“folks at the Huffington Post have to go too?”
Who do you think would be sitting on the thought police commission?
Are we going to give it back without a fight?
McCain unfortunately has said that he “does not know how to use the internet” or something like that. If that's true, he's unlikely to understand the issues or even to know what's going on.
Obama unfortunately does know what's going on, and given his thin-skinned attempts to regulate what can be said about him, he'll fer shur “do something” about the fairness doctrine and the web.
The FCC is supposed to regulate AIR WAVES and signals that go through the air.
The internet does NOT.
This is a very frightening prospect - but not nearly as frightening as the idea that a new liberal Congress may give the internet to international bodies. If they do that, then the FCC won’t have to regulate the net - the UN will do it for them.
And yes, who do you think will be judging what can and cannot be said on the net?
Warning. Government wants to control speech, and they think, thought. Got news for them. People like us will not let them do it.
Period.
Such dangerous beliefs should be expressly repugnant to every American who has a basic understanding of our heritage and Constitution. For an employed agent of the government to regard that atrocity with anything other than utter loathing is evidence of either his lack of understanding or his lack of respect for liberty and the supremacy of the Constitution.
During the days when the Fairness Doctrine was on the rule books, the Constitutional argument permitting the FCC to exercise some degree of content regulation was “scarcity of frequencies.” The theory went that anyone could start a newspaper but radio and TV frequencies were limited and hence the FCC could legitimately regulate content, at least to some degree. Limited content regulation was necessary, or so the argument went, to ensure that all voices were heard, not just the ones favored by a limited number of broadcast station owners. Hence broadcasters had and continue to have less First Amendment protection than print media, for example. (The equal time doctrine still applies to broadcast media, for example.)
There’s no legitimate way that one can argue that there’s a scarcity of Internet access or that without government intervention, all views would not be heard over the Internet. It’s far easier to set up a web site, for example, than to start a newspaper.
While one should never predict what the Congress or the Supreme Court will do, I don’t see how political content regulation of the Internet even comes close to passing Constitutional muster.
Of course, I also thought that regulating campaign contributions was an impermissible infringement upon political speech.
Jack
This is more of McDowell’s pro-cable-industry FUD.
(( ping ))
I'm still disappointed in what has happened to the party of Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, Cleveland, Wilson, and others from the days when democrats were patriots who believed in the Constitution of the United States and in the rule of law. The "Fairness Doctrine" is intended purely for partisan advantage, at the expense of the Constitution, and that is inexcusable.
Can't be said enough!
This is the road to Big Brother Infinity!
Well since the USA does not own the Internet content. It comes from all over, I guess the US would become just like China, monitoring what Internet content could be served to the USA. Not gonna happen.
Obama supports the Fairness Doctrine.
John McCain opposes the Fairness Doctrine. He's even said, as POTUS he'd veto any such legislation that comes to his desk.
They’ll have to take my computer out of my cold dead hands.