'RADICAL' RADIO SHOWS FORCED FROM THE NET

Issue: Information Freedom

Even before Congress' new anti-terrorism bill has been signed into law,

someone apparently used it to get three Internet radio shows yanked off the

Net. Targeted were IRA Radio, Al Lewis Live and Our Americas, Net radio

shows carried by Cosmic Entertainment. IRA Radio broadcasts Irish news and

politics, including interviews with alleged terrorists. Al Lewis Live was

hosted by iconoclastic actor/activist Lewis, better known as Grandpa on the

1960s TV show The Munsters. Our Americas was a Spanish-language show about

rebels in Latin America. The shows were forced offline last month after

someone identifying himself as a federal agent reportedly made a telephone

call to Cosmic's Internet service provider, Hypervine, saying that the

company's assets could be seized for containing pro-terrorist materials,

according to Travis Towle, founder and CEO of Cosmic Entertainment. Towle

doubts that the caller was really a federal agent, but the fear of having

assets seized was convincing enough.

[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Janet Kornblum]

(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20011016/3541043s.htm)

This is going to sound trite, but they can't do that to

Grandpa Munster! Read his bio!

Al Lewis Bio. It neglects to mention that Al Lewis was also

a Green Party candidate for Senate in 2000, running on a

radical platform. It neglects to mention that he's also

a regular on the Howard Stern Show. And finally, Al Lewis Live is a show on WBAI! He's crass, and crude,

and a genius, and he doesn't deserve to be

victimized by small-minded web hosting companies.

I could not find the server that hosts allewislive.com,

but did find that the person who registered it is

 
  
 Towle, Travis E  (TET6)  travis.towle@COSMICRADIO.COM 
  
 The Cosmic Entertainment Company 
  
 P.O. Box 887 
  
 Topeka, KS 66601 
  
 785-286-0911 (FAX) 785-286-0911 
  
 

This is ALSO the SAME PERSON who registered iraradio.com!

Our Americas is, like Al Lewis Live, is a WBAI program.

S'funny, I talked to Travis Towle a few days after the sites were taken down and the rumors started flying.

He said that Hypervine had initially claimed they were contacted by someone puroprting to be from the Office of Homeland Security, and then backed off that claim when some basic checking by the AP showed that the idea of an actual OHS employee being involved was most likely preposterous, switching their story to an "internal decision"

Subsequently, a couple of stories hit the media saying that Hypervine had shut down the sites at the behest of the FBI- but also claiming that the FBI had contacted them on the very day I talked to Mr. Towle, several days after the sites were taken down- clearly unlikely unless you believe in time flowing backwards. It smelled like Hypervine was floating a tale designed to save face, particularly since one could count on the FBI to refuse all comment.

After talking to Mr. Towle, one of my initial hypotheses was that Hypervine had been Freeped- threatened by some rightist fanatic, using recent events, misrepresenting the content of an executive order and impersonating a Fed in order to intimidate an ISP into taking action against viewpoints which s/he didn't like, and that such a threat might well panic a corporate legal department.

Consistent with that hypothesis were the fact that some of these sites were known to get quite a bit of right-wing hate mail in the past, and that going one link up the network and harrassing a target's ISP is behavior consistently seen in aggressive NetLoons.

Based on the above article, I'm inclined to think that the hypothesis was correct- the gummint didn't do it, some fascie NetLoon and the fearfulness of business did.

I guess it takes guts to be a good ISP.

Screw Hypervine. Net Cowards.

Waht does it mean to be Freeped? Will I like it? Is it very kinky?