(By Roger Stone) Our country was founded on the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights, first among them being Freedom of Speech. The ability to freely speak one’s mind in public or in writings was paramount in preserving liberty. Even if many people don’t like what was being written, the writer is still free to publish their work to the public at large. Our individual liberties require that we be free to choose as many or as few different sources of information as befits our nature. If we choose to exclusively view main stream news media, then that is our choice. If we choose to get our news from alternative sources, that is our right.
The First Amendment is very clear:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – First Amendment of the US Constitution
The road to tyranny is first paved with the smashed printing presses of the “opposition”. The reasons for the formulation of the First Amendment were never more evident than they are today.
Just as Obama was leaving power, he rushed through some changes to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (NDAA 2017), one of which was the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” (CDPA) which establishes the Ministry of Truth, and is due to kick-in this June.
It is plainly un-Constitutional to mandate into law the creation of an organization who has the responsibility to “develop and disseminate” “fact-based narratives” to counter supposed foreign sponsored “fake news”. While brazen in their desire to subvert the US Constitution, they were not so brazen as to call their organization what it is, The Ministry of Truth. No, they called it something far more innocuous: the “Center for Information Analysis and Response” (CIAR).
If we parse their name carefully, it reveals quite a bit.
Center. They will be the center, core, and heart of . . . what exactly?
Information Analysis. We see they want to analyze information, but it doesn’t specify what kind of information. The broadness is intended. They plan to analyze ALL information.
Response. This is the most telling and fearsome part. After they make their analysis on all the information, they will respond, as implied, with escalating force. This is a most dreadful precedent and could spell the doom of the alternative media.
This law is so egregiously subjective, it easily can become carte blanch to persecute any political opposition or media outlet that reports “alternative facts”. What are alternative facts? It turns out it is more than a buzzword, it is the result of Relativity, the concept from Physics introduced to us by Albert Einstein.
With every event that happens in the real world, there are as many versions of what happened as there are observers. Not only is it possible that two people witnessing the same event can give heartfelt yet conflicting accounts, it happens as a common occurrence. The diversity of news outlets reflects the myriad perspectives of the reporters and producers who work there, and when a story resonates with the viewing public, it is usually because the public has a similar perspective or outlook as the reporter or producer.
Multiple perspectives across a broad spectrum of outlets keeps news as honest as it can be, given the nature of the beast.
What happens when the CIAR is used as a political tool to bludgeon the opposition? Can’t happen, you say? IRS and other alphabet soup agencies persecuting Tea Party and Conservative groups ring a bell? Abusing political power can and does happen, which make this law so egregious. It is a sure-fire recipe for innocent people to have their First Amendment rights trod upon by yet another faceless jack-boot government agency whose main purpose is to stifle dissent. They want to decide what is real news and what is fake news. You can count on any news that goes against the Deep State narrative will be considered ‘Fake News’ and while anything that tows the party line, no matter how debased or ridiculous will be labeled ‘Real News’.
How is this new Ministry of Truth, or MiniTrue, supposed to actually get their work done? Why, they will use your hard earned tax payer money and give it to Left supporting groups like Snopes.com and Establishment leaning factcheck.org. They will also give it as grants to far left media groups like MoveOn.org and Media Matters. How much money? Hundreds of millions, over the next few years. Will any Conservative or Alt-Right outlets get their fair slice of the grant pie by their proportion of market share? With history as a guide, the answer is a resounding no. This money, taken from conservatives and liberals alike in their taxes will be used to weaponized information directed against conservatives.
Practically, where will the wheels meet the pavement when it comes to this new censorship? With none other than your favorite Deep State sponsored Internet Marketing Duopoly: Google and Facebook.
Google is used for the vast majority of Internet search and is so much larger than the others, that all other search combined barely makes a dent in Google’s market share. If Google decides something shouldn’t be found on the Internet, then finding it becomes orders of magnitude more difficult. There is a remarkable, unspoken, and fearsome tool of the Tech Left: to be rubbed out of Google Search. They used to deny the tools to do this existed, but now that they have been outed about it so many times, they call it the ‘Right to be Forgotten’ and no longer hide the fact that these tools exist.
Facebook is by far the largest Social Network in terms of membership and posts with attached media. If Facebook decides to bury a trending story, it gets buried. This becomes a grave conflict of interest when Conservative groups are paying real money to have their messages amplified by the Facebook ad system, while at the same time Facebook is suppressing the message to keep it from going fully viral.
These tools of mass media for the Internet Age are firmly in the grasp of the Tech Left, and Twitter is yet another social media platform that throttles the reach of paying conservative members while amplifying the reach of liberal members for free.
What can be done to stop this? First, legislation must be enacted quickly before the law kicks in that strips the CDPA out of the NDAA. You can then call upon Attorney General Jeff Sessions to launch an Anti-Trust investigation into the monopolistic practices conducted by both Facebook and Google, as well as investigating advertising fraud on Twitter and YouTube. Finally, beseech your Congressional Representative to investigate how much money Google, Facebook, and Twitter receive from the Federal Government, and have them turn it off. Get involved, while you still can.
http://thewashingtonstandard.com/obama-signs-illegal-ministry-truth-bill-truth-say/
