Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman: 'Oversight of the Internet is One of His Top Priorities'

The American Spectator's Prowler column published today has a disturbing report on the plans by the Democratic Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Henry Waxman to regulate political speech on the Internet.

In addition to details of methods Waxman is considering to rein in conservative talk radio, The Prowler reports on Waxman's desire to use the power of the federal government to investigate amd control political content on the Internet.

The article quotes an unnamed committee staffer as saying of Waxman's power grab:

"Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them."

"Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and we're seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and information, while other sites that may be of interest or use to citizens get limited traffic because of the way the people search and look for information. We're at very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities."

"This isn't just about Limbaugh or a local radio host most of us haven't heard about. The FCC and state and local governments also have oversight over the Internet lines and the cable and telecom companies that operate them. We want to get alternative views on radio and TV, but we also want to makes sure those alternative views are read, heard and seen online, which is becoming increasingly video and audio driven. Thanks to the stimulus package, we've established that broadband networks -- the Internet -- are critical, national infrastructure. We think that gives us an opening to look at what runs over that critical infrastructure."

The article reports that Waxman intends to work with Democratic Party President Barack Hussein Obama's nominee to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, who is awaiting confirmation by the Democrat controlled Senate, to investigate and regulate free speech on the Internet.

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Here are my thoughts on this subject.

We're now getting into knives and pitchforks territory here. Apparently this clown from California doesn't seem to have any real concept of what the first amendment is all about.

The first amendment is very clear.CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!!!!!What problem does this clown with our rights as American citizens to blow the whistle on Hussein and his cabal.

And I would say to those who live in Waxman's district. Is this the best you can do for a representative????!!!??? I didn't know that part of the country had some many blockheads.

It doesn't surprise me one bit though. California is always well known for clowns and goonies like Waxman!!!!!!

Regards

I read the rheams of posts you made up to and on November 4th... your comments were quite clear. How many people do you think they swayed to stay home and not vote? If it was just one, it was one too many in these dangerous times... and reckless.

Oh really? Then it should be easy for you to cite those posts where I encouraged people not to vote. Interesting you claim to have read my posts but you cannot cite one that encouraged people not to vote. You can't because it never happened. Your lack of details only further shows the weakness of your statements.

George Walker Bush, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Lindsay Graham, Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe have all supported or do support the socialist Democrats on issues including amnesty for illegal aliens, global warming, campaign finance reform,opposing drilling in ANWR, UNCLOS(law of the sea treaty that would have ceded at least some of our national sovereignty to the UN), TARP (socialist bailout to businesses), nationalizing banks, nationalizing health care, the latest socialist spending bill just to name a few.

Your support of a party led by these individual couldn't be more reckless.

Indeed they are all related. In recommending the book, Liberal Fascism, it was/is my understanding that defining modern Fascism vs. Liberalism is elusive. Goldberg helps reorient the reader back to the real history of the movement. As noted by Goldberg it was H.G. Wells that coined the term Liberal Fascism,

“Progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazi's,” he told the Young Liberals at Oxford in a speech in July 1932. pg. 21.

0bama professed during the campaign he was a “Progressive Pragmatist” and despite that forthright admission few truly understood what he was saying. The historical person who claimed that same philosophy was none other than Mussolini.

Frontier.

The response came from the recipient’s ISP. Often, I was sending to a list. Some were also Frontier, of course. Some were web mails. IIRC, the webmails are among the worst in labeling forwards as spam.

It only happened with Pipe’s newsletter and I just stopped using the fwd function. I figured it was the list of recipients plus something in the newsletter headers.

In thinking further on all this, I think Waxman and company are opening a can of worms for themselves. Won’t be the first time they over-reached and had to back pedal. This sort of threat to the Internet cuts across ideological lines.

My son works in IT, right now as a network administrator. He has often said that there are too many ways to decentralize the net for this sort of control to work for them.

But, now we know why they want broadband to be ubiquitous. It is already available out here, in my rural area, but we have just resisted due to price. So, I guess if they can get us to accept a subsidy, the string will be their control.

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