IMPORTANT. Please spread the word! The FCC has released a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Media Ownership Rules”:
Pursuant to our statutory mandate under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, we seek comment in this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) on the Commission’s media ownership rules and proposed changes thereto. We are required by statute to review our media ownership rules every four years to determine whether they “are necessary in the public interest as the result of competition.” Our challenge in this proceeding is to take account of new technologies and changing marketplace conditions while ensuring that our media ownership rules continue to serve our public interest goals of competition, localism, and diversity. We also are seeking comment on economic studies analyzing the relationship between local media market structure and the policy goals that underlie the Commission’s media ownership rules. In addition, we seek comment in this proceeding on the aspects of the Commission’s 2008 Diversity Order3 that the Third Circuit remanded in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC (“Prometheus II”).
If you don’t know why you should care about this, watch this film. And here’s some background on the 1996 Telecom Act.
62-year-old man restrained, gagged, hooded, and pepper sprayed to death in Tampa. His crime? Public intoxication. “But to this day, nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and the Lee County State Attorney cleared the sheriff’s office of any wrong doing.” Link includes video.
An interesting aside from the video linked above: pepper spray is not regulated by the FDA, and its recipe is protected by law as a trade secret. Nobody actually knows what pepper spray is made of. Who knew?
OWS Fights Back Against Police Surveillance by Launching “Occucopter” Citizen Drone. Ha!
