A legal net is closing around media mogul Rupert Murdoch. On Monday a top investigator in London reported that senior News Corp. employees authorized hundreds of bribes to police officers and other government officials.
But these reports of criminal behavior in the United Kingdom have yet to trigger a prosecution of Murdoch here in the States, where top executives can be held liable for systematically bribing foreign officials.
To stop this scandal from jumping the Atlantic, Murdoch has added legions of lobbyists and lawyers to his ranks. Their goal is to defang the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it unlawful for a U.S. corporation to pay off a foreign official for the purpose of advancing or protecting a business interest.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
The Intellectual Dishonesty at the Heart of the Heartland Institute
More media have pored over leaked internal memos that expose the intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the Heartland Institute, the coin-operated think tank that has made a living spreading lies in the service of corporations.
The most revealing of the memos reveals the Institute's plans to create an anti-climate change curriculum for k-12 schools nationwide. The goal, according to the memo is to show "that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain — two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science."
"There’s your smoking gun," write the editors at the Star-Ledger:
The most revealing of the memos reveals the Institute's plans to create an anti-climate change curriculum for k-12 schools nationwide. The goal, according to the memo is to show "that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain — two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science."
"There’s your smoking gun," write the editors at the Star-Ledger:
Friday, February 10, 2012
Minneapolis Star Tribune: The onslaught is coming to a TV near you
This piece was published earlier this week by the Star Tribune:
If Minnesotans flip on their TVs right now, they're likely to see at least one -- a political ad slinging mud at a presidential candidate.
As Tuesday's statewide caucuses approach, they're more likely to see many more. Viewers in Florida reported seeing as many as 12 political ads an hour in the runup to that state's Jan. 31 primary. The campaigns and super PACs that bought these ads have now turned their attention from Florida -- where they spent tens of millions of dollars on local media buys -- to Minnesota.
These attack ads by their very nature are negative. But they can also be misleading. FactCheck.org, which tracks accuracy in political messaging, found that the "avalanche of negativity" in recent Florida ads also contained a fair share of distortions and outright lies.
... Read the full oped.
If Minnesotans flip on their TVs right now, they're likely to see at least one -- a political ad slinging mud at a presidential candidate.
As Tuesday's statewide caucuses approach, they're more likely to see many more. Viewers in Florida reported seeing as many as 12 political ads an hour in the runup to that state's Jan. 31 primary. The campaigns and super PACs that bought these ads have now turned their attention from Florida -- where they spent tens of millions of dollars on local media buys -- to Minnesota.
These attack ads by their very nature are negative. But they can also be misleading. FactCheck.org, which tracks accuracy in political messaging, found that the "avalanche of negativity" in recent Florida ads also contained a fair share of distortions and outright lies.
... Read the full oped.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Obama Joins the Democracy Sell Off
President Obama succumbed late Monday to the dark logic of the Super PACs, instructing top West Wing staffers to help raise money for the so-called "independent" groups that have been successful in picking winners and losers thus far in 2012.
"We decided to do this because we can't afford for the work you're doing in your communities, and the grassroots donations you give to support it, to be destroyed by hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads," Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina wrote supporters in an email Monday night.
This is no small news -- which explains why the New York Times placed this story on page one today -- as it signals that the president has reversed his earlier stance against working with Super PACs and joined others on the low road to political influence.
"We decided to do this because we can't afford for the work you're doing in your communities, and the grassroots donations you give to support it, to be destroyed by hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads," Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina wrote supporters in an email Monday night.
This is no small news -- which explains why the New York Times placed this story on page one today -- as it signals that the president has reversed his earlier stance against working with Super PACs and joined others on the low road to political influence.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Citizens Inundated
 |
| Illustration: Bill Brown |
Companies like CBS Corp, News Corp. and Sinclair Broadcast Group are already dividing the spoils of an election year that will see unprecedented spending on political ads.
More than $12 million was spent on ads during the Iowa Republican caucus. More than $14 million was spent on the South Carolina primary. And Floridians are already seeing the effect of millions more in ad buys as the state readies for next Tuesday's vote.
But that's just the first glimpse of an election year that will leave viewers awash in misinformation. All told TV broadcast companies stand to pocket more than $3 billion in political ad revenues by November. What they're not doing is letting viewers and voters in on the full story behind all this money and all these ads.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Why We Go Black
 |
| Speaking at a midtown PIPA/SOPA protest |
What's happening here?
Today's nationwide protest of Internet blacklist legislation is part of a brewing movement to keep control over the Internet out of the hands of corporations and governments. It's a struggle that puts Internet users before information gatekeepers. At stake is everyone's democratic right to information.
The movement owes its momentum to a recent sequence of events. Leading up to 2010 millions of Internet users became advocates in support of Net Neutrality protections. In 2011, the importance of digital freedom spilled out onto the streets as demonstrators with a mobile phones and a connection became a force in global protests.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Iowa Kicks Off the Media's Mud Season
If you flip on a local television station and watch for an hour or so, you're likely to see at least one: a political ad that attacks a local or national candidate.
If you live in any of the "battleground states," you'll see many, many more -- up to 12 political ads an hour.
Viewers in Iowa fell under a barrage of these ads leading up to Tuesday's caucuses. This on-air onslaught offers the rest of us a preview of what television viewing will be like as Election Day 2012 draws closer.
It's estimated that American television viewers will see such political ads aired more than 200,000 times by the first week in November. What we're far less likely to see is any explanation of who really sponsors these ads, what interests they represent and whether the content of the attacks is true.
If you live in any of the "battleground states," you'll see many, many more -- up to 12 political ads an hour.
Viewers in Iowa fell under a barrage of these ads leading up to Tuesday's caucuses. This on-air onslaught offers the rest of us a preview of what television viewing will be like as Election Day 2012 draws closer.
It's estimated that American television viewers will see such political ads aired more than 200,000 times by the first week in November. What we're far less likely to see is any explanation of who really sponsors these ads, what interests they represent and whether the content of the attacks is true.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Verizon's Broadband Bunk
A recent letter to the editor of the New York Times from Verizon Chairman Ivan Seidenberg had many scratching our heads today.
Seidenberg wrote to rebut a Times Op-Ed by former White House technology adviser Susan Crawford, in which she argues that the United States high-speed Internet marketplace suffers from a lack of competition, a problem that drives broadband prices up and services down for American Internet users.
"Over the last 10 years, we have deregulated high-speed Internet access in the hope that competition among providers would protect consumers," Crawford wrote. "The result? We now have neither a functioning competitive market for high-speed wired Internet access nor government oversight."
Seidenberg wrote to rebut a Times Op-Ed by former White House technology adviser Susan Crawford, in which she argues that the United States high-speed Internet marketplace suffers from a lack of competition, a problem that drives broadband prices up and services down for American Internet users.
"Over the last 10 years, we have deregulated high-speed Internet access in the hope that competition among providers would protect consumers," Crawford wrote. "The result? We now have neither a functioning competitive market for high-speed wired Internet access nor government oversight."
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Mayor Bloomberg's First Amendment Problem
| AFP reporter Jennifer Weiss films her own arrest |
In the two months since the movement began 25 journalists have been arrested covering events across the country. More than half of these arrests have occurred in New York City, including 13 journalist arrests in the last week.
My colleague Josh Stearns, who maintains a running tally of media arrests and harassment, said that the NYPD's early morning raids on Zuccotti Park on November 15 resulted in the "single worst day for journalist attacks and arrests to date."
"From the beginning, I have said that the City had two principal goals," Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement following the raids, "guaranteeing public health and safety, and guaranteeing the protestors' First Amendment rights."
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Saving the Democratic Internet
Opponents of the open Internet like to portray its guiding rule, Net Neutrality, as "a government takeover of the Internet."
They argue that from the day of its inception the Internet has existed free of regulation — a perfect expression of the marketplace at work.
What they don’t understand is that the Internet is a far better expression of democracy, and as such needs rules like Net Neutrality to ensure all users have equal access to online content.
And in reality the Internet as we now know it would never have existed were it not for rules and regulation, beginning with the openness standards created by the Internet’s founders some 40 years ago, codified in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and updated in recent orders by the Federal Communications Commission.
They argue that from the day of its inception the Internet has existed free of regulation — a perfect expression of the marketplace at work.
What they don’t understand is that the Internet is a far better expression of democracy, and as such needs rules like Net Neutrality to ensure all users have equal access to online content.
And in reality the Internet as we now know it would never have existed were it not for rules and regulation, beginning with the openness standards created by the Internet’s founders some 40 years ago, codified in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and updated in recent orders by the Federal Communications Commission.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Why Is Justin Bieber So Hackin Mad?
Justin Bieber is pissed off and you should be, too.
What's made Bieber so angry? A bill in Congress that could rip apart the open fabric of the internet and let corporations censor free speech.
The "Stop Online Piracy Act" or SOPA gives private entities the power to blacklist websites at will. And it violates the due process rights of the thousands of users who could see their sites disappear from the Internet for doing something as innocent as posting a video of them singing along to their favorite song.
Learning from China?
These are the sort of heavy-handed Web control you'd expect to see in China, not in the United States.
What's made Bieber so angry? A bill in Congress that could rip apart the open fabric of the internet and let corporations censor free speech.
The "Stop Online Piracy Act" or SOPA gives private entities the power to blacklist websites at will. And it violates the due process rights of the thousands of users who could see their sites disappear from the Internet for doing something as innocent as posting a video of them singing along to their favorite song.
Learning from China?
These are the sort of heavy-handed Web control you'd expect to see in China, not in the United States.
Sunday, October 02, 2011
What's Going On?
 |
| Photo: Timothy Karr |
For evidence of this look no further than the protest coverage that made the front and editorial pages of today's New York Times. For the first two weeks of these protests the Times' editors for the most part had joined with other establishment media in a communal snub of the "Occupy" activism and its relevance.
There's a reason for the rapid, organic spread of the Wall Street actions, write Glenn Greenwald, Matt Stoller and Micah Sifry, three passionate thinkers on the evolution of movements in the age of open networks.
In his Wednesday commentary for Salon, Glenn Greenwald blasted the media and establishment Democrats for their smug dismissal of the protests, diagnosing their scorn as a form of self hatred that strikes those who "feign populist opposition to Wall Street for political gain."
Friday, September 30, 2011
High Noon for Internet Freedom
As democracy movements worldwide struggle to speak out via the Internet, many here in the U.S. may have overlooked an effort in Congress to undermine this basic freedom.
It takes the form of an arcane "resolution of disapproval" now wending its way through the Senate. If it passes, the resolution would void a recent Federal Communications Commission rule that seeks to preserve long-held Internet standards that protect users against blocking and censorship.
The resolution would remove these protections. It was put forth by industry-funded members of Congress who don't mind letting the few corporations who sell Internet access in America decide what we get to see, hear and read on the Internet.
These senators are also hoping the resolution will appease the most paranoid among the Tea Party faithful, who equate any consumer safeguard put in place during the Obama era with myriad and shadowy government plots.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who pushed a similar measure through the House earlier this year, stoked these fears when she said, "the FCC is in essence building an Internet Iron Curtain that will restrict more of our freedom."
Blackburn's rhetoric puts her and other supporters of the resolution far outside of the mainstream of Americans, who believe that neither the government nor corporations should be able to censor lawful content online.
If Congress succeeds in passing this measure, it will go well beyond deciding whether the FCC's recent rules are appropriate. The resolution will prohibit the agency from engaging in any effort to protect Internet freedom. The move opens the path for corporations eager to take a wrecking ball to the open architecture that has made the Internet a great equalizer for all users.
Lobbyists and lawyers working for the likes of AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have argued that these companies need to take control of your clicks to more efficiently — and profitably — manage the abundance of user-driven innovations online. They promise to be good stewards of this unruly medium if only regulators will take away the one network protection that ensures everyone's right to connect with everyone else on the Internet.
That's not what the Internet's founders intended. They built the network to be free of gatekeepers, giving each user equal access to all the legal content and applications online.
These engineers couldn't have envisioned that this open design would, in a relatively short time, evolve to make the network a potent political tool for freedom movements and democratic organizing worldwide.
But it has. Think of the explosion of Internet organizing and political expression that has swept the world in 2011, from Tunisia to Tehran to Beijing, and is now being embraced in America by protesters determined to Occupy Wall Street.
Americans cherish freedom of speech as much as people across North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. An open Internet allows all sides of contentious issues to be heard by anyone who chooses to listen. It opens up a global pipeline for protest movements, a window for millions to witness injustices and a platform on which to organize for a better future.
So ask yourself this: Do you want Congress to surrender your right to choose online to a company whose sole motive is to generate as much profit as possible? Do you want to wipe away the only protection that prevents any entity — be it corporate or government — from blocking our right to connect with one another?
The hardliners in Congress who support this resolution have joined in a pact with powerful Internet providers and free-market extremists to kill off your most fundamental online right.
It's now up to us users to use the open Internet to reclaim it.
It takes the form of an arcane "resolution of disapproval" now wending its way through the Senate. If it passes, the resolution would void a recent Federal Communications Commission rule that seeks to preserve long-held Internet standards that protect users against blocking and censorship.
The resolution would remove these protections. It was put forth by industry-funded members of Congress who don't mind letting the few corporations who sell Internet access in America decide what we get to see, hear and read on the Internet.
These senators are also hoping the resolution will appease the most paranoid among the Tea Party faithful, who equate any consumer safeguard put in place during the Obama era with myriad and shadowy government plots.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who pushed a similar measure through the House earlier this year, stoked these fears when she said, "the FCC is in essence building an Internet Iron Curtain that will restrict more of our freedom."
Blackburn's rhetoric puts her and other supporters of the resolution far outside of the mainstream of Americans, who believe that neither the government nor corporations should be able to censor lawful content online.
If Congress succeeds in passing this measure, it will go well beyond deciding whether the FCC's recent rules are appropriate. The resolution will prohibit the agency from engaging in any effort to protect Internet freedom. The move opens the path for corporations eager to take a wrecking ball to the open architecture that has made the Internet a great equalizer for all users.
Lobbyists and lawyers working for the likes of AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have argued that these companies need to take control of your clicks to more efficiently — and profitably — manage the abundance of user-driven innovations online. They promise to be good stewards of this unruly medium if only regulators will take away the one network protection that ensures everyone's right to connect with everyone else on the Internet.
That's not what the Internet's founders intended. They built the network to be free of gatekeepers, giving each user equal access to all the legal content and applications online.
These engineers couldn't have envisioned that this open design would, in a relatively short time, evolve to make the network a potent political tool for freedom movements and democratic organizing worldwide.
But it has. Think of the explosion of Internet organizing and political expression that has swept the world in 2011, from Tunisia to Tehran to Beijing, and is now being embraced in America by protesters determined to Occupy Wall Street.
Americans cherish freedom of speech as much as people across North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. An open Internet allows all sides of contentious issues to be heard by anyone who chooses to listen. It opens up a global pipeline for protest movements, a window for millions to witness injustices and a platform on which to organize for a better future.
So ask yourself this: Do you want Congress to surrender your right to choose online to a company whose sole motive is to generate as much profit as possible? Do you want to wipe away the only protection that prevents any entity — be it corporate or government — from blocking our right to connect with one another?
The hardliners in Congress who support this resolution have joined in a pact with powerful Internet providers and free-market extremists to kill off your most fundamental online right.
It's now up to us users to use the open Internet to reclaim it.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Welcome to Your Hungarian Internet
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the U.S. has sunk to 25th in a global ranking of Internet speeds, just behind Romania.
Why? Because our nation's regulators abandoned an earlier commitment to foster competition in the marketplace for Internet access providers.
In the years that followed the signing of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, lobbyists working for powerful providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon pressured a compliant FCC to tear down all of the important safeguards established by Congress.
Under the Bush administration, the FCC tossed out competitive broadband safeguards such as open-access requirements, which opened lines to other providers. In 2002 the agency declared that high-speed cable Internet access would no longer be considered a telecommunications service that opened the network to competitors, but rather an “information service” that did not. Following a 2005 court decision, the FCC also reclassified broadband delivered by the phone companies as an “information service.”
These were radical policy shifts that went against the long-held assumption that open communications in competitive markets were essential to economic growth and innovation.
While the U.S. blindly followed a path of "deregulation," other nations in Europe and Asia beefed up their pro-competitive policies. The results are evident in our free fall from the top of almost every global measure of Internet services, availability and speed.
About this my Free Press colleague Derek Turner writes:
The absence of true consumer choice has driven prices up and services down. Wednesday's New York Times reports that in some parts of the country the situation has had a direct impact on economic growth, education and public safety.
"This is about our overall competitiveness," Jonathan Adelstein of the Rural Utilities Service told the Times. "Without broadband, especially in rural areas, kids might not reach their full potential. And we can’t expect to be competitive in a global economy."
Why? Because our nation's regulators abandoned an earlier commitment to foster competition in the marketplace for Internet access providers.
In the years that followed the signing of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, lobbyists working for powerful providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon pressured a compliant FCC to tear down all of the important safeguards established by Congress.
Under the Bush administration, the FCC tossed out competitive broadband safeguards such as open-access requirements, which opened lines to other providers. In 2002 the agency declared that high-speed cable Internet access would no longer be considered a telecommunications service that opened the network to competitors, but rather an “information service” that did not. Following a 2005 court decision, the FCC also reclassified broadband delivered by the phone companies as an “information service.”
These were radical policy shifts that went against the long-held assumption that open communications in competitive markets were essential to economic growth and innovation.
While the U.S. blindly followed a path of "deregulation," other nations in Europe and Asia beefed up their pro-competitive policies. The results are evident in our free fall from the top of almost every global measure of Internet services, availability and speed.
About this my Free Press colleague Derek Turner writes:
"By turning its back on the 1996 Act, the FCC ordered up a future of digital mediocrity and stuck American consumers with the bill. Americans pay more per month for broadband than consumers in all but seven of the 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development ... When price and speed are considered together as a measure of value, we see that Americans pay more per megabit per second than consumers in many other countries. The value of U.S. connections is some four times less than that of countries like France, and is only slightly better than the value of connections in Hungary, a country with a per capita GDP nearly two-and-a-half times lower than the United States."The lack of competition has turned America into a broadband backwater. In the aftermath of the FCC’s decisions, powerful phone and cable companies legislated and lobbied their way to controlling 97 percent of the fixed-line residential broadband market — leaving the vast majority of consumers with two or fewer choices of land-based providers in any given market.
The absence of true consumer choice has driven prices up and services down. Wednesday's New York Times reports that in some parts of the country the situation has had a direct impact on economic growth, education and public safety.
"This is about our overall competitiveness," Jonathan Adelstein of the Rural Utilities Service told the Times. "Without broadband, especially in rural areas, kids might not reach their full potential. And we can’t expect to be competitive in a global economy."
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Vast Wasteland Revisited
On Monday, the top thinkers in new and old media gathered at Harvard to discuss the state of the media, 50 years after FCC Chairman Newton Minow slammed the nation’s broadcasters for creating a “Vast Wasteland” across the television dial.
Though I did not attend the event, MIT’s Ethan Zuckerman did an excellent job of reporting out via Twitter and his blog.
What’s remarkable in Ethan’s summary is the sense that, while the technology and players have shifted, the problem of U.S. media remains the same: A failure to foster the sort of public interest, independent and noncommercial media system to serve as an antidote to the dreck of commercial news and information that infects America's political discourse.
I could go on about that, and will at a later date. For now I want to put a placeholder in the important comments that were made in Cambridge (Again, as reported by Ethan).
Fifty years on and Minow still seems to have kept a Gimlet eye on the state of our media. He told participants at yesterday's event: "Politicians need massive amounts of money to buy radio and television ads. They raise money from the public to gain access to something the public owns: the airwaves."
This is because the U.S. is one of a few developed democracies that has not offered candidates free access to our airwaves. Why? Because the powerful broadcast lobby makes too much money selling ad space to them -- a number estimated to soar near $3 billion in the 2012 cycle -- and have blocked every political attempt to introduce free time.
Meanwhile their reporting on political candidates and campaigns has devolved into horse race coverage and gotcha moments, devoid of discussions of the issues that Americans say matter most in an election.
Dysfunctional
Bloomberg’s Jonathan Alter noted that today's news business is "largely dysfunctional." Much of the political news we get isn't news at all, he says, but "people like me babbling on MSNBC or Fox," rather than the sort of expensive newsgathering required to report facts on the ground.
These are common complaints made by media reformers such as myself, my colleagues at Free Press, and across the larger movement.
What's less common is the direction the discussion then takes, towards the shifting political power dynamic of social and mobile media.
Yochai Benkler, one of the world's leading thinkers on new networks, helps make the transition:
Benkler alludes to something that we've been saying at Free Press for some time now: "Your phone is political." We recognize that our right to connect via mobile devices is vital to the future health of our or any other democracy.
Broken Promises
Mass media once promised to engage millions in democracy, making information available to people who were previously excluded from the political process. But the age of television seems to have done the opposite.
A survey of voter turnout in the age of television elections (1960 through 2008) shows a national average of 55 percent. In the presidential elections that occurred from 1860 through 1956, voter turnout reached an average 67 percent.
"The political conversation involves a maximum of 10 to 15 million people," Alter says, "but 130 million vote in Presidential elections."
Moreover, a survey published late last year by CTIA counts more than 300 million mobile accounts in the U.S. -- or some 95 percent of the population.
What Mobile Movement?
The link transforming mobile phone users to political speakers and participants remains tenuous, but the potential for inserting new voices in the political process is immense, as is the importance of protecting their freedom to connect.
Susan Crawford says that control over this freedom now rests in the hands of new players, not the broadcasters of old but the distributors of new. She includes massively and vertically integrated companies like Comcast among a rogues gallery of the few cable and telecommunications colossi that control both our wired and wireless worlds.
Ethan adds that "In this new world, the FCC may not be the prime mover -- the real power is located in intermediaries like Google, and if we were to push for the public interest, that’s where we’d apply leverage."
Indeed, if only we had a broader movement to do just that.
Though I did not attend the event, MIT’s Ethan Zuckerman did an excellent job of reporting out via Twitter and his blog.
What’s remarkable in Ethan’s summary is the sense that, while the technology and players have shifted, the problem of U.S. media remains the same: A failure to foster the sort of public interest, independent and noncommercial media system to serve as an antidote to the dreck of commercial news and information that infects America's political discourse.
I could go on about that, and will at a later date. For now I want to put a placeholder in the important comments that were made in Cambridge (Again, as reported by Ethan).
Fifty years on and Minow still seems to have kept a Gimlet eye on the state of our media. He told participants at yesterday's event: "Politicians need massive amounts of money to buy radio and television ads. They raise money from the public to gain access to something the public owns: the airwaves."
This is because the U.S. is one of a few developed democracies that has not offered candidates free access to our airwaves. Why? Because the powerful broadcast lobby makes too much money selling ad space to them -- a number estimated to soar near $3 billion in the 2012 cycle -- and have blocked every political attempt to introduce free time.
Meanwhile their reporting on political candidates and campaigns has devolved into horse race coverage and gotcha moments, devoid of discussions of the issues that Americans say matter most in an election.
Dysfunctional
Bloomberg’s Jonathan Alter noted that today's news business is "largely dysfunctional." Much of the political news we get isn't news at all, he says, but "people like me babbling on MSNBC or Fox," rather than the sort of expensive newsgathering required to report facts on the ground.
These are common complaints made by media reformers such as myself, my colleagues at Free Press, and across the larger movement.
What's less common is the direction the discussion then takes, towards the shifting political power dynamic of social and mobile media.
Yochai Benkler, one of the world's leading thinkers on new networks, helps make the transition:
"Because we all now carry sound, video and text generating and disseminating tools – phones – we’ve got an unprecedented opportunity to close the gap between what costs a great deal of money and what we all need as citizens."
Benkler alludes to something that we've been saying at Free Press for some time now: "Your phone is political." We recognize that our right to connect via mobile devices is vital to the future health of our or any other democracy.
Broken Promises
Mass media once promised to engage millions in democracy, making information available to people who were previously excluded from the political process. But the age of television seems to have done the opposite.
A survey of voter turnout in the age of television elections (1960 through 2008) shows a national average of 55 percent. In the presidential elections that occurred from 1860 through 1956, voter turnout reached an average 67 percent.
"The political conversation involves a maximum of 10 to 15 million people," Alter says, "but 130 million vote in Presidential elections."
Moreover, a survey published late last year by CTIA counts more than 300 million mobile accounts in the U.S. -- or some 95 percent of the population.
What Mobile Movement?
The link transforming mobile phone users to political speakers and participants remains tenuous, but the potential for inserting new voices in the political process is immense, as is the importance of protecting their freedom to connect.
Susan Crawford says that control over this freedom now rests in the hands of new players, not the broadcasters of old but the distributors of new. She includes massively and vertically integrated companies like Comcast among a rogues gallery of the few cable and telecommunications colossi that control both our wired and wireless worlds.
Ethan adds that "In this new world, the FCC may not be the prime mover -- the real power is located in intermediaries like Google, and if we were to push for the public interest, that’s where we’d apply leverage."
Indeed, if only we had a broader movement to do just that.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
BART and the New Era of Censorship
I have spent most of the week poring over news stories, blogs and commentary on last week’s decision by Bay Area Rapid Transit officials to shut off cellphone service to quash planned protests on its trains and platforms.
Opinions are many and range from BART spokesman Linton Johnson, who says constitutional rights end the moment people walk through transit-authority turnstiles, to “X” of the hacker collective Anonymous, who protested BART’s action and said our freedom to connect should be absolute and universal.
I tend to agree with “X,” but adding my criticism to what has already been heaped on BART seems of little consequence at this point.
What does matter is the dangerous precedent set by public agencies that silence new media, and the need for clarity about our free speech rights regardless of the medium.
The San Francisco incident is not unique. Earlier this summer Cleveland’s City Council passed an ordinance outlawing the use of Facebook and other social media to assemble unruly crowds. While a mayoral veto struck down the Cleveland ruling, the overreaction is part of a spreading official backlash against political organizing on new media.
Other governments have responded the same — see China, Burma, Iran, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and beyond. In many instances they simply direct the state-run service provider and cellphone carriers to shut down their networks.
In the U.S., though, companies often flip the kill switch on their own. Verizon Wireless blocked text messages in 2007 that a reproductive rights group sought to send to its members. The carrier decided that the texts were “controversial and unsavory” and implemented a rule buried deep within the company’s terms of service that gives Verizon the power to cut off mobile communications “without prior notice and for any reason or no reason.”
That Verizon reversed its decision after its censorship was exposed by the New York Times should offer little comfort — neither should the notion that fierce public criticism has sufficiently warned BART against switching off mobile communications in the future.
These incidents reveal a growing pattern of abuse and a great measure of confusion over free speech rights in the tangled realm of new media.
“We have free speech rights everywhere. Or at least everywhere in the U.S. when government applies its power,” argues First Amendment scholar Marvin Ammori.
“If the spokesperson for BART reflects BART’s understanding about freedom of speech at stations, then BART’s leadership is wrong,” Ammori says, adding that dismissing the free speech rights of citizens in such a reckless and all-encompassing fashion puts BART on shaky legal ground.
While these are new technologies, this isn’t a new issue. People have sought to speak out using the best means available, whether that’s strapping a note to a pigeon’s leg, handing out printed pamphlets on a street corner or tweeting from the subway.
Governments have routinely sought to shut down technologies that disrupt their authority. But our basic freedoms should remain intact. Whether public and private entities have the right to silence social media and cellphone networks has become a question for the courts.
That’s why the recent uptick in U.S. censorship is cause for real concern — and reason enough for our judicial system to provide clarity on behalf of free speech everywhere.
Opinions are many and range from BART spokesman Linton Johnson, who says constitutional rights end the moment people walk through transit-authority turnstiles, to “X” of the hacker collective Anonymous, who protested BART’s action and said our freedom to connect should be absolute and universal.
I tend to agree with “X,” but adding my criticism to what has already been heaped on BART seems of little consequence at this point.
What does matter is the dangerous precedent set by public agencies that silence new media, and the need for clarity about our free speech rights regardless of the medium.
The San Francisco incident is not unique. Earlier this summer Cleveland’s City Council passed an ordinance outlawing the use of Facebook and other social media to assemble unruly crowds. While a mayoral veto struck down the Cleveland ruling, the overreaction is part of a spreading official backlash against political organizing on new media.
Other governments have responded the same — see China, Burma, Iran, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and beyond. In many instances they simply direct the state-run service provider and cellphone carriers to shut down their networks.
In the U.S., though, companies often flip the kill switch on their own. Verizon Wireless blocked text messages in 2007 that a reproductive rights group sought to send to its members. The carrier decided that the texts were “controversial and unsavory” and implemented a rule buried deep within the company’s terms of service that gives Verizon the power to cut off mobile communications “without prior notice and for any reason or no reason.”
That Verizon reversed its decision after its censorship was exposed by the New York Times should offer little comfort — neither should the notion that fierce public criticism has sufficiently warned BART against switching off mobile communications in the future.
These incidents reveal a growing pattern of abuse and a great measure of confusion over free speech rights in the tangled realm of new media.
“We have free speech rights everywhere. Or at least everywhere in the U.S. when government applies its power,” argues First Amendment scholar Marvin Ammori.
“If the spokesperson for BART reflects BART’s understanding about freedom of speech at stations, then BART’s leadership is wrong,” Ammori says, adding that dismissing the free speech rights of citizens in such a reckless and all-encompassing fashion puts BART on shaky legal ground.
While these are new technologies, this isn’t a new issue. People have sought to speak out using the best means available, whether that’s strapping a note to a pigeon’s leg, handing out printed pamphlets on a street corner or tweeting from the subway.
Governments have routinely sought to shut down technologies that disrupt their authority. But our basic freedoms should remain intact. Whether public and private entities have the right to silence social media and cellphone networks has become a question for the courts.
That’s why the recent uptick in U.S. censorship is cause for real concern — and reason enough for our judicial system to provide clarity on behalf of free speech everywhere.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Murdoch Façade Crumbling as Scandal Takes Root in America
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) is reportedly preparing to deliver subpoenas to News Corporation employees and others as part of its expanding investigation into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
A separate FBI investigation is underway in response to reports that the company may have hacked into the phone messages of victims of the September 11 attacks. (Free Press is part of a larger coalition of groups urging Washington to call News Corp. executives including Rupert Murdoch to testify before Congress )
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act holds U.S. companies legally accountable for crimes committed abroad, especially bribes that are paid to foreign officials to protect and expand the company’s business interests.
News Corp. is running its own campaign to downplay these allegations, distance father and son from the alleged crimes, and contain the scandal to the U.K. The Wall Street Journal and Fox News Channel are leading the charge with carefully contrived editorials and on-air stagecraft. One person with ties to News Corp. told The Journal that the DoJ subpoenas are “a fishing expedition with no evidence to support it.”
Not according to British investigators, who received a trove of documents and emails from News International that identify at least $160,000 in bribes paid to police officers. This handover of evidence has been confirmed by more credible news outlets, including the New York Times and the Guardian, that have covered the unfolding investigations.
Robert Lenzner of Forbes writes that News Corp efforts to cover-up the scandal are now “cracking” as two former executives come forth to claim that James Murdoch wasn't telling the whole truth during his testimony before Parliament on Tuesday. One former executive, Tom Crone, should know. He served as part of the legal team that advised Murdoch, Jr. during an earlier investigation that involved phone hacking.
“When the full extent of the hacking and the amounts paid to police are known, the Murdochs’ claim [that] they knew nothing of these activities – and were betrayed – will go up in smoke,” Lenzner writes.
And as more leads indicate that crimes were indeed committed on U.S. soil -- including actor Jude Law's claim that his phone was hacked as he was passing through New York City’s JFK Airport -- the likelihood increases that this scandal will create heat for the Murdochs on this side of the Atlantic.
More fish for the frying pan.
A separate FBI investigation is underway in response to reports that the company may have hacked into the phone messages of victims of the September 11 attacks. (Free Press is part of a larger coalition of groups urging Washington to call News Corp. executives including Rupert Murdoch to testify before Congress )
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act holds U.S. companies legally accountable for crimes committed abroad, especially bribes that are paid to foreign officials to protect and expand the company’s business interests.
News Corp. is running its own campaign to downplay these allegations, distance father and son from the alleged crimes, and contain the scandal to the U.K. The Wall Street Journal and Fox News Channel are leading the charge with carefully contrived editorials and on-air stagecraft. One person with ties to News Corp. told The Journal that the DoJ subpoenas are “a fishing expedition with no evidence to support it.”
Not according to British investigators, who received a trove of documents and emails from News International that identify at least $160,000 in bribes paid to police officers. This handover of evidence has been confirmed by more credible news outlets, including the New York Times and the Guardian, that have covered the unfolding investigations.
Robert Lenzner of Forbes writes that News Corp efforts to cover-up the scandal are now “cracking” as two former executives come forth to claim that James Murdoch wasn't telling the whole truth during his testimony before Parliament on Tuesday. One former executive, Tom Crone, should know. He served as part of the legal team that advised Murdoch, Jr. during an earlier investigation that involved phone hacking.
“When the full extent of the hacking and the amounts paid to police are known, the Murdochs’ claim [that] they knew nothing of these activities – and were betrayed – will go up in smoke,” Lenzner writes.
And as more leads indicate that crimes were indeed committed on U.S. soil -- including actor Jude Law's claim that his phone was hacked as he was passing through New York City’s JFK Airport -- the likelihood increases that this scandal will create heat for the Murdochs on this side of the Atlantic.
More fish for the frying pan.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Washington Slowly Wakes Up from AT&T's Fantasy
Congress may be finally waking up to the obvious: that the massive merger of AT&T with T-Mobile just doesn't make sense.
No amount of contributions from AT&T, or visits from AT&T lobbyists, will alter this simple truth.
On Wednesday, the Senate's top antitrust official, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, weighed the facts and wrote a letter urging Attorney General Eric Holder and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to reject AT&T's proposed takeover.
Sen. Kohl wrote that "the acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies."
Sen. Kohl's joined a growing chorus of opposition in Washington to the proposed merger. Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) also submitted a letter on Wednesday stating that they believed AT&T's takeover of T-Mobile "would be a troubling backward step in federal public policy -- a retrenchment from nearly two decades of promoting competition and open markets to acceptance of a duopoly in the wireless marketplace."
Opposition to this unprecedented consolidation is growing, and will only continue to grow once policymakers and the public see that the facts contradict AT&T's propaganda.
In his letter, Sen. Kohl provides a detailed analysis of the deal, and notes that T-Mobile is one of the sectors strongest price competitors, with services costing from $15 to $50 less than comparable plans on AT&T. T-Mobile is a "competitor that disciplines price increases from all three other national cell phone competitors," Sen. Kohl writes, adding that approval of the merger "raises a substantial likelihood that prices will rise."
He also notes that the merger would hand AT&T and Verizon control of 80 percent of the market, Kohl cites antitrust law, which explicitly forbids mergers that "may tend to substantially lessen competition."
Despite a mountain of evidence to support Sen. Kohl's claim, AT&T continues to say, as it did in its filing to the FCC, that "the wireless marketplace will be more competitive" as a result of this merger.
It gets worse. In response to Sen. Kohl's letter, AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris said that the senator's view "is inconsistent with antitrust law, is shared by few others and ignores the many positive benefits and numerous supporters of the transaction."
Think about that for a second. A top AT&T flack is saying that a highly respected leader of the Judiciary Committee, who is considered an expert in matters related to antitrust, knows nothing about antitrust law, or knows less than AT&T's public relations department.
While their false claims about competition seem obvious to everyone, especially those who can count, convincing Washington to question the gospel of AT&T is no easy task.
The phone giant has spent $200 million on lobbyists and campaign contributions over the years. This astronomical sum goes a long way toward explaining why earlier this month a sum a cabal of House Democrats looked the other way and signed a letter stating that the merger would lead to billions of dollars in new investment and create thousands of new jobs.
Never mind that the opposite is true, that the merger will mark a net drop in capital expenditures for network build out and likely result in layoffs for more than 20,000 "redundant" T-Mobile employees.
In Washington, the facts too often don't hold a candle to a phalanx of industry lobbyists and a pile of campaign checks. Until now, this toxic blend of misinformation and cash has hijacked the debate surrounding this merger, and just about every other effort to reform the forces of the status quo.
The good news is that the common-sense efforts of Kohl and others are staring to unravel AT&T's fantasy. More people inside Washington have begun to see its lobbying juggernaut for what it is: a well-funded push for a government handout, instead of competing fairly in the free market.
AT&T doesn't need to acquire T-Mobile to serve rural America or improve the quality of its service. And as more members of Congress point out, this merger will kill competition and lead to higher prices, reduced investment and more unemployment.
As Washington separates fact from fantasy, the regulators at the DOJ and FCC simply need to do their jobs. They will surely have no choice but to reject this takeover outright.
No amount of contributions from AT&T, or visits from AT&T lobbyists, will alter this simple truth.
On Wednesday, the Senate's top antitrust official, Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, weighed the facts and wrote a letter urging Attorney General Eric Holder and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to reject AT&T's proposed takeover.
Sen. Kohl wrote that "the acquisition, if permitted to proceed, would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers, would be contrary to antitrust law and not in the public interest, and therefore should be blocked by your agencies."
Sen. Kohl's joined a growing chorus of opposition in Washington to the proposed merger. Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) also submitted a letter on Wednesday stating that they believed AT&T's takeover of T-Mobile "would be a troubling backward step in federal public policy -- a retrenchment from nearly two decades of promoting competition and open markets to acceptance of a duopoly in the wireless marketplace."
Opposition to this unprecedented consolidation is growing, and will only continue to grow once policymakers and the public see that the facts contradict AT&T's propaganda.
In his letter, Sen. Kohl provides a detailed analysis of the deal, and notes that T-Mobile is one of the sectors strongest price competitors, with services costing from $15 to $50 less than comparable plans on AT&T. T-Mobile is a "competitor that disciplines price increases from all three other national cell phone competitors," Sen. Kohl writes, adding that approval of the merger "raises a substantial likelihood that prices will rise."
He also notes that the merger would hand AT&T and Verizon control of 80 percent of the market, Kohl cites antitrust law, which explicitly forbids mergers that "may tend to substantially lessen competition."
Despite a mountain of evidence to support Sen. Kohl's claim, AT&T continues to say, as it did in its filing to the FCC, that "the wireless marketplace will be more competitive" as a result of this merger.
It gets worse. In response to Sen. Kohl's letter, AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris said that the senator's view "is inconsistent with antitrust law, is shared by few others and ignores the many positive benefits and numerous supporters of the transaction."
Think about that for a second. A top AT&T flack is saying that a highly respected leader of the Judiciary Committee, who is considered an expert in matters related to antitrust, knows nothing about antitrust law, or knows less than AT&T's public relations department.
While their false claims about competition seem obvious to everyone, especially those who can count, convincing Washington to question the gospel of AT&T is no easy task.
The phone giant has spent $200 million on lobbyists and campaign contributions over the years. This astronomical sum goes a long way toward explaining why earlier this month a sum a cabal of House Democrats looked the other way and signed a letter stating that the merger would lead to billions of dollars in new investment and create thousands of new jobs.
Never mind that the opposite is true, that the merger will mark a net drop in capital expenditures for network build out and likely result in layoffs for more than 20,000 "redundant" T-Mobile employees.
In Washington, the facts too often don't hold a candle to a phalanx of industry lobbyists and a pile of campaign checks. Until now, this toxic blend of misinformation and cash has hijacked the debate surrounding this merger, and just about every other effort to reform the forces of the status quo.
The good news is that the common-sense efforts of Kohl and others are staring to unravel AT&T's fantasy. More people inside Washington have begun to see its lobbying juggernaut for what it is: a well-funded push for a government handout, instead of competing fairly in the free market.
AT&T doesn't need to acquire T-Mobile to serve rural America or improve the quality of its service. And as more members of Congress point out, this merger will kill competition and lead to higher prices, reduced investment and more unemployment.
As Washington separates fact from fantasy, the regulators at the DOJ and FCC simply need to do their jobs. They will surely have no choice but to reject this takeover outright.
| Imagining what those T-Mobile ads would look like |
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Murdoch Scandal Jumps the Pond
The media scandal that's snared Rupert Murdoch and other News Corporation executives in Great Britain has crossed the Atlantic, and could cause more homegrown trouble for the U.S.-based media company.
In the past 48 hours, Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller, Frank Lautenberg, Barbara Boxer and Robert Menendez have called for an investigation of News Corp., saying that the behavior of Murdoch's executives and staff in England raises serious questions about the legality of the conduct of the company under U.S. law.
And the calls haven't been exclusively partisan. On Wednesday, Republican Rep. Peter King said the allegations of News Corp phone hacking were "disgraceful" and warranted an FBI investigation.
Already a range of groups including Free Press, Public Campaign, ThinkProgress, CREDO Action and Media Matters for America has collected signatures from 100,000 Americans demanding an investigation. ColorofChange.org is organizing a sizable protest to occur outside Murdoch's Manhattan townhouse on Thursday.
New Allegations to Come
It's clear from reports in the media that more allegations are going to surface, and that they'll not be limited to crimes committed in the United Kingdom.
Reporters at the Murdoch-owned news properties allegedly hacked the phone messages of more than 4,000 people, including the voicemail of a 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler, which set off a furious public backlash in Britain. But News of the World journalists were based in the United States during the time the paper allegedly hacked into people's phone records.
We already know that some reportedly tried to pay a New York City police officer to hack into the phone messages of the American families and victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
We also know that News Corp., as an American company, is accountable to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which states that U.S. companies can be prosecuted for crimes committed abroad. (Part of the investigation unfolding in the UK involves $160,000 in bribes allegedly paid to police by Murdoch executives to stifle an investigation of the phone hacking).
On Tuesday, former New York State Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer wrote that the Justice Department has been very actively prosecuting FCPA violations in recent years. "The News Corp. case presents a pretty simple test for Attorney General Eric Holder," Spitzer wrote. "If the department fails to open an immediate investigation into News Corp.'s violations of the FCPA, there will have been a major breach of enforcement at Justice."
Murdoch Not Above the Law
Murdoch has amassed a worldwide media empire, which in America includes Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, and hundreds of local broadcast stations and cable channels.
For too long, Murdoch has leveraged his enormous media power to get what he wants from leaders in Washington and London, and to insulate himself and his company from official scrutiny.
This is exactly the problem that media reformers have been warning about for years. When one company amasses too much control over a nation's public discourse, democracy suffers.
It seems clear now that Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. colleagues believed that their tremendous media power placed them above the law.
But fortunes are turning, and Rupert Murdoch must now answer for all that has happened under his watch. If he or his executives broke the law, they need to be held accountable in the United States.
In the past 48 hours, Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller, Frank Lautenberg, Barbara Boxer and Robert Menendez have called for an investigation of News Corp., saying that the behavior of Murdoch's executives and staff in England raises serious questions about the legality of the conduct of the company under U.S. law.
And the calls haven't been exclusively partisan. On Wednesday, Republican Rep. Peter King said the allegations of News Corp phone hacking were "disgraceful" and warranted an FBI investigation.
Already a range of groups including Free Press, Public Campaign, ThinkProgress, CREDO Action and Media Matters for America has collected signatures from 100,000 Americans demanding an investigation. ColorofChange.org is organizing a sizable protest to occur outside Murdoch's Manhattan townhouse on Thursday.
New Allegations to Come
It's clear from reports in the media that more allegations are going to surface, and that they'll not be limited to crimes committed in the United Kingdom.
Reporters at the Murdoch-owned news properties allegedly hacked the phone messages of more than 4,000 people, including the voicemail of a 13-year-old murder victim Milly Dowler, which set off a furious public backlash in Britain. But News of the World journalists were based in the United States during the time the paper allegedly hacked into people's phone records.
We already know that some reportedly tried to pay a New York City police officer to hack into the phone messages of the American families and victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
We also know that News Corp., as an American company, is accountable to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which states that U.S. companies can be prosecuted for crimes committed abroad. (Part of the investigation unfolding in the UK involves $160,000 in bribes allegedly paid to police by Murdoch executives to stifle an investigation of the phone hacking).
On Tuesday, former New York State Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer wrote that the Justice Department has been very actively prosecuting FCPA violations in recent years. "The News Corp. case presents a pretty simple test for Attorney General Eric Holder," Spitzer wrote. "If the department fails to open an immediate investigation into News Corp.'s violations of the FCPA, there will have been a major breach of enforcement at Justice."
Murdoch Not Above the Law
Murdoch has amassed a worldwide media empire, which in America includes Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, and hundreds of local broadcast stations and cable channels.
For too long, Murdoch has leveraged his enormous media power to get what he wants from leaders in Washington and London, and to insulate himself and his company from official scrutiny.
This is exactly the problem that media reformers have been warning about for years. When one company amasses too much control over a nation's public discourse, democracy suffers.
It seems clear now that Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. colleagues believed that their tremendous media power placed them above the law.
But fortunes are turning, and Rupert Murdoch must now answer for all that has happened under his watch. If he or his executives broke the law, they need to be held accountable in the United States.
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