Meet Michael Copps, He Wants To Regulate Your Speech

Meet the FCC commissioner who wants to control the news

By Mike Riggs - The Daily Caller Published: 12:53 AM 12/08/2010 Updated: 6:58 AM 12/08/2010

In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission created a rule requiring broadcasters to cover issues that the government deemed important, and to do so in a way that the government found “honest, equitable and balanced.” If a broadcaster did not agree to abide by this rule, the FCC reserved the right to revoke the station’s broadcasting license. This rule was called the Fairness Doctrine. The FCC abandoned it in 1987. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a socially conservative Democrat appointed to the FCC in 2001, would like to bring it back.

Copps has a long history of advocating for government control of media, dating to the beginning of his tenure. But it wasn’t until last week, after Copps spoke to the BBC and an audience at Columbia University, that Congress decided to look into the commissioner’s philosophy against private media companies.

“We are going to be pretty close to denying our citizens the essential news and information that they need to have in order to make intelligent decisions about the future direction of their country,” Copps told the BBC. Media outlets are not “producing the body of news and information that democracy needs to conduct its civic dialogue.”
[Emphasis added]

Copps went on to criticize his Republican colleagues at the FCC, who he claims, “eviscerated just about every public interest responsibility that generations of reformers had fought for and won in radio and TV.” In other words, the FCC folded the Fairness Doctrine in the 80s when it should have been cooking up legal justification for applying it more widely.

Republican Rep. Joe Barton got wind of Copps’ remarks and sent him a letter in which he asked if Copps meant “to suggest that it is the job of the federal government, through the Federal Communications Commission, to determine the content that is available for Americans to consume.” While Copps has not publicly answered Barton’s query, it’s no secret what he’d say: Hell yes

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We Are Venezuala

Nothing Changed This Week-The FCC Still Has No Authority to Regulate the Internet

What was true before FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s Tuesday midnight run to grab power over the Web remains true today – the FCC does not have the authority to do what they have just announced they will do on December 21st.

Unless and until the Congress enacts law making it so, the FCC doesn’t have the authority to do anything. December’s vote to commandeer control of the Internet is no more legitimate than – and just as capricious as – if they were to vote themselves masters of all the nation’s pizza joints.

The FCC – no government agency – can just decide they want to regulate an industry – and then vote themselves power over it. That’s not constitutional, representative, limited government – that’s Hugo Chavez-style expropriative despotism.

And it’s not as if The Chairman has been suffering from a dearth of people pointing out his lack of authority. We have repeatedly pointed it out. And it hasn’t just been us.

In April, the D.C. Circuit Court said so, unanimously ruling the obvious – that the Commission does not have the authority to do anything to the Internet.

More after the jump

Fox Has Assured Free Chickens For Everyone

EDITORIAL: Wave goodbye to Internet freedom
FCC crosses the Rubicon into online regulation

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to add the Internet to its portfolio of regulated industries. The agency's chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced Wednesday that he circulated draft rules he says will "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet." No statement could better reflect the gulf between the rhetoric and the reality of Obama administration policies.

With a straight face, Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the "freedom" of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web. Ordinarily, it would be appropriate at this point to supply an example from the proposed regulations illustrating the problem. Mr. Genachowski's draft document has over 550 footnotes and is stamped "non-public, for internal use only" to ensure nobody outside the agency sees it until the rules are approved in a scheduled Dec. 21 vote. So much for "openness."

More here

When asked about this latest revelation, the fox had this to say, "If you'll just put me in charge of the henhouse, I can assure you there will be free chickens for everyone."

Who Is Michael Copps and Where Has He Been?

"The media in America has a substance abuse problem. They're not producing news like they were 15 years ago."

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT!?!?!?!?!?

"Stroke of the Pen, Law of the Land, Kinda Cool" NOT

It’s Official – The FCC Will Vote to Take Over the Internet in December

Just this past Friday, we warned you that a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) December Internet power grab was probably coming.

Well, we now know that it is – and it may be even worse than we thought. Details have been sketchy, and successive reports often contradictory, but what follows is what seems to be looming over us in December. (We will know for sure on Wednesday, November 24 – if the FCCmaintains its current December 15 meeting date.)

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears to be preparing to dramatically increase the FCC’s regulatory role over the Internet (in TWO ways; more on that later).

He is doing so without the necessary Congressional authority – which he himself acknowledges he doesn’t have. And he is doing so by torturing and twisting the regulatory language he is drafting – so as to keep this extraordinary dictatorial seizure within the current Title I confines.

The latter is for The Chairman merely an optical effort. If he can feign the appearance of remaining within Title I, he avoids Reclassification to Title II – against which many of us have long been rightly fighting. He will then portray his fealty to Title I as testament to the alleged “moderation” of his (un)modest proposal. This will be a totally bogus assertion, but he will make it – and the media will in parrot-esque fashion repeat it. The Chairman should bring crackers to the press conference.

Free Press and the Media Marxists – who have long cried for Title II Reclassification – will on cue rail against The Chairman’s “sell-out.” This will further “bolster” his claim that he has found the magical, mystical Third Way – winding a path between the leftist Open Internet absolutists and the evil telecom companies. The Chairman should also bring nuts to the press conference – in case Free Press & Co. show up.

(An aside: How are the telecom companies “evil” – when they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in building the Internet infrastructure? Which has resulted in the free speech, free market Web Xanadu we consumers all currently enjoy. Free Press and the Media Marxists haven’t invested a dime – yet they somehow successfully lay claim to the mantle of “consumer advocates.”)

Of course, this attempted sleight of regulatory hand does not get The Chairman past one glaring problem – the D.C. Circuit Court has already unanimously ruled that the FCC doesn’t have the authority to regulate the Internet under Title I – at least as far as enforcing Network Neutrality is concerned. (Which is why Free Press & Co. have been clamoring for Title II Reclassification.) And Net Neutrality is why The Chairman has engaged in – and forced us all to endure- this one year-plus kabuki dance.

Testimonium – The Chairman now looks poised to have the FCC again attempt to enforce Net Neutrality – under his now stretched-beyond-all-recognition Title I.

What a short, selective memory he has. And most economically destructive of all – it appears The Chairman will try to impose Net Neutrality not just on wired broadband Internet service – but on wireless “smart phones” as well. This would be a titanic overreach by The Chairman – and an immense blow to the economy.

The uncertainty caused just by The Chairman’s prolonged flirtation with the Media Marxists and their ridiculous Internet notions has already cost us billions of dollars in private sector Web investment. The cost in investment dollars and jobs lost when Net Neutrality is actually imposed will be cataclysmic. These aren’t the fake “saved or created” jobs of the alleged “stimulus” – these are very real jobs denied or destroyed by the ridiculous and ridiculously damaging Net Neutrality. Imposed by an FCC and its Chairman who know in advance that they do not have the authorityto do so.

What will follow will be years of litigation forced upon us by The Chairman – to undo what he knew beforehand he didn’t have the authority to do.

What will follow will be years of diminished and diminishing Web capacity, caused by an absurd policy wrongfully jammed down our throats by a dictatorial, rogue Executive Branch Commission.

What will follow will be years of stagnant or declining job growth, as investment capital rightly flees a regulation-constricted Internet which is no longer amenable to free market success.

What will follow this essay may very well determine the free market, free speech future of the Internet – are you ready to place some calls and send some emails and faxes to protest this preposterous policy proposal and demand that it never be enacted?

Stay tuned – we will soon tell you how you can be a part of the preventative solution.

FCC and Net Neutrality

FCC may regulate Internet lines days before Christmas
By Sara Jerome - 11/19/10 04:50 PM ET

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a Christmas gift in store for the phone and cable industry: it may move ahead on its controversial net-neutrality regulations three days before Christmas.

An FCC source confirmed on Friday that the commission plans to push its December meeting back by a week, meaning it will fall on the 22nd of the month. That's the same meeting in which analysts say the agency may move forward on its controversial net-neutrality proposal.

Though the FCC has not confirmed that it will vote on net neutrality this year, rumors are swirling that it will.

The timing of the meeting is already raising eyebrows. Some see it as a way to move the matter along before the GOP assumes the majority and while Congress is not in session to criticize the effort.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), ranking member of the telecom subcommittee, questioned the schedule on Friday.

He said "it appears that Chairman [Julius] Genachowski is trying to slip it under the radar and hope no one notices."

Industry sources also suggested that political calculus is involved with the change of date for the meeting.

"While many Americans will be enjoying their eggnog on that day, I'm sure the broadband providers won't be pleased to find this piece of coal in their stockings," an industry source jibed.

I Wonder If This Includes Blogs

Web censorship bill sails through Senate committee

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.”

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Its Only Hate Speech When They Don't Agree

One person's information is another person's hate speech. This is ridiculous to the point of lunacy. This is why we need to let everyone say what they want, where they want, no matter how much we may dislike the message. Besides, the more they talk, the easier it is to identify the idiots, fruitcakes, nutjobs and those who would limit our ability to spread the information.

Of course, they can't/won't point to specific instances of "hate speech" because it only exists in their tiny little minds.


Liberal Groups Want FCC to Police Talk Radio, Cable News
By: Jim Meyers

A coalition of more than 30 mostly liberal organizations has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to monitor “hate speech” on talk radio and cable news networks.

The groups assert in the letter that “hate, extremism and misinformation have been on the rise . . . as the media has focused on Arizona’s passage of one of the harshest pieces of anti-Latino legislation in this country’s history.”

The organizations include the Center for Media Justice, the Rainbow Push Coalition, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, and Common Cause.

“As traditional media have become less diverse and less competitive, they have also grown less responsible and less responsive to the communities that they are supposed to serve,” the letter states.“In this same atmosphere hate speech thrives, as hate has developed as a profit-model for syndicated radio and cable television programs masquerading as ‘news.’”

The coalition did not mention any specific media outlets.The groups also argue that the Internet has made it more difficult for the public to separate “the facts from bigotry masquerading as news,” The Hill newspaper reports.

The Internet “gives the illusion that news sources have increased, but in fact there are fewer journalists employed now than ever before,” according to the coalition.

“Moreover, on the Internet, speakers can hide in the cloak of anonymity, emboldened to say things that they may not say in the public eye.

“For these reasons, as the Commission deliberates how the public interest will be served in the digital age, it should consider the extent of hate speech in media, and its effects.”

Net Nannies from 1984

EDITORIAL: Obama's Internet nanny
FCC regulations not needed to 'protect' the Web

The FCC, a New Deal relic, derives its current authority from the Telecommunications Act of 1996. At the time the law was enacted, Congress wisely decided to take a hands-off approach to the Internet by creating a new "information service" category explicitly designed to remain free from the tangle of red tape that the agency layers on top of telephone service, cable, broadcast television and radio.

[FCC Chairman] Mr. Genachowski, however, is upset that this plain reading of the statute deprives him of the authority to "safeguard privacy," "empower consumers" and "lower the costs of investment." He seeks to remedy this by imposing new rules on the Internet's network infrastructure. In a rather Orwellian fashion, he claims these regulations would not involve regulating the Internet itself. Mr. Genachowski insists that he has no intention of meddling with online content.

Even if that's true, his proposal remains deeply troubling. If a federal agency is allowed to ignore court rulings and erase laws with which it disagrees, there would be no restraint on what a future chairman might do. Surely, if the federal government can provide a "good reason" to reclassify broadband services as telecommunications, it can come up with a "good reason" to prevent such bad language on the Internet or even extend its reclassifications to cover cable television programs on HBO and Showtime.

Absent legal constraints, the agency could even resurrect the Fairness Doctrine and apply it to the Internet. This rule, created during the 1940s, required that broadcast stations give equal time to both sides of controversial issues, but it had the unintended consequence of discouraging stations from discussing anything controversial. The scheme was ultimately canceled by President Reagan's FCC in 1987, a move that ushered in a revival of talk radio.

Neither President Obama nor his appointees have the authority to unilaterally rewrite the law when it suits their convenience. If Mr. Obama wants to impose controls on the Internet, he must go to Congress and ask for the new power - a request not likely to be granted. Members of Congress and the general public appreciate that the Internet's greatness lies in its unregulated, Wild West nature. As the FCC opens its proposals to public comment, we hope that readers deliver the clear message that federal "help" is neither needed nor desired online.

May As Well Keep the Pressure High

"...the yellow journalism that got us into a war with Japan..."

WTF!?!?!?

Another One That Has To Go

Chavez comes to the FCC
FCC diversity officer sides with the dictator

If for a moment you thought the Obama administration was going to sit there placidly while some on talk radio were so bold as to criticize its actions, think again, because here comes Mark Lloyd, the new diversity officer of the Federal Communications Commission and a man with a mission.

It's not a pretty mission, not if you value free speech, but it is a mission made clear by Mr. Lloyd's own words.

There he was in 2008, participating in a conference on "media reform," telling us what a wonderful leader Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was and wincing at an unpleasantness the dictator had to deal with, the uppity owners of media, people who had some objections in mind.

He spoke of Mr. Chavez's "incredible revolution, a democratic revolution," and of the "property owners and the folks who then controlled the media in Venezuela" who "rebelled" and who "worked to oust him." Still, said Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Chavez "came back with another revolution, and then ... began to take very seriously the media in his country."

Dang those property owners. Aren't they a pain? Mr. Lloyd seems to think they are a pain in this country, too, at least those who own radio stations. As much becomes clear when you read a report he and some others produced for a left-wing think tank that said conservatives dominate talk radio, not because they are more popular than liberals, as the evidence clearly shows, but because most station owners are white men who apparently heed their monolithic ideology more than the marketplace and their pocketbooks.