Free Republic

The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 signed into law last week by President Obama allows the Secret Service to determine what kind of speech may be permitted in proximity to the President and other government officials qualified for Secret Service protection. “Most people are probably familiar with our role as protectors of the President against would-be assassins,” said Secret Service spokesman Elroy Hood. “But assassins aren’t the only ones who pose a threat. Vocal opponents damage the image the government is trying to project and can undermine its authority every bit as much as an attempt...

A Wikipedia article devoted to Critical Race Theory, a controversial legal theory crafted to respond to the alleged role of “white supremacy” in American law, was placed on a temporary editing lockdown over the weekend after bloggers determined that CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien had relied on Wikipedia’s introductory definition of the theory — verbatim — during on an-air debate. A second lock was placed on the article Monday to protect it from politically biased editors who adjusted it following O’Brien’s gaffe. The flurry began after Breitbart.com editor Joel Pollak made a guest appearance on O’Brien’s show to explain a video...

[...] These are just a few samples from the arsenal of degrading language Limbaugh deploys on women, people of color, lesbians and gays, immigrants, the disabled, the elderly, Muslims, Jews, veterans, environmentalists and so forth. Limbaugh doesn't just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames -- and the bigger the lie the more effective -- inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, "femi-nazi," doesn't even raise eyebrows anymore, an example of how rhetoric spreads when unchallenged by...

A protest is planned Thursday in front of a Lincoln radio station to call for the removal of talk radio host Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves. The conservative talk show host is losing advertisers and being targeted after calling a law school student a “slut” and “prostitute” for advocating for insurance coverage of contraceptives. “Occupy Rush Limbaugh on International Women’s Day” is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday at KLIN, 4343 O St. The protest is being sponsored by Occupy Lincoln, which has a tent camp on the mall in front of the state capitol in Lincoln....

State Representative Bob Hagan (D-Youngstown) wants Limbaugh's show pulled from Youngstown's WKBN-AM (570) where Limbaugh's show has aired for years. Hagan felt called to start a petition against Limbaugh's "most recent on-air attack against women" on behalf of his three daughters and seven sisters.

REPORTING FROM TEHRAN AND LOS ANGELES -- Internet access was disrupted in Iran on Monday, raising fears that the state might be stepping up censorship ahead of national elections next week. […] The Tor network, which helps people connect anonymously to the Internet, reported that its Iranian traffic plunged two weeks ago when problems with “https” websites were reported earlier, dropping from 50,000 users to nearly zero. The numbers later rebounded as Iranians found ways to work around it. Internet usage has boomed in Iran over the last decade, growing from less than 1% to 13% of Iranians, according to...

It is understandable that libraries have to limit what they can put on their shelves when they have a limited budget to work with and limited space. But when a free donation is offered without restrictions and the space is available, why would a library accept some items and not others? Why would they accept just part of the items and not others? Rather than leaving a couple dozen dvds to collect dust on my shelf, I offered them to local libraries. So far I have received 2 responces: one said "There are some of the DVDS that are not...

A Muslim activist group with links to the Muslim Brotherhood has asked the British government to restrict the way the British media reports about Muslims and Islam. The effort to silence criticism of Islam comes amid

HE digital tsunami that swept over the Capitol last month, forcing Congress to set aside legislation to combat the online piracy of American music, movies, books and other creative works, raised questions about how the democratic process functions in the digital age. Policy makers had recognized a constitutional (and economic) imperative to protect American property from theft, to shield consumers from counterfeit products and fraud, and to combat foreign criminals who exploit technology to steal American ingenuity and jobs. They knew that music sales in the United States are less than half of what they were in 1999, when the...

Former presidential candidate Reverend Jesse Jackson averred that criticism of President Obama has gotten dangerously out of hand. “The constant barrage of right-wing criticism leveled at the president by his enemies has reached unacceptably perilous magnitude,” Jackson insisted. “When a governor is allowed to point her finger at him or a member of Congress is permitted to get away with calling him a liar we must acknowledge that rhetoric has gone too far.” Jackson cited history to bolster his concern. “President John Kennedy was vilified by right-wingers,” Jackson asserted. “This created an atmosphere conducive to violence. The next we knew,...

When the right-wing Second Amendment Foundation teamed up with the left-wing First Amendment foundation to sue the Eastern Washington library system for filtering out gun websites, it serves as a case study as to why the Seattle Public Library was right last week when it said it wasn't going to do anything about Internet porn. There's not much titillating about Women & Guns magazine. About as racy as it gets is a recent photo spread on "practical leather" — gun holsters and casual carry handbags for the lady who packs heat. With articles like "Taming Shotgun Recoil" and "Ammunition on...

Censoring Twitter Are you worried about Twitter's new guidelines? Yes, I think it's a huge blow to freedom of speech around the world No, I think they're doing it responsibly I'm not sure

Fast forward to today and we suddenly find that an interesting situation has arisen in the Untied States in regards to ACTA. It seems that President signed the ACTA treaty a few months ago, with apparently little or no fanfare, but questions are now being asked by those who do keep a very close eye on this – was Obama even allowed to sign ACTA?

WTF? Censorship on Arizona non-candidate

Twitter has announced that it now has the technology to selectively block tweets on a country by country basis. In its blog, Twitter said it could "reactively withhold content from users in a specific country". But it said the removed content would be available to the rest of the world. Previously when Twitter deleted a tweet, it would disappear worldwide. --- In its blog post, Twitter explained that its international growth meant entering countries "that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression", citing France or Germany which ban pro-Nazi content as examples.

Last November I wrote an article titled 'The Advent of Internet Censorship in America' (http://www.free-marketing-tips-blog.com/ 2011/11/advent-of-internet-censorship-in.html). To recap: "The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R.3261, was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011 by Representative Lamar Smith [R-TX] and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The aim of the bill is to help U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders fight online transmission of restricted intellectual property." (Source: Wikipedia) Opponents of the bill says it goes too far and threatens to shut down or censor legitimate websites that might inadvertently link to...

Linky Here

On Wednesday, some of the Internet's largest entities blacked out their websites --or their logos or some of their content --in a protest against the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills making their way through Congress. If you're wondering whether all of this had an effect, the answer is yes. Big time. Wikipedia, the largest Web player to block access to its pages for a full 24 hours, reports that a whopping 162 million people experienced the blackout on the online encyclopedia's landing page. In addition, 8 million U.S. readers took Wikipedia's suggestion and looked up their congressional reps from the...

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (and its Senate alternative, the Protect Intellectual Property Act [PIPA]) have been taking a bipartisan beating. Conservatives have joined with Leftists to savage the bill and thus its chances for passage. I too am opposed to this iteration of SOPA – it remains too overly broad. But something similar and more finely, sharply crafted – must become law. And conservatives will need to reorient themselves when a better version of the bill comes along – and support it. —– We cannot look at the SOPA debate without putting it into the broader context of...

McLEAN, Va. –  Federal prosecutors have shut down one of the world's largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, on charges of violating piracy laws -- a day after a 24-hour blackout of popular websites such as Wikipedia drew national attention to the issue. "This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States," the Justice department said in a statement about the indictment. The indictment accuses seven individuals and two corporations -- Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited -- of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. It was...