By Media Alliance and Defend the Press Coalition
Take Action: Endorse the Federal Shield Law for Journalists
Tonight the US Army announced it has dropped its subpoena of Sarah Olson in the Ehren Watada court martial. The news broke in an article in the Honolulu Advertiser.
This is a great victory for journalist Sarah Olson and our coalition for press freedom. These subpoenas sought to further the Bush Administration's increasing harassment of journalists, especially journalists who are reporting on social justice activism and the growing anti-war sentiment among rank and file soldiers. It strikes a blow for press freedom and for free speech.
In a news release Sarah Olson made a statement which reads in part:
"This should be seen as a victory for the rights of journalists in the U.S. to gather and disseminate news free from government intervention, and for the rights of individuals to express personal, political opinions to journalists without fear of retribution or censure.
Journalists are being subpoenaed with an alarming frequency, and when they do not cooperate they are sometimes imprisoned. Videographer Josh Wolf has languished in federal prison for over 160 days, after refusing to give federal grand jury investigators his unpublished video out takes. It is clear that we must continue to demand that the separation between press and government be strong, and that the press be a platform for all perspectives, regardless of their popularity with the current administration."
"While I am glad to see the subpoena against me in this court-martial dismissed," Olson adds, "I still worry about the US military using this tactic to chill dissenting voices and whistle blowers from coming forward in the future. We need to be vigilant at this critical time in our country's history in order to push back against these tactics."
Take Action: Endorse the Federal Shield Law for Journalists
Joshua Sabatini, The SF Examiner
Jan 27, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco is on pace to offer a free wireless Internet network in two years but a faster and superior technology may come on its heels that could better close the so-called digital divide.
Supervisor Tom Ammiano has emerged as a strong proponent of a citywide “fiber network” that would allow people access to the Internet at speeds tens or even hundreds of times faster than existing digital subscriber line, or DSL, cable modem speeds and wireless, or Wi-Fi, Internet speeds.
A report, initiated by Ammiano, says The City could connect every home and every business to what is known as a fiber-to-the-premises, or FTTP network, for a whooping $560 million. It entails laying fiber-optic cables underground and connections to the homes or businesses. No other city of this size has attempted this feat in the United States but some European cities, such as Amsterdam, have undertaken similar projects.
While costly, Ammiano said The City could eventually make its money back through leasing the network to private providers.
The report came out one day after Mayor Gavin Newsom’s high-profile agreement with Earthlink and Google to setup a free citywide Wi-Fi network was submitted to the Board of Supervisors for approval. If approved, the agreement would result in a paid-for Wi-Fi service and a free slower Wi-Fi service.
Ammiano said the fiber network is not meant to compete or undermine the Wi-Fi agreement, but he did say the fiber network would truly close the digital divide while the Wi-Fi would not since it is an “iffy” service and may be hard for some people to draw the signal into their homes, particularly in low-income neighborhoods.
Building out a full fiber network would take up to 15 years, according to the report.
Chris Vein, head of The City’s Department of Telecommunications and Information Services, who negotiated the Wi-Fi deal, acknowledged fiber is a superior technology, but its drawback is that it costs more and takes longer to set up, whereas Wi-Fi is cheaper and quicker to set up.
The report recommends implementing a fiber network in phases. For example, to create a fiber network for 250 city sites it would cost $12.5 million, according to the report.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Contact: Bruce Wolfe (SFPO) 415.867.5995
Eric Brooks (Our City), 415.756.8844
Coalition Demands That City Reject Google/Earthlink Monopoly Deal
and Instead Give San Franciscans Truly Free, High Speed, Public Internet
Today, Public Net San Francisco, a coalition of various community groups and Internet professionals, insisted that the City of San Francisco cancel the pending Google/Earthlink monopoly WiFi deal, and instead use the City’s existing high speed fiber optic network as the backbone to build a truly modern, fast, and free, public communications system.
Groups releasing the statement included the San Francisco People’s Organization (SFPO), Our City, the community wireless network SFLan, and Internet services provider United Layer.
Their statement follows closely on the heels of a report just released by the San Francisco Budget Analyst’s Office, which makes clear that the Google/Earthlink deal will result in an inferior monopoly franchise that will give San Franciscans much slower access than nearly all other cities providing municipal Internet, and more importantly, will fail to serve the intended core goal of the project – to make certain that all San Franciscans, regardless of their income, get free fast and equal access to the Internet.
The report states that the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) acted far too hastily in adopting the monopoly deal, without seeking sufficient input from the public, and notably failing to include possibilities for using over 35 miles of city owned fiber optic cable to build a much more robust system, that could be owned by the public, and could provide all San Franciscans with free Internet service at least ten times faster access speeds than the Google/Earthlink plan. The City and its residents should not give away its ability to self-determine its destiny. The people deserve a real choice.
Said Bruce Wolfe of the San Francisco People’s Organization, “I don’t get it. DTIS spent over a year coming up with this plan and it doesn’t even serve its primary goal of making sure that everybody in San Francisco, regardless of income, gets free and equal Internet access. Smooth video, and clear phone calls, are becoming basic uses of the Internet. This deal provides neither to nonpaying users, leaving them in the digital dust.”
Eric Brooks with the local grassroots organization Our City stated, “After nearly a century of San Franciscans suffering rip-offs and incredibly bad service under the monopoly control of our public utilities by corporations like PG&E, Comcast, and AT&T, it amazes me that DTIS can stand there with a straight face and try to convince us that we should let a multinational corporate partnership own and control our new public communications system.”
Tim Pozar with United Layer, the Internet services provider that installed a free Internet system for users in San Francisco’s Alice Griffith housing project, stated, “The Budget Analyst’s report shows clearly what we have been saying to the City for over a year now. If we go for municipal ownership of a system that makes use of all the City’s public assets, including the high speed ring of fiber optic cable lying only half used right under our feet, we can get a vastly superior, and 10 to 100 times faster system, than the clunker being offered to us by Earthlink and Google.”
Ralf Muehlen, who already provides free Internet access to hundreds of San Franciscans through the nonprofit community wireless network SFLan concluded, “The big problem with the Earthlink system is that it uses a slow, wireless-only backbone that cannot accommodate even today's needs let alone the needs of the next 16 years. 300 kilobits per second is so 1997; it'll be utterly ridiculous in 2023, which is how long Earthlink's monopoly will last. Earthlink has little incentive to upgrade, and their non-fiber backbone has no spare capacity. A hybrid network, that uses both wireless and existing fiber can support much higher speeds and is more robust. We already paid for the City's fiber with our taxes, we should now put it to good use.”
Endorsing Organizations (not full list)
San Francisco People’s Organization - 2940 16th St. #314, SF, CA 94103, http://www.sfpeople.org
Press Contact: Bruce Wolfe, brucewolfe@sfpeople.org, Skype: brucew-sf
Our City - 1028-A Howard St., SF, CA 94103, http://our-city.org
Press Contact: Eric Brooks, info@our-city.org
United Layer - 200 Paul Ave. #110, SF, CA 94124, http://www.unitedlayer.com
Contact: Tim Pozar, pozar@barwn.org
SFLan - 116 Sheridan Ave., SF, CA 94129, http://www.sflan.org
Contact: Ralf Muehlen, sflan+press@muehlen.com
Federal judge orders newspaper barons to open secret merger documents
By Tim Redmond, SF Bay Guardian
In a victory for sunshine in the federal courts, a judge ruled Jan 24th that many of the documents in a groundbreaking lawsuit over media concentration in the Bay Area will be released to the public.
Federal Judge Susan Illston agreed with the Bay Guardian and Media Alliance that several of the nation’s largest newspaper chains should not be allowed to keep key records in the lawsuit under wraps.
The suit, filed by San Francisco real-estate investor Clint Reilly, seeks to overturn the deal that allowed Dean Singleton’s Media News Group to take control of every major daily newspaper in the Bay Area except the San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Corp., owner of the Chronicle, is also a party to the merger deal, and Reilly charges that the big chains want to wipe out newspaper competition in the region.
There’s already plenty of evidence the Hearst and Singleton are conspiring: In November, Illston issued an order blocking the Singleton papers, which include the Oakland Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, and Contra Costa Times, from entering into an arrangement to sell ads with the Chronicle.
She issued that order after Joe Alioto, Reilly’s lawyer, produced an April 26 memo showing that Hearst and Singleton were discussing joint printing, ad sales and other business deals.
The newspapers have tried to keep all of the documents in the trial under court seal, claiming that the records involve competitive business secrets.
The Guardian and Media Alliance filed a motion Dec 21, 2006 asking Judge Illston to unseal the records. Among other things, the motion argued, the media behemoths had failed to follow court rules in filing thousands of pages of documents under seal. A hearing on the motion was set for Jan. 26.
But Illson ruled Jan. 24th that no hearing was necessary. Since the motion was filed, she stated, the media conglomerates agreed to release a number of documents, and Illston ordered the release of others.
Some records, which Illston has reviewed and found to contain confidential business information, will remain secret.
“We hope this decision will set the precedent for the public to keep publishers from sealing court records in the dark of night to facilitate their moves to monopoly,” said Bay Guardian Editor and Publisher Bruce B. Brugmann. “And this should set an important precedent to keep court records in all cases open to the public.
The defendants in the case include Hearst, Media News, McClatchy, Gannett and Stephens Media.
Media Alliance is a 30-year-old nonprofit media advocacy group with 1,800 members. The Bay Guardian is the largest independent newsweekly in Northern California.
The Guardian and Media Alliance were represented by attorneys Jim Wheaton and David Greene of the Oakland-based First Amendment Project.
By Tom Siebert
Friday, Jan 5, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/y9oh7q
IN THE LATEST SKIRMISH BETWEEN big media and a blogger, The Walt Disney Company has succeeded in shutting down the Web site "Spocko's Brain." On the site, blogger and media critic "Spocko" took issue with on-air comments made by right-wing talk show hosts at Bay Area ABC affiliate radio station KSFO. He posted audio files of hosts' comments on his Web site, and also began a letter-writing campaign that, he says, resulted in advertisers fleeing the station.
But Tuesday, Spocko's Internet service provider, 1&1 Internet, pulled the plug on the blog--a move prompted by a Dec. 22 cease-and-desist letter from ABC Radio claiming that material on Spocko's Brain violated Disney's copyright.
Neil Simpkins, spokesperson for 1&1, says the company gave Spocko one week to remove the material, and when he did not, took down his site. He says the company is particularly leery of the audio files, adding that 1&1 would "probably be more than likely" to allow the blog back if Spocko used transcripts of the show as opposed to actual audio files of what aired.
But Spocko argues that the audio files on his site constitute a "fair use" of the copyrighted material. "The [fair use] battle for bloggers hasn't been waged yet," Simpkins says. "Right now, technology is outracing the legal system."
KSFO features hard right-wing talk show hosts who endorse torture, call for the public hangings of New York Times editor Bill Keller and other journalists, and demand that callers mock Islam. They also mock their own advertisers--calling Chevrolet, for example, "sh!tty," or recommending that Sears' Diehard battery be attached to an African-American's testicles.
Spocko not only recorded the programming and posted audio files on his site, but also sent letters to advertisers on the station, including AT&T, Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard, and others--pointing out the station's content and directing them to his blog to hear proof through his audio files.
Since Spocko began contacting advertisers, they have departed KSFO in droves. Netflix, MasterCard, Bank of America, and most recently, Visa have pulled their advertising from the station. According to Spocko, Federal Express, AT&T and Kaiser Permanente are weighing their departure as well.
A spokeswoman for ABC Radio declined comment. Spocko's situation was originally reported on the Web site Daily Kos.
January 3, 2007
The New York Times
Protecting Internet Democracy
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/opinion/03wed1.html
One of the big winners in the last election may turn out to be the principle, known as net neutrality, that Internet service providers should not be able to favor some content over others. Democrats who are moving into the majority in Congress — led by Ron Wyden in the Senate and Edward Markey in the House — say they plan to fight hard to pass a net neutrality bill, and we hope that they do. It is vital to preserve the Internet’s role in promoting entrepreneurship and free expression.
Internet users now get access to any Web site on an equal basis. Foreign and domestic sites, big corporate home pages and little-guy blogs all show up on a user’s screen in the same way when their addresses are typed into a browser. Anyone who puts up a Web page can broadcast it to the world.
Cable and telephone companies are talking, however, about creating a two-tiered Internet with a fast lane and a slow lane. Companies that pay hefty fees would have their Web pages delivered to Internet users in the current speedy fashion. Companies and individuals that do not would be relegated to the slow lane.
Creating these sorts of tiers would destroy the democratic quality of the Internet. Big, wealthy voices would start to overpower the smaller, poorer ones. Innovation would be threatened if start-ups and small companies could not afford the new fees. The next eBay or Google might never be born.
A net neutrality law would require cable and telephone companies to continue to provide Web sites to Internet users on an equal basis. Mr. Markey, of Massachusetts, will be taking over a key subcommittee that handles Internet issues. He has promised to hold hearings to educate Congress and the public, and to reintroduce his strong net neutrality bill. Mr. Wyden, of Oregon, plans to reintroduce an equally solid bill in the Senate.
Passing the legislation will not be easy. The cable and telephone companies have fought net neutrality with a lavishly financed and misleading lobbying campaign, because they stand to gain an enormous windfall. But there is growing support from individuals and groups across the political spectrum, from MoveOn.org to the Gun Owners of America, who worry about what will happen to their free speech if Internet service providers are allowed to pick and choose the traffic they carry.
In the last week, there was a limited but important victory for net neutrality. As a condition of approving the AT&T-BellSouth merger, the Federal Communications Commission required AT&T to guarantee net neutrality on its broadband service for the next two years. The commission was right to extract this concession, but it should not be necessary to negotiate separate deals like this one. On the information superhighway, net neutrality should be a basic rule of the road.
January 2, 2007
ARMY DELAYS TESTIMONY OF JOURNALIST, MEDIA COVERAGE AND PUBLIC OPPOSITION GROW
Contacts:
Sarah Olson, Journalist: (415) 298-5573, solson75@yahoo.com
David Green, Olson's Attorney: (510) 208-7744
(San Francisco) Shortly following her appearance today on a nationally-syndicated TV program, journalist Sarah Olson received word that the U.S. Army was backing off of its demand that she testify at the January 4 pre-trial hearing in the court-martial of Lt. Ehren Watada. The Army subpoenaed Olson in December to testify about her interview with Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse his orders to deploy to Iraq and the first military officer charged with public dissent since 1965.
Olson remains under subpoena to testify at the full court-martial scheduled for early February, and journalist Dahr Jamail remains on the prosecution's witness list for the case. Media coverage of the precedent-setting case is growing, as is the list of regional and national civil liberties and journalists' organizations that have condemned the Army’s action as a threat to press freedom and free speech.
"We call on the Army to fully quash this subpoena and on the federal government to put an end to the growing trend of attempting to compel journalists to be used as part of the law-enforcement process. If carried out, this subpoena will set a precedent that threatens the ability of all journalists to gain much-needed trust from sources to accomplish their reporting. Our society's well-being rests on the independence of the press from government and corporate interests," said Jeff Perlstein, Executive Director of Media Alliance, a thirty-year old organization of media workers in the San Francisco Bay Area that promotes press freedom.
Lt. Watada faces one charge of missing troop movement and four counts of conduct unbecoming an officer. Each of the later four charges relates to Lt. Watada’s public explanations of his refusal to deploy to Iraq. If convicted of all charges, Lt. Watada faces six years in prison, four of which would be for speaking to the press.
Independent journalist Sarah Olson interviewed Lt. Watada last May. The Army says statements Watada made during Olson’s interview constitute one charge of conduct unbecoming an officer, and wants Olson to verify those statements in a military court. Olson says: “It’s my job to report the news, not to participate in a government prosecution. Testifying against my source would turn the press into an investigative tool of the government and chill dissenting voices in the United States.”
Independent journalist Dahr Jamail reported on Lt. Watada’s address to the Veterans for Peace convention last August. The Army says it wants him to authenticate his reporting of the event. Jamail says: “I don’t believe that reporters should be put in the position of having to participate in a prosecution. This is particularly poignant in this case, where journalists would be used to build a case against free speech for military personnel.”
The journalists say once the press is seen as the eyes and ears of the government, dissenting voices are less likely to express themselves publicly. A free and open exchange of ideas is the life-blood of democracy, and it is in the public interest to have a free debate on disparate views of current political issues.
The following Op-Ed by Olson ran in Editor and Publisher:
http://tinyurl.com/vll92