On June 13, 2017, the DC Court of Appeals dealt a big blow to years of organizing to wipe predatory commissions and reduce prices on phone calls in and out jails, prisons and detention centers.
The services are riven with monstrous commissions that raise prices sky-high and force inmate families to choose between food, rent and staying in touch with loved ones who are incarcerated. Continue reading DC Court of Appeals Kills Prison Phone Justice
A dozen prominent media advocacy groups wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking him to protect Americans from the destructive impacts of the massive AT&T/Time-Warner merger.
Continue reading Dozen Media Change Groups Protest AT&T/Time-Warner Merger
The National Writers Union is preparing to go to court against Ebony Magazine for non-payment of as much as $200,000 to freelance writers.
Continue reading NWU Sues Ebony Magazine For Not Paying Freelancers
Iran Sec, a program of Baroo, has been tracking the number of imprisoned bloggers in the theocratic Iranian republic.
Their statistics are available here.
They also prepared this report on online attacks and phishing efforts against Iranian activists.
For more on Baroo, the Iran Sec project and information activism in the Middle East, click here.
Printed in Berkeleyside and the San Francisco Bayview on June 21, 2017.
On June 20, the Berkeley City Council, only months after being swept in by a progressive majority, rejected the call of hundreds of people, ranging from former Mayor Gus Newport to Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza to famed author Naomi Klein, to terminate a series of entanglements between local police and the federal security forces of the Donald Trump administration. The resistance failed to resist. In the nation’s heartland of dissent. What went wrong, and why? Continue reading The Federalization Of Local Police: Why The Urban Shield Vote Failed
On June 19, CA Assembly Privacy Committee chair Ed Chau introduced CalBIPA – AB375 – to restore the consumer protections stripped by Trump’s congress.
The bill will allow Internet users to consent to the sale or disclosure of their Internet activities by their Internet service providers. Media Alliance is a bill sponsor.
Continue reading CalBIPA To Reinstate Broadband Privacy in CA
For years, we’ve told you why network neutrality is the key principle underlying an Open Internet and protecting the web’s capacity to connect. Finally it seemed as if the future of the Internet was no longer in question when the FCC moved to Title 2 classification.
But as with so many things, the Trump administration is leaving no stone unturned in trying to dismantle social progress and the open Internet is now on the chopping block.
Continue reading Day Of Action To Save Network Neutrality July 12
By Tracy Rosenberg. Published in the AFT Advocate – May 2017 http://aft1493.org/may-2017-advocate-kscm-tv/
For years, KCSM-TV, one of two noncommercial broadcasting outlets owned by the College of San Mateo, trained generations of students in communications. The program was probably the best broadcasting training available at a public two-year college and one of the best in the whole country. The TV station, the 5th largest public TV outlet in the state of California, had fallen on hard times in recent years, losing its PBS affiliation and running annual operating deficits. The trustees of the San Mateo Community College District, during a prolonged process to sell the license, kindly referred to KCSM-TV as a “junker car”, reflecting the District’s lack of enthusiasm for revitalizing its public television station.
Every junker has a suitor
But every junker has a suitor, and a hedge firm came calling for KCSM-TV’s carcass. Here is how we got to dueling lawsuits. Continue reading KCSM-TV Spectrum Pot Of Gold Dissolves Into Dueling Lawsuits
