Free Republic

The Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), a group that creates advocacy campaigns themed to the spells and characters in the popular book series, is campaigning to promote net-neutrality regulations. The group first teamed up with Free Press on campaign efforts last year, as the Federal Communications Commission mulled whether to create rules reining in how phone and cable companies may treat Internet traffic. The executive director of the Harry Potter group, former comedian Andrew Slack, also participated in the Free Press conference in Boston earlier this month.

BOSTON - Even as the House voted to repeal federal Internet access rules Friday, top Democratic policymakers called free and open communications a vital part of American democracy. Speaking at Free Press’s National Conference for Media Reform, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she was pleased by Democratic opposition to the GOP-backed resolution, which cleared the House Friday afternoon. The resolution would nullify Federal Communications Commission net neutrality regulations that aim to prevent Internet service providers from blocking certain websites.

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. ......... For a man with such radical views, Mr. McChesney and his Free Press group have had astonishing influence. Mr. Genachowski’s press secretary at the FCC, Jen Howard, used to handle media relations at Free Press. The FCC’s chief diversity officer, Mark Lloyd, co-authored a Free Press report calling for regulation of political talk radio. ............... Considering how openly activist the Berkman Center has been on these issues,...

Two mainstream news organizations are receiving hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from Obamacare’s Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (ERRP) — a $5 billion grant program that’s doling out cash to companies, states and labor unions in what the Obama administration considers an effort to pay for health insurance for early retirees. The Washington Post Company raked in $573,217 in taxpayer subsidies and CBS Corporation secured $722,388 worth of Americans’ money. “It is fine with me if they continue covering the ObamaCare debate,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, in an e-mail to The Daily Caller. “When NBC used to...

Tim Wu, the coiner of the term "network neutrality", and a senior adviser to the FTC, has an interesting solution to solve the non-existent problems plaguing the tech industry. As The Chronicle of Higher Education reports: "In the class at MIT, Wu floats some hypothetical ways you could fight abuse... "something like term limits for monopolists. In theory, the government could say, 'Well, this company has clearly shown it's corrupt. ... So let's just nationalize their source code.'"

The internet is under threat. At risk is what's known as "net neutrality", or the principle of free access for each user to every online site, regardless of content. That's the view of the man who coined the above term, Tim Wu, whose new book, The Master Switch, was published yesterday. It argues the internet now runs the risk of not just political censorship – as seen in Libya and Egypt, and in the American reaction to WikiLeaks – but that of commercial censorship, too. Monopolies such as Google and Apple may soon decide to choose which parts of the...

Barack Obama has apparently set a new administration boycott of Fox News with this week's twice snubs of the news network.On Sunday, the administration sent the duo of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the Sunday morning talk shows of ABC, CBS and NBC. Fox was excluded even though, as anchor Chris Wallace noted, the Fox show has more viewers than two of its three rivals.Monday evening, CBS News White House reporter Mark Knoller posted on Twitter that Obama will be in New York City tomorrow for two Democrat fundraisers, the dedication of the...

EXCERPT A statement from the VP's office noted that "It is standard policy for the Vice President's office that a print pooler cover the speaking program at fundraisers. This has been the consistent policy throughout the Administration. At times, these fundraisers are at private homes and 'hold rooms' are provided for pool reporters to wait for the speaking program to commence. A hold room, however, should not be a storage room. This was the unfortunate mistake of an inexperienced staffer and the Vice President's office has made sure it will never happen again." Biden's office added that in this particular...

The White House website proudly says ‘President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history.’ But try telling Vice President Joe Biden’s staff that, after they held a local reporter in a closet for hours after he was invited to cover a Florida political fundraiser because they did not want him talking with the guests. As the unaware $500-a-head invitees dined on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese, grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps, veteran reporter Scott Powers was locked away. The Orlando Sentinel...

Biden Aide Apologizes After Reporter Kept in Storage Closet During Fundraiser Published March 27, 2011 | FoxNews.com The vice president's press secretary has apologized to a local political reporter after he was kept in a storage closet during a Florida fundraiser. Scott Powers, a reporter with the Orlando Sentinel, was relegated to the storage space during a fundraiser Wednesday for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., apparently to prevent him from speaking to people before Vice President Biden showed up. The Orlando Sentinel published a brief account of the incident earlier in the week. Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander, responding to coverage of...

*** REPORTER CONFINED IN CLOSET DURING VEEP'S FUNDRAISER *** Sat March 26 2011 17:04:37 EDT Staffers with Vice President Joe Biden confined an Orlando Sentinel reporter in a closet this week to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests gathered for a Democratic fundraiser. Reporter Scott Powers was the designated "pool reporter" for the vice president's Wednesday visit to the massive Winter Park, Fla., home of developer and philanthropist Alan Ginsburg. The veep hadn't arrived yet but most of the 150 guests (minimum $500 donation) had. They were busy noshing on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread...

An incident at a Florida Democratic political fundraiser this week should be front page news in every paper in the country, and the lead story on TV newscasts, but it has been virtually buried…. until now Here are the details. On Wednesday morning, Vice President Joe Biden attended a fundraiser for Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. The event was at the home of billionaire real estate developer Alan Ginsberg, a long-time Dem supporter. Ginsberg’s enormous lakefront home is in an exclusive section of Winter Park, an uber-upscale Orlando suburb. To give you an idea of the size and opulence of the...

As the House of Representatives votes today on whether to cut National Public Radio funding, consider a thought experiment: Imagine that Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly had IRS agents force you and every American to contribute money to the companies that produce their shows. Imagine further that they also had Congress and the Federal Communications Commission force NPR to fire “All Things Considered” host Michele Norris and replace her with a Limbaugh protégé. Even if you like Rush and O’Reilly, the thought of these coercive actions surely sticks in your craw. Yet that is just what Free Press, a leading...

Less than an hour after the Federal Communications Commission approved net neutrality rules, Republican lawmakers began staking their claim in the next potential leg of the debate: repeal. The first calls to roll back the FCC's new net neutrality order came Tuesday from the House's most senior Republicans: House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, as well as the incoming leaders of the chamber's top tech and telecom committees. The members each threatened to limit the agency's funds or restrict its jurisdiction in the aftermath of the FCC’s vote, with Boehner proclaiming the "new...

Open Letter to FCC Calling for Real Net Neutrality More than 80 grassroots organizations, consumer groups, civil rights organizations, innovative businesses, technology experts and public interest advocates filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission on Friday, signaling broad support for strong Network Neutrality rules. The letter highlighted five key areas in which rules proposed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski must be improved to protect the free and open Internet. The Commission is slated to vote on Net Neutrality on Dec. 21. FCC_Letter_Real_Net_Neutrality.pdf freepress = reform media. transform democracy.

Last week, National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller took a break from her crusade for a government takeover of the media to swat a fly. With now-former NPR analyst Juan Williams suitably splattered across the evening news after politically incorrect comments he made on Fox News, Schiller can return to her real passion – the creation of a national network to ensure that in the future, you get your news from the government in general and NPR in particular.

Memo to: George Soros Barbra Streisand Craig Newmark The Rockefellers From: A friend When you and/or your personal foundations decided to bankroll the uber-socialists at Free Press to lobby for Net neutrality, it probably sounded like a good idea at the time. After all, “The One” had made a campaign stop at Google headquarters in 2007 and declared that no one was more committed to neutrality regulation than he was. So you probably figured that you’d send Free Press some large checks and then bask in your own virtuousness. That’s pretty much your strategy for every other issue so why...

After the U.S. Government took action against several sites connected to movie streaming recently, nerves are jangling over the possibility that this is just the beginning of a wider crackdown. Now it appears that a free blogging platform has been taken down by its hosting provider on orders from the U.S. authorities on grounds of “a history of abuse”. More than 73,000 blogs are out of action as a result. Hot on the heels of recent threats from Vice President Joe Biden and Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel directed at sites offering unauthorized movies and music, last month U.S....

From Obama's May 2nd Michigan Graduation Speech: Today's twenty-four seven echo chamber amplifies the most inflammatory soundbites louder and faster than ever before. It has also, however, given us unprecedented choice. ...we now have the option to get our information from any number of blogs or websites or cable news shows. This development can be both good and bad for democracy. .. if we choose to actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions and our beliefs, perhaps we can begin to understand where the people who disagree with us are coming from. This of course requires that we all...

Hugo Chavez still had one opposition television station, Globalvision, until he issued a warrant for owner Guillermo Zuloago's arrest and seized Banco Federal, a bank founded by a Globalvision director. Reuters says Globalvision is "often shrill," its reporting "one-sided," and is simply a "soap box," for Chavez' opponents. Memo to Reuters: there are no other television stations opposing the banty-rooster dictator.