OVERNIGHT TECH: Opposition building to Genachowski's net neutrality proposal

Upton Wants FCC to Expedite Review of Comcast, NBC Merger
In a letter to Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski dated December 10, U.S. Representative Fred Upton (R-MI) inquired into the FCC’s commitment to a fair, fact-driven review of the Comcast-NBC Universal Merger. The merger would call for the transfer of assets to a new Joint Venture for NBC Universal.  The Joint Venture combines NBC and Telemundu as well as 26 NBC television stations and national Cable Networks with Comcast’s regional sports networks and ...

Regulators Concerned About What Comcast-NBC Merger Means For The Internet
Here's hoping Waxman manages to plug up the worst Loopholes before this deal gets rammed through, because they're right: the future of the Internet will be greatly affected by this Merger. Is there no merger too large that the Justice Department won't rubberstamp? .Although there has been a lot of talk in media circles about what Comcast's ownership of NBC Universal would mean for viewers' choice of news and entertainment, the two branches of the Federal Government reviewing the merger — ...

Bernie Sanders: Block the Comcast Takeover of NBC Universal, Would Create Anti-Competitive Media Monopoly
Warning that a huge media monopoly would drive up Cable Television prices and stifle the free flow of information, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today urged the Department of Justice to block Comcast's planned takeover of NBC Universal.   The senator's concerns about the Comcast-NBC deal were detailed in a letter that he sent to Christine Varney, the assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust division at the Department of Justice. "Especially in an age of entrenched corporate power...

SavetheInternet.com 'Can-You-Hear-Us-Now-a-Thon' Delivers 2 Million Petitions to FCC
Source: freepress.net/press-release SavetheInternet.com ‘Can-You-Hear-Us-Now-a-Thon’ Delivers 2 Million Petitions to FCC FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date: December 13, 2010 Contact: Craig Aaron 202-265-1490 x 25 Jenn Ettinger 202-265-1490 x 35 WASHINGTON -- SavetheInternet.com Coalition allies and Activists kicked off a marathon of petition deliveries at the Federal Communications Commission on Monday morning — with plans to drop off 50,000 signatures every hour until the public comment period cl

Comcast, the biggest cable company in Bay Area and nation, looks to get bigger
WASHINGTON -- Comcast is by far the biggest pay-TV provider in the Bay Area. It controls TV rights to Giants, A's, Sharks and Warriors games. Many of its customers also sign up for high-speed Internet service. And the company, if it has its way, is about to get a whole lot bigger. In a deal valued at $30 billion that was announced a year ago but has received scant attention outside the nation's capital, Comcast is attempting to buy a majority share of NBC Universal. The Merger would give the nat...

Comcast, the biggest cable company in Bay Area and nation, looks to get bigger
WASHINGTON -- Comcast is by far the biggest pay-TV provider in the Bay Area. It controls TV rights to Giants, A's, Sharks and Warriors games. Many of its customers also sign up for high-speed Internet service. And the company, if it has its way, is about to get a whole lot bigger. In a deal valued at $30 billion that was announced a year ago but has received scant attention outside the nation's capital, Comcast is attempting to buy a majority share of NBC Universal. The Merger would give the nat...

FCCs Open Internet proposal heading for defeat?
Conservatives have kept a close eye on Julius Genachowski, chair of the FCC, especially after his first attempt to regulate the Internet by regulatory decree got slapped down by Congress.  Now it looks like the chastened Genachowski has lost the Left, too.  His scaled-down “Open Internet” proposal had no chance of winning support from the conservatives on the FCC board, and his Net Neutrality allies are urging the Democrats on the panel to oppose it as well: Opposition to Federal...

Level 3 Feigns Net Neutrality Violation in Contract Dispute
Internet company Level 3 recently claimed that Comcast, in violation of Net Neutrality principles, was attempting to impose a new “toll” against Level 3 to deliver online movies on behalf of its client, Netflix.  This dispute comes at a time when the Federal Communications Commission is currently in process of codifying its ‘net neutrality’ principles into law. After undergoing a competitive bid process, Level 3 was selected to house and distribute the majority of Ne...

A look at possible conditions in Comcast, NBC deal
Federal Regulators are considering a number of conditions to ensure that Comcast Corp. cannot use its control over NBC’s vast media empire to stifle the growth of online video. Their key concerns: — The darkest fear of companies in the Internet video market is that Comcast could withhold or ratchet up prices for popular NBC Universal programming, including hit shows such as “30 Rock” and “The Office.” So Regulators may force Comcast to abide by the Federal Com...

Lieberman draws fire with Times remark on Wikileaks
Attorney Daniel Klau, a First Amendment expert, particularly on press protections, takes issue with U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman’s suggestion the New York Times should be investigated for printing stories based on documents released by Wikileaks. “I certainly believe that WikiLeaks has violated the Espionage Act, but then what about the news organizations — including The Times — that accepted it and distributed it? To me, The New York Times has committed at least an act ...

Ed Towns Steps Aside as Top Democrat on Oversight Committee
There have been rumblings for about a month that current Oversight Committee Chairman Ed Towns would somehow get pushed aside from that post. Whether or not he was, Towns announced today that he's stepping aside as the top committee Democrat. "After much thought, Chairman Towns today made the decision not to seek the Ranking Member position on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee," his Communications Director, Jenny Thalheimer Rosenberg, said in a written statement released to reporter...

Incoming Judiciary Chairman on Holder: We Have a Good Working Relationship
Incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) told Politico that he has “a good working relationship” with Attorney General Eric Holder even though they have different opinions on key Law Enforcement matters. Smith said he won’t be quick to Subpoena Justice Department officials in his committee’s Oversight of the DOJ when he takes the panel gavel from Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) in January, despite a threat he made last fall to “issue subpoenas a...

Citizens or subjects?
Georgetown Professor of Constitutional Law Randy Barnett, Dec. 13, 2010: If economic mandates like this one are allowed, however, Americans will be demoted from citizens to subjects. They will have to obey any commands that Congress deems convenient to its Regulation of interstate commerce. No more expensive Tax Credits and subsidies to raise taxes to pay for; Congress can just command you to buy its favored products. Forget Cash for Clunkers; just make Americans buy cars from G.M. Or make them ...

CNN: Is Julian Assange a journalist or terrorist?
"[Julian Assange] may be the Robin Hood of data or information," Greg McCrary, an FBI profiler, told the network. It's an analogy that might actually work, had he stolen anything. A lone Army soldier, Private Bradley Manning, stands accused of the Security Breach. Officials were still trying to determine whether he acted alone. In the segment that followed, featuring an interview with former CIA analyst Ray Mcgovern, CNN's on-screen graphics wondered whether Assange is a "Journalist or Terrorist...

Don't charge Wikileaks
Wikileaks FOUNDER Julian Assange has irresponsibly released thousands of sensitive National Security documents, including some that Pentagon officials say could put in harm's way Afghans who have cooperated with U.S. efforts. But that does not mean he has committed a crime. Mr. Assange, an Australian, is in a British jail awaiting possible Extradition to Sweden on Sexual Assault allegations. Many Americans would like to see him spend a good, long time behind bars - for different reasons. Sen....

Sunday Morning Bobblehead Thread
I apologize for the abomination of having to wake up to Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, but I selected this video to make a point. There's been a lot of wailing and gnashing in the progressive community this week. Not without justification, mind you, but I think it would do all of us good to step back and take a look at the real big picture. For as much as we feel frustrated or betrayed or doomed, the fact remains that we have it so lucky in this country. We really do. My kids' school adopts fam...

Julian Assange: Readers' Choice for TIME's Person of the Year 2010
The man behind Wikileaks has won the most votes in this year's Person of the Year poll. Readers voted a total of 1,249,425 times, and the favorite was clear. Julian Assange raked in 382,020 votes, giving him an easy first place. He was 148,383 votes over the silver medalist, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey. But Assange wasn't the winner in all aspects -- Lady GaGa trounced him on Facebook, receiving 65,417 "likes" on Facebook to Assange's 45,643. See the top 10 readers' choices be...

Airforce Blocking NY Times and Other Sites With Wikileaks' Cables
Air Force personel who try and sign on to The New York Times website see a page that says "ACCESS DENIED. Internet Usage is Logged & Monitored," according to The Wall Street Journal. Turns out that the Air Force is blocking Wikileaks, aiming to keep its personel from accessing more than 25 sites which contain classified material. The Journal is of course not subject to the rule, having pointedly decided not to publish Wikileaks material. The move is based on Military protocol, which stat...

US Air Force Blocks Internet Access To New York Times, Guardian And 23 Other Website Posting WikiLeaks Documents
: The U.S. Air Force has blocked access for computers on its network to The New York Times, the Guardian, and at least 23 other websites carrying Wikileaks documents, a spokesman said on Tuesday. Major Toni Tones, a spokesperson at Air Force Space Command in Colorado, said the command blocked at least 25 websites that have posted Wikileaks documents. The Air Force "routinely blocks Air Force network access to websites hosting inappropriate materials or Malware (malicious software) and this inclu...

The Words We Searched in 2010, From Google
What do the terms Chatroulette, iPad and Justin Bieber have in common? No, they are not a part of a new Internet-inspired movie; they were the “fastest rising” terms typed into Google’s Search Engine over the past year. During the closing month of the year, Google releases its Google Zeitgeist report that corrals and aggregates “billions of search queries people type into Google” over the year. Google says the “Zeitgeist captures the spirit of 2010.”...

Yahoo! to cut up to 700 positions
A Yahoo logo is seen on the campus in Sunnyvale, California April 9, 2010. UPI/Mohammad Kheirkhah Microsoft, Yahoo! integrate searches Yahoo! and Facebook to integrate services Yahoo, Inc. San Francisco, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. Search Engine Yahoo! Inc. is laying off up to 700 employees due to sluggish company growth, a source told The Huffington Post. Yahoo! has not made the announcement yet but is expected to notify employees Tuesday, The Huffington Post reported. Yahoo! has announced three majo...

Google Doesnt Sound Very Sorry It Pushed Down Competitors Search Results
Bad, Google! In recent months, Google has gotten more aggressive with highlighting its own content over competitors'. Its rivals, like Yelp and TripAdvisor, aren't very happy about it. Where do you go if you have a beef with Google? The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, of course. In the paper, those companies, along with WebMD and Citysearch, say they've noticed their links being pushed lower on the results page. Indeed, Google has been trying to develop more of its own content or...

Marshall P. Duke: Pancake People, Rise Up!
There have been several terms applied to the Net generation -- one being of course the Net generation, but others being Generation Z, the Dreamer Generation, Generation Wisdom, or Generation I. All of these are either neutral/descriptive or mildly complimentary. However, there is one more that has not achieved the same degree of visibility, yet for me as a Professor of Psychology who has taught rising generations for forty years, must be attended to and taken seriously. This is a term first us...

Video: Seton Motely With The Best Explanation Of Net Neutrality That Ive Seen
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The Terrorist Search Engine
Evan François Kohlmann acquired his unloved nickname in 2002, when an FBI agent who was consulting with him on a case dubbed him “the Doogie Howser of Terrorism.” The many detractors he has amassed over the years have never let go of that memorable handle. “Look,” Kohlmann says one afternoon earlier this year, sitting in the two-bedroom apartment where he spends his days and nights analyzing Jihadist video, communiqués, and chatter on the Internet. “Someone gav...