Our friends and Media Action Grassroots Network colleagues May First/Peoplelink’s statement on their federal gag order.
May First/PeopleLink is one of the New York anchors for the national media justice coalition Mag-Net (Media Action Grassroots Network www.mag-net.org).
Recently they were subjected to a federal gag order due to their work with the Athens, Greece Indymedia Center.
UCC OC Inc., Center for Media Justice and MAGNet teamed up with religious organizations, civil rights groups, labor and many others to submit a letter today supporting further reforms to end predatory prison phone rates. The letter supported the FCC’s proposal to end “kick-back” payments, known as commissions from phone companies to prisons, jails and detention centers. The letter also urged the FCC to cap local rates and to block unfair fees, to build on the FCC’s historic decision to cap long-distance rates in 2014. We also urged the FCC to take rapid action to protect people with disabilities, and to investigate unscrupulous rates for email and video visitation. Continue reading More Reform On Prison Phone Rates→
The January meeting of the Urban Area Strategic Initiative (UASI) featured this informative slide show about how the Bay Area’s fusion centers work together.
For more on fusion centers and how they work, check out this Media Alliance article “Fusing California” on the fusion center network.
A study of social justice media as used in the Occupy Movement by USF professor (and former MA board member) Dorothy Kidd. Media Alliance contributed to this essay.
On February 26, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission reclassified broadband services (“the Internet”) under Title 2 ending blocking, throttling, paid prioritization fast lanes and enshrining digital equality and net neutrality as the law of the land on a 3-2 party line vote. The Commission also granted the petition from the cities of Wilson, North Carolina and Chattanooga, Tennesse striking down state laws preventing the expansion of municipal broadband networks.
Private Thoughts is a new privacy series of short videos on surveillance and privacy from Restore the Fourth SF Bay Area. On UASI (Urban Areas Security Initiative) and fusion centers and on federal and state level privacy legislation including the Surveillance State Repeal Act, CAL-ECPA and SB 34 and SB 741, which are transparency rules for the use of automated license plate readers and cell phone stingrays.
American Day Dream is situated in San Francisco and embedded in the things we love about the Bay Area, but also lodged in the rear corner of our minds that hasn’t forgotten the Snowden revelations of June 2013. Or Cointelpro. Or every bit of sickening evidence that we are less free than we think.
In the long tradition of dystopian science fiction, but imbued with a humane and strongly feminist tilt, American Day Dream grabs hold of the red pill/blue pill dilemma of Hollywood’s Matrix, but without all the futuristic shiny toys. Continue reading American Daydream: A Review→
