Curtailing Free Speech: FCC Prepares ’Fairness Doctrine’ for the Internet
Source: infowars.com
Government and Obama administration attempt to squelch political speech of their ideological enemies
The Federal Communications Commission will facilitate the government’s prospective sovietization of private sector media with its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” a survey planned for a field test roll-out in 2014, according to a story posted on The Daily Caller today.
The FCC will “collect a remarkably wide range of information on demographics, point of view, news topic selection, management style and other factors in news organizations both in and out of the FCC’s traditional purview,” writes Tim Cavanaugh. “The airwaves regulator would also subject news producers in all media to invasive questioning about their work and content,” a move on a collision course with the First Amendment.
A document prepared by Social Solutions International enumerates the highly intrusive nature of the proposed questioning, including grilling station owners on their political philosophies and asking reporters if proposed stories were rejected by management.
“In this study, the FCC will delve into the editorial discretion of newspapers, web sites and radio and TV stations,” Hudson Institute Fellow Robert McDowell, who served as an FCC commissioner from 2009 to 2013, told The Daily Caller. “This starts sticking the government’s nose into what has traditionally been privileged and protected ground. Regardless of one’s political stripes, one should be concerned.”
The latest effort by the FCC is part of a concerted effort by the federal government and the Obama administration to squelch the political speech of their ideological enemies on the so-called right.
Following the election of Barack Obama, Cass Sustein, at the time nominated to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (and billed as a constitutional scholar), called for the imposition of the fairness doctrine on the internet and alternative media. Sunstein called his regulatory scheme “libertarian paternalism” (sic) and essentially called for herding opponents of the establishment into electronic ghettos under government supervision.
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Read the full article at: infowars.com
