[PAA-Discuss] Net Neutrality, the FCC, Wikilieaks and the Future of Internet Freedom

[Ron and Kris Graham]

NaturalNews.com <http://www.naturalnews.com/index.html>  


Originally published December 7 2010




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


by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor 

(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 <http://www.naturalnews.com/the_internet.html>  allows
individual information <http://www.naturalnews.com/information.html>
publishers to bypass the censorship of government
<http://www.naturalnews.com/government.html> . 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 <http://www.naturalnews.com/internet.html> . 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
<http://www.naturalnews.com/power.html> . That's because, as even Noam
Chomsky stated in this DemocracyNow video
<http://www.naturalnews.com/video.html>  interview
(http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11...
<http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/30/noam_chomsky_wikileaks_cables_reveal
_profound> ), 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
<http://www.naturalnews.com/authority.html>  over the internet


As part of a long-term plan to control content on the internet, the FCC
<http://www.naturalnews.com/the_FCC.html>  is now attempting to assert
authority over the internet in the same way it has long exercised content
censorship <http://www.naturalnews.com/censorship.html>  authority over
broadcast television <http://www.naturalnews.com/television.html>  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...
<http://www.naturalnews.com/030542_censorship_internet.html> ).

The FCC also controls content on the radio
<http://www.naturalnews.com/radio.html>  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 <http://www.naturalnews.com/freedom.html>  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
<http://www.naturalnews.com/websites.html>  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 <http://www.naturalnews.com/ban.html>  what
it calls "information traitors," which will include people like Julian
Assange (Wikileaks) who publish state secrets. (Technically Julian 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 Paul, the federal reserve and the counterfeit money supply, G. Edward
Griffin, 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 <http://www.naturalnews.com/corporations.html> . This will
include, of course, websites like NaturalNews.com which teach people about
health freedom <http://www.naturalnews.com/health_freedom.html> ,
nutritional cures, natural <http://www.naturalnews.com/natural.html>
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
<http://www.naturalnews.com/health_information.html>  on the web, in much
the same way that states currently license doctors
<http://www.naturalnews.com/doctors.html>  to practice medicine. This is how
conventional medicine has operated its monopoly
<http://www.naturalnews.com/monopoly.html>  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
<http://www.naturalnews.com/business.html> ). The FCC will likely do the
same thing across the internet. Sites that publish health
<http://www.naturalnews.com/health.html>  information without a license will
be deemed "a threat to public health
<http://www.naturalnews.com/public_health.html> " 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
<http://www.naturalnews.com/America.html>  that any site questioning the
current vaccine <http://www.naturalnews.com/vaccine.html>  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 <http://www.naturalnews.com/FDA.html>
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 George Orwell's novel
1984 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minist...
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Truth> ).


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-...
<http://www.cpj.org/imprisoned/cpjs-2008-census-online-journalists-now-jaile
d-mor.php> ).

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 <http://www.naturalnews.com/democracy.html> ."

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 <http://www.naturalnews.com/DEA.html> , 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
<http://www.naturalnews.com/cancer_tumors.html>  tumors, growing in size and
toxicity while they consume more and more by stealing resources from a
healthy host. The bigger these cancer tumors
<http://www.naturalnews.com/tumors.html>  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
Alex Jones having their YouTube accounts suddenly terminated. NaturalNews
<http://www.naturalnews.com/NaturalNews.html> .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
<http://www.naturalnews.com/videos.html>  or viewing the many thousands of
free videos available right now at www.NaturalNews.TV

By the way, I recommend reading another outstanding article
<http://www.naturalnews.com/article.html>  on this topic written by John
Naughton at The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/06/western-demo
cracies-must-live-with-leaks> ). 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...
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/06/western-demo
cracies-must-live-with-leaks> 

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