Actions taken – or not taken – by proponents of online freedom within the next six months will decide the fate of the Internet, according to Federal Communications Commission commissioner Robert McDowell.

“Six months separate us from the renegotiation of the 1988 treaty that led to insulating the Internet from economic and technical regulation,” McDowell, a Republican, told lawmakers during a hearing on Capitol Hill last week.

“What proponents of Internet freedom do or don’t do between now and then will determine the fate of the Net and effect global economic growth as well as determine whether political liberty can proliferate,” he said.

On December 4, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a Geneva-based U.N. specialized agency, will convene in Dubai to discuss its ongoing review of international telecommunications regulations (ITRs).

The Internet does not currently fall within the scope of the ITRs, but some ITU members, including Russia, India, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have long been promoting U.N. oversight of the Internet, and are expected to push for it at the Dubai conference.

Read more at CNS News HERE.

Big news about the Obama Administration’s “Fast and Furious” scandal broke earlier this week, when the House Oversight committee finally got its hands on some of the documents it subpoenaed long ago – specifically, a set of wiretap applications that prove high officials at the Justice Department were very well aware of the deadly “gun walking” tactics that put American weapons into the hands of Mexican drug cartel killers.  Attorney General Eric Holder has always maintained that knowledge of these tactics did not reach the upper echelons of his department.

The revelation of documents shredding Holder’s claims stirred some in the Republican leadership to begin taking the idea of filing contempt of Congress charges against the Attorney General more seriously.  Justice sent a letter to the House Republican leadership on Tuesday, offering to work out a deal for releasing some of the “Fast and Furious” information covered by those long-defied subpoenas.  As House Oversight chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) said in an angry letter challenging Holder’s honesty, it’s increasingly clear why he doesn’t want congressional investigators to see the documents he is refusing to hand over.

It turns out that Issa didn’t get those bombshell wiretap applications because Holder suddenly decided to comply with the subpoenas, and dribble out some useful material.  It seems the House Oversight committee has a “mole” in the Justice Department, who surreptitiously gave the wiretap documentation to House investigators.

In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, Issa said he would not reveal the identity of his source for the documents, pointing out that other “Fast and Furious” whistleblowers have experienced retaliation from their superiors, particularly at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives:

On Thursday, The Hill reported that Justice is angry about the document leak, although no decision about finding and punishing the mole has been made yet.

Read more at Human Events HERE.

The federal government is sticking to its guns and claiming that some violations of your rights are so super-secret that the government can’t be sued for them. Specifically, if government agents listened in on your communications without a warrant, say federal lawyers, you shouldn’t be allowed to seek redress in the courts bcause the U.S. government is protected against legal action by sovereign immunity. Even better, Congress is poised to reauthorize a law which explicitly legalizes such official intrusion.

Reports Wired: “A federal appeals court appeared troubled Friday by the Obama administration’s arguments that the government could break domestic spying laws without fear of being sued — and that the government’s argument might be correct, due to an oversight by Congress.  A two-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard an hour of oral arguments here by the government and a lawyer for two attorneys whom a federal judge concluded had been wiretapped illegally without warrants by the government.”

Note that the courts have already found the wiretapping in question to be illegal. The argument is whether the federal government can be held accountable for its actions. The federal government says “no.”

With all of this talk of secrecy and national security in place, the court win was a miracle of official incompetence. It came about only because the feds accidentally mailed two attorneys a classified document revealing that their conversations had been wiretapped. Such warrantless wiretaps were illegal at the time, but were later permitted by a 2008 amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act supported by, among others, then-Senator Barack Obama.

That amendment is up for reauthorization right now.

Read more at Reason.com HERE.

News the EPA is conducting surveillance on farmers goes against our grain. Freedom means freedom of movement and the presumption of innocence. How can we have it if every move is monitored by government?

Nebraska’s congressional delegation sent a justifiably angry letter to Administrator Lisa Jackson last week complaining that her Environmental Protection Agency had exceeded its legislative and constitutional authority by conducting drone surveillance flights over Nebraska and Iowa farms looking for violations of the Clean Water Act.

“They are just way on the outer limits of any authority they’ve been granted,” said Nebraska GOP Sen. Mike Johanns, an opinion the bureaucrats rejected Friday in responding to the letter. The EPA argues that the courts, including the Supreme Court, have already authorized aerial surveillance, such as taking aerial photographs of a chemical manufacturing facility.

“Farmers and ranchers in Nebraska pride themselves in the stewardship of our state’s natural resources,” says the letter signed by Republican Reps. Adrian Smith, Jeff Fortenberry and Lee Terry, as well as Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson and Johanns.

“As you might imagine, this practice has resulted in privacy concerns among our constituents and raises several questions.”

Read more at Investors.com HERE.

The U.S. State Department is highlighting “Pride Month” on its website with a link to President Barack Obama’s proclamation about June’s designation as the month to celebrate homosexuality and by posting profiles of department personnel who are gay, lesbian and transsexual, including an Obama political appointee whom the department describes as a transsexual who has been “an international development practitioner, academic, and ethicist.”

“The story of America’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community is the story of our fathers and sons, our mothers and daughters, and our friends and neighbors who continue the task of making our country a more perfect Union,” states Obama in the June 1 proclamation.

“It is a story about the struggle to realize the great American promise that all people can live with dignity and fairness under the law,” says Obama.  “Each June, we commemorate the courageous individuals who have fought to achieve this promise for LGBT Americans, and we rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The website also posted profiles of six homosexual men, two lesbians and one transsexual who work for the State Department.

“Chloe Schwenke is one of three openly transsexual political federal appointees under the Obama Administration,” the profile of Schwenke states. “As a member of the Senior Executive Service, she serves in a dual role as Senior Advisor for LGBT Policy for USAID globally, and as the Senior Advisor to USAID’s Africa Bureau on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance.

Read more at CNSNews.com HERE.