Yep. Say goodbye to Google, Yahoo, etc. as sources.
The FBI is now engaged in pressuring the owners of sites that carry "undesirable" information to remove it.
A recent diary noted the disappearance of information from news sources on the internet pertaining to the explosion of a large ammunition dump. The "reason" given was that news agencies remove material after a certain length of time. That doesn't wash. The reasonable interpretation is that pressure was applied, by people powerful enough to push news agencies around. Threats would have to be made.
Just when you thought that information was free, and getting out of the prison where it was held by corporate newspapers and television, our government has joined China, the USSR and others.
COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO operations of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against organizations that were (at the time) considered to have politically radical elements, ranging from those whose stated goal was the violent overthrow of the U.S. government (such as the Weathermen); non-violent civil rights groups such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. The founding document of COINTELPRO directed FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these movements and their leaders.
No more undesirable content. What I wonder is this: will Kos be pressured to reveal the names of, for example, nuclear scientists who comment on failures at Pantex? CIA rendition pilots? Black rooms intercepting all your information at the Internet choke points?
We could call this conspiracy theory, and as such, ban it from DailyKos, ostensibly on the basis that it injures the credibility of the effort to elect Democrats.
How does a neutral observer differentiate between efforts to increase efficiency in electing Democrats, and responses to corporate government pressure to back off on whistle-blowing?
This is the key element to me: who is the gatekeeper when the gates are being crashed?
The Internet is a danger to the global oligarchy that profits from arms and energy and corruption. I don't think it is going to last. The most populous nation in the world is throughly censored. It is no doubt happening here. I expect someday, for a few minutes, or maybe hours, for an FBI screener to anonymously confess his or her job, screening DailyKos for sensitive information.
I don't see any way to prevent this from happening. The corporate government already has the power, and they only need to hold 41 votes in the Senate to block efforts at reform. Watch Hillary bust Obama.