Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman: 'Oversight of the Internet is One of His Top Priorities'
Monday, February 16, 2009 | Kristinn

Posted on 02/16/2009 6:59:38 PM PST by kristinn

The American Spectator's Prowler column published today has a disturbing report on the plans by the Democratic Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Henry Waxman to regulate political speech on the Internet.

In addition to details of methods Waxman is considering to rein in conservative talk radio, The Prowler reports on Waxman's desire to use the power of the federal government to investigate amd control political content on the Internet.

The article quotes an unnamed committee staffer as saying of Waxman's power grab:

"Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them."

"Internet radio is becoming a big deal, and we're seeing that some web sites are able to control traffic and information, while other sites that may be of interest or use to citizens get limited traffic because of the way the people search and look for information. We're at very early stages on this, but the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities."

"This isn't just about Limbaugh or a local radio host most of us haven't heard about. The FCC and state and local governments also have oversight over the Internet lines and the cable and telecom companies that operate them. We want to get alternative views on radio and TV, but we also want to makes sure those alternative views are read, heard and seen online, which is becoming increasingly video and audio driven. Thanks to the stimulus package, we've established that broadband networks -- the Internet -- are critical, national infrastructure. We think that gives us an opening to look at what runs over that critical infrastructure."

The article reports that Waxman intends to work with Democratic Party President Barack Hussein Obama's nominee to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, who is awaiting confirmation by the Democrat controlled Senate, to investigate and regulate free speech on the Internet.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 111th; 1stamendment; batboy; bigbrother; censorship; censorshipdoctrine; democrat; democratcongress; democrats; dncbrownshirts; fahrenheit404; fairnessdoctrine; fascism; firstamendment; henrywaxman; internet; islamobama; lping; neomarxism; nostrildamus; obama; orwelliannightmare; porkulus; stalinisttactics; talkradio; waronconservatives; waxman; webnazis
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 121-140141-160161-180 ... 381 next last
To: FlingWingFlyer

Seriously, you’d think since this man represents Beverly Hills IIRC that at least one plastic surgeon would offer him his services! Yikes!

First time I saw that picture I thought it had been doctored. Scared me when I found it it hadn’t!! :-O


141 posted on 02/16/2009 7:55:58 PM PST by pillut48 (CJ in TX --"God help us all, and God help America!!" --my new mantra for the next 4 years)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: kristinn

“The Internet is for porn!
“The Internet is for porn!
“Just grab your ****
“And double-click
“For porn! Porn! Porn!”

142 posted on 02/16/2009 7:56:47 PM PST by RichInOC (No! BAD Rich! (What'd I say?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Arizona Carolyn
I heard Graham, but McCain would never sign legislation to stiffle free speech, Obama will do it in a heart beat... you allowed your two main issues get in the way of your common sense and people like you cost us the election and now our country is headed for worse than socialism, much worse.

There was no common sense in the OP(formerly the GOP) moving towards socialism at the expense of Conservative values in order to expand the voter base. People like you allowed this socialism to expand by continuing to support the party. You are suffering from the political version of battered wife syndrome. You keep returning to an increasingly socialist party that has continually slapped Conservatism in the face. Conservatives who voted against both socialist parties recognized we have only a one socialist Republicrat party system. Unfortunately you can't see the forest for the trees. Thanks for nothing.
143 posted on 02/16/2009 7:58:04 PM PST by Man50D (Fair Tax, you earn it, you keep it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: pillut48

The least they could do is buy the boy a toothbrush.


144 posted on 02/16/2009 7:58:25 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (Have You Punched A Democrat Today? - Do it for the children.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 141 | View Replies]

To: kristinn

Has this numb skull heard of the First Amendment? I hope someone sues him into next year over this!


145 posted on 02/16/2009 8:00:53 PM PST by LiteKeeper (Beware of socialism in America; the Islamization of Eurabia)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sport

“The people and the masses are who put and keep them in power”

This is why I left the USA...The morons, idiots, illegals, and
other assorted Demowits have taken over.
It is all down hill for the America that I grew up in.


146 posted on 02/16/2009 8:03:47 PM PST by AlexW (Now in the Philippines . Happy not to be back in the USA for now.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: kristinn
["the chairman has made it clear that oversight of the Internet is one of his top priorities."]

Here's an old favorite "chairman":


147 posted on 02/16/2009 8:05:37 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (The committed will surely dominate the complacent.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Abathar; Abcdefg; Abram; Abundy; akatel; albertp; AlexandriaDuke; Alexander Rubin; Allerious; ...
"Thanks to the stimulus package, we've established that broadband networks -- the Internet -- are critical, national infrastructure. We think that gives us an opening to look at what runs over that critical infrastructure."



Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
148 posted on 02/16/2009 8:05:59 PM PST by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kristinn
How authoritarian.

The liberals have been spouting socialist, authoritarian and fascist views all over the media lately. I wish I had collected a compendium these little tidbits because in the last month they have piled up. It would make quite a case for the righteousness of resisting Obama and his agenda.

149 posted on 02/16/2009 8:07:03 PM PST by TheThinker (Shame and guilt mongering is the Left's favorite tool of control.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Man50D

A lot of people like you voted for Barr and before that Ron Paul... that type of thinking caused this mess... we are not a three party system, we will now pretty much be a one-party system when Obama is finished. You had two issues, Fair Tax adn immigration and your attitude was the hell with the GOP because they were not bending over for your personal hot button issues. I tell you what I think immigration is pretty darned important, I have mixed feelings on the fair tax, but I damn well appreciate what had been my rights to free speech and people like you who could not see the forest for the trees have pretty much assured us we will no longer have those rights...or our second amendment rights and a few others as well. I told you then and I’ll tell you now.. you take both candidates and you do a spread sheet and the one who left your gold fillings in the final analysis is who you get off your butt and vote for... that man was NOT “The One”! But you had your rights and you voted how you voted, but spare us your outrage now, because it is you and your fellow travelers that brought this mess.


150 posted on 02/16/2009 8:07:22 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 143 | View Replies]

To: Nateman

Yep. The real purpose of the second amendment is to protect all the others.


151 posted on 02/16/2009 8:09:23 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (The committed will surely dominate the complacent.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: nutmeg
I hate to say it, but I told you so. I knew all these plans would materialize the moment he won the election.

He is a socialist, and that's what socialists do.

152 posted on 02/16/2009 8:11:46 PM PST by Victoria Delsoul
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 132 | View Replies]

To: Arizona Carolyn
people like you cost us the election

No, McCain cost himself the election by refusing to run a worthy campaign. Nobody here had anything to do with losing.

We're on a quicker road to hell with Obama than we would have been with McCain but he surely would have let the Democrat Congress do much the same under the guise of "bipartisanship" with Republicans taking the blame when the evil was exposed.

This road will be painful but it offers the opportunity for the Republicans to rebound and be sharply more conservative now that the appeasement wing of the party has tried and failed so miserably. Every couple of decades people need to be reminded what liberalism truly looks like and if the GOP is smart, they will have dozens of issues to distinguish themselves from the Left in 2010 and 2012.

153 posted on 02/16/2009 8:13:09 PM PST by OrangeHoof (YES WE CAN have a Depression.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: Arizona Carolyn
I heard Graham, but McCain would never sign legislation to stiffle free speech...
You're kidding, right? McCain-Feingold is the single biggest (sucessful) assault on free speech in our nations history. The founders were talking primarily about *political* free speech when the wrote the first ammendment, and the McCain-Feingold legislation directly limits peoples' ability to get their political message out.
154 posted on 02/16/2009 8:13:15 PM PST by Scutter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer

155 posted on 02/16/2009 8:13:43 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (The committed will surely dominate the complacent.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: kristinn
This nation has been overthrown in a bloodless coup. We may well have another civil war. Not North v South this time, but real Americans vs. the fascists, largely inhabiting the Democratic Party.


156 posted on 02/16/2009 8:17:12 PM PST by doug from upland (10 million views of .HILLARY! UNCENSORED - put some ice on it, witch)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Scutter

I still do not believe McCain would pass through legislation like Waxman is talking about == plus McCain would not sign this stimulus bill as written so there would be no bill with payments from the governement written into it that they could point to as their reason for being able to stiffle free speech... convulted, I know, but I do not believe we would be headed down the path we are rolling under a Republican president.


157 posted on 02/16/2009 8:17:14 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 154 | View Replies]

To: OrangeHoof

At this current rate we won’t have anything to vote for in 2010 or 2012, Obama is Chavez on steroids.


158 posted on 02/16/2009 8:18:43 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 153 | View Replies]

To: Cindy

To the Socialists, Diversity = eliminating the opposition. These people are of course extremely dangerous.


159 posted on 02/16/2009 8:18:53 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (The committed will surely dominate the complacent.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer
Obergruppenfuhrer Waxman is watching you right now! Note the ears!

Ears, hell! Note the nose! (Nostrildamus is smelling you from afar...)

160 posted on 02/16/2009 8:19:02 PM PST by Still Thinking (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 121-140141-160161-180 ... 381 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson