{"id":5116,"date":"2009-07-21T06:16:34","date_gmt":"2009-07-21T11:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5116"},"modified":"2012-01-06T14:13:35","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T20:13:35","slug":"wed-have-had-an-insurrection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5116","title":{"rendered":"We’d Have Had An Insurrection…"},"content":{"rendered":"

…if Bush’s administration had suggested this<\/a> – federal control over content on the Internet. White House advisor Cass Sunstein is talking about the White House – the Feds, anyway – taking a huge role in censoring the Internet.
\nAnd the insurgents – whatever their party?\u00a0 They’d have been right:<\/p>\n

Perhaps most disturbing is Mr. Sunstein\u2019s vision for the future of web content, as he argues for a so-called \u201cnotice and take down\u201d law. Under this provision, those who operate websites – – The Washington Post, radio stations, private bloggers, and perhaps even you, yourself -we would all be required \u201ctake down falsehoods upon notice\u201d from the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

And not only would the original content of websites be scrutinized by the government for \u201cfalsehoods,\u201d website operators would also be held responsible for the content of \u201cposts\u201d created by the website\u2019s visitors and readers. At first blush it may seem that, for a web operator to be held accountable for content generated by \u201cposters,\u201d is completely untenable. But that may very well be Mr. Sunstein\u2019s goal – – to create an \u201cuntenable situation\u201d for website operators – given his assertion that \u201ca \u2018chilling effect\u2019 on those who would spread destructive falsehoods can be an excellent idea..\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, we all want “the truth” to prevail, don’t we?<\/p>\n

But who shall determine what, exactly, is \u201ctrue\u201d and \u201cfalse?\u201d Mr. Sunstein laments the supposed \u201clie\u201d that emerged during last year\u2019s presidential race, that \u201cBarack Obama pals around with terrorists.\u201d Despite that fact that a friendship between Obama and known domestic terrorist William Ayers was something that both men acknowledged, Sunstein alludes to the notion that this was one of those \u201cdestructive falsehoods\u201d of the sort that needs to be policed.<\/p>\n

As I was recently talking about this matter on-air at Arizona\u2019s NewsTalk 92-3 KTAR radio, a caller to the show observed that \u201cthere\u2019s no way this could be legal, or constitutional..\u201d Thoughtful Americans of all sorts will immediately view this situation through the lenses of constitutionally guaranteed rights.<\/p>\n

But issues of \u201clegality\u201d don\u2019t seem to matter, at times, with the Obama Administration. In March of this year, there was nothing illegal about executives of the AIG Corporation being paid bonuses that they earned from their employer, but they were harassed and publicly belittled, nonetheless. President Obama himself demonized them, while dozens of Obama supporters \u201cdemonstrated\u201d in front of the private residences of the executives, alleging that it was \u201cunfair\u201d for those executives to be making \u201cso much money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember when the lefties told us we were paranoid for thinking Obama would re-institute the Fairness Doctrine?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They may have had a point.\u00a0 This makes the Fairness Doctrine look like a piker.<\/p>\n

In a similar way, it appears that the Obama Administration may be ushering-in an era of harassment for website operators. Regardless of what U.S. courts may or may not say about this in the future, a \u201cnotice and take down\u201d letter from the White House could have quite a \u201cchilling effect\u201d for today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

‘ For my part?\u00a0 Consider this post a “Notice And Take Down” letter for this entire wretched administration.<\/p>\n

I used to joke, before the election, that Obama would be the worst President of my lifetime by sometime on inauguration day.\u00a0 I was <\/em>joking.\u00a0 At the time, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…if Bush’s administration had suggested this – federal control over content on the Internet. White House advisor Cass Sunstein is talking about the White House – the Feds, anyway – taking a huge role in censoring the Internet. And the insurgents – whatever their party?\u00a0 They’d have been right: Perhaps most disturbing is Mr. Sunstein\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,71],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-5116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-tyranny","category-talk-radio","tag-fairness-doctrine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5116"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25429,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116\/revisions\/25429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}