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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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.

The Looming Crisis over Free Speech

What: A lecture examining the escalating censorship in America and explaining what is needed to protect our freedom of speech

Who: Eric Daniels, research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism

Where: 101 Morgan Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720

When: Monday, October 6, 2008, 7 pm

Description: In this lecture, Dr. Daniels examines the state of free speech in America and finds that it is under serious threat. From campus speech codes to anti-discrimination and harassment law, from campaign finance to commercial speech, Americans today enjoy less and less freedom in communicating their ideas. Today’s colleges and universities have become a hotbed of censorship, producing generations of Americans who have accepted suppression of speech as the norm. Daniels argues that the emerging crisis is a result of the lack of a proper understanding of individual rights, especially property rights. Only by understanding the proper basis of rights can we act to secure our freedom of speech and to protect the rights that give rise to it.

Bio: Dr. Eric Daniels is a research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has lectured internationally on American history, particularly on American intellectual history, business history and political history. He taught for five years at Duke University’s Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, where he was nominated for a university-wide teaching award. Dr. Daniels was a contributor to the recently published Oxford Companion to United States History, and wrote a chapter in The Abolition of Antitrust. He has appeared on C-SPAN and Voice of America Radio.

For more information on this lecture, please 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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Protect Private Property: End Smoking Bans

Washington, D.C. – The Washington state Supreme Court ruled recently that the state’s smoking ban applies not only to businesses open to the general public, but to private clubs as well.

“It is bizarre that in a free country public officials are deciding the smoking policies of private businesses,” said Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Those decisions rightfully belong to business owners. Smoking bans, whether in private clubs or privately owned businesses open to the public, are a violation of property rights.

“Supporters of smoking bans claim that the government must protect consumers and employees from the alleged dangers of secondhand smoke. But they are already protected: no one can force them to patronize or work in an establishment that allows smoking. Smoking bans don’t protect the unwilling from smoke–they merely abrogate the rights of business owners.

“These bans should be disturbing to anyone who values freedom. If the government can trample on private property rights in the name of dictating people’s health choices, then smoking bans are only the beginning. Indeed, we are already seeing bans on trans fats, and even proposals to revoke the business licenses of fast food restaurants that serve overweight people.

“It’s time to end this trend and recognize the right of businesses to use their property as they see fit.”

The Resurgence of Big Government

PRESS ADVISORY
AYN RAND CENTER FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
555 12th Street NW, Suite 620 N, Washington, DC 20004

September 8, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Resurgence of Big Government

Who: Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute

What: A talk analyzing the reasons for the resurgence of big government in America. A Q&A will follow.

Where: Hilton Costa Mesa, 3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92626

When: Thursday, September 18, 2006, at 7:30 PM

The public and media are invited. Admission is FREE.

Summary: America entered the 21st century riding a wave of prosperity brought on by two decades of increasing economic freedom–yet our current decade has seen an explosion in the size and reach of government. Today we hear from all sides that the source of our economic troubles is capitalism, and that the solution is more regulation, more controls, more government.

In this talk, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, will discuss why Americans began to embrace free markets during the ’80s and ’90s–and why this trend could not last. He will argue that capitalism had proved itself to be the only economic system capable of achieving lasting prosperity, but that a crucial failure on the part of capitalism’s defenders made the resurgence of big government inevitable.

Using our current housing and financial crisis as a case study, Dr. Brook will show how the inability of capitalism’s advocates to provide a moral defense of self-interest and the profit motive–essential characteristics of capitalism–led Americans to view government intervention as the cure for economic disasters allegedly brought on by “market excesses” and unrestrained “greed.”

Finally, Dr. Brook will show how Ayn Rand’s revolutionary morality of rational egoism completes the case for capitalism and thereby makes possible a permanent end to big government.

Bio: Dr. Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. A former finance professor, he has been published in academic as well as popular publications, and his opinion-editorials appear in major newspapers. He is frequently interviewed on national TV and radio. Dr. Brook lectures on Objectivism, business ethics and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrandcenter.org

Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews now and after his talk.

Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: media@aynrandcenter.org
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

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