Bloggers Who Criticize Government May Face Prison

You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was some new restriction on free speech in Communist China. But it isn't. The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress in the latest astounding attack on the internet and the First Amendment.
Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com, a website dedicated to fighting efforts to silence grassroots movements, states:
"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself."
In other words Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats may redefine the meaning of lobbying in order that political communications to and even between citizens falls under the same legislation.
Under current law any 'lobbyist" who 'knowingly and willingly fails to file or report." quarterly to the government faces criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year.
The amendment is currently on hold.
This latest attack on bloggers comes hot on the heels of Republican Senator John McCain's proposal to introduce legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards.
McCain's proposal is presented under the banner of saving children from sexual predators and encourages informants to shop website owners to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then pass the information on to the relevant police authorities.

Despite a total lack of any evidence that children are being victimized en mass by bloggers or people who leave comments on blog sites, it seems likely that the proposal will become legislation in some form. It is well known that McCain has a distaste for his blogosphere critics, causing a definite conflict of interest where any proposal to restrict blogs on his part is concerned.
In recent months, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:
During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News last November, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an "adversarial and ugly climate."
- The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence.
- The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.
- In a speech last month, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.
- A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.
- A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.
- The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down "terrorists" who use the Internet to spread propaganda.
- The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.
- We have also previously exposed how moves are afoot to clamp down on internet neutrality and even to designate a highly restricted new form of the internet known as Internet 2.

Make no mistake, the internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. All these moves mimic stories we hear every week out of State Controlled Communist China, where the internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.
The phrases "Chinese government" and "Mao Zedong" have even been censored on China's official Web sites because they are "Sensitive phrases". Are we to allow our supposedly Democratic governments to implement the same type of restrictive policies here?
Under section 220 of the lobbying reform bill, Infowars.net could be required to seek a license in order to bring this information to you. IF we were granted a license we would then have to report our activities to the government four times per year in order to bring you this information. Does that sound more like free speech or more like totalitarianism?
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Take action:
As well as calling the Senate you should go to GrassrootsFreedom.com which has a petition that you can sign against Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill.

Look closely....and you will see that the Skull and Bones fly even on stage with one of America's Premiere Rock 'n' Roll acts, Widespread Panic.


Welcome to the first edition of the Goodtimes 2007 ! This will be the first blog to speak of an actual good time, rather then the usual over-accentuated sarcasm affiliated with this blog's title. As many who know my rites of passage, the six hour drive to Atlanta, GA, every New Year's Eve is an annual tradition of mine celebrated with 22,000 other people...all whom know a thing or two about having a good time with one of the greatest American Folk Musicians of Our Time, Widespread Panic.

A band who first appeared on the scene in the early 90s alongside the traveling entourage of Neil Young's HORDE tours, Widespread Panic played on stages opposite of many other well known artists such as the Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveller, and the original Kryptonite meisters, the Spin Doctors. While most of these bands (the Dave Matthews Band being the only exception) have faded into obscurity, Widespread Panic has done just the opposite, and turned from the path of a moment's fleeting fame to the title of an all-encompassing extravaganza that culminates with a bang every New Year's Eve at the heart of downtown Atlanta. To put it bluntly, Widespread Panic is the best kept secret of the South. No other band touring today has a more loyal entourage, and their fans will whoop, holler, and scream for Panic's continued presence on stage for the difference between a two or three song encore! Panic plays an unrelenting style all unto its own, while yet covering so many musical classics, that simply following and trading their shows is likened unto an educational experience in itself.


For the past eight years, Widespread Panic has broke the rules of the so-called "conventional" music scene by the simple fact that they have consistently sold out 15 New Year's Eve shows at the Phillips Arena, an adjacent facility cornholed with the headquarters of CNN's downtown Atlanta office. The sight every year is always the same:mass crowds of vendors and overnight art vendors set up shop in the heart of Atlanta close to the Centennial Park and CNN; all who pawn their wares usually engaging in a desperate year-end sales blowout just to salvage some profit from what they could not sale during the previous year on tour with the boys from Athens, GA. Whatever one makes of it, Panic brings big business and profit with them wherever they go, and the vendors who promote them are usually rewarded with sold-out beer receipts in the booths, which are usually followed by whatever remaining concessions that exist by a show's end being sold out as well.

For myself, the Widespread Panic experience has been nearly a decade, and following the Boys is always a welcome escape from the shitty, oppressing reality that is America today. John Bell, lead vocals and rhythm guitar on a Washburn, is a true success story, as is Bassist Dave Schools, Keyboardist John "Jo-Jo" Herman, Percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, drummer Todd Nance, and now the newest lead guitarist to join the family after the tragic passing of Michael Houser, Jimmy Herring. And as a fan of the Lingering Lead with An Honest Tune, Michael Houser has been a tough act to replace. Being a down-south Mississippi Boy myself, when Panic originally replaced the cancer-stricken Houser with local Oxford Mississippian George McConnell, watching the transfer was painful at first, but an experience that improved with time as the guitarist learned to somewhat assimilate with the band's progressive, jazzy, latin-improv, southern-rock style. George helped fill a void when the band could have stopped completely.

New Year's Eve at the Phillips on December 31, 2002, would be a turning point in the band's ability to prove staying power. After tragically losing their leading guitarist and founder, the ability to perform and measure up to an expected sound would push the envelope as to whether or not there would be future gigs at the Phillips. To fill that void, the show would have to incorporate several elements of the audio-visual senses. Whether it was incorporating several guest musicians to help various songs along or playing incredible movies on the big screens in the Phillips, Panic took a stand and proved their musical genius along with their intellectual forebodings in the 02/03 NYE show. Playing on the visceral gut feeling that was entwining the nation leading up into our invasion of Iraq in the Spring of 2003, Panic graced the Phillips' big screens with images of the Renaissance and various other imagery associated with Christianity and the Rise of the Western Democracy that is now called America after the midnight countdown had commenced. At one point, black and white film reels depicting old Hollywood's version of Babylon and later on a cartoon of an animated Betty Boop dancing in a ring of fire that turns into a ring of dancing mushrooms is shown. Betty Boop is then removed and surrogated by a different image, the so-called Star of David, and bassist Dave Schools takes the audience out of the drums solo into a spirited melody of the Christmas carol, The Little Drummer Boy. This was the defining moment for me, the end-all, be-all doubts remover that Widespread Panic was indeed still on top of their game. Panic is all about that conversation that they have with your mind while watching them play...and one of the chief reasons I laugh at the morbid, brain-washed madrosses who crawl to the tune of Satan's Radio Stations all across America and have no idea who this great Southern Rock Band is just because Clear Channel does not play Panic's format on their stations.



And this New Years' Eve show was just as pivotal; Panic's newest member, Jimmy Herring, would have to say hello to the masses and put on a performance to remember, and that he did. Old Panic classics, such as Imitation Leather Shoes, have found new life as Herring can apparently rip into the leads with a scream that I have not heard since the days of Houser. The hairs on my arm stood up and my throat felt crushed as the howl of Imitation Leather filled up the arena, and I asked my wife if she could still stand. Panic is back, and with a bang from the Third Stone from the Sun.