Posted by Tracy Rosenberg on January 10th, 2014 Huffington Post
Meet Prisoner A: Incarcerated at Soledad Prison in California for a botched armed robbery committed in the thrall of an expensive drug addiction, Prisoner A is 3 years into a 10-year sentence. Committed to rehab and clean and sober for two years, A tries to keep in regular touch by telephone with two people: the aunt who raised him from a toddler in Oakland, CA and his 8-year old son, who has relocated with his ex-wife and her new husband to Oregon.
Calling his aunt, thanks to 2008 CA legislation, is free of commissions (often called kickbacks). A monthly 15-minute call to keep in touch is affordable, even for a financially-challenged senior, at a price of about $7 per call. Continue reading A Tale Of Two Prisoners→
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee, EFF, famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and author Norman Solomon discuss the legal, ethical and political impact of the Snowden disclosures.
Posted by Tracy Rosenberg on February 9th, 2014 Truthout
The future of democratic media may come down to a bunch of lawyers.
Twenty-five years after pirate radio aficionados and media activists pushed for and eventually won the Low Power Community Radio Act, the fate of hundreds of radio licenses is up in the air. Continue reading A Thousand New Radio Stations: Whose Will They Be?→
Posted by Tracy Rosenberg on February 9th, 2014 Counterpunch
The prominent Democratic website Think Progress recently took aim at the anti-NSA surveillance movement with a warning to “Beware of Libertarians Bearing Gifts”. The blog suggests bipartisan alliances between civil liberties advocates and libertarians will sink the New Deal, which some might say is already taking on a bit of water. Continue reading The Center for American Progress and the Nullify NSA Movement→
Posted by Tracy Rosenberg on February 19th, 2014 Mag-Net Blog
The San Francisco Bay Area is often seen across the country as a blue outpost and a place where liberal ideas predominate. This image is especially widespread in media reports which emphasize cultural and political innovations. But the local media system which indulges in the self-congratulatory blather is itself a retrograde example of corporate consolidation and dominance. More like Texas than Vermont, if you like.
If the purpose of media systems is to connect and to exchange information, then Bay Area communication is about as controlled by big media corporations as the US is dependent on imported oil. The statistics are terrifying: Continue reading Mergers Lock In The Status Quo→
Posted by Tracy Rosenberg on March 23rd, 2014 Oakland Tribune
The arguments for and against the Oakland Domain Awareness Center project are well-established. After hours of community testimony at the Oakland City Council meetings Feb. 18 and March 4, the council voted to rein in the planned surveillance center.
Rhetoric and reality sometimes diverge. Right now, the future of the Internet is hooked like a fish between two different paths.
On December 16, 2013, I met FCC chairman Tom Wheeler at an Oakland town hall meeting, and I used my two minutes to talk about reclassification, a term that means making whole the regulatory split that is going to create a two-tiered Internet. The chairman nodded, took notes, and at the end of the presentation mentioned the importance of a “network compact”.
