Power without responsibility

What Hacker News says

1. sbirchallAug 2013
   A worthwhile read on the British history of this subject is "Power without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain"

   My biggest take from this is that your notion that "freedom of anyone to use technology to disseminate information" as upheld by the printing establishment is significantly undermined by the business of printing itself - whereby the cost of disseminating information has increased consistently to make a truly "free" press completely prohibitive to the average person. The book goes into great detail about how this happened and the nature of how the internet effects this pattern. I would highly recommend this to anyone reading this thread.

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2. anigbrowlJun 2013
   Nope. It was obvious from the get-go that the purpose of the Patriot Act was to normalize what had previously been the domain of covert investigations of individuals. I don't personally feel terrified about it because I am too boring to become a likely object of suspicion; realistically, the chance of my being swept up in a government intelligence operation is about as likely as my being blown up by terrorists. And frankly, the Patriot act has had considerably less impact on individual liberties and Democratic participation that I expected it to at the time it was passed.

   On the other hand, I'm quite depressed that it's taken people so long to put it together that they're willing to buy into the idea that Obama a) invented it or b) had the freedom to single-handed dismantle it. The entire country badly needs a remedial course in civics, not least in Congress's ongoing game of hot potato.

   This book predates the war on terror but seems extremely relevant: http://www.amazon.com/Power-Without-Responsibility-Congress-...

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3. theblackboxJan 2010
   Very well put. I recently got hold of a very interesting book[1] that was all about how the "free press" effectively seek to raise the cost of production/distribution so as to stifle the voice of independent publishers and how this has lead to the conglomeration of media outlets under very specific political banners (and even shaped politics itself). Unfortunately, mine was an old copy, but it has since been heavily updated for the internet era. I doubt it shares your optimism, though I would certainly like to. I try to keep my eyes open for inde/underground publications[2] now, as I have a much better appreciation of their work.

   [1: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-without-Responsibility-Broadca...] [2: one I've become aware of recently - Dodgem Logic (http://www.dodgemlogic.com/) that are very deliberately subversive. I think one of the guys out of The League Of Gentlemen is involved.]

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