Manning: 'War on bloggers escalates'

By Rick Manning
NetRightDaily
Reprinted with permission

The First Amendment is a pesky thing to politicians.  It allows, nay encourages, the exact kind of diverse political speech that those in power loathe.  Born out of the legacy of the Revolutionary War pamphleteers and their radical thoughts of freedom, today these liberty lovers take the form of citizen journalists utilizing the Internet to push ideas, advocate, report and uncover stories that aren't being told, afflicting the powerful and holding them accountable.  This has been at the heart of press freedom, not the corporate media empires that are often little more than government propaganda machines.

Now, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), not content to just continue her long running attempt to put a dagger into the right to keep and bear arms, is leading the charge to create a federal government sanctioned journalist licensing system that threatens the First Amendment as well.

Her Orwellian titled "Free Flow of Information Act of 2013", which is also known as the "media shield bill" has passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and is expected to gain the votes necessary to get out of the Senate.  Proponents of the bill advocate that journalists be licensed by the federal government so that they can be protected from potential prosecution from a government insisting that their confidential sources be revealed - a freedom which already exists under current law.

In a scorching legal rebuke to Feinstein, Senators Jeff Sessions, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and John Cornyn argue vehemently against the law in a Minority View report writing,

"The freedom of the press does not discriminate amongst groups or individuals—it applies to all Americans. As the Supreme Court has long recognized, it was not intended to be limited to an organized industry or professional journalistic elite. See Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 704 (1972) (the ''liberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer who uses carbon paper or a mimeograph just as much as of the large metropolitan publisher who utilizes the latest photocomposition methods. Freedom of the press is a fundamental personal right[.]''); Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452 (1938) (''The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets.  . . . The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.'').

The Founders recognized that selectively extending the freedom of the press would require the government to decide who was a journalist worthy of protection and who was not, a form of licensure that was no freedom at all. As Justice White observed in Branzburg, administering a privilege for reporters necessitates defining ''those categories of newsmen who qualified for the privilege.'' 408 U.S. at 704 That inevitably does violence to ''the traditional doctrine that liberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer who uses carbon paper or a mimeograph just as much as of the large metropolitan publisher who utilizes the latest photocomposition methods.'' Id.

The First Amendment was adopted to prevent—not further—the federal government licensing of media. See Lovell, 303 U.S. at 451 (striking an ordinance ''that . . . strikes at the very foundation of the freedom of the press by subjecting it to license and censorship.  The struggle for the freedom of the press was primarily directed against the power of the licensor.'').

But federal government licensing is exactly what the Free Flow of Information Act would create. The bill identifies favored forms of media—''legitimate'' press—by granting them a special privilege.  That selective grant of privilege is inimical to the First Amendment, which promises all citizens the ''freedom of the press.'' See Branzburg, 408 U.S. at 704 (''Freedom of the press is a fundamental personal right[.]'') (emphasis added). It also threatens the viability of any other form of press. The specially privileged press will gain easier access to news. That will tip the scales against its competitors and make it beholden to the government for that competitive advantage. A law enacted to protect the press from the state will, in fact, make that press dependent upon the federal government— anything but free."

Feinstein's proposed licensing law might seem innocuous if not for the fresh stench of federal government targeting of conservative groups through the IRS, the Federal Communications Commission's recent attempts to monitor news rooms, the spying on Associated Press reporters by Obama's Department of Justice to gain access to their sources and most recently, the announced giveaway of First Amendment protections for those who use the Internet by the U.S. Commerce Department all of which serve as recent examples where this Administration has proven their enmity to dissent.

Feinstein's bill, when coupled with the U.S. government's attempt to turn the Internet over to international control, represents a turning point in the relationship between the federal government and the free flow of information in the modern world.

Under the Obama Administration's proposal to give control of the Internet to unspecified international sources, citizen journalists will necessarily lose their First Amendment shield of protection from censorship.  A censorship that is likely to first find its form in blocking ideas inimical to the unelected, unaccountable, unknown new Internet governing body's group think.  Ideas that are deemed "dangerous", "hateful" or "offensive" to some arbiter of worldwide political correctness will disappear from the Internet as Internet Protocol addresses of "offending" parties simply vanish.

Unlicensed political dissent, a critical component to the Web's democratization of information that scares the elite who cling to power, is equally threatened by Feinstein's attempt to create a non-protected class of journalists.  The local blogger who has a buddy who reveals corruption at City Hall deserves the same right to be able to protect sources as the Washington Post reporter who dutifully regurgitates the latest Obama Administration planned Friday afternoon leak.

The same whistle blower's identity should be protected whether he or she talks to NetRightDaily.com, TalkingPointsMemo, or the Los Angeles Times.

Failure to convey the same First Amendment protections to all people, whether they are paid or not for their activities, strikes at the heart of the basis of our nation's most precious freedoms, and Congress should reject the Free Flow of Information Act of 2013.

Rick Manning @rmanning957) is the vice president of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government.

Where's Ted Cruz?

Okay. So we have a government shutdown. After being front and center and grabbing the camera for weeks, where is Ted Cruz? He's toned it down considerably ... perhaps this is why.

End the government shutdown.

Strong opposition to government shutdown includes Republicans

The first paragraph of Byron York's article in the Washington Examiner says it all:

"A new poll done for Republican members of Congress has found huge public opposition, and solid opposition among Republicans, to the idea of shutting down the government over the issue of funding Obamacare."

An overwhelming 71 percent of Americans do not want a repeat of 1995 when Republicans shut down the government for three weeks. Even 61 percent of Republican women don't want to see Republicans go through with such a plan.

For those who were not paying attention in 1995 when the GOP shut down the government, it wasn't pretty. Google it. Or listen to the voices of experiences who have been there and done that, like Senator Saxby Chambliss, 69, and Joe Scarborough who was a congressman at the time.

Now a poll, commissioned by Republicans, is confirming that a shutdown will not bode well for the GOP. Will those "show horses" of the U.S. Senate, as the New York Times called Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco Rubio of Florida, continue to push for it?

Byron York, like others, can look at this poll and read the tea leaves:

"But there is no doubt defunding advocates anticipate a possible shutdown; their hope is to persuade the public to blame President Obama, and not Republicans, for it. The new numbers suggest they will have a lot of persuading to do."

It brings to mind once again American philosopher George Santayana's much-quoted belief, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." Hopefully, GOP leadership and experienced voices will be able to stop the proposed fallacy.

Goodlatte townhall: The question that didn't get asked

Monday's townhall meeting in Augusta County with Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-6th CD) was chocked full of people who are upset about Obamacare and want to see Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and others shut down the U.S. government in their pursuit of shutting down Obamacare.

So it was a surprise that this one question was not asked by anyone in the crowd of about 150 people: Why was Congress exempted from the Obamacare legislation that the rest of us have to abide by?

NY Times on GOP shutdown threat: 'Politics of a Screeching Halt'

New York Times Op-Ed columnist Gail Collins does not mince words:

Right now, the show horses of the United States Senate are Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida. All preparing for a 2016 presidential bid. All making visits to Iowa. They’re the new faces of the Republican Party. Really, really new. The three of them have an average age of 45 and an average tenure in Washington of 1.9 years.

Whatever happened to learning one job before moving to the next step?

Republicans are alarmed, as the editorial notes:

And all three are currently in the news for their efforts to get Republicans to promise not to vote to fund the government this fall unless the president cancels Obamacare.

"I think it’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard," said Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, speaking on behalf of a large number of Republicans who regard the idea of shutting down the government with horror and who are never going to be mentioned in a Quinnipiac presidential poll.

For those who were not paying attention in 1995 when Republicans shut down the government, it wasn't pretty. Google it. Or listen to the voices of experiences who have been there and done that, like Senator Saxby Chambliss, 69. On Wednesday's Morning Joe on MSNBC, Chambliss gave a dire reminder.

“We’ve been down that road,” he said. “We shut down the government ...and we got our butts kicked over shutting down the government.”

That's an understatement. It took years to regain the confidence of the American people who blamed Republicans for the shutdown. Indeed, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough was a Florida Congressman during the 1995 shutdown. He learned from that experience and called the current  threat "one of the stupidest arguments he's heard in two decades":

“We’ve got a president that’s gonna celebrate Republicans making the same mistake back when we shut down the government and basically re-elected Bill Clinton,” Scarborough said.

The new breed of Republicans could learn from the experience and wisdom of those who have walked before them. But listening to Cruz, that doesn't seem likely:

“The sort of cocktail chatter wisdom that ‘Oh, the shutdown was a disaster for Republicans’ is not borne out by the data,” Cruz said.

Meanwhile, the other side of the political aisle is watching this unfold, as Collins writes:

The Democrats are sort of horrified and sort of enthralled by the whole drama.

“Give a call to Newt Gingrich. He’ll return your phone calls. Ask him how it worked,” suggested Majority Leader Harry Reid.

It brings to mind American philosopher George Santayana's much-quoted belief, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

Ted Cruz is a 'train wreck'

“Have you seen what Ted Cruz is doing? He’s going crazy on Republicans … Ted Cruz is attacking anybody that is not willing to shut down the government over Obamacare … I have to be very careful about what I say, but Ted Cruz comes in, obviously so completely ignorant about the war that Tom Coburn has been fighting for 20 years. And to say something like this about Tom Coburn. Ted Cruz is a total train wreck. He is comparing Mitch McConnell to Barack Obama. He is attacking Tom Coburn as being a member of the ‘surrender caucus’ when Tom Coburn, and yes Ted Cruz…I…put our political lives on the line more times in six months than Ted Cruz will put on the line his entire lifetime.”

- former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough ("Morning Joe," July 31, 2013)