tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88960895398415521402024-02-18T18:27:49.946-08:00publicspherenolaGettin' myself a piece of cyberspace before it's all gone.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-37491611311444320442014-03-18T15:54:00.003-07:002014-03-18T16:09:22.022-07:00Under Pressure, FCC Stops Asking Questions About Media Diversity<h1 style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', 'Myriad Pro', Helvetica, 'Garamont Premr Pro', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">
<a href="http://m.colorlines.com/archives/2014/03/under_pressure_fcc_stops_asking_questions_about_media_diversity.html" target="_blank">Under Pressure, FCC Stops Asking Questions About Media Diversity</a></h1>
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by <a class="ui-link" href="http://m.colorlines.com/archives/author/carla-murphy" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Carla Murphy</a><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;">Friday, March 14 2014, 7:00 AM EST.<br style="font-family: 'Droid Sans', 'Myriad Pro', Helvetica, 'Garamont Premr Pro', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1em;" />This article is part of topic: </span><a class="ui-link" href="http://m.colorlines.com/media/" style="color: #b80708; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 12px; text-decoration: none;">Media</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.62;">Late last month, the Federal Communications Commission announced the end of its “Critical Information Needs” (CIN) pilot study. T</span><span style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.62;">he study, which was supposed to have been field-tested in “ethnically diverse” Columbia, S.C., was going to explore whether local news outlets were meeting the information needs of their communities—in particular, people of color and women. </span><span style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.62;">The CIN instead met a “quiet” end as FCC watchers described it, following a raucous blitz.</span></div>
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First, there was a trouncing in <a class="ui-link" href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304680904579366903828260732" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Wall Street Journal</a> by Obama appointee and FCC commissioner, Ajit Pai who had inherited the study (“The government has no place pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.”); weeks of <a class="ui-link" href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/02/21/see_i_told_you_so_media_not_upset_by_notion_of_fcc_monitors_in_newsrooms_journalism_schools_behind_the_idea" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">conservative talk radio</a> and online fury (“The Obama Administration…is poised to place government monitors in newsrooms across the country, wrote <a class="ui-link" href="http://www.redstate.com/diary/matthewclark/2014/02/18/obama-administration-putting-government-monitors-newsrooms/" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Red State</a>, pointing to a petition with 90,000 signatures); and concern from mainstream columnists. All together, what began as push-back last December from 16 Republican congressmen ratcheted up, according to a lead researcher on the project, Lewis Friedland, to hate mail and death threats.</div>
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So what’s the big deal?<span style="font-size: 1em;"> </span></div>
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One way the study was going to gather information was to conduct a “census” of local TV, radio and newspaper newsrooms, to learn, among other things, if the staff was diverse and how newsrooms decide which stories to cover. But the prospect of a government-funded study in the newsroom—even one outsourced to academics—is the point around which both substantive criticism and red-meat politics coalesced.</div>
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Notably, left unanswered after the dust-up was the study’s driving question: Are local newsrooms meeting the information needs of people of color and women? And, neither was there much serious grappling among media critics as to why the question might be relevant.</div>
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“I feel like all the outrage was theater,” says Craig Aaron, president and CEO of the advocacy group, <a class="ui-link" href="https://www.freepress.net/" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Free Press</a>. “There’s a long tradition of Fairness Doctrine panics in this country, where the right wing has found that to be red meat for their base,” Aaron says, referencing the now-revoked 1949 law mandating broadcasters to air controversial matters of public interest and contrasting views. (Its end is credited with the late 1980s explosion of conservative talk radio.) “The broadcast lobby knows they can use the Fairness Doctrine to obscure debate around sensible policies, like, public airwaves being more representative of all the people who live in this country. They don’t want to have that conversation.”</div>
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Osama Siblani knows the impact of underrepresentation in the newsroom. He founded <a class="ui-link" href="http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Arab American News</a> in 1984, in reaction to what he considered biased media coverage of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon two years earlier. On an early March morning, in the middle of a snowstorm and short five reporters, the publisher of the country’s largest and oldest Arab-American weekly had never heard of the CIN study much less that it had been canned. But he also didn’t need it to tell him what he already knew.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;">“There are no Arab-Americans in the newsrooms of the two leading newspapers in the state,” he says, noting that metro Detroit has the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the United States. “And in local television, with the exception of one, it’s the same. It is unbelievable.” (Calls to the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News were unanswered by press time.)</span></div>
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Over the years, and particularly since 9/11, Siblani has become a public voice on Arab-American issues and has observed a growing dialogue between his community and local mainstream press. For them and national outlets, he’s also become a behind-the-scenes fact-checker of stereotypes and inaccuracies and, a go-to source for stories.</div>
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“Most of time they really don’t know our issues or what’s going on,” Siblani says. “We’re open to providing answers but the problem is, that’s not our job. Get people from the community you serve into the newsroom. And if you have questions, then you have someone there to answer.”</div>
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Journalists and editors of color across the country can and often do tote to conferences and bars similar testimony about newsrooms in their markets. The FCC had sought to do a scientific and rigorous data collection.</div>
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In 2012 the FCC commissioned Friedland, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to do <a class="ui-link" href="http://transition.fcc.gov/bureaus/ocbo/Final_Literature_Review.pdf" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">a literature review</a>. He and co-authors culled 500 sources from more than 1,000 across the disciplines and within a 20-year span.</div>
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Their major finds: the FCC’s concept of using media ownership as a key measure of whether “participation” and “diversity” are actually happening in media is <span style="font-size: 1em;">outdated in the Internet era. Second, there is </span><span style="font-size: 1em;">“</span><span style="font-size: 1em;">a severe shortage of research</span><span style="font-size: 1em;">,”</span><span style="font-size: 1em;"> directly addressing how critical (job opportunities) and emergency (what to do and where to go during a hurricane) information needs are being met for “minority communities, non-English speakers, the disabled and those of lower income.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;">Friedland, on the phone from Jerusalem where he is a visiting professor at Hebrew University, relates an example of interest to low-income parents.</span></div>
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“In Washington, D.C., one of the highest performing charter schools was systematically under-enrolled for several years. Why would that be? It doesn’t stand to reason that you have a top level charter but can’t fill the seats,” Friedland says. Unless, he intimates, parents just don’t know the seats are even open.</div>
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“It suggests there might be a gap in local education coverage but, we don’t know that! [The story is] an anecdote,”—like Siblani’s about nonexistent Arab-Americans in Michigan’s newsrooms.</div>
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“And that’s exactly the point: we don’t know,” Friedland says.</div>
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Quantitative and qualitative data collection is what government agencies are <em style="font-size: 1em;">supposed</em> to do, says <a class="ui-link" href="http://www.alearnedhand.com/" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">attorney Cheryl Leanza</a>, media policy advisor for the <a class="ui-link" href="http://www.uccmediajustice.org/" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">United Church of Christ</a>*.</div>
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“It’s appropriate for the federal government to seek to gather neutral in-depth data,” Leanza says. “The FCC has to answer in court and they have to show that policy is based on real robust actionable data.”</div>
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But Mike Cavender, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), considered the now-defunct CIN study a <a class="ui-link" href="https://www.rtdna.org/article/an_ill_conceived_and_dangerous_idea#" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">prime example of government overreach</a>.</div>
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“I don’t understand how talking to newsroom managers about their staff relates to the FCC’s mandate around underserved communities and minority broadcast ownership,” Cavender says. Further, he says, “What is defined as an ‘underserved community’ would be my first question. In broad-based terms, making sure that all communities within a given market are being served is a worthy topic and the RTDNA doesn’t have a problem with that in theory. But again, we have a problem with incursion into the news process. Those judgments are better made by news managers, not government bureaucrats.”</div>
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Asked whether the RTDNA or members seek to answer questions similar to those posed by the killed CIN study, Cavender says they conduct a count of male and female newsroom staff. More than likely though, Cavender says, stations who do conduct more extensive research to assess whether they’re meeting all community member’s needs would consider the information proprietary. <span style="font-size: 1em;">“No station will share what they find out about themselves publicly because if folks across the street get ahold of that, it’s not a good thing.”</span></div>
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If local TV stations and newspapers do collect information that assesses how well or poorly they are meeting a community’s news needs, is that proprietary? Or, is it in the public’s interest to know? — That is the <a class="ui-link" href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/02/comcast-time-warner-acquisition-competition-cable-internet-monopoly.html" style="color: #b80708; font-size: 1em; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">major war</a> in which a coalition of Republican congressmen, an FCC commissioner, conservative talk radio and members of the mainstream press, killed a small study with, perhaps, big implications. </div>
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Community news publisher Siblani agrees with the study’s end. “Government<span style="font-size: 1em;"> has no place near a newsroom in a free market system. If you give the government an inch they will take a mile,” he says. </span><span style="font-size: 1em;">After describing the humiliating searches still taking place at airports across the nation, Siblani adds, “Just look at how they’ve responded to our national security.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;">* This post has been updated from the original.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-68020530220428487532014-02-11T07:03:00.000-08:002014-02-11T07:03:22.868-08:00Holder Urges States to Repeal Bans on Felon's VotingThe good folks at the<a href="http://www.jaclouisiana.org/" target="_blank"> Justice and Accountability Center of Louisiana</a> are working on similar issues locally. One of their projects is a Ban the Box campaign in which employers would not be able to learn of their applicants' recorders until after initial interviews and screens.<br />
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From <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/us/politics/holder-urges-states-to-repeal-bans-on-voting-by-felons.html?_r=0" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>:<br />
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WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday urged states to repeal laws that prohibit felons from voting, a move that would restore the right to vote to millions of people.</div>
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The call was mostly symbolic — Mr. Holder has no authority to enact these changes himself — but it marked the attorney general’s latest effort to eliminate laws that he says disproportionately keep minorities from the polls. “It is unwise, it is unjust, and it is not in keeping with our democratic values,” Mr. Holder said at civil rights conference at Georgetown University. These laws deserve to be not only reconsidered, but repealed.”</div>
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African-Americans represent more than a third of the estimated 5.8 million people who are prohibited from voting, according to the <a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/index.cfm">Sentencing Project</a>, a research group that favors more liberal sentencing policies. And in Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, more than one in five African-Americans has lost the right to vote.</div>
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The United States is unique in the democratic world for barring people from voting in such large numbers. Mr. Holder said the laws stemmed from the late 1800s, when states tried keep blacks from voting.</div>
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“Although well over a century has passed since post-Reconstruction states used these measures to strip African-Americans of their most fundamental rights, the impact of felony disenfranchisement on modern communities of color remains both disproportionate and unacceptable,” he said.</div>
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Nearly every state prohibits inmates from voting while in prison. In four of them — Florida, Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia — felons are barred from the polls for life unless they receive clemency from the governor. The rest of the country’s laws vary. Some state restore voting rights after a prison sentence is complete. Others require a waiting period. Some have complicated processes for felons to re-register to vote.</div>
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Studies show that felons who have been denied the right to vote are far more likely to vote for Democrats than Republicans. In 2002, scholars at the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University <a href="http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/rsfcensus/papers/ManzaFelon.pdf">concluded</a> that the 2000 presidential election “would almost certainly have been reversed” had felons been allowed to vote.</div>
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In Florida, the state that tipped that election, 10 percent of the population is ineligible to vote because of the ban on felons at the polls, Mr. Holder said.</div>
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The question of how people vote is contentious, particularly since the Supreme Court <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html">struck down</a> part of the Voting Rights Act last year. That decision allowed states to pass voting laws that would otherwise have needed federal approval.</div>
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After Texas and North Carolina passed laws requiring voters to show identification at the polls, the Justice Department sued. Studies show that minorities and the poor are less likely to have the identification required.</div>
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Democrats accused Republicans of trying to suppress the vote among populations that tend to vote for Democrats. Republicans in turn accused Mr. Holder of politicizing the Justice Department and meddling in state efforts to prevent voter fraud.</div>
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On the issue of felons’ voting rights, Mr. Holder <a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130916/NEWS01/309160090/Sen-Rand-Paul-calls-restoring-felons-voting-gun-rights">has an ally</a> in Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. Mr. Paul, a civil libertarian and possible presidential candidate, has said bans on felon voting dwarf all election-related issues.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-5929802805296750112014-02-06T09:52:00.001-08:002014-02-06T09:52:29.877-08:00Internet Policies, Monopoly and Global PositioningI'm listening to Fresh Air where communication scholar <a href="http://scrawford.net/" target="_blank">Susan Crawford</a> is talking about Net Neutrality and other policies that allow for communication monopolies, lack of consumer choice and poor but expensive service. One thing she noted that struck me was that Stockholm, South Korea, Japan and a number of other countries (including China) have much faster internet access that carries much more data for a fraction of the cost of what we pay in the US. She noted how this puts the US at a global disadvantage in terms of innovation and creativity and threatens our economic and social standing in the world. She wrote the book <a href="http://scrawford.net/the-book-captive-audience/" target="_blank">Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age.</a><br />
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From the book jacket: (see below)<br />
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Ten years ago, the United States stood at the forefront of the Internet revolution. With some of the fastest speeds and lowest prices in the world for high-speed Internet access, the nation was poised to be the global leader in the new knowledge-based economy. Today that global competitive advantage has all but vanished because of a series of government decisions and resulting monopolies that have allowed dozens of countries, including Japan and South Korea, to pass us in both speed and price of broadband. This steady slide backward not only deprives consumers of vital services needed in a competitive employment and business market it also threatens the economic future of the nation.</div>
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This important book by leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford explores why Americans are now paying much more but getting much less when it comes to high-speed Internet access. Using the 2011 merger between Comcast and NBC Universal as a lens, Crawford examines how we have created the biggest monopoly since the breakup of Standard Oil a century ago. In the clearest terms, this book explores how telecommunications monopolies have affected the daily lives of consumers and America’s global economic standing.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-87025590033091697692014-01-26T09:39:00.001-08:002014-01-28T12:30:06.608-08:00Net Neutrality, Race, Inequality<div class="page" title="Page 1">
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I took this from <a href="http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/sites/default/files/ssn_basic_facts_graham_on_race_and_the_digital_divide.pdf" target="_blank">Scholars Strategy Network</a> and posted it verbatim below. The title is a bit misleading, as most of the article is more directly about Net Neutrality. It's impact on communities of color, the poor, and those who live in rural areas is not integrated well. Regardless, the information on Net Neutrality is important.<br />
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<span style="color: rgb(0.000000%, 40.000000%, 66.700000%); font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 14.000000pt;">WHY MINORITIES AND LOW-INCOME AMERICANS HAVE A BIG STAKE
IN A FREE AND OPEN INTERNET</span><br />
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<span style="color: rgb(49.800000%, 49.800000%, 49.800000%); font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">by Roderick Graham, Rhode Island College
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<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Advanced technologies spread unevenly to different groups of Americans, with low-income
people and minorities lagging behind whites on most measures of access and usage. But recently
African Americans and Latinos have been narrowing the digital divide. A 2010 study from the
Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project showed that minorities are
increasingly active purchasers of Internet enabled phones; two years later, another Pew report
documented that minorities are outpacing whites not just in mundane activities like talking on the
phone and texting, but also in more sophisticated applications like Internet-banking.
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<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">But progress toward closing America’s digital divides could be stalled or reversed by adverse
federal government regulations or restrictive interpretations by the Federal Communications
Commission. The regulatory details at issue are quite specific, but they have potentially
momentous social consequences.
</span><br />
<span style="color: rgb(0.000000%, 40.000000%, 66.700000%); font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: rgb(0.000000%, 40.000000%, 66.700000%); font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Property Rights and Internet Flexibility
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1996 protects the intellectual property rights of
inventors and entrepreneurs who create new computer hardware and software programs and
content. Producers typically use embedded codes to prevent the copying or modifying of their
products, and federal law makes it a crime for users to get around – or “circumvent” – such
codes to make modifications beyond those allowed by the original producer.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Of course, software creators and people who create new content need this legal protection. The
Internet cannot grow without legal property rights. But there is also a downside, because people
who purchase and use mobile Internet phones, for example, need to be able to make adaptations.
Prohibiting all anti-circumvention technologies would make the digital environment too rigid.
That is why, every three years, the Librarian of Congress authorizes some exceptions – most
notably, as of 2012, making it legal to “jailbreak” and “unlock” cell phones.
</span><br />
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li style="font-family: 'SymbolMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Jailbreaking </span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">happens when a user modifies the current operating system on a phone he or she
owns (such as an iPhone) in order to use applications designed for another system (such as
Android). The original system may be removed and replaced altogether.
</span><br />
</li>
<li style="font-family: 'SymbolMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPS'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Unlocking </span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">a phone occurs when a user modifies a phone purchased, say, from one carrier, such
as Verizon, so that it can be used with another carrier.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Legal exemptions for both of these widespread actions help users repurpose their phones or find
the most cost-effective combinations of cell phones, operating systems and applications, and data
usage plans. For millions of Americans, such flexibility is welcome and economically beneficial.
</span><br />
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
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<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<span style="color: rgb(0.000000%, 40.000000%, 66.700000%); font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Keeping the Internet Free and Open to All
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">As traffic has increased over networks, broadband service providers have been experimenting
with ways to handle increased usage without compromising quality. Innovative kinds of network
management experiments include charging higher subscription fees to consumers who use more
data or slowing the speeds of certain kinds of applications. Such practices might make economic
good sense, if they prod consumers to be more cost-conscious and allow service providers to
keep basic rates low for most people. But there is also a danger that varied pricing will tempt
network managers to play favorites – giving better prices and service to users willing to pay
higher fees, while leaving ordinary users with steadily deteriorating access and service.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">A non-discriminatory, neutral network is at the heart of the tremendous growth of the Internet.
Acknowledging this, in 2010 the Federal Communications Commission issued a set of rules for
“Preserving the Free and Open Internet.” Users get vital protections. Service providers must be
forthright with their customers about network management practices, any slowing of data speeds
must be “reasonable,” and no data can be blocked on landline services. But there are also
weaknesses and gaps in the rules.
</span><br />
<ul>
<li style="font-family: 'SymbolMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Current rules permit tiered pricing plans for both landline and wireless service providers –
which amounts to allowing Internet users to track consumers into low-end versus high-end
experiences.
</span><br />
</li>
<li style="font-family: 'SymbolMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Wireless broadband providers have too much leeway under a loose standard for “reasonable”
network management practices. For example, in late 2012, American Telephone & Telegraph
announced that it would no longer allow consumers to use a particular data-intensive video
telephoning application, Apple's FaceTime, unless they upgraded their data plans. Arguing that
management of this application is subject to corporate discretion, the company summarily
blocked it on all phones except those with the most expensive data plans. Clearly
discriminatory, this type of management action is allowed under current federal regulations.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0066aa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #0066aa; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700;">Important Next Steps</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">If Americans value a flexible and neutral Internet increasingly open to all, there are some
obvious steps they should urge policymakers to take. Consumer rights to modify mobile devices
need to be made permanently lawful, not subject to temporary exemptions renewed each year by
the Librarian of Congress. The bipartisan Unlocking Technology Act of 2013 is currently
pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, and a similar bill could be drafted to protect rights
to perform “jailbreaking” modifications.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Regulators also need to apply stringent neutrality principles to wireless Internet service providers
– pushing these very profitable companies to develop infrastructure that can handle increased
traffic, rather than seeking to profit from scarcity by degrading services for ordinary consumers.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Reforms along these lines would help all Americans who use mobile Internet-enabled devices.
But the rapidly growing ranks of minority and low-income users have the most to gain from
Internet flexibility, openness, and fair pricing. Unless U.S. laws enshrine and promote these
essential goals, America’s digital divide will soon widen once again.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT'; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: rgb(49.800000%, 49.800000%, 49.800000%); font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">Research and data for this brief were drawn from Aaron Smith, “Technology Trends among People of Color.”
</span><span style="color: rgb(49.800000%, 49.800000%, 49.800000%); font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 9.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Pew Internet and American Life Project </span><span style="color: rgb(49.800000%, 49.800000%, 49.800000%); font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">(September 2010) and Maeve Duggan and Lee Rainie, “Cell Phone
Activities 2012.” </span><span style="color: rgb(49.800000%, 49.800000%, 49.800000%); font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 9.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Pew Internet and American Life Project </span><span style="color: rgb(49.800000%, 49.800000%, 49.800000%); font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 9.000000pt;">(November 2012). </span><br />
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-22424804730136452792014-01-15T04:46:00.003-08:002014-01-15T04:47:25.645-08:00Why Net Neutrality Matters Marguerite Reardon over at <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57617242-94/why-you-should-care-about-net-neutrality-faq/" target="_blank">CNET</a> answers some questions on why net neutrality matters for consumers.<br />
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Why you should care about Net neutrality (FAQ)</h1>
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CNET's Maggie Reardon explains what a recent federal appeals court decision to throw out the FCC's Net neutrality rules means to the average consumer -- and why it matters.<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 1em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.333em;">The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down on Tuesday rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2010 that would protect the openness of the Internet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 1em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.333em;">To help readers get a better understanding of what the court decision means and to get a handle on what the potential outcomes might be, CNET has put together this FAQ.</span>What does all this mean to the average Internet user? While the legal arguments may seem complicated and arcane, the reality is that this court decision has the potential to alter the future of the Internet as we know it. Whether you think these changes will harm consumers or benefit them depends on who you choose to believe in this ongoing debate.</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What are the Open Internet rules?</b><br />
Adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in late 2010, the Open Internet regulations are supposed to provide a set of rules to ensure that broadband service providers preserve open access to the Internet.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 1em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.333em;">The second rule prohibits broadband operators from blocking lawful content on their networks. These rules differ in strictness depending on whether the provider is a fixed-broadband provider or a wireless operator. Fixed-broadband providers, such as cable operators and DSL providers, abide by a more stringent set of rules, and wireless operators adhered to a less strict version of the rules.</span>There are three main rules at the heart of the regulation. The first requires that broadband providers, whether they're fixed-line providers or wireless operators, are open and transparent to their customers and to services using their networks about how they manage congestion on the systems.</div>
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And the third rule applies only to fixed-broadband providers and it prohibits "unreasonable" discrimination against traffic on their networks.</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What happened on Tuesday?</b><br />
In 2011 after the FCC's rules were published and set into action, Verizon Communications challenged those rules in court, arguing that the FCC had no authority from Congress to impose such rules and also arguing that the rules stymied their First Amendment rights.</div>
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On Tuesday, the Federal Appeals Court for the DC Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision that even though the FCC has the authority to regulate broadband access, it based these rules on a flawed legal argument. In other words, the FCC based its Net neutrality regulation on a law that does not apply to broadband providers.</div>
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Specifically, the court said that since the FCC has classified broadband providers differently than it has classified telecommunications providers, it cannot use statutes that pertain to telecommunications services as a basis for regulation on broadband services.</div>
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From the decision:</div>
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"Even though the commission has general authority to regulate in this arena, it may not impose requirements that contravene express statutory mandates. Given that the commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act expressly prohibits the commission from nonetheless regulating them as such. Because the commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose per se common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order."</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What is a "common carrier," and how does this relate to this specific case?</b><br />
The basis for the Net neutrality regulation that the FCC implemented is predicated on a centuries-old legal concept known as "common carriage." This concept of "common carriage" has been used not just to regulate telecommunications but other industries as well. It was developed to ensure that the public retained access to fundamental services that use public rights of way. In the case of the Internet, it means that the infrastructure used to deliver Web pages, video, and audio-streaming services, and all kinds of other Internet content, should be open to anyone accessing or delivering that content.</div>
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Other examples of common carriage include transportation services. For example, a ferry operator under the common carrier concept is free to operate a business transporting people and goods across a river, but because he is using a public waterway, he's required to provide service to everyone. He cannot indiscriminately choose to service some customers and not others. And while the ferry operator can determine the price for his services, the prices must be fair and reasonable.</div>
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Throughout the 20th century this concept was applied to telecommunications services to ensure that phone companies, which use public rights of way to string wire and cable, service all customers.</div>
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Early in the last decade, there was a debate in communications policy circles about how broadband should be regulated. Should it be a telecommunications service subject to "common carrier" regulation like the traditional telephone network? Or should it be classified as an information service, which would exempt it from these "common carrier" requirements?</div>
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In 2005, the US Supreme Court ruled in its Brand X decision that broadband services should not be classified as telecommunications services. Therefore, because broadband is not a telecommunications service, broadband providers' infrastructure is not considered a public right of way and should not be regulated under the common carrier concept.</div>
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It's this decision that forms the basis of the appeals court decision. The reason why the appeals court rejected the FCC's position is because the FCC was using a legal argument that placed "common carrier" requirements on a service the that Supreme Court ruled in Brand X is not subject to those requirements.</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Does this mean the FCC has no authority to regulate the Internet?</b><br />
No, the court rejected Verizon's argument that Congress did not give the Federal Communications Commission jurisdiction over broadband access.</div>
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"The Commission has established that section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 vests it with affirmative authority to enact measures encouraging the deployment of broadband infrastructure. The Commission, we further hold, has reasonably interpreted section 706 to empower it to promulgate rules governing broadband providers' treatment of Internet traffic, and its justification for the specific rules at issue here -- that they will preserve and facilitate the "virtuous circle" of innovation that has driven the explosive growth of the Internet -- is reasonable and supported by substantial evidence."</div>
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This part of the decision is an important victory for the FCC. If the court had sided with Verizon on this argument, then it would have called into question the agency's authority to institute any regulation pertaining to the Internet or broadband providers.</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I thought an appeals court already struck down Net neutrality? How is this decision different?</b><br />
In April 2010, the same appeals court that handed down Tuesday's decision also decided a case that pit the FCC against Comcast. In that case Comcast challenged the FCC's decision to punish the cable operator for slowing or throttling Bit Torrent traffic as a way to manage its traffic. In the court's decision for that case, the appeals court agreed that the FCC does not have the legal authority to enforce Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers. At the time, the FCC had not adopted official rules regulating Net neutrality. Instead, the agency imposed penalties on Comcast for violating Net neutrality principles it had in place.</div>
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After this court decision, a new Democratic FCC was installed. And the FCC, then headed by President Obama's former law school classmate Julius Genachowski, adopted formal Net neutrality rules. And it's these official rules and regulations that Verizon challenged in the federal appeals court case that was decided Tuesday.</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Does this mean that the FCC's Net neutrality rules don't apply to any broadband provider?</b><br />
The court's decision applies to all Internet and broadband service providers, except for one: Comcast. As part of conditions it agreed to when it purchased NBCUniversal, Comcast said it would abide by the FCC's Open Internet rules for seven years, even if the rules were modified by the courts.</div>
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"Comcast has consistently supported the Commission's Open Internet Order as an appropriate balance of protection of consumer interests while not interfering with companies' network management and engineering decisions," Comcast's executive vice president, David Cohen, said in a statement. "We remain comfortable with that commitment because we have not -- and will not -- block our customers' ability to access lawful Internet content, applications, or services. Comcast's customers want an open and vibrant Internet, and we are absolutely committed to deliver that experience."</div>
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Cohen went on to say that his company plans to work with FCC Chairman Wheeler and the rest of the FCC to find "an appropriate regulatory balance going forward that will continue to allow the Internet to flourish."</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What does this decision mean for me, the average Internet user?</b><br />
Whether you think this decision is a good thing for the average Internet consumer depends on which side of this political debate you sit on.</div>
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The first thing you need to keep in mind is that nothing will change for consumers right away. As with most major court decisions, there won't be any immediate fallout from this decision that consumers will notice right away.</div>
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But what this court decision does do is pave the way for changes in Internet service business models in the future. And that could have a huge effect on the services that consumers use.</div>
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For instance, the ruling opens the door for broadband and backbone Internet providers to develop new lines of business, such as charging Internet content companies, like Netflix, Amazon, or Google, access fees to their networks. Companies like Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and others could offer priority access over their networks to ensure streaming services from a Netflix or Amazon don't buffer when they hit network congestion, providing a better experience for end users.</div>
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Wireless providers like AT&T have already proposed a plan in which app developers and other Internet services could pay for the data consumers use to access their services. Again, AT&T argues this service is a win for consumers since it saves them money by not requiring them to use the any of the data they pay for monthly.</div>
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Broadband-service providers claim that these new services and business models will benefit consumers by offering better service quality or defraying costs. Broadband providers also claim having this freedom to establish new lines of revenue will enable them to invest more in their networks, which ultimately benefits consumers.</div>
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Randal Milch, Verizon's executive vice president, head of public policy, and general counsel, said that the court's decision will ultimately lead to carrier innovation and that consumers will eventually have "more choices to determine for themselves how they access and experience the Internet."</div>
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But supporters of Net neutrality caution this is a very slippery slope. And they argue that these new business models will likely increase costs for companies operating on the Internet, and that eventually those costs will be passed onto consumers. What's more, erecting priority status for services online will result in bigger players being able to afford to pay the fees, while smaller upstarts will be blocked from competing because they won't be able to afford the fees that a Verizon or Time Warner Cable might impose.</div>
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Harvey Anderson, senior vice president of business and legal affairs for Mozilla, said the court's decision is alarming for Internet users because it will also provide broadband operators the legal ability to block any service they choose, which will undermine the once "free and unbiased Internet."</div>
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Michael Beckerman, president and CEO of the Internet Association, a political lobbying organization formed by members of the Internet industry, including Google, Facebook, and Amazon, argues that without any rules in place to protect the openness of the Internet, innovation on the Internet will be in jeopardy. He says that the reason why companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have been able to thrive is because of the Internet's "innovation without permission" ecosystem, which provides a low barrier of entry to anyone with an idea. He cautions that the success of the Internet to date should not be taken for granted.</div>
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"The Internet Association supports enforceable rules that ensure an open Internet, free from government control or discriminatory, anticompetitive actions by gatekeepers," he said in a statement.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1em; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.333em !important; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But I'm still not sure how that affects me. Does this mean my broadband provider will likely start charging me more for a prioritized service?</b><br />
It's a possibility. Your broadband service provider could establish a service in which Gold customers pay more and are guaranteed a certain quality of service over Silver or Bronze customers.</div>
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But what's more likely to happen is that broadband providers will strike deals with content providers, as I mentioned above. And this will indirectly affect consumers potentially in negative and positive ways. On the positive side, video streaming services could get more reliable. The experience may be improved for customers willing to pay more for service.</div>
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There are also some potential negative consequences. If Internet startups' innovation is stifled, because they can't afford to "pay to play," then fewer new services will be available. But these types of services also set the stage for consumers to be caught in the middle of disputes between large companies over service fees.</div>
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For example, Time Warner Cable and CBS were in a knock-down-drag-out fight this past summer over how much Time Warner Cable would pay to retransmit CBS broadcast content over Time Warner's video service. The dispute resulted in CBS broadcasts being blacked out for several weeks for Time Warner video subscribers. (Disclosure: CNET is owned by CBS.)</div>
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Imagine if cable companies charged Internet companies to transmit their services to consumers. And imagine if there was a similar breakdown in negotiations between Time Warner Cable and Amazon or Google over these fees. Without any regulation prohibiting Time Warner from blocking access to a service or a Web site, Time Warner could block consumers' access to Amazon or Google until the fee dispute was settled.</div>
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There's no question that this could hit consumers.</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Does the DC Circuit really think that the broadband providers can be trusted without any rules?</b><br />
Actually, the court accepted the FCC's reasoning behind why it felt Open Internet rules are necessary. But the justices said that the legal basis for the rules, i.e., basing the rules on the concept of common carriage, was not appropriate.</div>
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"Equally important, the commission has adequately supported and explained its conclusion that, absent rules such as those set forth in the Open Internet Order, broadband providers represent a threat to Internet openness and could act in ways that would ultimately inhibit the speed and extent of future broadband deployment," the justices write. "Nothing in the record gives us any reason to doubt the commission's determination that broadband providers may be motivated to discriminate against and among edge providers.</div>
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</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What will happen next? Is the fight for Net neutrality over?</b><br />
That's the big unanswered question. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in his statement Tuesday that the agency is considering all its options, including an appeal. This could mean an appeal to the US Supreme Court. Consumer advocates, which were very pleased the court sided with the FCC regarding its authority to regulate broadband services, say the FCC should come up with new regulations that don't use common carriage as their legal basis.</div>
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There's always the possibility that Congress could pass legislation that spells out rules. But because Net neutrality is such a polarizing political issue and because of the dysfunction in Congress at the moment, it's more likely that the FCC will be forced to act.</div>
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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), one of the most vocal lawmakers supporting open Internet rules, said Tuesday that Net neutrality is the free speech issue of our time. He added that it's a common-sense idea that big corporations like Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner shouldn't control who gets to innovate, communicate, or start a business on the Internet. And he is urging the FCC to find a way to make rules that will not be challenged in court.</div>
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"Getting rid of Net neutrality is bad for consumers and the economy, plain and simple," he said in a statement. "And it's a real risk to the Internet as we know it. The FCC needs to respond immediately in a way that keeps the Internet open to all of us, not just big corporate interests."</div>
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One thing is certain, the Net neutrality debate is far from over. And this court decision is not the last you'll hear about the issue.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-7502934872716044902014-01-14T14:56:00.001-08:002014-01-14T14:56:15.843-08:00Court Ruling Overturns Net Neutrality: Get Ready to Pay More for LessThis Just In (courtesy of<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/01/14/court-strikes-down-fccs-net-neutrality-rule/" target="_blank"> Fox News</a>): <br />
<br />
The folks at the <a href="http://www.freepress.net/" target="_blank">FreePress</a> have been working long and hard to protect Net Neutrality. If you're looking to get involved this may be a place to start.<a href="http://act.freepress.net/sign/internet_FCC_court_decision2/?source=slider" target="_blank"> Here's a link to an online petition to restore Net Neutrality.</a><br />
<h1>
Court ruling overturns Net Neutrality, threatens online access, experts warn</h1>
<div class="author">
<br /></div>
<div class="published updated dtstamp">
Published January 14, 2014<span class="value-title" title="2010-05-1T11:02Z"></span></div>
<div class="source-org vcard">
<span class="org fn"> | FoxNews.com</span></div>
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<div class="advert-txt advert-txt-3">
advertisement</div>
</div>
<br />
Thanks for watching that YouTube video! That will be 50 cents, please.<br />
Sound unrealistic? It's actually a distinct possibility, after a Federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down an FCC ruling meant to prevent an Internet service provider -- the company you pay for online access -- from prioritizing some website traffic over others.<br />
And because that rule was wiped off the books, those ISPs are suddenly able to do just that. With service providers suddenly able to charge based on the type of content you watch or the sites you visit, it's easy to imagine a system like that of today's cable television market. Want HBO? It's an extra $5. Want our streaming video package, with YouTube, Hulu, TV.com, and more? That's $5 too.<br />
Don't pay and you can't watch. Period.<br />
The so called “net neutrality” rule, put in place by the FCC in 2010, was intended to ensure equal access to all types of content. Regulators and politicians feared a tiered access to premium content or that ISPs might unfairly fast-track access to their own content over competitors.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
“A broadband provider like Comcast might limit its end-user subscribers’ ability to access <i>The New York Times </i>website if it wanted to spike traffic to its own news website,” <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/interactive/2014/01/14/raw-data-federal-appeals-court-ruling-on-fcc-net-neutrality-law/">the ruling notes</a>.<br />
But because of a quirk in how the government regulates Internet service providers -- almost a technicality in how the FCC ruling was written -- the court said that the regulatory agency didn't have the legal basis for its own policy.<br />
“Because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose <i>per se </i>common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order,” it noted.<br />
The ruling was the conclusion to a long-running challenge to the law by Verizon Communications. In a statement Tuesday on its public policy blog, the company stressed that it had no plans to institute any form of tiered access program.<br />
“One thing is for sure: Today’s decision will not change consumers’ ability to access and use the Internet as they do now,” <a href="http://publicpolicy.verizon.com/blog/entry/verizon-reiterates-its-commitment-to-the-open-internet">wrote Randall Milch</a>, Verizon's general counsel and executive vice president. “Verizon has been and remains committed to the open Internet that provides consumers with competitive choices and unblocked access to lawful websites and content when, where, and how they want.”<br />
But public policy experts and consumer advocates were hesitant to accept the ruling as a win for consumers. Sarah Morris, senior policy counsel for the think tank Open Technology Institute, said she worried it could lead to the worst-case scenario: exactly what Verizon says won’t happen.<br />
“The FCC’s Open Internet Rules represented an important -- if imperfect -- regulatory intervention to preserve the ability of broadband consumers to access the content of their choosing," Morris said in a statement. "Without these rules, consumers are at the mercy of their providers and the business arrangements those providers have already said they would implement absent the rules – business arrangements that could severely limit access to certain content online.”<br />
<br />Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org, went a step further, saying the ruling could even be a blow to civil rights.<br />
“Black folks' ability to be heard is now in real danger,” she said in a statement. “Today's ruling … is a serious blow to the millions of Americans who count on the free and open Internet to go about the essentials of our daily lives.”<br />
The FCC said it was weighing all of its options, including potentially appealing the ruling.<br />
"We will consider all available options, including those for appeal, to ensure that these networks on which the Internet depends continue to provide a free and open platform for innovation and expression, and operate in the interest of all Americans,” said FCC Chairman Thomas Wheeler in a statement.<br />
The ruling is the latest in a years-long battle by politicians and Internet watchdogs seeking to ensure equal access to content. Politicians have been fretting about it for years -- never mind that there has yet to be a single instance of an ISP doing what they fear.<br />
"Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it," worried Minnesota senator back in 2010, in yet another spin on how the rulings may play out.<br />
“We must ensure that consumers do not become casualties in our efforts to balance competing interests,” warned FCC commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-61000836733059552402013-12-27T08:16:00.002-08:002013-12-27T08:16:16.493-08:00Alabama Farmers and Prison LaborFrom Project Censored:<br />
Alabama farmers turn to forced prisoner labor to replace the loss of cheap labor experienced due to changes in the state's immigration laws. Tell me this isn't consistent with The New Jim Crow, as well as Angela Davis' work.<br />
<br />
http://www.projectcensored.org/24-alabama-farmers-look-to-replace-migrants-with-prisoners/Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-59733258794258620912013-12-20T08:00:00.002-08:002013-12-22T09:59:41.304-08:00What is Racism?Below is a brief I wrote for an organization that is trying to make social science research more accessible to journalists. My goals were to provide some fundamental insights on race and to move the conversation of racism beyond its focus on the individual and intentional.<br />
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“A National Conversation on Racism: Beyond the
Intentional Individual”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Tragic events such as the Trayvon Martin murder occasionally
garner wider public attention and open up opportunities to have what people
call a “national conversation” on race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These conversations are typically grounded in a certain understanding of
racism, one that sees racism as the result of individual attitude and intent.
Yet, decades of research reveal that racism is much more. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What should a more thorough “national
conversation” on race look like? What understandings of race and racism should
be recognized and incorporated? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">An informed national conversation
on race would recognize several factors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>First and foremost, it would recognize that race is a social
construction. There is no biological or cultural validity to the term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second, it would move beyond the common focus
on individuals and intentions to recognize the variety of ways that racism is
manifest in US society. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Any “national conversation” on race
needs to begin with one very important and fundamental understanding, race is a
social construction. There is no biological reality to race that fits some
natural “types” of humans. Rather, people have taken subtle physical changes to
the body that arose due to how we’ve adapted to our physical environments and
placed them into categories and called them races.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet, this didn’t “just happen.” Rather, races
were created in the context of European colonialism, as European countries
sought to expand their control over distant lands. Now, since race is a social
construction it cannot possibly be used as a causal factor in explaining trends
in human behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something must come
before it. That is, any trends that appear to fall along racial lines must
ultimately be explained by something beside race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The different impacts of these other forces
are the real factors that explain trends in behavior, beliefs and attitudes
that seem to relate to race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People
sometimes refer to these outcomes as the result of culture (e.g., a black
culture) as culture has come to replace biology in popular thinking about race
and difference. However, this is also flawed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Culture is the result of shared historical
experiences that foster certain adaptations related to those experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any culture that appears to be racialized is
really an outgrowth of shared experiences that are themselves racialized first
and foremost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, culture cannot
abide by racial lines because the categories and definitions of race are
socially constructed. That is, there’s nothing real to which we might consistently
define race and anchor culture. It’s like saying there is a culture of
green-eyed people, or of tall people. Like biological viewpoints of old, cultural
understandings ignore the socially constructed nature of race, and treat
cultural adaptations (to the extent that these correlate with race) as inherent
qualities determined by race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
understandings are simple, misguided, and harmful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since
race is a social construction we cannot treat it as a causal factor or
independent variable (i.e., people do things because they’re black or white).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead we must link any trends to more
concrete forces that are themselves racialized. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These forces are important and necessary
elements in any national conversation. They include racism’s cultural,
psychological and institutional manifestations. Importantly, none of them focus
on the individual nor require an intentional actor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cultural Aspects of
Racism:</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Cultural racism refers to the subtle, but persistent ways
race is framed and discussed in broader popular culture (e.g., media and music).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here, researchers have noted how stigmatizing
and devalued social qualities are commonly inscribed into racialized cultural
representations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Absent consistent and
meaningful face-to-face interactions these subtle but consistent discourses come
to constitute much of what we know about racialized others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They cultivate a “reality” that fosters
assumptions, stereotypes and other superficial and ignorant understandings of
racialized “others.” Unless you live on the moon, it’s hard to resist these
cultural forces, even among the most bleeding of heart liberals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evidence from the psychological research reveals
this.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">Psychological Aspects
of Racism:</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">On the psychological level, researchers have discovered a
subconscious [and in many ways unintentional] level of racism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This aspect of racism grows out of our
cultural environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s commonly
shared by all of us and needs to be recognized in any national conversation on
race. This is based on the simple fact that our cultural environment trains us
to think in terms of races and informs these thoughts with value judgments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This affects our automatic cognition, or the
brain’s ability to quickly and rapidly categorize the things we sense in our
environment, so that certain cues (such as one’s race) register other “related”
assumptions and associations (such as criminal, lazy, dependent, and other
negative traits).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This affects us all,
though we’re usually too afraid to admit. Even the most ardent advocate for
racial equality likely harbors negative thoughts and feelings towards
racialized others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is only to be
expected given racism’s cultural aspects, and any serious “national
conversation” on race needs to recognize it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yet,
this does not mean there are not patterns in behavior, thinking and attitudes
that relate to race. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, our
dominant view of race as cultural leads us to misrecognize the real forces at
work. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because race is a social
construction, any patters can only be explained by larger forces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This introduces our third level of racism. Its
institutionalization. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Institutionalized
Racism:</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Society is composed of a number of institutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Typically these refer to education, family,
religion, media, economy, polity, criminal justice, etc. Racism is institutionalized
when these social institutions produce consistent neglect, isolation and harm
for racially constructed others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People’s
reactions and adaptations to these institutionalized actions produce patterns
in behavior and attitude that are often misrecognized and misinterpreted as
“culture”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Racism is found in every social
institution and since these institutions are related and work together in a larger
social system, racism is also systemic (think about how jobs, education, crime,
and housing are all related).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Institutionalized racism essentially cements racist outcomes with
implications not for an individual at a particular point in time, but for an
entire group of people and over extended periods of time. It is a powerful and
lasting form of racism that must be center stage in any serious national
conversation about race. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">This is what decades of research and
scholarship on race has discovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Race
was socially constructed in the context of European colonialism and for the
purpose of justifying manifest destiny, the plundering of foreign lands and
peoples, forced labor and a permanent social hierarchy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no biological or cultural reality to
race, and any trends in race must ultimately be explained by larger social
forces that are themselves racist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Racism’s institutionalization helps us explain these patterns by linking
them to concrete social organizations and policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Racism’s cultural aspects reflect how these
patters inform a broad cultural discourse typically packaged in degrading,
stigmatizing meaning systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Racism’s
psychological elements reflect how this discourse cultivates subtle but real
cognition systems, assumptions and stereotypes, even among the most racially
sensitive of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of this requires
intent, and all of it extends beyond the overly simply one-on-one, direct form
of racism that typically informs our national conversations on race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any national conversation that wants to be
taken seriously and wants to provide a real public service must acknowledge and
incorporate these ideas. Complicity, inaction and neglect perpetuate these styles
of racism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-18013433424957380112013-12-19T13:45:00.003-08:002013-12-19T13:45:55.231-08:00Obama Commutes Sentences of 8 Federal Inmates Serving Time for Crack Cocaine ChargesFrom <a href="http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/19/21971171-obama-commutes-sentences-of-eight-crack-cocaine-offenders" target="_blank">NBC News</a>:<br />
<br />
<div class="byline">
By Carrie Dann, NBC News</div>
President Barack Obama has commuted the sentences of eight individuals convicted of crack cocaine offenses.<br />
<br />
In a statement, Obama said the commutation “is an important step toward restoring fundamental ideals of justice and fairness” and noted that he signed legislation in 2010 to narrow the disparity between penalties for crimes related to powder and crack cocaine.<br />
<br />
Obama has pushed to change criminal justice policy to correct what his administration calls unfairness in sentencing and to keep down the cost of lengthy incarcerations for non-violent crimes.<br />
“If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society,” he said of inmates sentenced before the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act. “Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year."<br />
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Obama also called on Congress to pass pending legislation that would make the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive for some offenders.<br />
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Each of the eight offenders has served over 15 years in prison for the drug crimes.<br />
One of the individuals, Clarence Aaron of Mobile, Ala., was convicted in the early 1990s at the age of 22 for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Aaron's lawyer Margaret Love told NBC News that Aaron was "overcome" with emotion and that he will head to a halfway house in his hometown in coming weeks.<br />
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The president also pardoned thirteen other individuals for crimes ranging from drug offenses to money laundering to theft.<br />
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The NAACP Legal Defense Fund praised the decision in a statement.<br />
"The president's ability to commute sentences is an extraordinary power, and his decision to exercise that power in these cases sends a powerful signal that the White House is committed to reducing mass incarceration and working to restore fairness to the criminal justice system," said Sherrilyn A. Ifill, the group's president.<br />
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The Obama administration has been vocal about the need to reduce the sentencing disparity and to avoid triggering mandatory minimum sentences in drug cases.<br />
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In August, Attorney General Eric Holder directed federal prosecutors not to report the amount of drugs involved in an arrest if it would trigger mandatory minimums. The order applied to non-violent offenders who have no ties to drug cartels or gangs and who did not sell to children.<br />
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The attorney general said too many Americans get long prison sentences that don't fit the crime. "With an outsized, unnecessarily large prison population, we need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter, and rehabilitate -- not merely to warehouse and forget."<br />
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The number of inmates in federal prison, roughly 219,000, is eight times what it was 30 years ago, and 40 percent over capacity. Nearly half are there for drug related crimes and roughly one-fourth of them were low-level offenders.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-44254015036200813982013-12-19T07:50:00.001-08:002013-12-19T07:50:35.585-08:00We Are All George ZimmermanI taught a course titled Race, Crime and Control this past semester. It was an upperlevel course that highlighted the role of the US criminal justice system as a mechanism for White's control over racialized others, Blacks in particular. Among a number of other things, we read a book by Victor Rios called "Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys." Rios is a former gang member from Oakland, CA who through some fortuitous events and opportunities was able to put his life on a more positive and fruitful trajectory. He's not a sociologist at UC Santa Barbara. Pretty impressive. <br />
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Below is a copied and pasted blog post he wrote for NYU Press on Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman (<a href="http://www.fromthesquare.org/?p=5256" target="_blank">click here for the original</a>).<br />
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<h1 class="entry-title">
We are all George Zimmerman: Trayvon Martin and the youth control complex</h1>
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<span class="sep">Posted on </span><a href="http://www.fromthesquare.org/?p=5256" rel="bookmark" title="9:04 am"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2013-07-22T09:04:35+00:00" pubdate=""><span style="color: #57068c;">July 22, 2013</span></time></a><span class="by-author"> <span class="sep"> by </span> <span class="author vcard"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.fromthesquare.org/?author=1" rel="author" title="View all posts by nyupressblog"><span style="color: #57068c;">nyupressblog</span></a></span></span> </div>
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—Victor Rios<br />
In ten years of studying inner city boys labeled at-risk by law enforcement and schools, I have found that poor Black Americans and Latinos are often deemed as culprits, lost causes, and menaces to society. One Black American boy in my study reported that on the day he was born nurses at the hospital commented in front of his mother, “Poor boy. He’s destined to become a dope dealer or drug addict just like his mother.”<br />
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In my observations at schools I witnessed a teacher tell a truant Latino eighth grade boy, “You have a prison cell waiting for when you turn eighteen.” On the streets I witnessed a police officer tell a seventeen year old Black American boy, “We want you to kill each other off, that way we don’t have to deal with locking you up.” These kinds of examples are countless in the lives of over 200 boys that I have interviewed and shadowed.<br />
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The reality is that poor urban boys grow up surrounded by a system of punitive social control that sees them as deficient students and criminal suspects that must be controlled and contained from young ages. School officials, law enforcement personnel, neighborhood watch volunteers, store clerks, jurors, and everyday citizens perceive and interact with these young people with fear, disdain, and circumspection. This <em>youth control complex, a </em>collective system of negative treatment based on racialized fears of young people of color, is responsible for the criminalization and systematic stripping of dignity that many young people like Trayvon Martin encounter on a day-to-day basis.<br />
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<img alt="" class="alignnone" height="263" src="http://www.trbimg.com/img-51e4b1af/turbine/la-1478863-me-0714-zimmerman-1-rcg-jpg-20130715/599" title="via LA Times" width="419" /><br />
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George Zimmerman is not just an outlying overzealous rogue vigilante that hunted down an innocent Black American boy. He very much represents mainstream America. We–schools, law enforcement, the media, intellectuals, politicians, and everyday citizens–are all involved in a system that creates and perpetuates fear and outcaste of a vulnerable, marginalized segment of our population. These young people grow up feeling hopeless, undignified, and failed by the system.<br />
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As Ronny, a seventeen year old Black American boy I followed for three years puts it, “It’s like I’m invisible, like I don’t exist, like people see me as good for nothing but to be in jail.” This <em>youth control complex </em>produces social death among many young people of color; they are alive but are not recognized as fellow human beings with the right to live productive lives. Instead we rely on surveillance, policing, prison bars, and stand your grounds laws to control, contain, incapacitate, and eliminate them.<br />
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The difference between George Zimmerman and the rest of us is that he pulled the trigger. We simply continue to mundanely mete out punitive treatment, stigma, and systematic stripping of dignity to young people of color, slowly killing their soul and their right to pursue happiness. By the time we sit in a courtroom to determine whether Trayvon Martin’s life is worth imposing a sanction on George Zimmerman, five white jurors have already been socialized and acculturated to criminalize young racialized bodies and to view the victim as a culprit.<br />
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Politicians and school and law enforcement administrators (including those that supervise neighborhood watch programs) must demand that individuals who interact with a diverse population be trained in understanding their cognitive biases and how these inform the treatment they impose on others. We must train ourselves to recognize and eliminate our inclinations to perceive and treat young people of color as suspects and instead treat them with the dignity they deserve. Listening to the voices of young people themselves who have lived a lifetime of encounters with the <em>youth control complex</em> might be a good first step.<br />
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<address>
<strong>Dr. <a href="http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/victor-rios" target="_blank"><span style="color: #57068c;">Victor Rios</span></a></strong><em> </em>is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Punished-Policing-Latino-Perspectives-Deviance/dp/0814776388" target="_blank"><span style="color: #57068c;">Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys</span></a> </em>(NYU Press, 2011) and <em>Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a Ph.D.</em></address>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-5726516070531740852013-12-03T13:16:00.003-08:002013-12-03T13:16:27.372-08:00Truth Universal: Every 36 Hours<br />
<a href="http://www.truthuniversal.com/" target="_blank">Truth Universal</a>: Every 36 Hours<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-47907275287251860572013-12-03T12:41:00.000-08:002013-12-03T12:41:21.676-08:00The Value and Need for Expungement: From the Justice and Accountability Center of LouisianaFrom my friends at<a href="http://www.jaclouisiana.org/#" target="_blank"> JAC</a> and all the hard work they do:<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-55340620725892901672013-11-26T08:58:00.002-08:002013-11-26T08:58:53.950-08:00Angola: A Modern Day Slave PlantationFrom Truthout. An interview with Terry Kupers and Robert King Wilkerson.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-34532134377623617962013-10-01T04:32:00.002-07:002013-10-01T04:32:40.281-07:00Angola Prisoner Henry James on his 30 Years Behind Bars for a Crime he didn't Committ
Courtesy of Democracy Now:<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-88291839849453730932013-07-22T18:15:00.003-07:002013-07-22T18:16:03.077-07:00Blacks Who "Stand Their Ground" are Often ImprisonedFrom AlterNet, "Defendants in Florida who employ the "Stand Your Ground" defense are more successful when white and victim is black."<br />
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Not in the least bit surprised.<br />
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Click <a href="http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/blacks-who-stand-their-ground-are-often-imprisoned" target="_blank">here for the whole stor</a>y.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-55901737011074911972013-07-21T17:59:00.000-07:002013-07-22T05:02:26.005-07:00When the Verdict Hurts: Sermon by Dr. Howard-John Wesley, PastorTime magazine said this is one of the best sermons in the wake of the Trayvon Martin injustice. It's 27 minutes long. I didn't get a chance to watch the whole thing but what I did see was moving. He gets going around 7:30. Eloquent and passionate.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-91509686186158864992013-07-17T17:57:00.003-07:002013-07-17T17:57:42.863-07:00Michelle Alexander on "Zimmerman Mindset"Courtesy of<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/17/michelle_alexander_zimmerman_mindset_endangers_young?autostart=true" target="_blank"> Democracy Now!</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-33226109361375382013-07-17T10:49:00.001-07:002013-07-17T16:42:17.209-07:00Zimmerman Juror: Trayvon "played a huge role" in his own deathFrom the infamous juror B-37: Trayvon played a huge role in his own death. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/Zimmerman%20juror:%20Travyon%20'played%20a%20huge%20role'%20in%20own%20death" target="_blank">He could have walked away and gone home after he was confronted.</a><br />
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Yes. Didn't Trayvon know his place? He should have just put up with Zimmerman's harassment. What's he doing there in the first place (besides basically going home). <br />
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Sound familiar? Think she feels empathy for Paula Deen?<br />
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This is bullshit. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-13804513826647528912013-07-16T21:45:00.001-07:002013-07-16T21:45:19.464-07:00Race, Stand Your Ground and InconsistenciesSo I just watched a <a href="http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/john-oliver-officially-names-florida-worst" target="_blank">clip of The Daily Show</a>, where John Oliver talks about a black woman in Florida who fired her gun in the air to ward off her abusive husband and was arrested for it. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison and the jury took 12 minutes to deliberate. That's justice in the US.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-17679243532431026192013-07-16T21:26:00.000-07:002013-07-16T21:26:14.731-07:00David Simon on the Zimmerman/Martin Verdict<a href="http://davidsimon.com/trayvon/" target="_blank">Simon says</a> pretty much some of the things I feel. <br />
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I was with my son this past weekend when the verdict was announced. He just moved to Atlanta with his mother and her partner. This was my first visit since they moved about a month ago. We were playing video games and watching a movie Saturday night when I heard the jury had made a decision. My son is just about to turn 13. He's black/hispanic (mom's hispanic, dad's black--I'm technically his stepdad, but have been with him since he was 3 and by all purposes am his dad). You try to protect them from these things for as long as you can, but the fact is that he's getting older and needs to know the way the world work when it comes to being a young black male in society. He's goofy, funny and funky, all things that make him special. But to someone who doesn't know him and has stereotypes of young black boys, those things aren't recognized and don't matter.<br />
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I cut and pasted the entire as much of it summarized how I feel (see below the break). You can go to the original post by <a href="http://davidsimon.com/trayvon/" target="_blank">clicking here</a>.<br />
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You can <a href="http://davidsimon.com/opinion-welcome-to-florida/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(46, 157, 191); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(46, 157, 191); border-left-width: 0px; border-right-color: rgb(46, 157, 191); border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(46, 157, 191); border-top-width: 0px; color: #29383d; font-size: 14px; font: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">stand your ground</a> if you’re white, and you can use a gun to do it. But if you stand your ground with your fists and you’re black, you’re dead.</div>
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In the state of Florida, the season on African-Americans now runs year round. Come one, come all. And bring a handgun. The legislators are fine with this blood on their hands. The governor, too. One man accosted another and when it became a fist fight, one man — and one man only — had a firearm. The rest is racial rationalization and dishonorable commentary.</div>
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If I were a person of color in Florida, I would pick up a brick and start walking toward that courthouse in Sanford. Those that do not, those that hold the pain and betrayal inside and somehow manage to resist violence — these citizens are testament to a stoic tolerance that is more than the rest of us deserve. I confess, their patience and patriotism is well beyond my own.</div>
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Behold, the lewd, pornographic embrace of two great American pathologies: Race and guns, both of which have conspired not only to take the life of a teenager, but to make that killing entirely permissible. I can’t look an African-American parent in the eye for thinking about what they must tell their sons about what can happen to them on the streets of their country. Tonight, anyone who truly understands what justice is and what it requires of a society is ashamed to call himself an American.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-32276261044970690502013-07-16T19:00:00.000-07:002013-07-16T19:00:11.814-07:00"Others" and the Social Contract<a href="http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/watch-msnbc-hosts-epic-rant-over-myths-about" target="_blank">Courtesy of Crooks and Liars</a>:<br />
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MSNBC host Thomas Roberts on Monday said his network was not doing enough to dispel myths that women who used birth control were "sluts," immigrants just came to the United States to have "anchor babies" and LGBT people were pedophiles and disease carriers.</div>
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In the wake of the George Zimmerman not guilty verdict, Roberts was joined by MSNBC hosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Toure on Monday to discuss what the case's racial aspects meant for the social contract in America.</div>
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Roberts noted that defense attorney Mark O'Mara had asserted over the weekend that Zimmerman never would have been charged if he had been black.</div>
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"That is the most absurd assumption that we have heard throughout this," Toure pointed out.</div>
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"Trayvon [Martin] wouldn't be dead if he were white," Roberts agreed.</div>
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"If George Zimmerman had been black, well, he would have been dealing with the mass incarceration of black people that we have in this country when we're over arresting -- we can talk about stop-and-frisk in New York, that policy goes out, throughout the nation, many other places -- over arrested, over prosecuted, over convicted, over sentenced once convicted," Toure observed. "I mean, this idea that if George Zimmerman were black then suddenly he would invoke, what, black privilege and not have to go through all this? That's absurd."</div>
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Roberts then used the Zimmerman verdict as a platform to launch a larger discussion about the way "others" are treated in the U.S.<br />
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"When we talk about these laws, don't we need to do more about our social contract with each other in this country when it comes to being 'others'?" the MSNBC host asked. "Because when we look at this we can use this as a great pivot point to talk about race relations in this country. But being an 'other,' whether it's LGBT -- because you're then suspected of being a pedophile and a rabid disease carrier. And if you are a woman, well, you certainly don't have a right to your own body and your own reproductive health. Because if you do then you're just a slut who wants to sleep around and use abortion as birth control. And then if you're Hispanic, you're just a taker, you're not a maker, and you want to come here and have anchor babies and you just want to lay off the land [sic]."<br />
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"And I want to challenge this network," Roberts continued. "We have to have an 'I am other' agenda and have a forum for it because 'others' need to unite to talk about this and figure out where we're going as a country. The social contract we have currently negotiated that is so wrong, and how this is happening in a country where we have this huge group of people that supposed to be a melting pot that we treat each other with such disdain that it's not even funny."<br />
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"Amen!" Toure replied.<br />
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"I will absolutely take you up on that challenge," Harris-Perry noted. "If we can convince the folks where we work, I will happily co-host with you a long-term town hall special around around this or anything else."<br />
"Let's do it!" Roberts exclaimed, later concluding that that the Zimmerman verdict would "damn well" lead to deeper discussions about race in America if the MSNBC hosts had their way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-61869200789735518662013-07-15T14:32:00.001-07:002013-07-15T14:32:14.733-07:00Zimmerman AcquittedI'm completely baffled by the jury's decision of "not guilty" in the trial over George Zimmerman's murder of Trayvon Martin. I thought second degree was a tough sell, not because it wasn't realistict, but because the lack of the kinds of evidence courts typically require to prove guilt. In theory, the court system fluctuates between models of due process and control. In the model of due process, the burden is on the state to prove the defendant guilty. That's why the verdict is not guilty rather than innocent. That's also why I thought second degree murder would be difficult.<br />
<br />
While I'm not surprise about the second degree charge, I was expecting the jury to find Zimmerman guilty of manslaughter. I'm really shocked on that one. I read in other places that lawyers in other states are shocked at what Florida's "Stand your Ground" law allows. As long as the defendent claims self defense, the prosecution has to prove it wasn't self-defense. Since the only other witness to the event (Trayvon Martin) is dead, there is no eyewitness to verify or challenge Zimmerman's defenses (and their inconsistencies). Since people with money (Zimmerman was bringing in through online sites tens of thousands of dollars to pay for his legal fees) benefit from a criminal justice model more akin to the due process one, the burden is on the prosecution. This poses a huge hurdle, and helps explain Zimmerman's verdict. If jury members are doing their job correctly and making their decision based on their honest understanding of the law, this can lead to a not-guilty verdict. That's because it becomes the prosecution's ability to prove Zimmerman was not acting in self-defense that becomes the key point upon which the argument revolves and the judge and jury act. Usually justice is not this way. Typically it's much more of a crime control model--swift, severe and certain punishment. Innocent people might be found guilty, but fewer guilty people will roam free. Sit in a court on a typical day and you'll see plenty of mostly poor, Black and brown men and women in on a range of drug related and gun charges. Zimmerman certainly didn't have to deal with this model of justice. My guess is that the jury's verdict was significantly affected by how Trayvon Martin was constructed in the immediate aftermath of the murder and in lead-up to the court case. Without any Black men or women on the jury, buying into the construction of Trayvon as a one-dimensional, stereotypical thuggish kid without a future becomes much more easy and reinforces the need of not just evidence, but overwhelming evidence that Zimmerman's acts were not justified as self defense. Black kids and young Black men and women don't typically receive this type of treatment when they're the defendants. Nor do they when they're the prosecution.<br />
<br />
Despite all this though, what I keep thinking is that didn't Zimmerman first spot Trayvon and then start to follow him? Isn't that basically stalking? And, regardless of Trayvon's reaction, couldn't lots of reactions be seen as self-defense? If someone told me that they were being followed by someone, I think a range of reactions would be justified. They could either run away, try to be chill as if nothing was happening, or turn and confront the person. All of these seem like sensible responses to me. If so, then are these responses defensible as "Standing Your Ground"? Despite the specifics of his reaction, couldn't Trayvon have been standing his ground and defending himself from an unknown assailant who was following him? Think about it. He was a 17-year old kid. Most of us have been 17 and know what it was like for us and our friends. I think if it were me, at 17, and I thought some guy was following me, I would've run. Stranger danger (but not the kiddie version). I was also kind of a woose back then. But, I definitely had friends who would have said something. If there were more than two of them, it certainly could become physical, but not in a life-threatening way. Unless, of course, one carried certain stereotypes and assumptions about the guys I was hanging with, read too much into the situation, and overreacted. So, again. Didn't Zimmerman see Trayvon, thought he looked suspicious and decided to follow him through this communal property that he felt the need to patrol (and that Trayvon had every right to be on given that his father's girlfriend lived there as well)? Given this situation, doesn't whatever Trayvon's reaction was that evening equate to standing his ground in self-defense? In fact, one of the witnesses for the prosecution and who was on the phone with Trayvon when all this was going down noted that he said some "crazy cracker" or something like that was following him. Doesn't that kind of negate Zimmerman's defense? How could he claim self defense if he was the one who started it by stalking Trayvon in the first place? He profiled Trayvon (who deserved to be on that property just as much as Zimmerman) and decided to follow him. He was nervous and probably scared because of the type of person he assumed Trayvon was and he over-reacted in all that followed. He was found not guilty of murder because he claimed he was defending himself. But he was supposedly defending himself from a situation that he actively put himself into in the first place. Further, it seems conceivable to me that the person he killed could have reacted in any number of justifiably defensive ways, including physical and that these could be seen as self-defense from a guy who for some reason is following him. For me I think fight of flight might kick in. Flight and I'd be the fastest runner you've ever seen, hopping over fences like a natural. Fight and I'd be berserker-punching, biting, scratching, gouging, everything. Either reaction is possible since I'd feel for my personal safety.<br />
<br />
While Zimmerman identifies as Hispanic (and I would have categorized him as such), in my eyes he was clearly constructed as different from Trayvon and his parents, and therefore benefitted by being located nearer to the white side of the socially constructed racial spectrum. Usually, we see the criminal justice system function to incarcerate young Black men and kids who are the defendants. Here, we see how the system suddenly works in its ideal fashion (innocent until proven guilty) when the prosecution represents a Black person and the defendant is not. Two sides of institutionalized racism and the courts.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-64752716959715299952013-07-08T13:17:00.002-07:002013-07-08T13:17:47.590-07:00White Like Me author Tim Wise on HuffPost LiveHere's Tim Wise on HuffPost Live addressing white skin privilege -- the unseen, unrecognized benefits to life that come with being seen as white. Tim worked with The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond and graduated from Tulane University.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" scrollable="no" src="http://embed.live.huffingtonpost.com/HPLEmbedPlayer/?segmentId=51c476e0fe34444db000049b" width="480"></iframe></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-30328924322350321692013-06-26T09:13:00.000-07:002013-06-26T09:13:18.218-07:00Shelby County v. Holder: The US Supreme Court's Ruling on the Voting Rights Act
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On Tuesday, June 25 in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled on Shelby vs. Holder. This case revolved around Section 4 of the
1965 Voting Rights Act, which established the requirement of federal oversight to
changes in voting requirements for a number of mostly southern states with a
history of racial discrimination. Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act identified
which states were to need federal preclearance while Section 5 established the
need of preclearance and federal oversight to changes in state level voting
laws. Without Section 4 in place, Section 5 becomes irrelevant, as there are no
states identified as requiring oversight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some changes to state voter laws include voter ID laws, restrictions on
early voting, and voter redistricting lines, all of which will
disproportionately affect African Americans living in urban environments. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, changes to voting laws will only be
subject to “after-the-fact” litigation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In other words, these states can now implement changes but they can’t be
subject to legal challenges until after election periods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hours after this decision was announced, officials
in Texas, North Carolina, and Mississippi pledged to immediately implement
photo identification laws for voting. Florida will likely set new early voting
rules and Georgia will implement new voting districts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Below I offer some statements on this decision from the
court (courtesy of the NYTimes): <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">“In 1965, the
states could be divided into two groups: those with a recent history of voting
tests and low voter registration and turnout, and those without those
characteristics,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.
“Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction. Today the nation is
no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to
treat it as if it were.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">She [Ginsberg] said
the focus of the Voting Rights Act had properly changed from “first-generation
barriers to ballot access” to “second-generation barriers” like racial
gerrymandering and laws requiring at-large voting in places with a sizable
black minority. She said Section 5 [which becomes irrelevant with the removal
of Section 4] had been effective in thwarting such efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8896089539841552140.post-4111121662644591622013-06-23T07:20:00.002-07:002013-06-23T07:20:49.006-07:00FCC Makes Available Hundreds of Low Power, FM Radio Stations for Community Organizations: Apply NowAs part of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Community_Radio_Act" target="_blank">Local Community Radio Acts</a>, Congress recently acted to support a movement that will make thousands of low-power, FM radio stations available for local, community organizations and groups. There is only a short window period to sign up (October 15-29 2013). The FCC encourages you to start your application early (i.e., right now, you don't need to wait until October) so that it is properly prepared come the application review period. Applications should be submitted electronically to the FCC. Sign up at <a href="http://www.prometheusradio.org/" target="_blank">Prometheus Radio Project</a> to learn how to start your own station (<a href="http://transition.fcc.gov/Forms/Form318/318.pdf" target="_blank">click here for a pdf version of the application</a>). You can access an application <a href="http://www.prometheusradio.org/checklist" target="_blank">check list here</a>, and click here for a <a href="http://www.prometheusradio.org/webinars" target="_blank">free webinar</a> on how to start a station.<br />
<br />
Here, you can read the<a href="http://www.fcc.gov/document/lpfm-window-open-october-2013-revised-form-318-released" target="_blank"> FCC's Public Notice</a>.<br />
<br />
Here's the report from <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/" target="_blank">Democracy Now</a>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe frameborder="0" height="225" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2013/6/20/in_historic_victory_for_community_radio" width="400"></iframe></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0