Fairness Doctrine, Net Neutrality And First Amendment

August 15, 2008

Yesterday in my “Random Thoughts” entry, I sputtered something about hearing talk of the possibility of reinstating the “Fairness Doctrine” or something nearing its equivalent. I wasn’t hearing things after all. Broadcasting & Cable.com has an article (and video) about Robert McDowell, a member of the Federal Communications Commission, and a speech before bloggers at the Heritage Foundation. In his speech he made reference to the possibilities of a new “Fairness Doctrine” that could be intertwined into the Internet and somehow tied to Net Neutrality.

â€œThis [presidential] election, if it goes one way, we could see a reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine,â€ McDowell told BMI, the economic arm of the conservative Media Research Center. â€œI think itâ€™ll be intertwined into the net-neutrality debate â€¦ because there are a few isolated conservatives who might be cherry-picked in a net-neutrality effort, and I think the fear is that somehow, large corporations will censor their content, their points of view. I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy — which, by the way, would have a big First Amendment problem — then whoeverâ€™s in charge of government is going to determine what is â€˜fairâ€™ under a so-called Fairness Doctrine.â€

Obviously this is an election year and as voters we need to take anything anyone says with caution. I am assuming where McDowell is a republican, his comments are being directed toward Obama and the democratic leadership to cast them in a negative light. In conjunction with that, according to the same article, both McCain and Obama have stated publicly they do not favor a reinstatement of the defunct Fairness Doctrine, for whatever that might be worth.

Many feel that this is reaching and that any president or Congress would not go so far as to censor free speech in this manner. The Fairness Doctrine has been defunct since 1987 and I can assure readers that our society has moved further to the left and assaults on all our rights have been attacked by the socialist/Marxists.

I do not believe that we are in immediate danger of Congress or the president slipping one past voters but we must always be on our toes and vigilant as these quacks in Washington are capable of most anything.

Think of the absolute destruction that would occur with a Fairness Doctrine-type censorship should it pass that would require bloggers and any web site containing articles, opinions, comments, etc., having to provide an equal opportunity to express opposing views.

They already have that opportunity and they can off that fat behinds, spend a little of their own moldy money and start a blog of their own and express all the thoughts they wish and I would care less what they did or said.

Let’s hope this scuttlebutt is more election year rhetoric than anything of substance. But be on your toes!

Tom Remington