It’s a Brave New World - or - Every Year is 1984

UPDATES: Aplenty – from late last night – below.  Please, indulge us and read from top to bottom – for clarity’s sake.

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That’s some good news right there.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls….

Hold the phone.  (Get it?)  The NSA claims “it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.”  The Fourth Amendment begs to differ.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

How unreasonable are all of these probable-cause-and-warrant-free listening expeditions?

(T)he Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls….

If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required….

More legal flights of fancy from Held-in-Bipartisan-Contempt-of-Congress-Once-and-Counting Attorney General Eric Holder.

Edward Snowden – the guy who first alerted us to this NSA-PRISM-NUCLEON mess – has had his veracity (and mental stability) challenged for claiming Little-Old-He could unilaterally “wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president.”

Edward Snowden Is Completely Wrong

Not so wrong after all.

When some of us responded to all of this with alarm, we too were summarily dismissed.

‘Nobody is Listening to Your Telephone Calls,’ Obama Says

NSA Data Mining

The paranoid imagine that government eavesdroppers are listening in on their phone conversations and reading their intimate emails.

Someone is listening.  Thousands of someones (at least), in fact.  (And reading – please stay tuned.)  Not so paranoid after all.

(President Barack) Obama Calls Surveillance Programs Legal and Limited

“Legal” is highly dubious.  How about “limited?”

NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Customers Daily

That’s a fairly expansive definition of “limited.”

By now, the following claim – now just nine days old – seems quaint and antiquated.  Not to mention fundamentally untrue.

President Insists Americans Not Target of Records Sweep

Again, we’re all James Rosens now.

What about our fantasies of the government reading our emails (and text messages, and instant messages, and…)?

(NSA phone call self-)authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too….

Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, being able to listen to phone calls would mean the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications too without going before a court and seeking approval.

Again, we’re all James Rosens now.  And then some.

But wait – we were told it was just the email and Internet metadata – not the content.

Again, not so much.

We have throughout this nightmare awakening had Big Government proponents and officials aplenty – up to and repeatedly including the President – lying their faces off about what is actually happening with our phone calls, emails and all things Internet.

Preemptively listening to, peeking at and harvesting the data of hundreds of millions of innocent Americans is not a “national security” prerogative.  It is, however, a Big Brother imperative.

So when we have warned you about things like:

Forget the ‘Fairness’ Doctrine – Net Neutrality is the Future of Censorship

Obama Official-Network Neutrality Deviser Says First Amendment Doesn’t Apply to Our Computers

And the Left’s response is:

Right-Wing Delusion: Net Neutrality is Government Plot to Control Internet Content

We can all be forgiven for being more than a little skeptical.  On Net Neutrality – and just about everything else.

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UPDATE #1: Obama Administration Director of National Intelligence James Clapper late last night released a statement denying most or all of the above.  Which in part reads:

“The statement that a single analyst can eavesdrop on domestic communications without proper legal authorization is incorrect and was not briefed to Congress.”

This is the same James Clapper that in a March 12 Congressional hearing lied to Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden – denying that trillions of Verizon domestic phone call sweeps were occurring.

Fire James Clapper

The Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about NSA surveillance. What else will he lie about?

Good question.  Is it possible (probable?) that Clapper is lying again here?  Indeed it is.

Which makes the following even more pathetic.

UPDATE #2: New York Democrat Congressman Jerry Nadler was a key original source for this eavesdropping story.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed on Thursday that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed “simply based on an analyst deciding that.”

If the NSA wants “to listen to the phone,” an analyst’s decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. “I was rather startled,” said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee….

In prostrating response to the statement from proven liar James Clapper – a member of the proven-lying Obama Administration – Congressman Nadler has retreated into being a good Democrat, but a troublingly bad representative of We the People and our Constitutional rights.

James Owens, a spokesman for Nadler, provided a statement on Sunday morning, a day after this (original) article was published, saying:

“I am pleased that the administration has reiterated that, as I have always believed, the NSA cannot listen to the content of Americans’ phone calls without a specific warrant.”

Owens said he couldn’t comment on what assurances from the Obama administration Nadler was referring to, and said Nadler was unavailable for an interview.

Congressman Nadler was thus also unavailable to explain why or how this latest Obama Administration assertion, after all of these lies, is any more believable.

And is Congressman Nadler addled?  Was the briefing he (and obviously, ostensibly other Members) attended merely a figment of his imagination?

Hard to think so.  Especially since he – and Snowdon – aren’t the only people to make similar Administration snooping claims:

Senate Intelligence committee chairperson Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) confirmed on Thursday, according to the report, that a court order is not necessary for the NSA to search its call data database that it collects under secret orders from major U.S. telecom firms….

(F)ormer FBI counter-terrorism agent Tim Clemente disclosed to CNN that under certain investigations relating to the protection of national security, his former employer could access call records and contents of those calls.

“All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not,” he claimed.

It is difficult under these circumstances – with all of these corroborating statements – to not think that what best represents the truth is what Congressman Nadler said first.

Given that the serially untruthful Obama Administration are the only ones denying it.

Just a Small Part of the Government’s Surgically Targeted Program

We’re all James Rosens, now.

The National Security Administration (NSA) has been forcing Verizon to turn over phone record data on millions of Americans.

Will the federal government use this unbelievably massive data grab against the American people they are supposed to serve – but instead increasingly lord over?

Let’s check the recent record.

Obama DOJ to Federal Judge: Let’s Keep This James Rosen Warrant Between Us, OK?

Gov’t Obtains Wide AP Phone Records in Probe

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) forces hundreds of millions of Americans to turn over just about the entirety of their financial data – and then uses it against those who oppose Leviathan government.

IRS: We Targeted Conservative, Tea Party Groups With Extra Scrutiny

IRS Accused of Leaking Confidential Tax Documents During Election

IRS Targeted Conservatives as Early as 2010

IRS Asked Leadership Institute About Former Interns’ Current Employers

IRS: ‘Please Detail the Content of Your Members’ Prayers.’

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) forces millions of Americans to reveal whom they support in elections – and then uses it against those who oppose Leviathan government.

Romney Donor VanderSloot: I Was Audited Twice by IRS, Once by DOL & Investigated by Senate Staffer

Megyn Kelly Examines Obama Team’s Targeting Romney Donors: Obama May ‘Name You And Shame You’

Multiple Romney Supporters Were Targeted by the IRS

Is Obama Closing GOP-Leaning Car Dealers?

Big Government advocates want the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE) to collect as much data as possible on lawful gun owners.  Will that be used against us?  Ask the residents of New York state.  The government handed over our gun data to the media – who then made interactive online maps of who owned guns.

We’ve been discussing all of this for a while.  And the Internet – the last free speech-free market Xanadu on the planet – has of course not escaped Sauron’s eye.

The Future of Government Power Grabs? Our Digital Data

Because Congress in many areas hasn’t yet addressed the gaping hole of protecting our data from Big Government, we are left exposed and subject to hay-yuge, illegal power grabs.

Like President Barack Obama’s illegal Network Neutrality order.  Which gives the government access to the Internet’s spine – and with it every website there is and all the data contained therein….

Like President Barack Obama’s illegal Cyber Security Executive Order.  The amount of data compiled in Cyber Security execution is massive – and Big Government wants at it:

Part of the reason lawmakers have not passed even voluntary cyber reforms is that businesses and many Republicans fear optional measures eventually could become mandatory.

The executive order did not allay those fears… (T)he Republican head of the House Homeland Security Committee expressed misgivings about the policy’s potential for mission creep.

Another “good start” towards ever growing Big Government grabs.

A privacy section in the documents outlines steps agencies must take to protect personal information while carrying out these activities. When private sector information is collected and shared with the government, concerns often arise that customer information will be exposed or abused.

Like the Obama Administration shutting down bailed out car company dealerships based upon campaign contribution data.  Like local governments in New York turning over for publication gun registration data.  Like then-President and First Lady Bill and Hillary Clinton’s illegally obtained 900 FBI files getting him out of an impeachment conviction.

Despite this massive amount of evidence – and this is but a tiny bit of it – we have a political Party and an ideological movement demanding that we continue our ever growing capitulation to ever Big(ger) Government.

For them, these Leviathan lessons are apparently never learned.

Feel the Love?

The Big Government Barack Obama Administration is nothing if not thorough.

Justice Department Tries to Force Google to Hand Over User Data

Secret lawsuit in Manhattan filed last month asks judge to force Google to cough up user data without a search warrant. A different court has already ruled that the process is unconstitutional.

When the Obama Administration wants information on We the Peasants, they keep kicking down doors until they get it.

(Justice’s Eric) Holder Went Judge Shopping to Obtain Fox News Subpoena

The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, a bulldog on the DOJ/Fox News secret subpoena story, reports that the effort by the Justice Department to obtain the controversial court order was arduous, contentious and unsuccessful until finally a third judge acquiesced. 

The Obama Administration applies the By-Any-Means-Necessary approach.

Do You Want the Government Buying Your Data From Corporations?

Our government collects a lot of information about us. Tax records, legal records, license records, records of government services received– it’s all in databases that are increasingly linked and correlated.

Still, there’s a lot of personal information the government can’t collect. Either they’re prohibited by law from asking without probable cause and a judicial order, or they simply have no cost-effective way to collect it.  But the government has figured out how to get around the laws, and collect personal data that has been historically denied to them: ask corporate America for it….

Sometimes they simply purchase it, just as any other company might. Sometimes they can get it for free, from corporations that want to stay on the government’s good side.

And there are companies aplenty that are willing to outright give it up to the Obama Administration.

Obama, Facebook and the Power of Friendship: The 2012 Data Election

Barack Obama’s re-election team are building a vast digital data operation that for the first time combines a unified database on millions of Americans with the power of Facebook to target individual voters to a degree never achieved before….

The centralized nature of the database may raise privacy issues as the election cycle progresses. Jeff Chester of the digital advertising watchdog Center for Digital Democracy, which has been calling for regulators to review the growth of digital marketing in politics, said that “this is beyond J. Edgar Hoover’s dream.

“In its rush to exploit the power of digital data to win re-election, the Obama campaign appears to be ignoring the ethical and moral implications.”

How Chris Hughes Helped Launch Facebook and the Barack Obama Campaign

Obama 2012 and Facebook: Your Privacy, Diminished

Obama and Facebook in Warm Embrace

And before we give Google too much credit for resisting the aforementioned Obama Administration warrantless power grab:

White House Deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin Slapped for Gmailing with Googlers

(Former Google Director of Global Public Policy cum White House official) McLaughlin was cited for two kinds of actions: using a personal email account for some professional email exchanges and for violating restrictions on contacts with Google, his former employer.

Most notable among the latter were a pair of conversations with the Director of U.S. Public Policy for Google about mobilizing Google’s resources to respond to negative press mentions.

Those breaches, according to a memo by OSTP Director John Holdren, “implicated” the Federal Records Act….

In other words, McLaughlin was using Google resources – Search manipulations?  Your data? – to help the Administration spin away their negative-ness.

Obama 2012 and Google: Your Privacy, Diminished

Obama & Google (A Love Story)

Some Perspective on Obama’s Bromance with Eric Schmidt

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt Doubles Down On His Support Of President Obama

And Schmidt’s just getting warmed up.

Google Exec To Help Democrats…and Only Democrats

Everyone knows Google Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, is a big Obama backer. Now he has assembled a team of “former” (Obama campaign outfit) Organizing For Action data geeks to use Big Data to help Democrats.

Oh, sure, they’re pretending it is some grand effort to help companies and non-profits but this is how the left operates. It’s the Soros model. Pretend your investing in social welfare projects that just so happen to push only leftist agendas. This new company, Civis Analytics, will be no different.

Wait – the Left says that the IRS scandal shows that only Conservative groups abuse this project model.

What “Social Welfare” Work Do Tea Party Groups Perform?

Obviously not.  Schmidt is taking the Obama Administration Abuse-of-Data model – and setting it up so that every Democrat can replicate and have at it.

We the Peasants have never been less alone.  Big Brother is more and more in our computers, our homes, our heads – and will now thanks to this “social welfare” project be able to invite in his entire oversized Family.

Just what the Founding Fathers intended (here endeth the sarcasm).

They’re Big Government Advocates – And They’re Looking for Things to Do

There’s a whole lot of federal government overreaching going on.  To itemize but some of it….

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) overreached again and again – blocking and/or dragging their feet on Conservative non-profit applications while fast-tracking Leftist ones.

The State Department overreached on Benghazi – repeatedly redacting the facts and making up out of whole cloth a video excuse.

The Justice Department overreached in persecuting journalists – demanding and seizing large swaths of the phone records, emails and other information of (at least?) the Associated Press (AP) and Fox News.

Attorney General Eric Holder himself signed on to the egregious naming of Fox News reporter James Rosen as a possible “espionage” “co-conspirator” so as to justify that particular intimidation power grab.

And President Barack Obama has now placed Holder in charge of investigating…himself.  Talk about power grab self-determination.

And herein lies an additional, huge problem.  Justice’s data-grab court hearings took place without the accused in the room.  Justice unilaterally decided they wanted the information – and then went and got it.

The AP wasn’t even notified.  The Administration claims it notified Fox News – Fox News begs to differ.  Neither the AP nor Fox was given an opportunity to contest Justice’s charges against them – and if Fox had in fact been notified, don’t you think they would have insisted?

This is Justice (and the IRS, and State, and…) determining the limits of its own power.  And apparently not finding any.  Which is terribly dangerous for an alleged Constitutional republic.  (And in fact why the Constitution does not allow it.)

And now the United States Supreme Court has given the pretty-much-do-whatever-you-want green light to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – and just about every other Commission, Department, Agency and Board.

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced its decision in the case of Arlington v. FCC….

(T)he issue was whether federal courts or federal bureaucrats should decide how much power federal bureaucrats have when Congress has been ambiguous on the question.

Everyone agrees, except perhaps the current administration, that federal agencies have only those powers delegated to them by Congress.  In the 1984 Chevron case, the Supreme Court held that where Congress’ intent with respect to delegated powers is clear, the courts must enforce that intent, but where Congress was “silent or ambiguous” with respect to the scope of those powers, the courts must defer to the bureaucrats’ “permissible construction[s]” of the statute.

And so in Arlington the majority sided with the Federal Communications Commission.

So the bureaucrats themselves get to decide how much power they have – and Big Government Leftists everywhere rejoice.  Especially with this Administration calling these shots.

The Media Marxists are particularly giddy, thinking this means the FCC’s ridiculous Network Neutrality overreach – subject to a late-fall-or-early-winter D.C. Circuit Court review – will be allowed to stand.

This should be a wishful thinking bridge-too-far – for a few reasons.

The FCC already tried once before to impose Net Neutrality – and the very same D.C. Circuit Court unanimously dumped it.

Court: FCC Has No Power to Regulate Net Neutrality

If you want judicial precedent – more directly tied to the subject at hand, and from the same Court again making the decision – there it is.

The Media Marxists grasping at this Supreme straw miss a crucial distinction.  As terrible as the Arlington ruling was, in it the Majority said that an agency could make its own power-parameter-determination when the law was ambiguous.

Net Neutrality law isn’t ambiguous – it’s absent.  Non-existent.  Congress has never granted the FCC the power in anything it has ever passed.

The Obama Administration’s FCC all but admitted this in the lead-up to their Net Neutrality imposition.  They seriously contemplated the notion of unilaterally moving the Internet into a whole different regulatory framework – so as to then “allow” them to impose Net Neutrality.

They ultimately didn’t do it – but why did they think they had to at least consider it?  And why three years later is the order to do it still open?  Because they know they don’t have the legal authority under the law as written.   (They don’t have the authority to move it either – but why should that stop them?)

No ambiguity there.  Thus the Arlington decision isn’t a precedent for anything at all here.

The Obama Administration is already overreaching by leaps and bounds.  And was in Arlington given tacit permission to continue – and do so even more.

In the hearings looking into their nearly all-encompassing malfeasance, we have again and again heard from Administration officials at the center of it all – “I didn’t know.”

With this Court ruling, bureaucrats everywhere now have a new one-liner get-out-of-culpability-free card for overreaching power grabs – “I wasn’t sure.”

Thankfully, when it comes to Net Neutrality, there is no such ambiguity.  Here’s hoping the D.C. Circuit Court again remembers that.

I'm Skeptical

Just before this latest scandals avalanche, President Barack Obama urged a class of imminent college escapees – I mean graduates – to:

“Reject these voices” who “incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all of our problems…. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.”

Of what were these voices thinking?  The Scandal-Palooza Week that followed the President’s condescending remarks.  And the four-plus years preceding.  And the century-plus before that.

The Administration’s corruption-fests have now reached “Myriad” status – and it only keeps getting worse. An underlying theme in just about all of them is the abuse of power – to abuse its political enemies.  This is your government on “Stimulus” steroids – any questions?

So what we absolutely must not do going forward is give them more of our information – more fodder for them with which to work.  President Obama and his Democrats beg to differ.

The Future of Government Power Grabs? Our Digital Data

Like President Barack Obama’s illegal Network Neutrality order.  Which gives the government access to the Internet’s spine – and with it every website there is and all the data contained therein….

Like President Barack Obama’s illegal Cyber Security Executive Order.  The amount of data compiled in Cyber Security execution is massive – and Big Government wants at it….

Like the Obama Administration shutting down bailed out car company dealerships based upon campaign contribution data.  Like local governments in New York turning over for publication gun registration data.  Like then-President and First Lady Bill and Hillary Clinton’s illegally obtained 900 FBI files getting him out of an impeachment conviction….

This President is in fact endlessly creative in coming up with data abuses and illegal fiats.

President Obama is considering an executive order that would force government contractors to disclose their donations to groups that participate in political activities….

The Left, of course, tries to turn every one of these abuse-of-power scandals into…a validation of their demands for more power.  The Left’s definition of government “reform” is always…more power for government.

Immigration “reform?”  Let’s put millions more on the government welfare (and Democrat voting) rolls.  Campaign finance “reform?”  Let’s allow the government to demand even more of your information.  So that it can then be used against you.

Romney Donor VanderSloot: I Was Audited Twice by IRS, Once by DOL & Investigated by Senate Staffer

IRS Asked Leadership Institute About Former Interns’ Current Employers

IRS: ‘Please Detail the Content of Your Members’ Prayers.’

The voting booth is sacrosanct – the government can’t know whom you support with your ballot.  Yet the government demands to know whom you support with your money.  The Leviathan knowing the latter sort of gives away the former, does it not?

Corrupt Democrat ex-New Jersey Governor John Corzine was one of President Obama’s top campaign coin bundlers.  Any doubt for whom he voted?

Big Government uses all of this data against you – if you stand for less government, or support those that do.  The crooked Corzine – who made $1.6 billion disappear – wasn’t harangued into oblivion the way Mr. VanderSloot was – for the “crime” of supporting a Republican.

The Leviathan’s warped political use of our data against us is all-encompassing.

Gov’t Obtains Wide AP Phone Records in Probe

HHS’ Sebelius Asks for ‘Donations’ to Promote ObamaCare from Health Companies She Regulates

Congressmen Demand End to EPA’s IRS-Like Bias Against Conservative, State/Local FOIA Requestors

The Obama Administration’s defense on all of these scandals?  We are completely incompetent.

Fast And Furious: Incompetence Is Always More Believable Than A Conspiracy Theory

Officials on Benghazi: Incompetence, Not Malice

White House Relies on Incompetence Defense as IRS, AP Scandals Grow

So big is Big Government that President Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod – one of the principal architects of the current, ongoing, gi-normous federal expansion – said:

Government ‘So Vast,’ Obama Can’t Know About Wrongdoing

With that testimony, your Honor, the less-government-prosecution rests.

Sinister or simply stupid, malfeasance or merely mishandling – this is Big Government.

The only answer – the real reform – is to reduce the Leviathan’s size, scope and sphere of influence.

The less sway government holds, the less it can lord over us.

The Left’s Sign - At All Times

Last Monday here at Red State, I wrote:

How Ridiculous is Net Neutrality? Let the Left’s ‘Consumer’ Groups Demonstrate

In which I referenced a bit of good news on the Internet front.  In a possible deal between ESPN and AT&T (at least), the sports network would pick up some of the tab for the delivery of its content.  Which would be outstanding news for consumers.  More content, more Internet use – for no more coin.

I then had the audacity to use the Left’s absurd words against them.  “Consumer” interest groups – allegedly interested in consumers – were opposed to this, and calling on the government to stop it.  And doing all of it in complete contravention of the facts.

My essay drew the scattershot attention – and conspiratorial ire – of Salon’s Andrew Leonard.

At Red State, the wonderfully monickered Seton Motley put down his monocle and blustered about the “ridiculous folly of the Left.” Public Knowledge isn’t a consumer interest group, he raged, it’s a “government interest group” whose sole goal is “growing government.”

Both Scott Cleland and RedState, intriguingly, brought up the same useful analogy to explain why Public Knowledge was off-base. When ESPN pays a company like AT&T to lift data caps for its streaming video, it’s just like any other company paying the phone company subsidized access to an 800 toll-free number.

RedState:  Do these Leftist “consumer” groups oppose 800 numbers? Do they claim 800 numbers prevent you from calling other numbers? Do they claim 800 numbers hurt you –- the consumer? They would look ridiculous if they did.

There’s a good reason why the 800 analogy appears in both anti-Public Knowledge diatribes. Because it was originally suggested by AT&T itself back in February.

It is neither “intriguing” nor surprising that Cleland – full disclosure, a friend, but one with whom I never discussed my essay or his – and I would unilaterally deliver the same obvious example of how foolish the Left is being here.

And it is neither “intriguing” nor surprising that Mr. Leonard’s assertion that AT&T originally posited it in February 2013 – is completely wrong.

Perhaps for him an idea is born the first time he stumbles upon it.

I can’t speak for Cleland – again, because I have never discussed it with him – but I have been using said analogy since at least June of 2010, when I first started in writing and on radio and television discussing the absurdity that is Net Neutrality.

It is so obvious, and been used by so many people so many times, I’m not sure who came up with it when.  It’s in the free market zeitgeist – like knowing the Left impedes economic growth and creativity.  It’s a factual, rhetorical given.

Perhaps its free market nature prevented Mr. Leonard’s conceiving it – or his not having heard of it prior to February.  He was, however, completely capable of conceiving out of whole cloth a marching-orders-conspiracy-theory.

It surely comes as no surprise that a telecom lobbyist and RedState are simply repeating AT&T’s propaganda.

Again, his chronology and his concept are woefully off.  So too is his worldview.  But hey – Leftists never allow facts to get in the way of a good beating.

I am a nothing if not magnanimous – I emailed Mr. Leonard the following:

Greetings. I’d like to respond to your piece in your august pages.  You willing?

No response from Mr. Leonard.  So I Tweeted at him:

@koxinga21 attempts some shots at me & #Leftist #NetNeutrality defense in @Salon http://t.co/1p83S1IZXp. Will he let me respond in his mag?

Again, no response from Mr. Leonard.  Thus this comes here.

Will Mr. Leonard respond to this response there – with corrections aplenty?  I won’t halt respiratory activity in the waiting.

And Yet the Left Objects

There are Leftist groups that claim the mantle of protecting the “consumer interest.”  Asserting they exist to protect consumers from the abusive, evil acts of corporate America.  In most instances, this is all (shocker) double speak.

These aren’t “consumer” interest groups – they’re government interest groups.  Interested only in growing government.  It’s not free market bad actors they don’t like – it’s the free market itself.

Their entire existence is a ruse.  Which we occasionally get to fully see – in all its absurd glory.

ESPN Eyes Subsidizing Wireless-Data Plans

(S)ome media companies whose mobile content gets a lot of traffic are considering arrangements with wireless carriers that would ensure their users can watch, surf and play as much as they want without being hit with stiff overage charges.

ESPN, the cable sports channel…, has had discussions with at least one major U.S. carrier to subsidize wireless connectivity on behalf of its users…. Under one potential scenario, the company would pay a carrier to guarantee that people viewing ESPN mobile content wouldn’t have that usage counted toward their monthly data caps….

Such a deal would mark a significant development in the wireless business, creating a new model for media and telecom companies to share the costs of bringing bandwidth-guzzling services to consumers.

This is outstanding news for consumers.  More content, more Internet use – for no more coin.  The “consumer” groups should be thrilled, right?  Ummm…not so much.

FCC: This is What a Net Neutrality Violation Looks Like

This type of structure, where content providers who pay get better access to customers, is exactly what net neutrality is designed to prevent. 

At its core, net neutrality is all about making sure that the company that connects you to the internet does not get to control what you do on the internet….

But these proposed ESPN deals – and any like them that may follow – do nothing remotely like that.  With them, you can continue to do whatever you want on the Web – just as you always have.  And in many instances do even more of what you want – for the exact same money.

If Net Neutrality exists to prevent reduced content-access – how is increased content-access a violation of Net Neutrality?  How, “consumer” groups, is this bad for consumers?

Of course, it’s not.  And this exact sort of deal exists all over the place in the free market.  To see the ridiculous folly of the Left’s objections here, one need only look at one example.

Have you ever dialed an 800 number?  The company you’re calling picks up the tab for your calling them.  And to do that for you they negotiated a deal with “the company that connects you” – the (wireless?) phone company.

Do these Leftist “consumer” groups oppose 800 numbers?  Do they claim 800 numbers prevent you from calling other numbers?  Do they claim 800 numbers hurt you – the consumer?  They would look ridiculous if they did.

So why is the Left so vociferously opposed to the exact same arrangement for the Internet?

You’ll have to ask them.  It eludes me.

Should Congress Overturn the Net Neutrality Rules?

Absolutely.  It would be ridiculous not to.

The Government Needs to Untie the Regulatory Knots

The Barack Obama Administration has nominated Tom Wheeler to replace Julius Genachowski as Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman.  (Wheeler awaits Senate approval.)

Wheeler has – Heaven forfend – actually held pertinent private sector gigs:

Wheeler served as president of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA), and later as CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA).

Many on the Left find Wheeler’s real-world experience and knowledge troubling:

Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent (umm, he’s a Socialist), (said)… “I…am troubled that President Obama would appoint the former head of two major industry lobbying associations to regulate the industry.”

Many on the Left find it very troubling:

(M)ore than two dozen public interest groups (umm, they’re government interest groups) wrote to Obama expressing alarm that the president was considering a candidate “who was the head of not one but two major industry lobbying groups.

“After decades of industry-backed chairmen, we need a strong consumer advocate and public interest representative at the helm….It’s time to end regulatory capture at the FCC and restore balance to government oversight.”

“Industry-backed chairmen?”  Let’s take a brief look at how Genachowski has treated the industry.

FCC Passes Net-Neutrality Rules Over Strong Opposition

Opposition from whom?

Verizon Sues FCC Over Net Neutrality Power Grab

Metro PCS Follows Verizon in Suing FCC to Overturn Net Neutrality Rules

But wait…that’s the industry – suing to overturn the unilateral decision of “industry-backed” Chairman Genachowski.  Hmmm….  How else has this Chairman “backed” the industry (into a corner)?

FCC’s Genachowski Defends Data Roaming

And how did the industry like that?

Verizon Sues FCC Over Data Roaming Rules

Never before have so many trial lawyers made so much money during the “regulatory capture” rule of an “industry-backed” Chairman.

Now comes Wheeler.  Who will inherit amongst other terrible policies these oppressive Net Neutrality regulations – and the lawsuits pending to undo them.  The FCC doesn’t have the authority to impose Net Neutrality – the D.C. Circuit Court has already once ruled they don’t.

Court: FCC Has No Power to Regulate Net Neutrality

And that same Court will likely rule that way again.

Chairman-to-be-Wheeler – why continue this unilateral regulatory and litigative folly?  Why not move to withdraw these unlawful Net Neutrality rules?  After all, We the People are paying for both sides of the lawsuit to undo this power grab.

As Taxpayers, we are paying for the government’s lawyers to defend the defenseless.  And as Internet users, we are all paying again.  All the time, money and effort the industry has to waste attempting to undo the FCC’s overreach could and would be much better spent improving for us their goods and services – and thus the Internet.

It’s always amusing to have Leftist power grabs force these uber-expensive lawsuits – while Leftists complain about industry’s allegedly high prices, inflated by the companies having to pass along to us the costs of these lawsuits and lawyers.

We already have a much better way to deal with Net Neutrality violations.  On a case-by-case basis – rather than a top-down, all-encompassing regulatory approach.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has on its side what the FCC does not - existing law, authority and expertise.

(W)e (at the FTC) are up to the task of addressing competition and consumer protection issues arising in Internet markets generally, and more specifically, of applying our considerable experience and expertise in analyzing the vertical issues to the net neutrality context.

That is, when Net Neutrality violations actually occur – which Genachowski admits they aren’t.

FCC Boss: No Network Neutrality Complaints

And Chairman-to-be-Wheeler – would you please close your predecessor’s Internet reclassification order, which has now been open for nearly three years?

FCC Boss (Genachowski)…May Push for Title II ISP Reclassification if Rules Overturned

This is a terrible idea.

Title II is how the FCC over-regulates land line telephone lines – you know, that bastion of innovation lo these last seventy-plus years. Title II opens up the Pandora’s Box of uber-regulation of the Internet.  But wait – there’s more. 

Under Title II, President Obama can also begin to tax the Internet.  Just as the Feds tax landlines.  Just as they already tax the living daylights out of your wireless Internet - checked your cell phone bill lately? It’s 17.4% – and climbing, an $8 billion total take in 2010 – and hurtling ever upward. 

Chairman-to-be-Wheeler, you could do immense good for the American people’s wallets and freedom – and the continued uber-advancement of the Internet – if you ended your predecessor’s existing and prospective power grabs, and kept the FCC within its legal authority limits.

It would be a welcome, refreshing change of the way Washington usually does business.

Not Sure How Much More Government ‘Fairness’ the Nation Can Take

President Barack Obama and the Left have declared the government is now even more extensively in the economic “fairness” business.

Obama Unveils Budget With Call for ‘Fair’ Economy

Obama Calls for Economy Where ‘Everyone Does Their Fair Share’

Giving Everyone a Fair Shot (on BarackObama.com)

They have even in Orwellian fashion so-named a terribly unfair bill.

9,646 Reasons to Dislike the ‘Marketplace Fairness Act’

As with most things government, the more it does to make things fair, the more unfair things get.

Obama’s ‘Fairness’ Economy Has Backfired

Obama Blames Economy on ‘Bad Decisions’

Bad decisions like…the 2009 $819 billion “Stimulus.”

Obama’s Stimulus: A Documented Failure

The Final Verdict On The 2009 Stimulus: A Failure

How is it “fair” to conscript into debt our great-grandchildren and beyond at all – let alone for a plan that failed so utterly (and predictably)?

Again, when the government gets involved, “fairness” begets unfairness.  And failure – for everyone but government, which always succeeds in getting bigger in the unfair, failed process.

It is also unfair for the government to tax businesses – and use that money to create or fund competitors to said businesses.  Of which the “Stimulus” did a whole lot – most expressly in the $7.2 billion broadband Internet “stimulus.”

The Internet ‘Stimulus’-Just as Destructive as the Rest of the ‘Stimulus’

Take what is happening in Hays, Kansas and its surrounding areas. Eagle Communications, a small broadband provider, had already invested its own considerable coin to build out broadband Internet access for and to their customers in these parts of the state.

Only now the government has given $101 million to another provider – which they are going to use to “overbuild” – on top of Eagle’s network. “Overbuild” meaning – build service with government money to Hays, Kansas – an area that already has access to service via Eagle.

Yet Another Terrible Internet ‘Stimulus’ Project

Lake County (Minnesota also) wanted to get in on the government broadband gravy train… There are already four private broadband providers serving large swaths of these areas… So most of…Lake County…already ha(d) broadband service.

And all four private providers are doing it for less money than Lake County will charge.

Was this destroy-the-private-sector result the intent of government broadband money?  Of course not.

(T)he purpose…(wa)s to deliver service to people who don’t already have it.

Shocker – government screwed up.  Over, and over, and….  This is terrible – not just for the companies and areas directly affected, but the entire country.

(These companies are) now facing…newly government-dug ten-foot hole(s), and looking at possible bankruptc(ies)….

(And p)rivate broadband companies that were considering building out to un- or underserved areas will now most likely not do so – for fear of a government-funded competitor coming in and landing on their heads.

Is there a solution?  Yes – get the government the heck out of the broadband business.

Sadly, that’s way too much to ask of Washington.  What we are getting instead is a Farm Bill reauthorizing this ridiculous status quo – and an amendment from Virginia Democrat Senator Mark Warner, which he pathetically, proudly proclaims:

(P)rovides meaningful broadband access for unserved rural communities by requiring that at least 25 percent of households in a proposed project area qualify as unserved or underserved.  The Secretary of Agriculture will have discretion to reduce the percentage to not less than 18 percent for project areas covering 7,500 or fewer people, and 15 percent for areas covering 5,000 or fewer.  

So 75% of private-sector-broadband homes can get a government competitor any-and-everywhere the Leviathan wants.  Unless the area is even harder and more expensive to serve – in which case the government can overbuild at an even greater level.

Meaning in the areas you most want and need private sector investment – the more the government can do to drive out the private sector.

This is government “reform.”  And please save us from a government looking to legislate ‘fairness.’

Google is the Evil Empire.  The Internet Search behemoth has long been using its monstrous power not for good, but for ill.

To give but a few examples:

Google was knowingly running illegal ads for Canadian pharmaceuticals – since 2003.  And they just had to pay a $500 million fine for so doing.

Google has been – for their Google Books – scanning in their entirety tens of thousands of tomes – without the legal approval to do so.  Myriad publishers are currently suing.

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Their serial illegal business practices are a natural extension of their Leftist ideology.

They are incessant violators of antitrust, privacy and private property law – it is a business ethos borne of a political one.

To give but one example, Google was long the Daddy Warbucks behind the push to Network Neutrality.  Which mandates that Google have free, unlimited access to the Inter-networks that others spend hundreds of billions of dollars building and maintaining.

Google has been very busy, and very thorough.

Google has repeatedly been accused of violating privacy laws, facilitating copyright infringement and aiding online piracy. 

Why?

Google and its political allies want to turn the Internet into an “information commons.” To that end, they seek to weaken copyright, trademark and patent protections.

Why?

This “what’s yours is mine” philosophy is used by Google to monetize others’ information and content without paying for it. 

Behold the Socialist undermining of property rights.  They want to illegally make money off of your stuff – at the expense of you legally making money off of your stuff.  Hence their aforementioned Google Books massive private property heist.

However.

Ask them for access to their mystical Search algorithm – how they arrive at the Search results they do – and they go ballistic.  Screaming “Proprietary!” – and steadfastly refusing to acquiesce to any degree.

For Google, it’s “what’s yours is mine” – and “what’s mine is mine.”

Access to information should be unfettered: Google aims to replace user privacy and data security with radical transparency and openness.

Translation: Google doesn’t give a rats rear end about your privacy – or, again, your property rights.

There’s very much more to be mined, but you get the idea.

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Google has been for some time under antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  But as the above demonstrates, there is oh so much more to be investigated.

Meanwhile, there have also been multiple Capitol Hill hearings looking into Google’s myriad bad practices.

The Senate’s Antitrust Subcommittee had one on September 21.  During which, example after example of Google manipulating Search results were presented.

What was gleaned therefrom led to a letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz from Utah Republican Mike Lee, the Subcommittee’s ranking member.

What was gleaned therefrom was so disturbing, it led to that letter also being from uber-Leftist Wisconsin Democrat Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl.

If the long-Leftist Google has drawn the ire of uber-Leftist Senator Kohl – how far from the path have they strayed?

The letter lays out some of Google’s many, many abuses – including consistently favoring Google products in Search results at the expense of all others.

Note: Google is a big Yes for Net Neutrality – but a vociferous No on Search Neutrality.  “What’s yours is mine” – and “what’s mine is mine.”

The letter concludes by asking Chairman Leibowitz to – given all the evidence uncovered at the hearing – pursue with all vigorousness the FTC’s antitrust investigation.

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As conservatives, we want Less Government and maximum freedom – but within the confines of the rule of law and order.

Google makes a multi-billion dollar living well outside said confines – abusing the economic rights of others for fun and profit.

All hail Senators Lee and Kohl for insisting upon the rule of law.  For the lawless, illegally self-serving Google.