Hostile bloggers facing fines, jail? The New Internet "Mean People Go To Jail Act"

This is unconstitutional and hopefully won't see the light of day. Liberal bloggers should be the most concerned as they are by far the most vicious, abusive, condescending individuals on the internet. If they want to continue with their verbal defecation, they better hope this bill doesn't pass.
Rees

Proposal 'comes close to making it federal offense to log onto Internet'

May 06, 2009
By Bob Unruh
from WorldNetDaily

A new proposal in Congress is threatening fines and jail time for what it calls "cyberbullying" – communications that include e-mails and text messages that "cause substantial emotional distress."

The vague generalities are included in H.R. 1966 by California Democrat Linda Sanchez and about a dozen co-sponsors.

But it already is being condemned as unconstitutional, unrealistic and probably ineffectual.
At Wired.com, in a report labeled "Threat Level," writer David Kravets criticized the plan to demand "up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to 'coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress.'"

"Instead of prison, perhaps we should say gulag," he wrote.

Such limits never would pass First Amendment muster, "unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing," he wrote. "So Sanchez, and the 14 other lawmakers who signed on to the proposal are grandstanding to show the public they care about children and are opposed to cyberbullying."

The plan is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, after the 13-year-old Meier, whose suicide last year reportedly was prompted by a woman who utilized the MySpace social networking site to send the teen critical messages.

The defendant in the case, Lori Drew, was accused under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
"Sanchez's bill goes way beyond cyberbullying and comes close to making it a federal offense to log onto the Internet or use the telephone," Kravets wrote. "The methods of communication where hostile speech is banned include e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages."

"We can't say what we think of Sanchez's proposal," he said. "Doing so would clearly get us two years in solitary confinement."

Wrote a contributor to the Wired forum page, "If passed, this legislation could be easily abused with the effect of criminalizing all criticism. You probably [couldn't] even criticize the legislation itself because it would cause Sen. Sanchez emotional distress or possibly be considered a form of intimidation."

The bill, which has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary, states, "Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support
severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

It states: "Cyberbullying can cause psychological harm, including depression; negatively impact academic performance, safety, and the well-being of children in school; force children to change schools; and in some cases lead to extreme violent behavior, including murder and suicide."
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Rise Before Me You Submissive Infidels!

WH Reporters Stand For Obama, But Not For Bush?
by Patrick W. Gavin
May 2nd, 2009

Consider these two different reactions from the White House press corps during presidential drop-ins at the White House’s James S. Brady Briefing Room:



UPDATE: A commenter points out that, on occasion, White House reporters did stand for Bush (example here), raising an interesting question: Why the inconsistency in protocol?
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Behold a New 'Fairness' Doctrine'

FCC Announces May 7 'Diversity Committee' Meeting - Behold a New 'Fairness' Doctrine
from NewsBusters.com
By Seton Motley

Behold one of the new "Fairness" Doctrines - "media diversity" - coming soon to a radio station near you.

President Barack Obama's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released the names of the thirty-one members of their Advisory Committee On Diversity For Communications In The Digital Age. This May 7 gathering is made up of a laundry list of left-wing grievance groups, with a smattering of radio and television companies included to break up the monotony.

Not a single conservative organization is taking part in this Commission - more than a dozen Leftist groups are. A little ironic for a "diversity" panel, is it not?

Chairing the meeting is Henry Rivera, a former FCC Commissioner who was (and presumably still is) a strong proponent of the Censorship Doctrine, also mis-known as the "Fairness" Doctrine.

Many, many liberals in Washington have over the last several years called for a reinstatement of the Doctrine. But push-back from people who have read and actually understand the First Amendment led the Left to realize that the political price to bring it back was too high, so they MovedOn.org.

Of course, their desire to silence the lone voices of their opposition had not lessened in the slightest. They're still just as dictatorial, just pragmatically so.

On February 26, Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin - one of the myriad past "Fairness" Doctrine champions - sponsored an amendment, passed via a 57-41 Party-line vote, which forces the FCC to "take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest."

About which Durbin said at the time: ""No one is suggesting that the law for the FCC says that you can give this license to a Republican and this one to a Democrat and this one to a liberal and this one to a conservative. When we talk about diversity in media ownership, it relates primarily to gender, race and other characteristics of that nature."

As to his first statement, we have our doubts (see below).

And with the second, Color-Blind-America notion in mind, here is just a fractional listing of the organizational attendees of next week's gathering:

Emma Bowen Foundation for Minority Interests in Media (Rivera's outfit)
Minority Media and Telecommunications Council
Black Entertainment Television Holdings, Inc.
Afro-American Newspapers
Inner City Broadcasting
National Urban League
National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (yes, again, NABOB)
Spanish Broadcasting System
American Women in Radio and Television
Chickasaw Nation Industries, Inc.
Asian American Justice Center

Rivera got the gig heading up this racial grumble group because he has long championed the concept of "media diversity."

The proponents of station owner affirmative action are the same Leftists who were so ardently in favor of reinstating the Doctrine. One can thusly be forgiven for seeing this as an alternative route for the Left to reach their long-sought original destination - the silencing of conservative and Christian talk radio via governmental regulatory fiat.

And it's not just our imagination - it's also our lying eyes. The Center for American Progress is a left-wing hack outfit headed by former Clinton Administration and Obama Transition Team adviser John Podesta. And they released on January 22, 2007 a report entitled "Local Media Diversity Matters - Measure Media Diversity According to Democratic Values, Not Market Values."

The name of the report is right up this Committee's alley and instantaneously gives any sensible person the Willies. So anti-free market a title is but a prelude - the recommendations are a series of assaults on the broadcast industry so as to effect their desired ideological outcome - less conservatives on the air.

Many on the Left see the media pantheon as fraught with racism and sexism. And of course the airwaves are dominated by ideological monopol-ism. There are too many white men owning too many radio and television stations that broadcast too many conservatives to suit liberal tastes.

They truly believe the former is the only possible explanation for the latter. The existence of Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley, Tammy Bruce and other un-white males in the talk radio universe fails to persuade them. Neither does the ratings argument - thems that get the ratings get the airwaves. Conservatives have listeners; liberals do not.

According to the Left, these white male station owners don't put conservatives on the air because they make them money, they put them on the air because they are conservatives. The anti-free speech/anti-free marketeers remain as always steadfastly impervious to facts.

Again, the CAP report's subtitle is "Measure Media Diversity According to Democratic Values, Not Market Values." Why would the Left care about the bottom line of a bunch of white male station owners? There's a media world to be re-made, and these liberals don't care how many billions it it costs these racist-sexist bigots to make it happen. Besides, they deserve to get the shaft; it's only fair.

The broadcast license is of course a station's lifeblood; take it away, or make it impossible to meet the regulatory obligations to keep it, and they are literally out of business. The Left, no longer comfortable with trying the top-down, all-out assault that is the "Fairness" Doctrine, intends instead to silence conservative and Christian talk via this broadcast license manipulation.

If they can succeed in making it impossible for talk radio to operate as a business, talk radio will cease to operate. Leftist problem solved.

"Media diversity" is just the latest Leftist attempt to get this done.

—Seton Motley is Director of Communications for the Media Research Center.
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Thou shalt not criticize The Won - Obama criticism shuts down conversation

from Don Surber.com
May 4, 2009

Detroit Free Press columnist: “If you want to stop a conversation in its tracks, just question something President Barack Obama has said or done. It’s not open to debate — and I don’t think that’s healthy, for the country or the president.”

Welcome Laura Varon Brown to the right side.

Well, except after admitting that criticism of Obama is off limits, Brown goes on to blame the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy for all this.

Wrote Brown: “We have changed leaders and yes, probably for the better, yet we seem to remain as polarized as ever. Half the country wants to argue and the other half doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s not progress. And certainly not the progress Obama talks about wanting.”

I don’t know about that. Obama has held out the back of his hand to conservatives and Republicans alike. His my-way-or-the-highway approach is in stark contrast to President Bush’s early work with liberals to get No Child Left Behind passed.

Obama promised post-partisanship; his idea, however, is to have but one party.

Brown’s column is here.

True, it took longer than 100 days to pass.

But haste makes waste.
Her column is here.

Obama criticism shuts down conversation
by Laura Varon Brown
Free Press Columnist
May 3, 2009

Parties were more fun when George W. Bush was president. You could debate, argue even, praise and condemn, throw darts and laurels and solve the world's problems over a bottle of wine.

No more. At least not in my circles. If you want to stop a conversation in its tracks, just question something President Barack Obama has said or done. It's not open to debate -- and I don't think that's healthy, for the country or the president.

It's especially unsettling for a free speech girl like me. The First Amendment is important -- but lately, it feels like my right of self-expression is being squashed.

One example: Obama's comment to Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show," comparing his bowling abilities to someone in the Special Olympics.

Can you imagine the uproar had Bush said that? He'd be banished from bowling alleys for eternity. His bowling average and IQ would have immediately been compared in Twitter messages demanding his resignation.

But instead, media and water cooler conversations the next day were about bowling scores and how tough the game can be. Anyone bringing up the insensitivity of the president's remark heard, "Come on, give the guy a chance. So he said one thing wrong. Anyone could have said something like that." End of discussion.

Anyone remember poor Dan Quayle, the vice president who misspelled "potato" at a school spelling bee in 1992? No second chance for a Republican. Five months after the resulting media field day, Quayle and the first President Bush were voted out of office.

And doesn't anyone want to debate the wisdom of Obama's people allowing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who derides the "imperialist United States," to hand the president a book in an embarrassing publicity stunt that rocketed the leftist tome, "The Open Veins of Latin America" to the top of the best-seller lists? A couple of months ago, we were refusing to buy Venezuelan gas; now we're rushing out to buy copies of an anti-American book. This is certainly fair game for party talk.

The point is, whatever side you come from, you have the right to talk -- which comes with an obligation to listen.
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The Left’s New Back-Door Strategy to Silence Talk Radio

from the Media Research Center
Free Speech Alliance
May 1, 2009

The Left’s New Back-Door Strategy to Silence Talk Radio

The Left is launching a new and more deceptive strategy to implement the so-called “Fairness” Doctrine -- under different names and without a vote in Congress. But their goal remains the same – the silencing of conservative and Christian talk radio.

Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is preparing to use regulatory terms like “diversity,” “localism” and serving the Left’s definition of the “public interest” as new, backdoor “Fairness” Doctrines to indirectly impose radio censorship. This new line of attack could be implemented without a vote in Congress and without ever using the name “Fairness” Doctrine.

Obama’s acting FCC Chairman, Michael Copps, says he believes the government has a role in enforcing media “diversity” -- including the re-examination of station licensing and making popular conservative and Christian radio programming somehow “more reflective” of “public interest!”

Copps added that given the new political climate, “we have a tremendous opportunity going forward to reinvigorate our media, to ensure that the public airwaves truly deliver the kind of news and information that we need to sustain our democratic dialouge and to reflect the great diversity of our country.”

This government intrusion on our Free Speech Rights must be stopped.
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Islam's war on freedom - a notoriously one-sided view of free speech

This is an older video, but what he is saying needs to be heard over and over agains so people don't become complacent to what's happening around them.
Rees