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http://newswatch.us/why-is-the-obama-administration-putting-government-monitors-in-newsrooms/
Why Is The Obama Administration Putting Government Monitors In Newsrooms?
Posted about 15 hours ago | 17 comments
(Matthew Clark) The Obama Administration’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is poised to place government monitors in newsrooms across the country in an absurdly draconian attempt to intimidate and control the media.
Before you dismiss this assertion as utterly preposterous (we all know how that turned out when the Tea Party complained that it was being targeted by the IRS), this bombshell of an accusation comes from an actual FCC Commissioner.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai reveals a brand new Obama Administration program that he fears could be used in “pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.”
As Commissioner Pai explains in the Wall Street Journal:
Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.
The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”
In fact, the FCC is now expanding the bounds of regulatory powers to include newspapers, which it has absolutely no authority over, in its new government monitoring program.
The FCC has apparently already selected eight categories of “critical information” “that it believes local newscasters should cover.”
That’s right, the Obama Administration has developed a formula of what it believes the free press should cover, and it is going to send government monitors into newsrooms across America to stand over the shoulders of the press as they make editorial decisions.
This poses a monumental danger to constitutionally protected free speech and freedom of the press.
Every major repressive regime of the modern era has begun with an attempt to control and intimidate the press.
As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently said, “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
The federal government has absolutely no business determining what stories should and should not be run, what is critical for the American public and what is not, whether it perceives a bias, and whose interests are and are not being served by the free press.
It’s an unconscionable assault on our free society.
Imagine a government monitor telling Fox News it needed to cover stories in the same way as MSNBC or Al Jazeera. Imagine an Obama Administration official walking in to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and telling it that the American public would be better served if it is stopped reporting on the IRS scandal or maybe that reporting on ObamaCare “glitches” is driving down enrollment.
It’s hard to imaging anything more brazenly Orwellian than government monitors in newsrooms.
Is it any wonder that the U.S. now ranks 46th in the world for freedom of the press? Reporters Without Boarders called America’s precipitous drop of 13 places in its recent global rankings “one of the most significant declines” in freedom of the press in the world.
Freedom of the press is proudly extolled in the First Amendment, yet our nation now barely makes the top fifty for media freedom.
We cannot allow the unfathomable encroachment on our free speech and freedom of the press to continue.
We’ve seen, and defeated, this kind of attempt to squelch free speech before in the likes of the Fairness Doctrine and the Grassroots Lobbying Bill(incidentally one of my first projects at the ACLJ). Each one of these euphemistically named government programs is nothing more than an underhanded attempt to circumvent the Constitution and limit free speech – speech that the government finds inconvenient. They’re equally unconstitutional, and they each must be defeated.
Join the ACLJ as we take a stand. Sign the ACLJ’s Petition to Stop the Obama FCC’s Free Speech Monitors.
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YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!
NO MORE NEWS ON DRONES CAUSE WE ARE GONNA TARGET YOU AMERICAN'S!!!
THAT'S WHY!
FORGET WHAT WE SAY AND WATCH WHAT WE DO! THIS AIN'T NO RABBIT IN A HAT TRICK!!
http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/07/white-house-no-more-information-about-drone-killings-will-be-released-to-public/#ixzz2tqFkm8Iq
White House: No more information about drone killings will be released to public
11:11 AM 02/07/2013
Vince Coglianese
Executive Editor
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Thursday that the Obama administration will not be releasing any more information about the controversial use of drones to kill American citizens.
Carney’s remarks, via the White House’s transcript of the off-camera press gaggle:
“This is not an open-ended process. This is a specific and unique accommodation in this circumstance. The fact is, when it comes to public disclosure, we have been — not with the kind of attention that’s been given it this week — but we have been publicly discussing these matters at the highest levels of government for the very reason that I’ve given, which is the President understands that these are core issues about how we conduct ourselves in war, how the President of the United States — any President — balances his constitutional obligation to protect America and American citizens, and his obligation to do so in a manner that is lawful under the Constitution and reflects our values.
“The President takes these issues very seriously, and he believes that the conversation about this is valid and that the questions about it are legitimate. And that’s why he has been leading this process internally to — as has John Brennan, by the way — to provide public information as much as possible, mindful of the fact that we are talking about here very sensitive matters, and that these kinds of things — they’re classification — information is classified for very legitimate reasons that go right to our national security interest.
“But within that, there is an effort underway to provide Congress information — those who have oversight over these matters — classified information as well as unclassified with the white paper and the public information as much as possible.”
Those comments by Carney follow the White House’s Wednesday evening decision to send Congress “classified legal advice” about the rationale for using drones against Americans, reported the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Obama has directed the Justice Department to give Congress’ intelligence committees access to classified legal advice providing the government’s rationale for drone strikes against American citizens working with al-Qaeda abroad, a senior administration official and Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday.
A drumbeat of demands to see the document has swelled on Capitol Hill in recent days as the Senate Intelligence Committee prepares to hold a confirmation hearing for John Brennan, who helped manage the drone program, to be CIA director.
Subject: -AUTHORITARIAN- -PEN- & -PHONE-RESULTS=> news room monitors / droning silence 
Thu Feb 20, 2014 1:33 pm
