Without net neutrality, the Web would look a lot like cable, with the most popular content available only on certain tiers or with certain providers: Imagine AT&T as the exclusive home of Netflix and Comcast as the sole source of YouTube.
first amendment
Satanists Now Want to Join Beer Pole and Nativity Scene at Florida Capitol
The state Department of Management Services has received three more applications, including two from atheist groups and one from satanists, to put up displays after approving a banner for the Freedom From Religion Foundation and an aluminum pole — made of empty beer cans– – to mark the parody festival Festivus.
Nativity Scene in Florida Capitol Will Share Space With Beer-Can Pole Celebrating Festivus
A nearly 6-foot-tall pole made from emptied Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans, marking the Festivus holiday once parodied on Seinfeld, will be put up in the Florida Capitol this week as a not-so-subtle protest to the recent placement of a Christian nativity scene by the Florida Prayer Network.
Obama’s Free Press Problem: Why Reporters in the U.S. Now Need Protection
The Obama administration has made the most concerted effort since the Nixon years to intimidate officials from talking to a reporter. Paul Steiger, Paul Steiger recipient of this year’s the Burton Benjamin Memorial award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, argues for a response.
FDLE Lays Down Florida Capitol Garrison Rule to Avoid Repeat of Summer Protests
Under the proposal by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, members of the public would be expected to leave the Capitol building by 5 p.m. each weekday or within 30 minutes of the end of public meetings. Capitol police could arrest for trespassing anyone who didn’t leave when they were told.
Not So Fast Missy: How a Protester Exposed an Undercover Cop
When the author first met her four years ago, she couldn’t have known that the small-framed woman with spiky brown hair and intense eyes was anything but a fellow activist showing up for a protest in Washington, D.C. She turned out to be an undercover cop ordered to secretly spy on peaceful protesters, violate their freedom of speech and assembly, and disregard their right to privacy.
Gun Rights Advocates and Church Join in Suit Against NSA as Companies Petition White House
Sixty-three companies are asking the federal government to allow companies that receive foreign-intelligence surveillance requests to publicly discuss those requests in basic terms, while gun rights advocates have joined the Unitarian Church and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a lawsuit against NSA spying on First Amendment grounds.
U.S. Supreme Court Will Decide Legality of Bunnell’s Government Prayers, Via Greece
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case from Greece, N.Y., where government meetings are started with distinctly Christian prayers, as they are at Bunnell City Commission meetings. The case is being taken to the court by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
Florida Government’s DCF Looks to Religious Organizations to Recruit Foster Parents
Looking for foster parents, DCF Director of Faith Based Development Erik Braun told child welfare professionals at a conference that Florida has 12 million residents affiliated with a Catholic or Protestant church, 1 million Jews and 400,000 to 600,000 Muslims.
Church-State Separation Be Damned: Bunnell Sponsors 3rd Prayer Day, Invoking “God’s City”
Bunnell marked the national Day of Prayer for the third year with its own sponsored religious event, a distinctly Christian, evangelical-like service that features commissioners and the mayor offering prayers and pastors invoking Jesus’s name and god’s law above all others.