The FCC’s Plan to Censor the Internet

Washington, D.C. – The Federal Communications Commission is preparing to auction off a portion of the airwaves for Internet use. Under the terms of the auction, the winning bidder would be forced to use a quarter of the auctioned spectrum to provide free wireless Internet service to all Americans.

“If you think free Internet access under this plan would be a good thing, think again,” said Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “This ‘free’ access comes at the price of giving government unprecedented control over the Internet.

“Since no ISP can compete with free, omnipresent Internet access, this plan means that virtually all online users will be herded into the government-controlled Internet. And as the history of radio and television has shown, once the government guarantees ‘free’ access to a communications medium, it will inevitably exercise control over its content–i.e., censorship.

“In fact, this plan already comes with censorship strings attached; the FCC has declared that this ‘free’ Internet must filter out pornography and other material deemed unsuitable for children. Not only will this prevent vast numbers of Americans from accessing content the government regards as inappropriate, but it will unavoidably lead to massive self-censorship by websites struggling to avoid government sanitization.

“The FCC should auction off these airwaves without preconditions–not use the prospect of ‘free’ wireless access to lure us into accepting an online censorship regime.”

Ending Piracy Should be a U.S. Government Priority

Washington, D.C. – “It is unbelievable that one of the top news stories, today in the 21st century, is that pirates are seizing ships, cargo and people off the high seas,” said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

“The Gulf of Aden is a major international shipping route. The Somali pirates are snatching cargo destined for all corners of the globe. To the extent that American commercial interests are being impacted, the U.S. government should immediately and decisively secure the shipping route by whatever military means necessary. Why have a navy if not to safeguard the rights of Americans to participate in and benefit from trade on the high seas?

“The American government should act swiftly: the ransom money collected by the pirates is at least in part being filtered to Islamic totalitarian groups, which have openly declared ‘Death to America.’ Our failure to act is providing additional strength to our known enemies.”

The Left and the Right vs. Free Speech

Washington, D.C.–Calling for a return of the Fairness Doctrine, Senator Chuck Schumer noted that some of the same people who oppose such “equal time” mandates support restrictions on broadcasting they deem offensive. According to Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, “Schumer’s comments highlight an ominous fact: that both the left and the right are opponents of free speech.

“Conservatives have long supported the FCC’s war on so-called indecency, arguing that broadcasters should not have the right to engage in ‘offensive’ speech. The liberals, meanwhile, have been eagerly trying to resurrect the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which would allow the government to dictate which ideas deserve how much airtime, and lead many radio stations to avoid discussing controversial issues altogether.

“In fact, this is a disagreement without a difference: both sides endorse the principle that the government should be dictating what Americans can and can’t say–they just want to use the censor’s pen to support their own political agendas.

“Whoever values free speech should oppose government regulation of the airwaves. Freedom of speech is the freedom of every American to say whatever he wants, regardless of how offensive others find it, through any medium he can rightfully access. There seem to be no such defenders among liberals or conservatives–and that is truly offensive.”

Nationalization Is Theft

Venezuela, Russia, and other countries that nationalize natural resources are violating private property rights.

By Thomas A. Bowden

For years, the Canadian operator of a huge Venezuelan gold project known as Las Cristinas has been seeking an environmental permit to start digging. Well, Crystallex International Corporation can stop waiting–the mine is being nationalized as part of dictator Hugo Chavez’s long-running program of socialist takeovers. “This mine will be seized and managed by a state administration” with help from the Russians, said Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz.
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No Copyright Exceptions

By Thomas A. Bowden (New York Times, October 28, 2008)

Re “Copyright and Politics Don’t Mix” (column, Oct. 21):

Lawrence Lessig’s proposal for copyright reform commits the same error as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Both take for granted that lawmakers should be carving up speech into political, commercial, artistic, and other categories, and then offering different legal protection according to how society values the output.

But speech is speech, and the individual speaks by right, not permission. Just as political speech deserves full First Amendment protection, it deserves full copyright protection as well. Media outlets that profit from disseminating political statements should have ready access to procedures for enforcing their property rights against YouTube or other infringers. That’s not censorship; that’s justice.

Read more…

Government Found Guilty of Assaulting the Economy

By David Holcberg (International Herald Tribune, October 11, 2008)

You don’t have to be a professional detective to realize who the main culprit is in today’s financial crisis. The government’s fingerprints are all over the crime scene.

The government had the motive (the widely lauded goal of promoting “affordable housing”); it had the means (the Fed’s control of interest rates and the money supply, Fannie and Freddie, the federal Community Reinvestment Act, the “too big to fail” bailout policy); and it had the opportunity (courtesy of voters who think the government should have the power to regulate and interfere with the free market and manage our entire economy).

Of course, the government can’t be arrested or put in jail, no matter how damning the evidence against it. But we should not shy away from pronouncing the “Guilty” verdict.

Protect Citizens

By David Holcberg (USA Today, October 13, 2008)

No law should place the well-being of whales above that of humans. Even if, as environmentalists allege, the use of sonar threatens the lives and health of marine mammals, no law should prevent the Navy from using this crucial military technology.

The fundamental purpose of government in a free society is the protection of the individual rights of its citizens. If the Navy judges that sonar experiments off the coast of California are “critical to the nation’s own security,” and that they might increase its ability to detect such potential military threats as hostile submarines, it should do these experiments. Our national defense and our very lives may depend on it.

This attack on our Navy’s ability to defend us from foreign threats is yet another example of environmental laws being used to sacrifice our interests for the alleged “rights” of animals. Once again, environmentalists are showing whose side they are on, and it is not humanity’s.

Totalitarian Islam and the Threat to Free Speech

Totalitarian Islam and the Threat to Free Speech
A panel discussion at American University

What: A panel discussion on the nature of totalitarian Islam and its threat to free speech, followed by a Q&A

Who: Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute; Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum; and Flemming Rose, cultural editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten

Where: Ward One, Auditorium One, American University, Washington, D.C.

When: Thursday, October 23, 2008, at 6 pm

Admission is FREE and open to the public.

Description: What is the nature of totalitarian Islam–is it limited to terrorism or is it a broader movement? Are non-Muslims its only victims? Who precisely is the enemy? Does the West bear responsibility for creating this movement? What policies can defeat it?

Defenders of Islam around the world have striven to silence critics with threats, protests and acts of violence. How should the West respond to demands for censorship, as in the Danish cartoon controversy?

Panelists will address these critical issues in a lively discussion.

Bios:

Dr. Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and a recognized Middle East expert who has written and lectured on a variety of Middle East issues. Dr. Brook has discussed the Israeli-Arab conflict and the war on Islamic totalitarianism on hundreds of radio and TV programs, including FOX News, CNN, and a C-SPAN panel of experts on terrorism.

Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum. Abroad, he appears weekly in Israel’s Jerusalem Post, Italy’s l’Opinione, Spain’s La Razón and monthly in Canada’s Globe and Mail. His Web site, DanielPipes.org, is one of the most accessed Internet sources of specialized information on the Middle East and Islam. Mr. Pipes has appeared on ABC World News, CBS Reports, Crossfire, Good Morning America, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, The O’Reilly Factor, The Today Show, the BBC and Al-Jazeera.

Flemming Rose is a Danish journalist, author and the cultural editor at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. In September 2005 Mr. Rose commissioned a series of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad. He was concerned about the tendency toward self-censorship in Europe and some Muslims’ insistence on special treatment of their religious sensitivities in the public domain, which he wanted to bring forward for debate. The backlash from Muslims around the world caused an international crisis and the Danish government experienced its worst foreign policy crisis since the Nazi occupation during WWII.

For more information: e-mail media@aynrand.org

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI. ARI does not necessarily endorse the content of the lectures and sessions offered.

Islamic Totalitarianism’s Threat to Civilization

Islamic Totalitarianism’s Threat to Civilization

What: A panel discussion about the nature of Islamic totalitarianism and how to defeat it. A Q&A will follow.

Who: Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Dr. Wafa Sultan, outspoken critic of Islam

Where: HIB (Humanities Instructional Building), Room 100, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697

When: Monday, October, 13, 2008, at 7 pm

This event is open to the public. Admission is FREE.

Description: From the Iranian hostage crisis to September 11 to the London subway attacks to the Iraqi insurgency–it is clear the West faces a grave threat from a committed enemy. Conventional wisdom holds that the enemy is a rogue group of fanatics, who have hijacked a great religion in order to justify their crimes. It tells us there is no way to permanently eliminate these violent groups, that we have entered an “age of terror” and that we must give up the desire for a decisive victory . . . but is the conventional wisdom right?

Bios:

–Dr. Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and a recognized Middle East expert who has written and lectured on a variety of Middle East issues. Dr. Brook has served in the Israeli Army and has discussed the Israeli-Arab conflict and the war on Islamic totalitarianism on numerous radio and TV programs, including FOX News, CNN and a C-SPAN panel of experts on terrorism.

–Dr. Wafa Sultan is a secular Syrian-American writer and thinker, best known for her participation in Middle East political debates, widely circulated Arabic essays and television appearances on CNN, FOX News and Al-Jazeera. She named the Islamic threat to the West as “a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose.” Her outspokenness has brought her both threats and praise. Dr. Sultan is currently working on a book to be titled “The God that Hates.”

For more information: e-mail media@aynrand.org

Big Business: Home of Individualism

By Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein (Ariadne Capital Journal, September 23, 2008)

Through much of the 20th century, the world was bombarded with the collectivist idea that the individual is insignificant, and that human progress is the achievement of society as a whole. In The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand powerfully illustrated that progress is in fact the product of the individual through the use of his independent reasoning mind.

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