The Internet's Impact on Citizen's Participation

   The internet has taken a dramatic impact on citizen's participation. It seems as though blogs are the new way to spread the news, twitter is the way to share it and facebook is the way to talk about it. The majority of the people around the word are now internet dependent and it is obvious everywhere you look.  The internet has always been a great tool for communication and entertainment but now its branching out and heavily becoming a part of education as well as working as a tool to bring together people with common interests.
  One of the most influential stories about the internet bringing people together is the chaos in the Middle East which was triggered by facebook groups and other viral organizations.  The fact that multiple nations can go through their own revolution in a matter of a couple months shows the strength and influence of the internet when used correctly.

e-Commerce Taxation

There is a lot of discussion about the taxation of e-commerce and most of that talk revolves around the sales tax imposed by various states or countries on products sold to their residents. For now, there is a halt on the imposition of new taxes while the government agencies argue about whether changes are needed in the way sales taxes are determined for goods or services sold on the Internet. It's clear the U.S. government isn't going to make it easy for U.S. persons to avoid paying income taxes by simply renting space on a computer in an offshore island. There are actually a number of issues that will make it difficult for a U.S. citizen to easily avoid US taxes on their global e-commerce business. The U.S. citizen  is still subject to US income taxes on his or her world wide income as well as some other U.S. tax code provisions that make any American internet business pay their taxes.

Campaign Posters From the 2008 Election

 

Above is John McCain's campaign poster from the 2008 presidential election with running mate Sarah Palin.

Here is McCain's opposing candidate, Barack Obama's campaign poster from the 2008 election.

I find that Obama's poster is much more effective than McCain's for a number of reasons.  One, it has a picture of him on it, giving a face to the possible leader of the United states. Two, it has the campaign slogan "Yes we can" on it, giving people confidence in their vote for Obama. Also, it says to "vote Obama" which at the very least will make some kind of mental impression on the reader.  McCain's poster has none of these things, there is only the last names of the candidate and his running mate with the campaign website at the bottom.  It appears that the only graphic on this poster is seven little stars making up the big dipper constellation, which to me, and probably many other viewers of this poster, has no influential power at all.

Obama's Speech Concerning Osama's Death

 

With the end of nearly decade long man-hunt comes a plethora of news coverage on the story of Osama's death.  In the video provided above, Obama gives his speech confirming the death of Osama Bin Laden.  The only thing missing from his speech, and every news channel's coverage of the event is how Osama was killed and by whom.  The most specific details given so far is that it was in a "firefight" in which Osama was killed.  The government is probably going to release more information as the story develops so it is okay that they are censoring some of the news stories, but right now it seems as though they're holding back some information until it is deemed safe to release by the government.

Response to Article on Stem-Cell Research

I found CNN's article concerning the Appeals court's lifted ban of government funded stem-cell research to be quite informative.  It does a great job of explaining the background of the issue as well as what's being done.  In this case, breaking news tells us that the ban on federal funding for stem-cell research has been lifted, and Obama has given the "OK" to continue funding stem-cell research.  While some more bias news sources might convey the networks opinion on stem-cell research, such as Fox News showing utter disdain for the topic, I felt that CNN's coverage was only the facts which is nice to see from a major news network.

Trump Holding Press Conference... or Witch-hunt?

    This press conference made by Donald Trump concerning the validity of President Obama's birth certificate completely detracts from keeping the public informed.  What Trump is doing is obviously a smear campaign to get favor over Obama for the upcoming election.  Fortunately Obama made a press conference in response to the recent accusations letting the nation know that he's not taking any of this seriously along with the majority of the country because he's taking care of more important things.

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

In 1971 the New York Times Co. published classified government documents that were leaked to the press. The newspaper had obtained a copy of documents known as “The Pentagon Papers." The Pentagon Papers, officially known as “History of U.S. Decision-Making Process on Viet Nam Policy,” were illegally copied and obtained by the New York Times and the Washington Post. Acting at the Government's request, the United States district court in New York temporarily ordered the New York Times not to publish the documents. The Government claimed that the publication of the papers would endanger the security of the United States. The New York Times appealed the order to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that prior restraint violated the 1st Amendment, and that is how New York Times Co. V. United States began.  While the Government had good reason to argue that these papers could endanger national security, the newspaper companies had a better argument which was supported by the 1st amendment as to why they should be allowed to publish the documents.  After a 6-3 decision between the justices, the Court ruled in favor of the New York Times and allowed them to publish the "Pentagon Papers." 

 This court case must have been one of the hardest Supreme Court cases to rule upon in history.  Although I agree with the government's argument that publishing classified information is endangering national security, I think the newspapers had a slightly better argument because they had the 1st amendment to back them up, which is arguably the firmest amendment in terms of trying to getting around it.
  This was a landmark case because it sort of set in stone for cases to come that the first amendment is the presiding law over issues as serious as national security.