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FCC Backs Off Newsroom Snooping Plan

GOOD … NOW LET’S STOP THE MEDIA SPYING, TOO The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has suspended a controversial plan to place government “researchers” in media newsrooms – a pilot study that was scheduled to begin this spring in Columbia, S.C. It now says any future efforts to study how media…

GOOD … NOW LET’S STOP THE MEDIA SPYING, TOO

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has suspended a controversial plan to place government “researchers” in media newsrooms – a pilot study that was scheduled to begin this spring in Columbia, S.C.

It now says any future efforts to study how media outlets operate will not include the interrogation of journalists.

In fact the agency admits it “overstepped” in proposing its newsroom invasion – quite an understatement in light of the extensive grilling its moles would have given reporters/ editors regarding their news-gathering processes.

To say nothing of these “researchers” determining a priori what constituted ‘critical information’ for media outlets to cover …

The FCC’s newsroom snooping plan was first exposed by agency commissioner Ajit Pai, who penned a column in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week decrying its invasiveness.

Pai hailed the FCC’s decision to scrap the plan as “an important victory for the First Amendment.”

“This study would have thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country, somewhere it just doesn’t belong,” Pai said. “The Commission has now recognized that no study by the federal government, now or in the future, should involve asking questions to media owners, news directors, or reporters about their practices.”

Indeed …

This website emphatically rejected the FCC’s latest media manipulation campaign – and urged South Carolina’s supplicant mainstream media establishment to show some rare anti-government cojones and resist the occupation.

Would they have done so? Hmmmmm. Let’s just say it’s a good thing we never had to find out …

Anyway, while the FCC suspension is a positive step,  the American press will never be free as long as the government is allowed to spy on its members. Let’s make ending that shameful practice – and overturning of the whole domestic spying apparatus – the next item on the list.

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45 comments

GrandTango February 22, 2014 at 11:21 am

It’s funny that “pundits” like FITS will tear down and ridicule South Carolina for smartly rejecting the disaster of Obamacare, fighting for good jobs or for requiring voter integrity…

But Filet Clyburn of the FCC is the MOST embarrassing product from SC since her father….

SC looks bad because of the Bass-ackwards democrats that drag down this state. Where Republicans are elected, we lead the nation…in economic endeavors and education.

And this Clyburn FCC Nazi tactic is a PRIME example of a democrat w/ power. Their other calling cards are starving children, low academic achievement and STDs…

If FITS had even one testicle, he’d be screaming this from the mountain top…over and over…

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davis mcclam February 22, 2014 at 11:24 am

They will just find another way to do it.

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WTF February 22, 2014 at 2:42 pm

I read somewhere that Congressman Jim Clyburn’s daughter Mignon Clyburn was the person who actually brainstormed and pushed this bit of Stalinism. We are truly becoming a totalitarianism police state under Obama!!

Mignon Clyburn | Commissioner

Mignon Clyburn served as Acting Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, following her appointment by President Barack Obama on May 20, 2013. She was nominated for her first term as Commissioner on June 25, 2009 and sworn-in on August 3, 2009. As Commissioner, she is serving a second term for which she was sworn in on February 19, 2013.

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Slartibartfast February 22, 2014 at 8:48 pm

Yep. She also has a socio-political association with the company she was going to hire to do the “survey.” As our Peruvian brethren say, “follow el dinero.”

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Manray February 22, 2014 at 11:35 am

It is interesting how a “spin” on a few words can make a story seem ominous. Words such as “interrogation,” “controversial,” and “occupation” are so effective in pandering to the credulous and their irrational fear of the “gub’ment.” The reality? The FCC is required (note that word “required”) by Congress to evaluate small businesses in the broadcast industry every three years. This is the law. Your Congress passed it. This year the effort was to include some questions asked of reporters and news directors to assess management involvement in news reporting decisions. That’s it. Period. No ominous “interrogations,” no water boarding, No “1984.” — just some minor employees of the FCC doing what their jobs require. This is what the right quivers in the face of?

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GrandTango February 22, 2014 at 11:56 am

You are a F*#king NAZI-level Ignorant Dumb@$$…if you are not Concerned as H#!! about his…People like you are a disgrace to America and should be FOUGHT, and SILENCED at every level……by any and ALL means possible….

The media already has subverted democracy in this country by lying and corruption..and if the Liberals are able to TOTALLY control the message (even more than now) we’re not different from the murderous Communist countries or Imperial iron-hand domination…

The ONLY way this would be acceptable if it was an effort to PURGE all the Filthy leftwing demagogues from the newsroom, and restore fairness…but the people doing it have no interest in objectivity.

Liberals are Greedy, dangerous, ruthless and power-mongering threats to society…Liberals are set on a total take-over of our freedom, to enrich themselves and the elites like them…

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Truman Capote February 22, 2014 at 2:55 pm

I guess GrandTango is OK, but his comments aren’t exactly a fortress of grammatical exactitude. If Bill Bbuckley hadn’t copyrighted the term, I’d say it’s a lot of crap.

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GrandTango February 22, 2014 at 4:39 pm

Do you have something to contribute regarding the subject??..or are you like most liberals, too stupid to offer anything of value???

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Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 10:00 pm

She sold your port to GA?

Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 10:06 pm

nikki and u r stupid

Sarah Palin Forever! February 22, 2014 at 3:03 pm

Actually bigot why are you still here?Why hasnt big brother government taken you out?There’s still time you know.Be afraid slimeball.Be very afraid.They know where you’re at!It could happen at any moment!

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GrandTango February 22, 2014 at 4:28 pm

You unwittingly may be moving toward the point. It may come down to Americans vs dictator elite-zealots, like you.
But beware. Your side has tried to dictate free people, over and over. Americans have cut you down at Hiroshama, Normandy and Baghdad.

Just because you America-haters are working from within this time, do not think we will not spread your carcasses over our homeland, as we did the democrat slave-owners of old.

Just like then, the plantation owners of today (known as the democrat party) have enlisted the ignorant and the corrupt, like you, to do their bidding…

But evil is evil, and I like every good American, was taught to stamp out evil…and defend freedom and right.

Liberals on the other hand, have always fled responsibility and played coward should any work or risk manifest. You will lap luxury as long as it is handed to you…but if asked to fight, you will be slaughtered… God hates wickedness, and He will not be with you…

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Sarah Palin Forever! February 22, 2014 at 4:56 pm

I talked to God a little while ago.Said I was Okay.Didnt mention you though.

BrigidBernadette February 22, 2014 at 5:04 pm

Jesus loves you, but everyone else hates your guts.

Sarah Palin Forever! February 22, 2014 at 6:59 pm

Being “hated “by a couple of Right Wing religious kooks like you and the piece of garbage above is an honor of which anyone would be justly proud!

Frank Pytel February 23, 2014 at 10:26 am

Well I’m glad to spread a little more honor your way. Congratulations.

Sarah Palin Forever! February 23, 2014 at 11:54 am

Ah. Patel.I didnt know you were a religious kook too?I thought you were what is it?Ah yes a liberty loving libertarian/crypto anarchist who is against Democrats ,Republicans,well, just about everybody and ,oh yes, voted for. Obama to destroy the country a little faster.I believe that about sums up the load of BULLSHIT you’ve been blowing off here for awhile now.So now we can add “hatemonger” and on Sunday too?Its a helluva life isnt it Frank?

GrandTango February 22, 2014 at 5:08 pm

God will never side w/ the evil and the deceitful.

From the IRS targeting, to 3rd term abortion, voting for revenge, racist Jeremiah Wright and trying to even more manipulate the news w/ gov’t monitors…..you are filthy and corrupt. I hope you are not trying to claim that God condones your behavior…

Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 10:02 pm

She cost us Millions, and u will pay for it!

Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 10:05 pm

you must pay for stupid moves by
Nikki! Get used to it

Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 10:01 pm

She wants to enslave you ?

Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 9:59 pm

Nikki is not greeady?

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Sarah Palin Forever! February 22, 2014 at 12:00 pm

Yes, this story was much ado about nothing.Does help Fits rally his libertarian acolytes here though.Carry on boys,the next threat to your “liberties” lurks just around the corner!Be afraid! Be very afraid!

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wow February 22, 2014 at 2:20 pm

No. Just the outrage shamed even liberals who agreed this over reach was just too much…

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swampdonkey February 22, 2014 at 2:06 pm

yep. Just like those random audits which overwhelmingly target Tea Party groups to silence them…just political hacks abusing their authority to suffocate and intimidate their political opponents…business as usual for 3 rd world bananna republic thugs…ask Dr. Carson ….ask Sarah Palin’s dad (retired octogenarian public school teacher audited 4 years on a row)…

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BrigidBernadette February 22, 2014 at 2:23 pm

You are the banality of evil.

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idcydm February 22, 2014 at 3:44 pm

“just some minor employees of the FCC doing what their jobs require”

Not really, it was going to be contracted to a business that wasn’t even in the communications field. Obviously the “gub’ment” couldn’t handle it in house and wanted to spend money, they don’t have, on outside help.

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Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 9:59 pm

I read where Nikki’s daughter was primed for a congress or state job !

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Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 10:06 pm

IDOIT CAM thinks he has a brain, LOLO

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Smirks February 22, 2014 at 5:46 pm

The FCC is too busy bending over backwards for media and telecom corporations thanks to the revolving door of FCC decision makers getting big jobs at the very corporations and their lobbyist groups they themselves were supposed to regulate. To think that big gubmint agencies whose big wigs sell out to corporations on a daily damn basis would suddenly bite the hand that literally feeds them is fucking ridiculous.

It really fits in with the whole “government is so inept it can’t do anything right, except TAKE US ALL OVER MAN!!!” narrative that makes no fucking sense. The people fearing the NSA think that agencies that let themselves get walked all over are going to do something insidious? No, the agencies we know are doing insidious shit are the ones that are going to be doing that. Everything else will be used as a backscratcher for the well connected and moneyed interests, as is becoming more and more prevalent.

Don’t take this as nobody should be scared of the potential for government horrors, but for fucks sake, let’s put a little more reason into this crap.

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SparkleCity February 22, 2014 at 10:52 pm

Right on Brother Smirks!!!!

I could write 3 pages on what Mel Karamazin (aka: The Prince of Darkness) did to pull the wool over the FCC in order to merge XM & Sirius satellite radio.

it was disgraceful to say the least(I was a member of the original class action suit = post acquisition)

All the FCC is is a conduit for the highest bidder.

I can personally attest to that statement.

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Slartibartfast February 22, 2014 at 8:43 pm

It is not, nor – in the opinion of the SCOTUS – ever has been, the purview of the FCC to dictate content beyond the pornographic. It’s not at all “what their jobs require,” unless, of course, you’re Joesph Goebbels.

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Buz Martin February 23, 2014 at 11:34 am

Why did they back off of it, then?

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Yep! February 23, 2014 at 4:38 pm

Exactly, the simple question “why” on everything seems in order.

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Yep! February 23, 2014 at 4:39 pm

“The FCC is required (note that word “required”) by Congress to evaluate
small businesses in the broadcast industry every three years.”

The simple question is “why”.

Why does Congress want them to do this? Will it simply collect the reports and do nothing? Very doubtful in the context of such matters.

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Gregory Geddings February 22, 2014 at 2:18 pm

They probably freaked out at the image of a drooling, blubbering Sic Willie threatening to “slit their throats.”

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shifty henry February 22, 2014 at 2:49 pm

Will knows that GT has his back……

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This just in. . . February 22, 2014 at 2:47 pm

Arizona Governor Fears Government Regulation Could Ruin Bigotry and Hatred

PHOENIX (The Borowitz Report) — Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said today that she was reluctant to sign an anti-gay “religious freedom” bill passed by the Arizona state legislature this week, telling reporters, “I believe that bigotry and hatred should be free of government regulation.”

She said that while many Arizona business owners currently enjoy employing hateful practices, “I worry that if big government gets involved, that’ll ruin everything.”

“Don’t get me wrong — I think the anti-gay bill that the legislature passed was well-meaning,” she said. “All I’m saying is, let’s leave it to the private sector.”

Offering an example, she added, “Look at how Obamacare has messed up health care. I’d hate to pass a new law that results in government wrecking bigotry.”

But Governor Brewer got some pushback today from Republican legislator Harland Dorrinson, who told reporters, “I’m as opposed to big government as anyone. But promoting hate-based bias is one area where I believe government has an important role to play.”

For her part, Governor Brewer remains unconvinced by that argument. Noting that the current system of hatred and bigotry in place in Arizona has worked well for decades, she said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

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BrigidBernadette February 22, 2014 at 5:31 pm

Stupid.

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GrandTango February 22, 2014 at 4:42 pm

Ever thought: Newsrooms are saturated in liberalism and Obama-worship as it is.
Could this be a ploy to make it seem like the left needs more, only to act as if their evil plan failed, leaving newsroom to be fair in the perception of people watching them allegedly and cowardly retreat???

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Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 10:03 pm

SC will pay for 20 years to repay the millions she blundered

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lalalala February 22, 2014 at 5:10 pm

FCC engaged within felony criminal conduct. This is why they backed off because lawyers were warning them that their intentions would land them behind bars for years and years.

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Slartibartfast February 22, 2014 at 8:38 pm

This story is not 30’d.

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Deo Vindice SC February 22, 2014 at 10:09 pm

Nikki will be our next Govenor again, ask the stupids ?

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Philip Branton February 24, 2014 at 9:48 am

LOL……even ol Wil Folks realizes how this has been going on for ….CENTURIES already..!!!

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