If it concerns the media these days that it hard to get true
facts.
With this administration spinning the news
and outright lying.
It is hard to believe anyone. This website is dedicate to clearing up the bull-crap-journalism
and supporting honest and fair reporting. This page will contain updates in regards to the free press and issues
that affect the Media and the Press which in turn affect us all. be sure to read the article 1/2 way down that came from
the freepress.net website with some really good issues to throw out on the table. Let’s Get
Busy....! ~joe
In April 2009, a full-blown customer revolt forced Time Warner Cable to temporary halt its metered billing program — a tiered-pricing system that charges customers based on how much bandwidth they consume.
(Like cell phone plans, but more unworkable and annoying because it’s impossible to gauge how much bandwidth is being
used at any one time).
As customer ire grew, TWC spokespeople unconvincingly argued that the program was meant to keep heavy users from devouring too much bandwidth and slowing down Internet traffic for everyone
else. Not surprisingly, no one bought TWC's claims that their primary concern was the wellbeing of customers, as opposed to,
say, creating a new revenue stream and curbing online consumption of their cable offerings.
Not to be swayed by consumer wants and needs though, Time Warner pledged to reintroduce the program at an undisclosed later
date, following a sinisterly-termed “customer education process." So, it’s only a matter of time before there's an explosion of fake consumer rights groups and other fun astrosurf
that try to convince you it’s in your interest to pay more for Internet. (Look forward to ads featuring distressed old
people wondering why they can’t read emails from their grandkids. “You! It’s because of you and all that
online porn you watch!” their eyes will accuse.)
It looks like TWC is already laying the legal groundwork for their propaganda campaign. Some sharp-eyed TWC customers noticed
a recent change to their terms of service, as Stacey Higginbotham reports on Gigaom:
Time Warner Cable has modified the language of its consumer subscriber agreement that is directed at legitimizing the cable company’s ability to throttle and measure
a consumer’s bandwidth. The new additions to the agreement also sanction tiered pricing. After Time Warner Cable’s
failed attempt to expand tiered billing trials, which created different pricing
plans for consumers based on the amount of data they downloaded, the company promised it would shelve the plans while it educated
consumers. It looks like that education campaign may come now that the legal bases are theoretically covered. Here’s
the new language:
6. Special Provisions Regarding HSD Service
(ii) I agree that TWC or ISP may change the Maximum Throughput Rate of any tier by amending
the price list or Terms of Use. My continued use of the HSD Service following such a change will constitute
my acceptance of any new Maximum Throughput Rate. If the level or tier of HSD Service to which I subscribe has a specified
limit on the amount of bytes that I can use in a given billing cycle, I also agree that TWC may use technical means, including
but not limited to suspending or reducing the speed of my HSD Service, to ensure compliance with these limits, and that TWC
or ISP may move me to a higher tier of HSD Service (which may result in higher monthly charges)
or impose other charges and fees if my use exceeds these limits.
(iii) I agree that TWC may use Network Management Tools as it determines appropriate and/or that it may use technical means,
including but not limited to suspending or reducing the Throughput Rate of my HSD Service, to ensure compliance with its Terms
of Use and to ensure that its service operates efficiently. I further agree that TWC and ISP have
the right to monitor my bandwidth usage patterns to facilitate the provision of the HSD Service and to ensure
my compliance with the Terms of Use and to efficiently manage their networks and their provision of services. TWC or ISP may
take such steps as each may determine appropriate in the event my usage of the HSD Service does not comply with the Terms
of Use. I acknowledge that HSD Service does not include other services managed by TWC and delivered
over TWC’s shared infrastructure, including Video Service and Digital Phone Service.
The language means that a subscriber can’t sign up for a contract plan hoping to avoid tiered pricing by getting
in before a new tiered plan is implemented. It also specifically threatens throttling of a person’s service for violating
the terms of use
New
America Media is the country's first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations. Over
51 million ethnic adults connect to each other, to home countries and to America through 3000+ ethnic media, the fastest growing
sector of American journalism.
Founded by the nonprofit Pacific News Service in 1996, NAM is headquartered in California with offices in New York and Washington D.C., and partnerships with journalism schools to grow local associations of ethnic media.
OUR MISSION
This is a streaming MP4 video - you'll need Quicktime 6 or later to view it.
NAM is dedicated to bringing the voices of the marginalized - ethnic minorities, immigrants, young people, elderly - into
the national discourse. The communities of the New America will then be better informed, better connected to one another,
and better able to influence policy makers.
PATHWAYS TO OUR MISSION
NAM
produces, aggregates and disseminates multimedia content and services for and from the youth and ethnic media sectors. NAM
has developed these pathways to achieve our goals:
GROW A COLLECTIVE presence for the more than 3000 ethnic news outlets nationwide and professionalize the sector
through the following:
Awards and EXPOs
Journalism school partnerships
Newsmaker briefings
Seminars and workshops for professional development
BRING THE VOICES of otherwise invisible communities - ethnic minorities, immigrants, young people - into national
and regional focus through multi-lingual and cell phone polls. Some of our most recent polls that made headlines nationwide:
ENHANCE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT programs that produce peer-to-peer youth media and inter-generational dialogue through
ethnic and mainstream media. Youth media content from YO! Youth Outlook, YO! TV, Silicon Valley De-Bug, The Beat Within, Sprawl Magazine, Roaddawgz and The Know provides a window into youth culture.
DEVELOP AND PROMOTE social marketing and corporate messaging campaigns that expand the sector's access to advertising.
NAM has channeled over $13 million in advertising dollars to ethnic media from HUD, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Flex Your Power, The California Endowment, California's Administrative Office of the Courts, and Kaiser Permanente. More on marketing
Robert McChesney - The Life and Death Struggle for Journalism and Self-Government
Media critic and historian, Robert McChesney, talks
about the essential role of journalism for meaningful democracy, and puts forward a radical proposal to address the challenges
faced my news media in the current economic crisis, and into the future
“i” is a meditation on the relationship between
media and power as it is manifested by the worlds largest all volunteer network of media activists — Indymedia. The
feature-length documentary follows the first year of a small collective in Buenos Aires as it struggles amidst assassinations,
a collapsing economy, and a whirlwind of political upheaval......
i's non-linear structure mimics the network ideology it documents. The viewer encounters a series
of interlocking events, parallel storylines, and related imagery that coalesce around a small group of individuals within
Indymedia Argentina — who are themselves linked internally and externally to the forces that surround them.
The
film progresses through a series of "hyperlinked" excerpts from different media renderings of the upheaval, offering an exploration
of the events themselves as well as the story-telling capabilities found in the embedded structure of information on the web.
This structure serves to illuminate the concepts of collective communication, horizontal organization and networked social
action. The result is a fractal-like portrait, disclosing a repetition of form and phenomenon regardless of the scale at which
it is examined. "i" uses the micro-scale of the individual collective to mirror and frame the macro-scale of the surrounding
social movements, theoretical philosophies, organizations, and events.
In editing this film, Lyon and Ingoglia pored
through hours of footage from several continents, looking for the resonant moments where these specific connections and intersections
unfurled. This delicate process took four years and much meditation — as they sought to portray what at first glance
might be a largely invisible phenomenon. What has emerged is not only a document of a particularly notable moment in history,
but a profound testimony of the experience of unfolding network consciousness.
DVD 84 minutes Englisch / Spanisch
voice over
special features: The Eye of the Storm (film prequel), 14 min selected scenes of the first
indymedia center radical media making in Argentina in the 70s rare extended interviews with indymedia founders subtitles
in English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Korean, Bahasa, Suomi, Italian suitable for mixed spanish/english audiences
"beautiful, intellectual, riotous. It fits in no box.", Naomi Klein Website i the film
RSS
AND HOW TO DO IT
RSS Reader Info
on my
zebra 3 report blog
10-15-08
Craigslist founder says.....
October 3, 2008 11:23 AM PDT
Craigslist founder criticizes telecoms for
'artificial' Net neutrality debate
WASHINGTON-- 10/2/08 For someone not interested in politics, Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark spends
quite a bit of time these days working with people in Washington.
"Most people, including myself, don't want to be bothered with politics," Newmark said Friday at Google's
Washington, D.C., headquarters. "They just want to call 311 to get a pothole fixed."
Yet as a proponent for policy ideas like Net neutrality and government transparency, Newmark has found
himself an unlikely advocate for career lobbyists--just the good kind, though.
The Photographer’s Right is a downloadable guide that
is loosely based on the Bust Card and the Know Your Rights pamphlet
that used to be available on the ACLU website. It may be downloaded and printed out using Adobe Acrobat Reader. You may make
copies and carry them your wallet, pocket, or camera bag to give you quick access to your rights and obligations concerning
confrontations over photography. You may distribute the guide to others, provided that such distribution is not done for commercial
gain and credit is given to the author.
A panel discussion of the Media and Law Enforcement at the 2008 Republican National
Convention in St. Paul: What Went Wrong, What Went Right? Sponsored by Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists, the
Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, the Minnesota Journalism Center and the School of Journalism & Mass
Communication at the University of Minnesota.
Action Update:
Journalists
Arrested
On Friday, we delivered your letter to St. Paul authorities,
telling them that we won't stand for the intimidation and harassment of journalists.
With many of the arrested journalists at our side we delivered
more than 60,000 letters (collected in less than 48 hours) demanding that St. Paul authorities
drop charges against all journalists arrested during last week’s Republican National Convention.
The charges have not been dropped yet, but we are going
to keep the pressure on until they are. If you have not already, please send this email to your friends and ask them to help join our call.
In the meantime, here are videos of the event filmed by
the citizen journalists at TheUptake.org:
"From the pre-convention raids to the ongoing harassment
and arrests of journalists, these have been dark days for press freedom in the United States," said Nancy Doyle Brown of the
Twin Cities Media Alliance, before she helped to deliver the Free Press letters.
"Tragically, there are stories that the world needed to
hear this week that will never be told," Brown said. "They won't be told because reporters working on them were sitting in
the back of squad cars, were stripped of their cameras, or were face down on the pavement with their hands cuffed behind their
backs."
Many journalists still face charges. Free Press will not
rest until these charges are dropped. You can help by sending more letters to St. Paul:
Friday's rally sent a powerful message in support of journalists
and free speech and against press intimidation. You played a vital role in making this happen.
P.S. A generous Free Press supporter
has offered a $300,000 matching grant. Help
us meet this ambitious goal! Your gift today will help Free Press continue to do our work.
You'd think by now candidates would have figured out that you prevent having "Macaca Moments" by not showing your true
colors in front of video cameras, but some of them are slow learners, I guess. In Washington, Republican gubernatorial candidate
Dino Rossi tried to avoid having the opposition record him by having his goons rough up a cameraman--which was all captured on video. Oops.
Apparently, a "press conference" in Dino Rossi's world is not a public event. He's a mini-Bush in the making, his race
fueled by bitterness and sour grapes from his narrow loss in 2004. It's encouraging that the Seattle Times (one of
the least confrontational, most milque-toast major dailies in the nation when it comes to covering politics) actually covered
this story. Hopefully they'll make a habit of it. Dino Rossi has skated far too long on his nice guy, harmless image.
As expected, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday approved an enforcement action against Comcast over its network management policies, but the Republican commissioners slammed the decision as unnecessary, overly intrusive, and of questionable legal
basis.
The majority decided against imposing a fine against Comcast, but required the cable provider to: disclose
the details of its current network management practices; submit a compliance plan about how it will stop its current policy
by year's end; and to disclose to the FCC and the public the details of network management practices Comcast intends to use
in place of its current practices.
If Comcast fails to comply with the action, it will be subject to interim injunctive relief and additional
enforcement action, according to the order. The FCC will review Comcast's behavior on an ongoing basis.
"In short, [Comcast was] not simply blocking their network; they had arbitrarily picked an application
and blocked their subscribers' access to it," FCC chairman Kevin Martin said during a Friday meeting at the commission.
Specifically, the commission found that Comcast: blocked customers who were using very little bandwidth
simply because they were using a disfavored application; ignored customers using an extraordinary amount of bandwidth even
during periods of peak network congestion as long as they weren't using a disfavored application; delayed and blocked customers
using a disfavored application even when there was no network congestion; and extended this practice to regions much larger
than where it claimed congestion occurred.
The order will make clear that "the FCC is not having a one-night stand with Net neutrality but an affair
of the heart and commitment for life," said Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps, who voted in favor of the action. "We recognize
that protecting Internet openness is like protecting the Internet's immune system."
Sena Fitzmaurice, senior director of corporate communications and government affairs at Comcast, said the company was "gratified" that the FCC decided against a fine, but "disappointed"
by the enforcement action.
"We believe that our network management choices were reasonable, wholly consistent with industry practices and that we did not block access to Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services," Fitzmaurice
said.
Comcast again questioned whether the FCC has the authority to act on this issue.
"We are considering all our legal options and are disappointed that the commission rejected our attempts
to settle this issue without further delays," she concluded.
Comcast's network management policies can under fire last year after tests conducted by the Associated
Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) concluded that Comcast was blocking access to certain file-sharing applications
like BitTorrent. Comcast admitted to delaying traffic during peak times, but has continually denied ever blocking any applications.
The FCC took up the issues after Washington-based interest group Free Press filed a complaint.
Free Press said Friday that the FCC ruling was a "major victory."
"Today's order makes it clear that there is nothing reasonable about restricting access to online content
or technologies," Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, said in a statement.
Marvin Ammori, Free Press' general counsel, said he would not be surprised if Comcast sued the FCC over
the ruling, but was confident that any court would uphold the FCC order.
Project TUPA was created by Free Radio Berkeley to empower indigenous, campesino and barrio
communities in the Americas with the tools, technology, knowledge and skills to build and maintain their own community broadcast
stations. Project TUPA (Transmitters Uniting the Peoples of the Americas) is a non-profit project under the fiscal sponsorship
of Global Exchange in San Francisco, California.
Even though 70 percent of the population in South America live under
nominally left of center governments, much of the broadcast media is under the control of media conglomerates - unbridled
cheerleaders for neo-liberal policies and vehement opponents of popular movements for grass roots democracy. Indigenous, campesino
and barrio communities lack the resources to effectively counter the private media outlets. Communication is a fundamental,
inalienable human right. Empowering local communities with low cost broadcast stations, gives a voice to people who are otherwise
totally cut off from any other means of communication they can control and speak to one another with.
Project TUPA
needs your financial support to equip communities throughout Latin America with their own broadcast stations. Project TUPA
offers four to five day radio camps that teach people how to build an FM broadcast transmitter and set up a radio station
through direct hands-on learning. Workshop, participants are able to walk away with an assembled 40-watt transmitter and necessary
equipment to create a community broadcast station capable of covering an area up to 8-10 miles in radius.
Unlike electoral
campaigns and lobbying efforts, donations to Project TUPA produce concrete and tangible results at relatively low cost. A
complete FM broadcast station can be placed on the air for less than $2000. The money spent to broadcast one political ad
or place a one page spread in a major newspaper in the U.S. would be sufficient to create dozens of such small stations. For
$10,000, a 4-5 day radio camp training session can be conducted in any given country, leading to the establishment of ten
entry level 40-watt radio stations at an average cost of $700 to $1000 per station.
Project TUPA recognizes and supports
the struggles of the peoples of the Americas for a decent standard of living, an end to environmental devastation and destruction,
social justice, political autonomy, grassroots democracy, control of natural resources and the preservation of indigenous
cultures.
Throughout Latin America popular movements are rising to reject the failed policies of neo-liberalism and
create fair, just and equitable societies based on grassroots democracy and sovereign control of natural resources. A very
critical period exists between now and the latter half of 2006, when elections are scheduled to take place throughout Latin
America. Expanding community media resources is an essential task, especially now within this window of impending elections.
Your
contribution to Project TUPA will assist the peoples of the Americas in establishing grassroots democracy by creating and
controlling their own forms of media expression. Click on the donation link. All contributions are tax-deductable.
You may also request a Project TUPA DVD made possible by funding from the
San Francisco Foundation. The TUPA video is also available as a streaming video in the following formats:
Real Video (256K stream, DSL or Cable connections only) click here (rtsp://rss3.streamhoster.com/tupavideo/tupavideo.rm).
There are about 55 seconds of black at the start.
Windows Media - clickhere (http://wms3.streamhoster.com/tupavideo/tupavideo.wmv)
Quicktime
(256K stream, DSL or Cable connections only) clickhere (rtsp://dss3.streamhoster.com/tupavideo/TUPAVIDEOfinalqtstr.mov)
Project TUPA Free
Radio Berkeley 1442A Walnut St., Suite 406 Berkeley, CA 94709 510-625-0314
Google
had responded to my question about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit demanding that the Department of Justice turn
over correspondence between its former chief privacy officer and Google's current chief privacy officer, who are one and the
same attorney, Jane Horvath.
Some background before we get to that reply.
(Update: And that reply is followed by
yet another this afternoon, which has Google suggesting, in so many words, that there is nothing for the DoJ to turn
over to EFF in this case. You can read it in full below.)
Essentially, through a Freedom Of Information Act request, the EFF wants to know the substance of any interaction the then-DoJ's Horvath had with Google
during -- and subsequent to -- a highly charged 2006 dispute over the DoJ's arm-twisting to get Google to turn over a mountain of search records.
That request was later ratcheted down to smaller pile of search records and Google caved, unwisely. (Note: Google disputes
that "caved, unwisely" characterization, noting that they acted under court order, and also that no "search queries" were turned over, rather 5,000 URLs.) The fact that Horvath not long thereafter became Google's Horvath is what set eyebrows arching.
Six months after being asked for the public
records, the DoJ has given the EFF nothing other than an initial acknowledgement of having received the request.
Here's what Google told me in a statement
yesterday: "Google did not work with Jane Horvath on this issue when she was at DoJ."
One way to interpret that statement is
that the DoJ hasn't complied with the EFF's request because there's nothing to turn over.
Not so fast, said EFF attorney David Sobel,
in response to my question yesterday seeking interpretation of the Google reply. He said the Google reply was a lawyerly
answer to the wrong question.
"We never referenced the (2006 DoJ vs.
Google) subpoena issue in our FOIA request or lawsuit, and that's not what we're asking for," said Sobel. "We merely mentioned
it in our PR because Horvath made some interesting comments about it (and the vast amount of info Google collects) in an interview during her first
few months at DOJ."
Here's what the EFF lawsuit says was requested of the DoJ on Aug. 16, 2007: "All correspondence, electronic mail or other communications between Jane C. Horvath, the Department's Chief Privacy
and Civil Liberties Officer, and employees, representatives and/or agents of Google, Inc. … created from February 2006
to the present."
I'm no lawyer, but that would appear to
make Google's reply to me yesterday non-responsive, although that could conceivably be a byproduct of yesterday's press coverage
that focused so intently on the 2006 DoJ/Google dispute.
I'll try Google again today.
(Update: That try produced the following
statement from Google:)
"We have no issue with EFF's
request to the government for this information or filing a lawsuit as a followup to that request. We also would have been
and are still happy to talk to EFF about this, but EFF has not asked us any questions or explained what they have concerns
about.
Regarding the DoJ lawsuit
in the EFF press release, the reference is incorrect - the judge's ruling was explicit in completely rejecting DoJ's demand
for search queries. Also, we sought the views of EFF on this particular case before and during the case, so EFF should be
very familiar with the facts of the case and the judge's ruling, which is of course publicly available.
Regarding Jane Horvath, she did no work with Google or on cases involving
Google while at DoJ. Once she contacted Google about a job, she formally recused herself from any Google matters, although
there were none."
Now, Horvath deserves credit for her deft
career switch -- what's not to like about leaving evil to join "do no evil" -- but it would appear that the DoJ isn't done
accounting for her involvement with her current employer during the time her job was to protect the privacy rights of the
public.
Battling big media to be heard in the debates. Breaking the silence on Democracy Now! Fighting for
ballot access in Texas with a little help from music legend Willie Nelson. NBC who profits big, off of nuclear power dont
want Dennis speaking in their city or in the Debates.
All that and an interview with Academy Award-nominee James Cromwell in this week's Kucinich Campaign
Update YouTube clip
Local Media Reports CNN Will Be Replaced by Al Jazeera International
By SIMON MCGREGOR-WOOD
JERUSALEM, Nov. 5, 2007 —
Israel's largest cable TV service has taken CNN off its programming list.
The cable provider HOT took CNN away from its Israeli viewers Oct. 31 as a result of a disagreement over costs.
In its place it has provided Fox News as a temporary replacement. (sic)
Yossi Lubaton, HOT's vice president of marketing, said: "It's an economic issue. Most of the internationally famous news
channels Sky, BBC and Fox for all of them the cost is significantly lower than CNN."
That claim is disputed by Hagit Mendes, CNN's spokeswoman in Israel.
"HOT presented us with an ultimatum on Oct. 30 demanding a 30 percent reduction in the cost of showing CNN, which was totally
unacceptable. We do not respond to ultimatums," she said to ABC News on Sunday.
Mendes confirmed that there are currently no negotiations to restore CNN, but added, "we're hoping that changes."
HOT is engaged in a significant cost-cutting exercise, attempting to reduce running costs by 30 percent.
Local media reports suggest HOT is preparing to replace CNN with Al Jazeera International, the English
language partner of the Qatar-based Arabic network.
In the past the global news provider has attracted criticism in Israel for perceived imbalance in its news coverage of
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But both sides in the current dispute deny the decision to drop CNN has anything to do with
CNN's editorial content.
"Israeli viewers value our product as the leading international news channel," Mendes said.
For now, CNN hopes that pressure from disgruntled HOT subscribers will force HOT into taking a more flexible approach in
any resumed negotiations.
December 11, 2007, 8:44 pm (posted)
GOOGLE
TRACKING
and .......YOU
As Ask Erases Little, Google and Others Keep Writing About You
With Ask.com introducing the AskEraser — a switch that will stop the site from collecting information about a user — it’s worth checking in on
the real state of play with the accumulation of data online.
As usual, the reality is very far from the public perception. Ask is far down on the list of sites that anyone who cares
about privacy would be concerned about. It is hardly pervasive, so it doesn’t collect much data at all. And Ask doesn’t
even run its own advertising system (it uses Google) so it doesn’t have much reason to collect data.
Of course, Ask is simply trying to gain marketing points by differentiating itself from Google, which to some embodies
the erosion of privacy in the Internet world.
Google indeed collects a lot of data. It sees the bulk of the searches on the Internet and an increasing amount of other
activity. And it obsessively files away most every scrap of data it receives. (Google will say that much of this data doesn’t
include the personal identity of the user it is tracking. In fact, it actually has enough pieces of information to identify
a lot of users if it really wanted to.)
Google, however, has been very reluctant to use all this data in its advertising business. One reason is that it has other
information that solves its main problem: picking the right ads to show on each page. It uses what people are searching for
on its search site and the content of other pages on which ads appear (including, of course, the content of messages displayed
in Gmail).
But as Google gets bigger it is tiptoeing into using more data for targeting. It tries to determine the location of users
in order to show ads of local businesses. It also gets some personal information about users from partner sites on which it
displays ads — like MySpace — to help it choose ads.
And Google has now started dipping its little toe into the pool that Madison Avenue calls behavioral targeting. That approach is based on the idea that the best way to pick an ad to show you now is to look
at your online activity from a few hours or days ago. The classic example is showing car dealer ads to someone who searched
for minivans yesterday.
Google is testing this concept by exploiting a feature of the way Internet browsers work, according to a Google spokesman.
When a browser asks a site for a given page (such as the search results for a specific term) it sends it the address of the
last page the user saw.
Google is using this information to take into account what you just searched for and your previous search when it displays
ads. The Google spokesman said the cookies that Google places on users’ hard drives to identify repeat visitors do not
come into play here.
Here’s how you can see this in action. Search for “lawyers” on Google. You will see law firm ads, some
perhaps near where you are. Then search for “malpractice.” Now search for “lawyers” again. This time
the ads will be for lawyers who specialize in malpractice.
So far this is largely harmless. It’s hard to imagine any violation that comes from Google having access to what
you did 30 seconds before. What’s interesting is what comes next. As Google moves to place advertising on sites like
MySpace, which have no natural advertisers, there is ever more pressure for it to use other sources of information to raise
the prices at which it can sell those ads. Google is too quantitative — and it has too many engineers hanging around
— not to be trying to calculate the extra money it would earn by using behavioral data for ad targeting. It also knows
that it is a company in a fishbowl and anything it does that smacks of privacy invasion will cause a storm of comment and
likely protest.
Most significantly, Google would be foolish to do anything that highlighted the way it could use its data until it receives
final approval to buy DoubleClick.
One other thought here: Google is a lightning rod for debate about privacy because it is extending so quickly into so many
areas. But there are so many other companies that are far nosier about what you do online and are unafraid to exploit that
information. (I wrote about this last year, and activity in targeting has gotten more intense since then.)
From the start, Yahoo has seen itself as a company that uses data about users for the benefit of advertisers. And Yahoo
already uses what you search for to pick which ads to show you on other parts of its site.
What’s more, there are advertising networks most people have never heard of (including Tacoda and Advertising.com,
both owned by AOL, and BlueLithium, recently bought by Yahoo) that are in the business of collecting data about Internet users
for advertising. Even creepier, Internet service providers are starting to monitor everything their users do to funnel ads to them.
All this is not to say that there is anything wrong with what Ask is doing. Some people may well want to search on a site
that says it won’t remember anything about what they do. But the issues of what data is collected and how it is used
is are far more relevant for Google, Yahoo, and a bunch of firms that are hidden from view.
Some tourists, amateur photographers, even would-be filmmakers hoping to make it big on YouTube could soon be forced to
obtain a city permit and $1 million in liability insurance before taking pictures or filming on city property, including sidewalks.
New rules being considered by the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting would require any group of two
or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to get a city permit and insurance.
The same requirements would apply to any group of five or more people who plan to use a tripod in a public location for
more than 10 minutes, including the time it takes to set up the equipment.
Julianne Cho, assistant commissioner of the film office, said the rules were not intended to apply to families on vacation
or amateur filmmakers or photographers.
Nevertheless, the New York Civil Liberties Union says the proposed rules, as strictly interpreted, could have that effect. The group also warns that the rules set the stage
for selective and perhaps discriminatory enforcement by police.
“These rules will apply to a huge range of casual photography and filming, including tourists taking snapshots and
people making short videos for YouTube,” said Christopher Dunn, the group’s associate legal director.
Mr. Dunn suggested that the city deliberately kept the language vague, and that as a result police would have broad discretion
in enforcing the rules. In a letter sent to the film office this week, Mr. Dunn said the proposed rules would potentially
apply to tourists in places like Times Square, Rockefeller Center or ground zero, “where people routinely congregate
for more than half an hour and photograph or film.”
The rule could also apply to people waiting in line to enter the Empire State Building or other tourist attractions.
The rules define a “single site” as any area within 100 feet of where filming begins. Under the rules, the
two or more people would not actually have to be filming, but could simply be holding an ordinary camera and talking to each
other.
The rules are intended to set standards for professional filmmakers and photographers, said Ms. Cho, assistant commissioner
of the film office, but the language of the draft makes no such distinction.
“While the permitting scheme does not distinguish between commercial and other types of filming, we anticipate that
these rules will have minimal, if any, impact on tourists and recreational photographers, including those that use tripods,”
Ms. Cho said in an e-mail response to questions.
Mr. Dunn said that the civil liberties union asked repeatedly for such a distinction in negotiations on the rules but that
city officials refused, ostensibly to avoid creating loopholes that could be exploited by professional filmmakers and photographers.
City officials would not confirm that yesterday. But Mark W. Muschenheim, a lawyer with the city’s law department,
which helped draft the rules, said, “There are few instances, if any, where the casual tourist would be affected.”
The film office held a public hearing on the proposed rules yesterday, but no one attended. The only written comments the
department received were from the civil liberties group, Ms. Cho said.
Ms. Cho said the office expected to publish a final version of the rules at the end of July. They would go into effect
a month later.
The permits would be free and applications could be obtained online, Ms. Cho said. The draft rules say the office could
take up to 30 days to issue a permit, but Ms. Cho said she expected that most would be issued within 24 hours.
Mr. Dunn says that in addition to the rules being overreaching, they would also create enforcement problems.
“Your everyday person out there with a camcorder is never going to know about the rules,” Mr. Dunn said. “It
completely opens the door to discriminatory enforcement of the permit requirements, and that is of enormous concern to us
because the people who are going to get pointed out are the people who have dark skin or who are shooting in certain locations.”
The rules were promulgated as a result of just such a case, Mr. Dunn said.
In May 2005, Rakesh Sharma, an Indian documentary filmmaker, was using a hand-held video camera in Midtown Manhattan when
he was detained for several hours and questioned by police.
During his detention, Mr. Sharma was told he was required to have a permit to film on city property. According to a lawsuit,
Mr. Sharma sought information about how permits were granted and who was required to have one but found there were no written
guidelines. Nonetheless, the film office told him he was required to have a permit, but when he applied, the office refused
to grant him one and would not give him a written explanation of its refusal.
As part of a settlement reached in April, the film office agreed to establish written rules for issuing permits. Mr. Sharma
could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Mr. Dunn said most of the new rules were reasonable. Notably, someone using a hand-held video camera, as Mr. Sharma was
doing, would no longer have to get a permit.
FEB 23 2007
In Defense of a Free Press
Journalist Sarah Olson talks about her defiance in the face of a subpoena by the Army, the rights of U.S. journalists
and what the wider context is of the Army’s court martial of First Lt. Ehren Watada
Sarah Olson, a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay area, has became a hero for Americans concerned about the erosion
of press freedoms in the Bush era. On May 30, 2006, Olson interviewed Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first commissioned
officer to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq, for the Web site truthout.org and Pacifica Radio. For that refusal, on Feb.
5, the Army hauled him before a military court in Fort Lewis, Washington, for a court-martial. The Army charged him with one
count of “missing movement,” for refusing to deploy to Iraq, and four counts of conduct unbecoming an officer
and a gentleman—two of which stem from statements he made to individual journalists regarding his opposition to the
Iraq war.
To help make their case, in December, the U.S. military subpoenaed Olson to testify in Watada’s military trial, where
if convicted he could face a year in jail for each of the two charges related to speaking with Olson and, on a separate occasion,
Greg Kakesako of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
The subpoena required Olson to appear in court on behalf of the prosecution to verify Watada’s statements, even though
audio files were available on the Internet. If she refused to comply, she risked a felony charge and six months in jail.
So, Olson started a campaign to challenge the subpoena. On Jan. 29, bowing to public pressure, the Army dropped the subpoena
against Olson just prior to the start of the trial. The defense and the prosecution had reached a deal: Watada would verify
the statements attributed to him and in response the prosecution would drop the two charges resulting from statements he made
to journalists. Watada’s court-martial resulted in a mistrial on Feb. 7, when the military judge nullified the Stipulation
of Facts accepted by the prosecution and the defense. A new trial will begin on March 19.
For upholding the First Amendment right to freedom of the press, Olson will receive the James Madison Award from the Society
of Professional Journalists on March 13. The award is named after Madison, the fourth President of the United States and the
creative force behind the First Amendment.
In These Times recently spoke with Olson about her case, its significance and the challenges currently facing defenders
of the First Amendment.
A number of journalists have recently been subpoenaed to reveal their confidential sources and/or
hand over unpublished material. How was your situation different?
It was a military court that subpoenaed me, rather than a civilian court. The military is the only place that I know of
where people in the United States can be charged with making personal political statements. For me, that’s the biggest
difference.
Why didn’t you just verify what Lt. Watada said and get it over with?
It’s a journalist’s job to report the news, not to participate in the government’s prosecution of personal
political speech. These kinds of subpoenas erode the barrier between press and government. When speech itself is a crime,
journalists are turned into an investigative tool of the government. It also scares journalists away from covering stories
that may not be popular with the current administration.
How would you compare your situation to that of former New York Times correspondent Judith
Miller?
Judy Miller’s case is about revealing confidential sources and who leaked classified information about something.
Everything Lt. Watada said is on the record. So it’s not the typical framework people think of when they think of journalists
being subpoenaed. This case is about preserving the right of ordinary Americans, particularly men and women in the armed services,
to speak to the press without fear of retribution or censure. A number of people have suggested that the Army may be using
his court-martial to send a message to the rest of the military that public opposition to the war isn’t going to be
tolerated.
A lot of people are really down on Judy Miller. I can understand that because she may have done more than any other single
person in the United States to help create the war in Iraq. Her consistently bad reporting and unwillingness to verify the
accuracy of the things she was saying is one of the reasons that we’re in the war today. America’s threshold for
bringing journalists into court has been significantly lowered in part because of Judy Miller.
Josh Wolf, another Bay Area-based media worker, is in jail for refusing to hand over his unpublished
material. Do you think your victory is relevant to his case?
I certainly hope to raise awareness about his case. Josh was working as an independent videographer—he sold his footage
of a San Francisco protest against the G8 Summit in 2005 to the local news—and the local/federal law enforcement agencies
wanted his unpublished outtakes. That’s totally protected under the California state shield law. [The shield law protects
a journalist from being held in contempt of court for refusing to disclose unpublished information that was gathered for news
purposes, whether the source is confidential or not.] The prosecutor got around that by convening a federal grand jury, saying
that a cop car allegedly set on fire during the protest was purchased in part by federal dollars.
On Feb. 6 2007, Josh broke the record for
the longest number of days that a journalist in the United States has been incarcerated for not handing over his unpublished
material to a federal grand jury. It’s possible that Josh will continue to sit in prison after having broken no law
whatsoever, which is an infuriating and gross injustice.
A. Generally speaking you can't upload any video you don't own. This means
that if you didn't create the video (and everything else in it!) you can't upload it to blip.tv or any other site.
There are exceptions to this rule, though. If you have clear permission from the original creator of the video
you're more than welcome to upload the video to blip.tv. This kind of permission can be given through phone or e-mail or more
formally with a Creative Commons license. If you're uploading content that's already licensed under a Creative Commons license please make sure
to give the original author credit and to select the same Creative Commons license when you upload it.
JANUARY 2007
Media Reform January 2007 Conference
- many downloads available from the NCMR conference -
But now, the phone companies are lobbying Washington to kill off what's left of "common carrier" policy. They wish to
operate their Internet services as fully "private" networks. Phone and cable companies claim that the government shouldn't
play a role in broadband regulation: Instead of the free and open network that offers equal access to all, they want to reduce
the Internet to a series of business decisions between consumers and providers.
This article is a WAKE UP call
to the very fact that the Internet and access to it may be changing and you better bring your wallet.
A host of recent developments have made it clear that the Bush White House is doing battle against
the journalistic standards and practices that underpin of our democracy. With its unprecedented campaign to undermine and
stifle independent journalism, Bush & Co. have demonstrated brazen contempt for the Constitution and considerable fear
of an informed public.
Free Press has launched a campaign to chronicle and combat Bush’s war on the press. Today,
we published a new report showing the scope and intensity of the administration’s assault on press freedoms. The growing list of
attacks on the press is truly astonishing:
Infiltrating Public Broadcasting White House loyalists inside
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have launched a crusade to remake PBS, NPR and other public media into official mouthpieces.
Kenneth Tomlinson’s tenure at the CPB was characterized by targeting journalists like Bill Moyers who dared to air dissenting
voices or prepare investigative reports on the administration.
Tomlinson's goal was clearly to fire a shot across the bow of all public stations so managers would
shy away from the sort of investigative journalism that might expose Bush administration malfeasance. Tomlinson resigned in
disgrace but left behind a cast of cronies to carry out his partisan crusade. And we still don’t know the extent to
which Karl Rove and others at the White House orchestrated his efforts.
Manufacturing Fake News Under Bush administration directives,
at least 20 federal agencies have produced and distributed scores of "video news releases" out of a $254 million slush fund
set up to manufacture taxpayer-funded propaganda. These bogus and deceptive stories have been broadcast on TV stations nationwide
without any acknowledgment that they were prepared by the government rather than local journalists.
The segments — which trumpeted administration “successes,” promoted its controversial
line on issues like overhauling Medicare, and featured Americans "thanking" Bush — have been repeatedly labeled "covert
propaganda" by investigators at the Government Accountability Office.
Bribing Journalists The administration has paid pundits to
sing its praises. Earlier this year, TV commentator Armstrong Williams pocketed $240,000 in taxpayer money to laud Bush’s
education policies. Three other journalists have since been discovered on the government dole; and Williams admits that he
has "no doubt" that other paid Bush shills are still on the loose.
The administration has even exported these tactics. According to the Los Angeles Times,
the U.S. military is now secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops.
Lying about the Iraq War The White House saw the battle for
domestic popular opinion as one of the main fronts in the war in Iraq. With the help of a compliant media, truth became the
first casualty in their campaign to whip up support. But rather than admit to their lies and misinformation, the administration
continues to attack those reporting the truth.
As Frank Rich recently wrote in the New York Times, the administration’s "web of half-truths
and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a
P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House."
Eliminating Dissent in the Mainstream Media Bush has all but
avoided traditional press conferences, closing down a prime venue for holding the executive accountable. On those rare occasions
when he deigned to meet reporters, presidential aides turned the press conferences into parodies by seating a friendly right-wing
“journalist,” former male escort Jeff Gannon, amid the reporters and then steering questions to him when tough
issues arose.
They have effectively silenced serious questioners, like veteran journalist Helen Thomas, by refusing
to have the president or his aides call on reporters who challenge them. And they have established a hierarchy for journalists
seeking interviews with administration officials, which favors networks that give the White House favorable coverage.
Gutting the Freedom of Information Act The administration
has scrapped enforcement of the Freedom of Information Act and has made it harder for reporters to do their jobs by refusing
to cooperate with even the most basic requests for comment and data from government agencies. This is part of a broader clampdown
on access to information that has made it virtually impossible for journalists to cover vast areas of government activity.
Consolidating Media Control The administration continues to
make common cause with the most powerful broadcast corporations in an effort to rewrite ownership laws in a manner that favors
monopoly control of information. The Federal Communications Commission will announce plans to rewrite the ownership rules
soon – it could happen as early as February – with aims of unleashing a new wave of media consolidation. The administration’s
desired rules changes would strike a mortal blow to local reporting and further squeeze journalists.
In a famous 1945 opinion, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said that "the First Amendment rests
on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential
to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society." In other words, a free press is the sine
qua non of the entire American Constitution and republican experiment.
We started Free Press because our democracy demands a diverse and independent media. The Bush administration’s
attack on the foundations of self-government requires a response of similar caliber. I hope you’ll join me in the year
ahead as Free Press works to hold the administration accountable for all its attacks on journalism and see that such abuses
will not be repeated in the future.
Please take a moment to visit our online campaign to defend democracy from the White House assault on the media.
P.S. Know more people who would like to keep updated on this and other media reform issues? Urge
them to join our e-activist list. The more people you enlist in the movement for media reform, the better our chances of success.
"Fuck The Corporate Media" analyzes the tactics, both subtle and blatant,
employed by the corporate media to control your mind. This video covers just one day in the lies of the corporate media. See
for yourself how they sell us out in this startling comparison between what really happened on August 21st, 2003 in Portland,
Oregon, and what they say about what happened. Fuck the corporate media! Related Stories: [ Fuck the Corporate Media Video Finally Finished! ]
WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (PG) - I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former top aide to Vice President Dick
Cheney who was indicted in the CIA leak case, has a new job, focusing on Asia and anti-terrorism
at a conservative think tank.
Libby, who has pleaded not guilty to obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements, will serve as senior adviser to the
"Hudson Institute"
"Scooter Libby brings decades of experience to Hudson
Institute that will strengthen our robust research efforts," the think tank's chairman, Walter Stern, said
in a statement.
Libby, who stepped down as Cheney's chief of staff after he was indicted, is a veteran of Washington policy circles, after
working at the State Department, on Capitol Hill and in the Department of Defense, as well as the White House.
He signalled through his combative legal team at his first appearance in court in November that he would fight hard to
clear his name, and he is next due in court on February 3.
Libby is the only official so far indicted in the probe by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into claims that senior
administration officials outed CIA operative Valerie Plame in revenge for criticisms of the White House push for war with
Iraq by her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson.
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