[CS-FSLUG] TOTAL control over ALL media, including the Net!! It's coming!!

[Fred A. Miller]

FCC controlling the Internet?

http://tinyurl.com/5g6pjv
	
FCC Commissioner: Return of Fairness Doctrine Could Control Web Content
McDowell warns reinstated powers could play in net neutrality debate,
lead to government requiring balance on Web sites.

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
8/13/2008 9:08:51 AM

      There’s a huge concern among conservative talk radio hosts that
reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would all-but destroy the
industry due to equal time constraints. But speech limits might not
stop at radio. They could even be extended to include the Internet and
“government dictating content policy.”

      FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that as a possibility
after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington,
D.C. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC vote to bar Comcast from
engaging in certain Internet practices – expanding the federal
agency’s oversight of Internet networks.

      The commissioner, a 2006 President Bush appointee, told the
Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined
with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the
government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was
against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win
the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully
realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

      “I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor
their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think
the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating
content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment
problem.”

      “Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine
what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be
called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So,
will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space
on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the
marketplace of ideas determine that?”

      McDowell told BMI the Fairness Doctrine isn’t currently on the
FCC’s radar. But a new administration and Congress elected in 2008
might renew Fairness Doctrine efforts, but under another name.

      “The Fairness Doctrine has not been raised at the FCC, but the
importance of this election is in part – has something to do with
that,” McDowell said. “So you know, this election, if it goes one way,
we could see a re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine. There is a
discussion of it in Congress. I think it won’t be called the Fairness
Doctrine by folks who are promoting it. I think it will be called
something else and I think it’ll be intertwined into the net
neutrality debate.”

      A recent study by the Media Research Center’s Culture & Media
Institute argues that the three main points in support of the Fairness
Doctrine – scarcity of the media, corporate censorship of liberal
viewpoints, and public interest – are myths.

-- 
"The fundamental premise of liberalism is the moral incapacity
of the American people." ~ Alan Keyes