Net neutrality, the FCC, Wikileaks and the future of internet freedom

[Guest guest]

Net neutrality, the FCC, Wikileaks and the future of internet

freedom

http://www.naturalnews.com/030647_Wikileaks_net_neutrality.html

(NaturalNews) Regardless of what you think about the Wikileaks release of

state secrets, there's no debating the astonishing fact that the internet

made these leaks possible. Without the internet, no single organization

such as Wikileaks would have been able to so widely propagate secret

government information and make it public. In the old model of

information distribution -- centralized mainstream media newspapers and

news broadcasts -- such information would have been tightly controlled

thanks to government pressure.

But the internet allows individual information publishers to bypass the

censorship of government. In the case of Wikileaks, it allowed an

Australian citizen to embarrass the U.S. government while sitting at a

laptop computer in the United Kingdom.

Governments don't like to be embarrassed. They don't like their secrets

aired on the internet. Sure, it's okay for governments to tap all of your

secrets by monitoring your phone calls, emails and web browsing habits,

but every government seeks to protect its own secrets at practically any

cost. That's why the upshot of this Wikileaks release may be that

governments will now start to look for new ways to censor and control the

internet in order to prevent such information leaks from happening in the

future.

What governments around the world are suddenly beginning to realize is

that a free internet is ultimately incompatible with government secrets,

and secrets are essential to any government that wants to remain in

power. That's because, as even Noam Chomsky stated in this DemocracyNow

video interview

(

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11...), most government secrets are

based on information governments wouldn't want their people to discover

-- secrets that might threaten the legitimacy of government if the people

found out the truth.

How the FCC plans to seize authority over the internet

As part of a long-term plan to control content on the internet, the FCC

is now attempting to assert authority over the internet in the same way

it has long exercised content censorship authority over broadcast

television and radio.

The reason you can't say those seven dirty words on broadcast television,

in other words, is because the FCC controls broadcast television content

and can simply revoke the broadcast licenses of any television station

that refuses to comply. This is the same tactic, in the internet world,

of yanking a web site's domain name, which the Department of Homeland

Security has already begun doing over the last several weeks

(

http://www.naturalnews.com/030542_c...).

The FCC also controls content on the radio and can yank the broadcast

licenses of any radio stations that refuse to comply with its content

censorship. This is why operators of " pirate radio stations "

are dealt with so harshly: For the government to allow any radio station

to operate outside its censorship and control is to invite

dissent.

The internet, of course, has been operating freely and without any real

government censorship for roughly two decades. In that time, it has grown

to be what is arguably the most influential medium in the world for

information distribution. Most importantly, the internet is the medium of

information freedom that is not controlled by any government.

The U.S. government wants to change all that, and they've dispatched the

FCC to reign in the " freedoms " of the internet.

How to crush internet Free Speech

The first step to the FCC's crushing of internet freedom is to assert

authority over the internet by claiming to run the show. The FCC, of

course, has no legal authority over the internet. It was only granted

authority in 1934 over broadcast communications in the electromagnetic

spectrum -- you know, radio waves and antennas, that kind of

thing.

There is nothing in the Communications Act of 1934 that grants the FCC

any authority over the internet because obviously the internet didn't

exist then, and it would have been impossible for lawmakers in the 1930's

to imagine the internet as it operates today.

So instead of following the law, the FCC is trying to " fake "

its way into false authority over the internet by claiming authority in

the current " net neutrality " debate. By asserting its authority

with net neutrality, the FCC will establish a beachhead of implied

authority from which it can begin to control and censor the

internet.

This is why " net neutrality " is a threat to internet freedom.

It's not because of anything to do with net neutrality itself, but rather

with the FCC's big power grab in its assertion that it has authority over

websites just like it has authority over broadcast radio.

The FCC may soon tell you what you can post on the internet

Where is this all heading? Once the FCC establishes a foothold on the

'net, it can then assert that it has the power to tell you what to post

on the internet. Here's how it might unfold:

First, the FCC will simply ban what it calls " information

traitors, " which will include people like n Assange (Wikileaks)

who publish state secrets. (Technically n Assange can't be a traitor

since he's not even American in the first place, but don't expect the FCC

to care about this distinction.)

Once the public is comfortable with that, the FCC will advance its agenda

to include " information terrorists " which will include anything

posted about Ron , the federal reserve and the counterfeit money

supply, G. , or anything from true U.S. patriots who defend

the Constitution. The anti-state website

www.LewRockwell.com (where some of my own articles have appeared from

time to time) would also be immediately banned because its information is

so dangerous to government control.

After that censorship is in place, the FCC will likely begin to push the

corporate agenda by banning websites that harm the profits of large

corporations. This will include, of course, websites like NaturalNews.com

which teach people about health freedom, nutritional cures, natural

remedies and alternatives to Big Pharma's high-profit

pharmaceuticals.

The way this will come about is that the FCC may require a license to

publish health information on the web, in much the same way that states

currently license doctors to practice medicine. This is how conventional

medicine has operated its monopoly for so long, by the way: By

controlling the licensing of doctors at the state level. Any doctor who

dares prescribe nutritional supplements or suggest that medication might

be harmful to a patient immediately gets stripped of his license to

practice medicine (and thereby put out of business). The FCC will likely

do the same thing across the internet. Sites that publish health

information without a license will be deemed " a threat to public

health " and be seized by the government.

The first target? Anti-vaccine websites. Vaccines are so crucial to the

continuation of disease and medical enslavement in America that any site

questioning the current vaccine mythology will be deemed a threat to

public health -- or perhaps even a " terrorism "

organization.

Essentially, once the FCC has gained power and authority over the

internet, it will use that power to push a Big Government / Big Business

agenda that censors the truth, keeps people trapped in a system of

disinformation, and silences anyone who challenges the status

quo.

The FCC is poised to become the FDA of internet information, banning

alternative speech and enforcing an information monopoly engineered by

powerful corporations.

Think of the FCC as the new the Ministry of Truth from Orwell's

novel 1984

(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minist...).

This is not about net neutrality, it's about the FCC power grab

Remember, I am not arguing here for or against the principle of net

neutrality itself, but rather warning about the FCC's imposition of false

authority over the internet in the first place. The idea of net

neutrality has merits, but granting the FCC the power to control the

internet is a disastrously bad idea that will only end in censorship and

" information tyranny " -- especially now that governments around

the world are witnessing the " dangers " of information freedom

via the Wikileaks fiasco.

If there's one thing governments hate, it's real freedom. Sure, they all

talk about freedom and publicly claim their allegiance to it, but behind

the scenes what they really want is total information control. That's

because freedom gives people the ability to say what they want, to

whomever they want, and even to oppose the doctrine of the

government.

Just look at China and how it has censored the internet to the point

where you can't even log in to Facebook from that country.

Governments hate freedom because freedom threatens centralized power and

control over the People. And because governments hate freedom, they also

hate the internet as long as it's free. This is why bloggers and internet

journalists are right now imprisoned all over the world for merely

posting the truth

(

http://www.cpj.org/imprisoned/cpjs-...).

As Noam Chomsky said in his DemocracyNow interview (link above), what the

recent Wikileaks releases really show is that the U.S. government has

" a profound hatred for democracy. "

It also happens to have a profound hatred for actual freedom, because

people who are free to think for themselves and write whatever they want

are always going to be a threat to a government that wants people to

conform, obey and acquiesce.

All government agencies seek to expand their power

What do the FCC, FDA, TSA, DEA, FTC and USDA all have in common?

They all want more power. They want more authority, bigger budgets and

more control over the world around them. They are like cancer tumors,

growing in size and toxicity while they consume more and more by stealing

resources from a healthy host. The bigger these cancer tumors become, the

more dangerous they become to the health of the host body, and the more

urgently they need to be held in check or excised from the body

entirely.

There is no such thing as a government agency that wants to be smaller,

with shrinking budgets and fewer employees on the taxpayer payroll.

Government departments -- just like people -- incessantly seek more power

even at the expense of freedom among those they claim to serve. And this

move by the FCC to assume control over the internet is one of the most

dangerous power grabs yet witnessed in the short history of the

information age.

By the way, one of the reasons we created and launched

www.NaturalNews.TV was because we wanted a video site that could not

be turned off by YouTube. You've probably heard the horror stories of

famous content producers like having their YouTube accounts

suddenly terminated. NaturalNews.TV is a safe haven for alternative

health content that cannot be turned off by a large corporation that

doesn't recognize the value of health freedom.

Feel free to participate by uploading videos or viewing the many

thousands of free videos available right now at

www.NaturalNews.TV

By the way, I recommend reading another outstanding article on this

topic written by Naughton at The Guardian

(

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...). Here's a taste of what he

writes:

Consider, for instance, how the views of the US administration have

changed in just a year. On 21 January, secretary of state Hillary Clinton

made a landmark speech about internet freedom, in Washington DC, which

many people welcomed and most interpreted as a rebuke to China for its

alleged cyberattack on Google. " Information has never been so

free, " declared Clinton. " Even in authoritarian countries,

information networks are helping people discover new facts and making

governments more accountable. "

She went on to relate how, during his visit to China in November 2009,

Barack Obama had " defended the right of people to freely access

information, and said that the more freely information flows the stronger

societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens

to hold their governments accountable, generates new ideas, and

encourages creativity. " Given what we now know, that Clinton speech

reads like a satirical masterpiece.

Read the rest at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...

Learn more:

http://www.naturalnews.com/030647_Wikileaks_net_neutrality.html#ixzz17SP7kwFZ

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

Vaccines -

http://vaccinationdangers.wordpress.com/ Homeopathy

http://homeopathycures.wordpress.com

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