FCC Using Cybersecurity To Regulate Internet

(FierceGovernmentit) – Yet another federal agency envisions a possible broader role for itself in securing private sector Internet infrastructure. The Federal Communications Commission issued on August 9 a notice (.pdf) soliciting public comment on an anticipated FCC plan to address vulnerabilities to core Internet protocols, as well as cybersecurity threats to all end users.

“Cybersecurity is a vital topic for the Commission because end user lack of trust in online experiences will quell demand for broadband services,” the notice states. The National Broadband Plan calls for the FCC to issue a Cybersecurity Roadmap. A plan, the FCC says in the notice, should be completed by November 2010.

MSM: White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity

(WashingtonPost) – The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual’s Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.

Future of the News

(AmericanThinker) – It’s a frightening thought: government takeover of the media. But having tightened their grip on health care, financial services, and energy, it’s only logical that the Democrats should turn their attention to the media.

Discussions underway at the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission point toward a dangerous new effort to regulate what Americans read and hear. The takeover under discussion would apply across the board to print media, radio and television, and the internet. The result of proposed regulations would be nothing less than an end to free speech in America.

The Fate of the Internet. Decided in a Back Room

(ComonDreams) – The Wall Street Journal just reported that the Federal Communications Commission is holding “closed-door meetings” with industry to broker a deal on Net Neutrality – the rule that keeps control over the Internet with the people who use it.

Given that the corporations at the table all profit from gaining control over information, the outcome won’t be pretty.

FCC Moves to Regulate Internet

(CNSNews) – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on Thursday to begin the formal process of bringing the Internet under greater federal control – a move sought by both President Barack Obama and FCC Chairnman Julius Genachowski.

This step comes after the federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in April rebuked the FCC in its attempt to enforce a controversial regulatory doctrine called Net Neutrality, which would allow the government to prevent private Internet providers from deciding which applications to allow on their networks.

The court said that the FCC did not have the authority to prevent Comcast, specifically, from blocking certain peer-to-peer Web sites.

Groups want FCC to police hate speech on talk radio, cable news networks

(TheHill) – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is being urged to monitor “hate speech” on talk radio and cable broadcast networks.

A coalition of more than 30 organizations argue in a letter to the FCC that the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news.

The groups also charge that syndicated radio and cable television programs “masquerading as news” use hate as a profit model.

Video: Pentagon’s Cyber Command Prepares War Against the American People

(KurtNimmo) – NSA Director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April that he would work to protect the privacy rights of Americans online. It was an interesting comment from a man who heads up an organization responsible for a massive program of illegal dragnet surveillance of domestic communications and communications records of millions of ordinary Americans since at least 2001.

MSM: FCC Proposes Rules on Internet Access

(NYTimes) – The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission outlined a plan on Thursday that would allow the agency to control the transmission component of high-speed Internet, but not rates or content.

In announcing the F.C.C. decision, Julius Genachowski, the commission’s chairman, said the agency would begin a process to reclassify broadband transmission service as a telecommunications service, subjecting the Internet to some of the same oversight as telephone services.

But, he said, the commission would also exempt broadband service from many of the rules affecting telephone service, seeking mainly to guarantee that Internet service providers could not discriminate against certain applications, Internet sites or users. Read entire article

Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality

(CNet) – The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to slap Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

FCC Adviser Advocates State-run Propaganda “Megaphone” to Counter Alternative Media

(KurtNimmo) – In order to counter alternative media, an adviser to the Federal Communications Commission has suggested using your tax money — or rather money the government borrows from bankers and then expects your children to pay off — to create “public media” that will serve as a “filter” and a “megaphone” for a network of government-funded journalists competing with other, non-government-backed reporters, according to Matt Cover, writing for CNSNews.

Italy To Require Anyone Who Uploads Video To The Internet To Obtain Government Authorization

New rules to be introduced by government decree will require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization from the Communications Ministry similar to that required by television broadcasters, drastically reducing freedom to communicate over the Web, opposition lawmakers have warned.

MSM: Brit state to spy on every phone call, email and web search

(Telegraph) – All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

MSM: Top White House Official Says Obama Team ‘Controlled’ Media Coverage During Campaign

(Fox) – The Obama campaign’s press strategy leading up to his election last November focused on “making” the media cover what the campaign wanted and on exercising absolute “control” over coverage, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told an overseas crowd early this year.

Awareness of Military Cell at FAA Headquarters of Events on Day of 9/11

As people who follow the issue closely are aware, there has been some debate over the involvement of a group of military officers stationed at FAA headquarters–generally referred to as the “military cell”–in the events of 9/11. Although I don’t mean to recap the whole debate here, the basic jist is that the 9/11 Commission claimed that the military were unaware of the hijacking of United 93 until a few minutes before it crashed, but what about the military cell–were they too unaware of what was going on?

Report: US considers phone companies ‘arm of government’

(RawStory) – The US government doesn’t have to reveal information about phone companies that may have spied illegally on Americans because those phone companies are an “arm of the government,” the US Justice Department argued in a recent court case.

Illuminati Sabotage Patriot Communication

(HenryMakowPh.D) – Illuminati lackeys are intercepting and even changing emails between Patriot websites.

Obama Plans Internet Grab: FCC to Embrace ‘Net Neutrality’

Since the Internet took root as a mass communications phenomenon in the mid 1990s, a quiet war has raged in Washington over the extent to which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would regulate the new medium.

Australian Law Proposal to Turn ISPs Into Copyright Cops

There’s a disturbing new development in Australia. A law proposal was disclosed to the public that would get ISPs to spy on the contents of all communications to monitor for compliance. Presumably, the amendments would get Australian ISPs to monitor their networks for p2p activity and hand all their information to copyright holders.

Hundreds Of ISPs Refuse To Go Along With Big Brother Spy System

Communications firms warn of unprecedented extension of state powers

Video: Discovery Channel to Run Viral Pandemic Survival Show

Discovery Communications, the mega-entertainment corporation, will air a show at the end of this month called “The Colony.” According to the Discovery Channel website, the show “is a controlled experiment to see exactly what it would take to survive and rebuild” after a global catastrophe, specifically a worldwide viral pandemic scheduled to strike this autumn.

Video: Blitz of “Cyber Attacks” as Rockefeller Bill Approaches

A determined propaganda blitz is well underway as the government sets the stage for the passage of Cybersecurity Act of 2009, introduced in the Senate earlier this year. If passed, it will allow Obama to shut down the internet and private networks.

Morley Safer Doesn’t Trust Citizen Journalism

Safer – “The blogosphere is no alternative, crammed as it is with the ravings and manipulations of every nut with a keyboard. Good journalism is structured and structure means responsibility,” he said. He added later, “…I would trust citizen journalism as much as I would trust citizen surgery.”

Internet Threatened by Censorship, Secret Surveillance, and Cybersecurity Laws

At a time of corporate dominated media, a free and open Internet is democracy’s last chance to preserve our First Amendment rights without which all others are threatened. Activists call it Net Neutrality. Media scholar Robert McChesney says without it “the Internet would start to look like cable TV (with a) handful of massive companies (controlling) content” enough to have veto power over what’s allowed and what it costs. Progressive web sites and writers would be marginalized or suppressed, and content systematically filtered or banned.

US warns of ‘military’ response against hackers

A top US commander has warned that Washington will consider using any option even a military one against threats to the army’s computer networks.

Nation’s talkers meet on ‘imminent threat’ – 4-26-09

WASHINGTON – Putting aside their own competitive interests, representatives of more than two dozen of the nation’s top talk shows held an unprecedented private meeting over the weekend to brainstorm strategies against what they agreed are government plans by to squelch critical political speech on radio.

Spying on Americans: “Business as Usual” under Obama

New evidence that the National Security Agency (NSA) continues to systematically spy on Americans emerged on Thursday.

Federal Authority Over the Internet? The Cybersecurity Act of 2009

There’s a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 ( PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill as it exists now risks giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security in the ways that matter most. It should be opposed or radically amended.

N.Korea threatens to down US spy planes

North Korea threatened on Wednesday to shoot down any US spy planes violating its airspace to monitor an imminent rocket launch, as a think-tank cautioned that any international over-reaction to the event could spark a war.

Ground-Based ‘Star Wars’

Disaster Or ‘Pure’ Research?

“The earth is delicately balanced, and seeks to restore balance when disturbed. No one really knows how ionospheric experiments will affect that balance, or what the earth will do in response to try to restore balance.”

UK Considers Hiring Private Companies to Monitor All Electronic Communications

The private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone’s calls, emails, texts and internet use under a key option contained in a consultation paper to be published next month by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary.

Senator: New Media Makes it Difficult to Impose Fairness Doctrine

Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin told Cybercast News Service that Obama and a Democrat dominated Congress will likely not be able to impose the Fairness Doctrine on talk radio. “It’s increasingly difficult to try and put quotas on political speech over any medium, so I think that would be the challenge anyone would face if they wanted to try and do that,” Cardin said on November 4 at the Democratic Senatorial Committee election night party.