owns YouTube the video sharing site, which is constantly under accusation by users of mischief regarding view counters, ratings, honors, etcetera. Combine the search engine dominance, video dominance, RSS dominance through Google’s acquisition of FeedBurner, and being in the final stages of acquiring DIGG⁴ for “somewhere around 200 million” and we see the old-media business model fully employed by a “new media” behemoth.

It is my opinion that as the consolidation and roll out of Web 2.0 continues, now is the time for a competitor to rise up and keep GOOGLE from obtaining monopoly. Therefore, those of us who enjoy the open uncensored access the web has to offer must make use of upstarts like BreakTheMatrix.com and Zuula.com.

Source(s): ¹ Google Inc., “Our Search – Google Technology” • ² News.Google.com – Disclaimer • ³TechCrunch “Marissa Mayer At Le Web: The (Almost) Complete Interview” • ⁴ The Independent Online – Google close to acquiring Digg for ‘$200m’

Allison Bricker

In past conversations with colleagues and friends, I have often commented that some day soon the internet our generation has come to know, the wealth of information available via the click of a mouse, will cease to exist. That in the place of this unfiltered and uncensored access to information, will come a government controlled, censored version of the world wide web under the auspices of the FCC or some other bloated failure of a bureaucracy.

Many have replied to me stating that this was “Henny Penny” or “Chicken Little”, that this simply could not happen here in the land of the free. My counter has been and remains that this will come wrapped in the veil of “protecting the children” or “net neutrality”. We have already seen internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T implement “bandwidth filtering” and “I.P Blocking” as a means to restrict access or to make viewing videos difficult or next to impossible.¹

The technology to accomplish complete filtering already exists and is being used in China with the help of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Cisco. These American companies are co-conspirators with the Chinese government in constructing what is now known as “The Great Firewall of China”. This censorship completely removes hyperlinks from search engine queries/blog posts and includes any and all websites the Chinese government deems “inappropriate”. Websites such as Falun Gong, the Tibetan government-in-exile, and critics of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, just to name a few.²

Further, just this past summer during the Beijing Olympics, athletes staying in the Olympic Village found their own internet access censored, uncensored, then censored again from going to websites like Amnesty International, Wikipedia and the BBC.²

Additionally, for those readers who think its just the Chinese government, think again. Australia is joining in mandatory internet filtering for all of its citizens after first suggesting that the censorship would be optional. The impetus behind this fascist move? You guessed it, the scare tactics of Child pornography and child predators.³ Nevermind, that perhaps parents should consider monitoring their own child’s activities online. Hell, why bother when you can just have the government do the parenting for you? – ah the nanny state.

In fact, Human Rights Watch states:

“…there is a real danger of a Virtual Curtain dividing the internet, much as the Iron Curtain did during the Cold War, because some governments fear the potential of the internet, (and) want to control it”

With the coronation of President Obama just around the corner and the likely enlarged Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, we are already beginning to hear calls for a reimplementation of “The Fairness Doctrine” echoing the halls of Congress. The “Fairness Doctrine” implemented in 1949 mandated holders of FCC “Broadcast Licenses” covering political or controversial topics to supply “equal time” to the other side of the issue.⁴ Finally, In 1987, during the Presidency of Ronald Regan (R-CA), “The Fairness Doctrine” was finally abolished⁵

Some statists would love to see government mandate what and how we hear specific issues. However the funny thing is,”The Fairness Doctrine” only applied to radio and television broadcast which contained an opinion, it did not cover newspapers. It is my opinion that if the newspapers were not specifically mentioned via the 1st Amendment, they too would have fallen under the iron fist of “The Fairness Doctrine”.

The pull-peddling bureaucrats gained control over radio and television by vomiting up the socialist epoch that “the airwaves are collectively owned by the public and thus under government domain.” Well fellow readers I say bullsh!t, the airwaves are no more public than a newspaper company’s printing presses are public or that somehow Smargus.com is owned by the public.

Do we think for a moment that had radio, television, or the internet been realized at the time of the Bill of Rights that the founders would have limited the inherent right to free speech and opinion to newspapers? It is my opinion that the Founders would have not truncated our inherent right to free speech solely to the printed word. The underlying principle of the 1st Amendment is that we are born with the gift of communicating our opinions to anyone willing to listen, my right to share how I feel on a topic is not mine by government license, it is mine and yours simply by our breaths.

Do we think this very simple principle will halt the control freaks in Washington from reinstating “The Fairness Doctrine”? In my opinion, no. Only this time as the economy begins to collapse further and that “international crisis”⁶ that Senator Biden carelessly quipped forces President Obama to make those “unpopular decisions”⁷ we will see a new more vigorous “Fairness Doctrine” implemented by the plutocratic scoundrels in Washington. It is also my opinion that this “Fairness Doctrine” will seek to implement “internet filters” vis a vis China and Australia, and perhaps some sort of “Internet Domain Licensing” as they have as well.⁸

Source(s): ¹Converge Network Digest • ² The London TeleGraph, Online •³The Herald Sun• ⁴Donald P. Mullally, “The Fairness Doctrine: Benefits and Costs”, The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Winter, 1969-1970), p. 577 • ⁵United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Syracuse Peace Council v.FCC • ⁶The Washington Post • ⁷ABC News Blog ⁸Administration of China Internet Domain Names Procedures

Mandy Hyndman

One of the most gritty and profound statements ever made on the topic of prudery can be found in a particular scene from Stephen King’s novel Carrie. In the scene Carrie White, the protagonist, experiences menstruation for the first time while showering in gym class. Carrie’s mother, a religious fanatic, believes it inappropriate to discuss the body and its natural behavior with her, so Carrie mistakes her menstrual flow for a fatal injury. The unpopular girl (unpopular because her fiercely religious upbringing alienates her from her peers) is then pelted with tampons and maxi-pads by her classmates who think her fear and misunderstanding is hilarious. She later fries their asses with her awesome telekinetic power (they had it coming).

Although Carrie is an extreme example of the negative effects of instilling shame in children and withholding from them the truth of the nature of their bodies, it nonetheless sends a clear message: Instilling shame in a child for being a human being and having a human body will distort his reality and damage his mental stability. When we cover little Suzy’s eyes for fear that she won’t understand nudity, when we explain to her that babies come from cabbages or storks or virgins, when we tell her that it is not alright to touch her very own body, we are laying the groundwork for a lifetime of discomfort, phobia, and self-consciousness as well as an incredibly unhealthy relationship with sex. We are, in a sense, not only failing to warn her of the startling changes her body will undertake but also engendering an environment of self-loathing within Suzy. Usually this leads to the “normal” level of discomfort with the body, but sometimes this self-loathing leads to such an unhealthy and unnatural relationship with sex that it becomes paired with violence inside a person creating sexual predators.

Picture this: An entire population of little Suzys each more screwed up and ashamed than the next, each self-righteously perpetuating the myth that the human body is a dirty and sinful thing. Imagine a nation so concerned with “propriety” and “modesty” it fuels the fire of its own collapse by making itself afraid of its own humanity.

We could explain sex to children as if it were the truth. We could teach them that their bodies are beautiful, useful, and even sensual tools without instilling an unnatural guilt within them. We could protect them from abusers (dare I say even eliminate abusers themselves) by simply being as clear, direct, and open as possible with them on the subject of sex no matter how uncomfortable, embarrassing, or rude a question seems. We could become a nation of confident, comfortable people who concern ourselves with important things rather than public image.

People are horrified by the thought of sex and sexuality as an activity (a hobby for some of us) yet it is something everyone experiences in his or her life in one way or another. Why not pave that road in a healthy way? We censor sex, but violence is only a channel-flip away. Wouldn’t you rather your child see something natural like a nude human body than something unnatural like war? I would.