Details on Dissector Screening in Boston Tomorrow; Tribeca Film Festival Report; Bonus Track: Neil Young’s Lyrics


INTERNET: GOING, GOING, GONE?
WILL ROVE BE INDICTED
AT THE TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

I usually play media news second to the latest and the greatest in the daily headline hit parade. But today, we reverse the order because we are on the verge of the end of the Internet as we have known it, unless we act forcefully to stop what Sam Smith calls the “Corporados,” the big Telecom companies who are mounting a well financed full Court press on Congress to pass “reforms” which may limit the freedom associated with the online world.

I am writing about the threat to our freedoms on the anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s election, a day South Africa marks officially as Freedom Day. Other countries are moving forward and ours seems to be going in the other direction. The new left-right Save the Internet Coalition is beating all the drums it has to wake us up from our collective slumber.

WASHINGTON – Yesterday the House Energy and Commerce Committee struck a blow to Internet freedom by voting down a proposal to protect Network Neutrality from attacks by companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast. The diverse, bipartisan SavetheInternet.com Coalition vowed to continue rallying public support for Internet freedom as the legislation moves to the full House and Senate.

“In less than one week, the coalition gathered more than 250,000 petition signatures, rallied more than 500 blogs to write about this issue, and flooded Congress with thousands of phone calls. The “Markey Amendment” supporting Net Neutrality was voted down by a vote of 34 to 22. The “Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act” telecom law, or COPE Act, passed out of the committee without any meaningful protection for Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality means all online activity must be treated equally, and companies like AT&T must allow Internet users to view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site.

“The Commerce Committee is headed in the opposite direction of where the American public wants to go,” said Columbia Law Professor Timothy Wu, a pro-market advocate and one of the intellectual architects of the Net Neutrality principle. “Most people favor an open and neutral Internet and don’t want Internet gatekeepers taxing and tollboothing innovation.”

THE INDY MEDIA MOVEMENT IS IN JEOPARDY

Fair has issued a an action alert, explaining two problems with the bill that has passed the Committee but not yet the full House:

”Critics point to two significant problems with the bill: — Community TV: Public access, government and educational (PEG) channels offer a rare opportunity for the production of local, noncommercial, community-oriented television. But the proposed bill, in a bid to allow phone companies access to the cable TV market, could undermine the ability of local communities to negotiate with cable companies to maintain these channels, or to expand their public interest space in the digital age.

“For years, public access television has been a vital educational and organizing resource in an increasingly corporatized media marketplace. PEG channels are one of the few ways a community can have some input into the type of media it thinks would be of public benefit. — “Net neutrality”: The Internet is based on the principle that all participating networks give equal access to all the information they transmit. But the COPE Act would give big Internet service providers the ability to prioritize high-speed Internet access according to their own interests—or the interests of deep-pocketed proprietors of Web real estate that could pay for premium access.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2868

Art Brodsky notes on TPMCafe.com that some Democrats are carrying the corporate water and getting along by going along:

A couple of weeks ago, a courageous band of legislators tried to stop the madness in Subcommittee. Ed Markey, Rick Boucher, Anna Eshoo and Jay Inslee proposed some good language to protect the Internet. For their troubles, they just got four more votes, other than theirs. Just three Democrats, other than the sponsors, voted for it.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29086

Comment by Harold Felt of the Media Access Project
http://www.wetmachine.com

PRESS FOCUSES ON “BLOOD IN THE WATER”

Even as the White House faces a free fall in its numbers, the GOP lock on the Hill has not been broken. The big speculation in Washington is not focused on how the big interests maneuver but rather on whether or not Karl Rove will be indicted. Its all too often all about Bush and individuals–not institutions.

James Vicini and Andy Sullivan report: “Rove likely to be indicted: Testifies in leak case”

”President George W. Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, testified on Wednesday before a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative’s identity, his lawyer said. “

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12857.htm

AP reported earlier:

“WASHINGTON - Top White House aide Karl Rove made his fifth grand jury appearance in the Valerie Plame affair Wednesday, undergoing several hours of questioning about a new issue that has come to light since the last time he testified.

“Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald declined to comment at the conclusion of the grand jury session. Rove appeared at ease as he left the U.S. courthouse, joking to journalists to “move to the back” as the White House aide, his lawyer and several reporters entered an elevator to leave the building.”

“SNOW JOB”

Rove’s fate had to share attention with the elevation of Fox News Commentator Tony Snow to the job of Presidential Press Secretary. Sid Blumenthal who worked on media and policy for Bill Clinton’s White House commented:

”The hiring of Tony Snow, the former Fox News anchor and talk show host, as White House press secretary is an attempt to put a human face on a damaged administration at war with the press. Unlike President Bush’s previous press secretaries, Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, Snow has no history with George W Bush, or, perhaps as important, no relationship with Karl Rove, “The Architect,” Bush’s chief political aide who reigns supreme over the communications operation.

The desperation of the administration, besieged on all sides, was put in sharp relief by the immediate overshadowing of Snow’s appointment with the news bulletin that by the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has summoned Rove today back to the federal grand jury. Fitzgerald is investigating the leaking of the identity of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame Wilson as part of a political dirty trick against her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for his revelation that the rationale for the Iraq war was based on disinformation. Already Vice President Dick Cheney’s former staff of chief has been indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. Rove has emphatically not been given a clean legal bill of health. He is not a witness in the case but a subject, remaining under scrutiny as Fitzgerald accumulates evidence that may potentially lead to his indictment….

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sidney_blumenthal/2006/04/white_house_snow_job.html

IMPEACH PETITIONS REACH THE HILL

There is a flicker of resistance underway reports David Swanson:

”At 9:00 a.m. ET on Monday May 1, in Room 235 of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., Ellen Tenney, from Rockingham Vermont, will present petitions from towns in Vermont calling for the impeachment of President Bush. The towns each passed resolutions to send the petitions. These petitions are the first few of many from towns across the nation that will be arriving at Congress’s door. They are presented under the guidelines of Jefferson’s Manual section 603, and will be referred to a House Committee, probably the Judiciary, for consideration.”

See Neil Young’s take below.

Read Oilman in Chief for more on the Bust energy initiative:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/04/26/oilman_in_chief.php

RATCHETING UP THE RHETORIC

The Washington Post reports today:

”Escalating the threats between Washington and Tehran, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that his country would strike U.S. targets around the world in the event it is attacked over its refusals to curb its nuclear program.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042600413.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

US RENDITION UPSETS EUROPE

Mail & Guardian reports:

’ The CIA has operated more than 1000 secret flights over European Union territory in the past five years, some to transfer terror suspects in a practice known as “extraordinary rendition”, an investigation by the European Parliament said on Wednesday. The figure is significantly higher than previously thought.”