The Global Picture: The Internet's Impact on the World

Since the creation of the internet, the world has set up more connections exponentially each day. The world has shrunken by distance and by the speed at which we accomplish objectives. An excellent example of this is facebook's and twitter's impact on the Egyptian revolution. A nation, in the midst of civil war, found ways to inform the world of their struggle and their reasons for the uprising. Gathering support, the people of Egypt found their power in numbers to overthrow an oppressive government. This is a small taste of what is to come in the future, because our manners of communication are always expanding. Here is a link to CBS's cover of Egypt's internet revolution.




CNN's coverage on twitter's impact on the nation of Egypt

Comparing the Effectiveness of Campaign Ads

In the recent election for governor of California, Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown had commercial after commercial, trying to prove that they were the better candidate or mudslinging their opponent. Here are examples of their mudslinging strategies.







Meg Whitman is using Jerry Brown's old interview from his previous governorship to convey that he is incompetent because he had no plan, only ideals.






Jerry Brown's ad is more effective because he compares the recent governorship of Schwarzenegger to Whitman's speeches and promises. Having the public feel that Whitman's strategy will drive California to the same place as the previous governor, is much worse than a man who was an okay governor without a plan.

Taxing the Internet, the Ongoing Struggle

The debate over internet taxation is a messy and complicated situation. As Americans, we have state taxes, property taxes, income taxes, etc., but no federal tax or tax on goods exchanged on the internet. This creates problems for states that wish to have a part of the millions of dollars that they could use for their own expenses. According to an article by U.S.News,

To get in on the cash flow, Web sales taxes have popped up in 22 states, with plenty more considering it. But that's scaring some online businesses and consumers.

Damaging the American spirit of entrepreneurship, internet taxation may cause small business to fail, considering the majority of transfers, purchases, and shipments are all done online. Words from one of these small business orders that is feeling the heat from these new tax laws was quoted saying:

"I don't mind paying for services that are delivered. But I don't see any connection between Internet sales tax and any service that the government is providing," says Travis Corcoran, one of the more than 27 million small-business owners potentially affected by Internet sales tax. Starting in his Arlington, Mass., house, Corcoran created two online businesses from scratch. His DVD rental service, SmartFlix.com, and comic book store, HeavyInk.com, now bring in about $1.25 million per year. Even as his companies grow, Corcoran says Internet sales tax "might wipe out my ability to run these firms."

I find myself on the side of government taxation on this one, but I feel that there should be a gradient of higher taxation for bigger companies and lower for smaller businesses. At least this way, states get some cut and they can use the money to recover from the recession.

Open Government or Duct Taped and Censored?

When people think of freedom of speech and press, they believe that America is the shining light for these types of rights. For the most part, this is usually correct and many laws have been overturned for the conservation of Constitutional rights. However, the U.S. government is not without exceptions. The current example of government censoring is the case of Wikileaks, headed by Julian Assange. Having released government video and articles that stir negative sentiments about the U.S. military, Wikileaks has gained worldwide attention. A previous example of censorship would be "The Pentagon Papers", that were released during the Vietnam War. Leaking this information caused a similar outcry for public information. Contrasting both of these instances, I would say Wikileaks can be considered much worse because the violent videos can be accessed globally and this creates a more immediate danger than "The Pentagon Papers" did. My personal opinion is that the public should have the right to know, but not at the cost of American lives. Saying this, I cannot provide an alternative, so it seems that there is either extremity or secrecy, without a healthy balance.



The apache helicopter attack that has gone viral since its release date.




The movie made after Daniel Ellsberg and "The Pentagon Papers" (Previously posted)

The New York Times and its effects of Online Newspapers

Since the beginning of the year, New York Times articles have been the staple for our blogs. This form of information supply has been overlooked by the general public because it does not present the news in an entertaining way. There is no doubt that the articles supply a wealth of information to the general public with separate opinions, but young people do not have the attention span to read each one. Blogging on the other hand is much more useful, considering that it allows intelligent and mindless information to be presented. Magazines are probably considered the least informative when the categories are usually concerning celebrities and are a distracting pseudo-reality. Taking all of these forms into consideration, the newspapers are the most informative but the least entertaining, while magazines are the opposite. My opinion is that blogging is where enjoyment and intelligence meet and where they can be both appreciated.

Television's Impact on the Public Opinion

Although a wealth of useful information, television has become a higher form of entertainment than an intellectual source. Between the reality and contestant shows, there aren't many ways that the general public can digest political information. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report do provide current event analysis for young people, although analyzed as extreme leftist and manipulated by the Fox news answer on the O'reilly Factor. If true, O'reilly's presented some scary facts about the young population concerning their knowledge base, but they tried to correlate this with the liberal media impact, which I could not buy. Whether left or right, it is evident that television can be a tool for information or for blind entertainment. On Wednesday's episode of The Daily Show, Stewart discusses how the Royal Wedding has out-shined real news and the effects of the birth certificate release by Obama.

New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg stole classified information concerning Vietnam, known as the "The Pentagon Papers". He gave them to The New York Times to publish, but the government stopped the printing of the papers and the case was sent to the Supreme Court, under the challenge of the First Amendment right to free speech and press. The government's point was that it could endanger national security. The court issued per curiam, meaning the court gave the verdict as a whole, with separate opinions written (6 concurred, 3 dissented). The per curiam stated that the government had not not carried a "heavy presumption against its constitutional validity". Several justices agreed in their opinions that the press should not be tampered with and that by releasing these papers, that they could not directly cause any imminent danger or harm. Opposing views by other justices provided a good point that the papers could cause increase danger on the battlefield and that there is a question about the limits of the separation of powers. My opinion is leaning more toward a freedom of the press, unless it can be proven with enough evidence that the released information will cause harm to Americans.



The story of Daniel Ellsberg was made into the movie called "The Most Dangerous Man In The World". This provides several opinions and a glimpse of the societal pressures concerning free press and national security