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The Federal Communications Commisision will hold a hearing about the future of the Internet on Thursday, April 17th on the campus of Stanford University. The 12pm hearing will be preceded by entertainment from the Raging Grannies.
In 2007, several organizations confirmed that Comcast, which is a giant cable company, had been secretly blocking and degrading particular applications over several months, while denying its actions publicly. After consumer groups and law scholars filed a petition with the FCC asking the agency to find that Comcast's misdeeds violated consumers' rights, Comcast packed the seats in a hearing at Harvard University with its own supporters, preventing the public from attending. Activists from Free Press, a consumer advocate group, caught part of Comcast's "sleeper cell" on tape snoozing through the hearing. Free Press estimated that hundreds of interested people, meanwhile, were turned away for lack of space.
Many media advocacy organizations hope that the FCC will change its habit of siding with industry and that net neutrality will be preserved. Internet users are concerned that corporate gatekeepers will try to block, filter, and discriminate against websites and services that are used every day. Media Alliance writes, "Anyone who depends on the Internet for accurate information, connecting with like-minded folks, or promoting events and actions has a huge stake in a neutral Internet. "
"Talk Back to the FCC" speaker practice sessions are planned for cities around the Bay Area this week:
Monday at 6pm in Berkeley | Tuesday at 4:30 in San Francisco | Wednesday at 6:30 in East Palo Alto
Comcast Blocks the Internet, Then the Public Media Alliance
A federal court in San Francisco has wiped whistleblower site Wikileaks.org offline, granting an injunction requested by lawyers for a Swiss bank, Bank Julius Baer, which is attempting to prevent the public from accessing allegations of illegal activity at the bank's Cayman Islands branch. On Feb. 18th, Judge Jeffrey S. White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Dynadot.com, Wikileaks.org's domain registrar, to "disable the wikileaks.org domain name" and to "immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name." The permanent injunction was based on a legal agreement between Bank Julius Baer and San Mateo-based Dynadot, by which the bank's lawsuit against Dynadot was dismissed. Wikileaks mirrors such as Wikileaks.be were not affected by the order. Read more: 1 | 2
On February 7th, more than 100 UNITE HERE Local 19 service sector employees and community activists protested across the street from Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View to support workers' rights. The rally was held adjacent to the site of Google's future four-star hotel and conference center. Despite repeated requests, Google has refused to address concerns about whether future hotel workers will be able to freely choose to join a union.
Speakers at the rally included hotel workers concerned about the impact of a non-union hotel on service workers in the area. Community members voiced concerns that public land receiving public resources should reflect community values, such as the right to a living wage, as Google enters the final stage of negotiations with the City of Mountain View.  Read More and Watch a Video |  Photos: 1 | 2
On December 21st, about 30 Mall Walkers for Peace, including members of San Mateo Peace Action, Declaration of Peace, Veterans for Peace, San Mateo Democracy for America and the Raging Grannies, strolled the Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo as part of the 4th national Iraq Moratorium event in as many months. The Raging Grannies wore their signature hats and buttons while others sported t-shirts with the words "Troops Home Now!" The Raging Grannies confronted Marine recruiters and sang "No War Toys", "Away in a Sweatshop", and other peace songs. Read More and View Photos
Iraq Moratorium | Raging Grannies
The Iraq Moratorium called on everyone to take some public action to stop the war on Iraq - on Friday, September 21st and every third Friday of the month from now on. In San Francisco there wereactions Friday at 1187 Franklin at 10am and at Market & Montgomery at 5pm.
In San Mateo, 150 people gathered for an evening rally.
In Berkeley, there was a rally at Acton and University. In Palo Alto there was a rally at Lytton Plaza.
In Oakland, was a march on the docks starting from the West Oakland BART station. There were also be rallies at many other location around the Bay Area.
On August 9th, East Palo Alto youth rallied against environmental racism and celebrated the partial shutdown of Romic Technologies, a major toxic waste facililty serving Silicon Valley.
Demonstrators demanded that the Department of Toxic Substances Control implement its Enforcement Order on Romic Technologies in East Palo Alto. Romic is currently in the midst of fighting the enforcement order issued by the Department of Toxic Substance Control. DTSC's enforcement order mandated Romic to stop 70% of their operations which means that they are only allowed to store drums under 85 pounds.
Working together with the Center on Race Poverty and the Environment, community activists plan to file a motion to intervene with Romic's attempt to fight the order.
Romic is an unsafe hazardous waste recycling facility that has been contaminating East Palo Alto since 1964 and has not had a proper operating permit for the past 14 years. Romic has had constant violations that have put the life of East Palo Alto residents at risk. Community residents have waged a campaign to shut down Romic in East Palo Alto since 1989.
Read More and View Photos
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Celebration: Victory Over Environmental Racism!
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Youth United for Community Action
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Raging Grannies Action League
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Previous Indybay Coverage
Michael Moore's movie "Sicko" opened Friday June 29th at movie theaters around the US. The movie focuses on the problems in the US health-care system. It highlights several countries that do not have these same problems since their health systems are not based around the profit motives of insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.
On opening night, raging Grannies, doctors, nurses, and patients engaged theater-goers at the Century 16 in Mountain View California, passing out over 1,000 leaflets and collecting postcards that demanded a single payer health care system for California.
Members of East Bay Animal Advocates staged a protest on Sunday, June 10th, in front of the Lunardi's Market in Belmont to draw attention to what they say is animal cruelty behind the production of eggs sold by Lunardi's. East Bay Animal Advocates allege that the chickens used to produce eggs sold by Lunardi's food chain are kept in small battery cages that allow the birds virtually no mobility.
On May 30th, 2007 members of Youth United for Community Action (YUCA), celebrated a California state order that will shut down large portions of a major hazardous waste handler located in East Palo Alto, ironically named Romic Environmental Technologies.
Photos
For 43 years, Romic Environmental Technologies has operated a hazardous
waste recycling facility in East Palo Alto.
Since 1991, community residents have waged a campaign to shut it down.
This year, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) finally began to listen to the East Palo Alto community.
On May 31st, the DTSC announced it had issued an enforcement order to Romic, charging it with such state violations such as unsafe operations (that resulted in a June 2006 toxic release) and reckless disregard (for the risk of serious injury to an employee in March 2006). The order prohibits Romic from handling, treating and storing hazardous bulk liquid waste in containers greater than 85 gallons.
Previous Indybay Coverage:
East Palo Alto Youth Activists/Raging Grannies at OSHA
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East Palo Activists/Raging Grannies PART II
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EPA Youth/Raging Grannies Part III: STREET THEATER
Youth United
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 DTSC Press Release
The Day Worker Center of Mountain View, which has been housed for the past 5 years at the Calvary Church at California Street and Escuela Avenue, is losing its facility on July 31st, 2007. At a press conference on May 18th, the Center was to announce that it has been searching for a new home for over a year, but has been stymied by high real estate prices. The Day Worker Center provides a safe space for workers and employers to connect, fosters community building, and hosts services such as English language classes. The Center is seeking the support of the community to help locate and fund a new space in the appropriate geographic area for its constituency.
A newly formed branch of the Minutemen and other similar groups are targeting the San Francisco Peninsula and South Bay cities with their anti-immigrant messages. The Raging Grannies have sounded the alarm for local community activists to react quickly in response. Calling on peace and immigrant rights groups to counter-demonstrate, the Peninsula Raging Grannies Action League set up a team to get the word out that, "our communities will NOT be divided along lines of immigrant vs. citizen."
On Thursday January 11th anti-war protests took place across the country to protest Bush's escalation in Iraq.
In Palo Alto, community members gathered at El Camino Real and Embarcadero Road, to protest against "this amplification of an outrageous and illegal failed war that has already resulted in the deaths of over three thousand U.S. troops as well as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis". In San Francisco, there was an anti-war march starting at 5pm at Powell and Market Streets. Many other anti-war events took place around the Bay Area, including protests in Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, El Cerrito, Mountain View, San Jose, Petaluma, San Rafael, and Benicia.
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During October and November, Bay Area Vegetarians (BAV) distributed vegan food samples and literature, and most recently, vegan recipes and literature. The events are not difficult to organize, volunteers enjoy them, and it gets vegan information into the hands and minds of people who may not have otherwise received this information. From these events to vegan baking classes to demos at area KFC's in support of PETA's Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign, BAV keep themselves busy. BAV is currently looking to expand their volunteer team to do leafleting on a regular basis in the East Bay, San Francisco, and the South Bay.
The San Francisco Bay Area is a Mecca for vegetarians with nearly 100 vegetarian restaurants in the region. Bay Area Vegetarians (BAVeg) sponsors the annual "Best of Veg" survey to recognize the top vegetarian restaurants in the area and to raise awareness of how easy it is to dine with compassion and good health, vegetarian-style. The public is encouraged to dine at vegetarian restaurants of their choice and vote for their favorites in several categories through November 15th.
Andronico's Market claims it is "committed to the highest standards of animal husbandry." Yet the Bay Area grocery chain still sells eggs from chickens confined to battery cages. East Bay Animal Advocates has called for a week of action at Andronico's locations in Palo Alto and Berkeley, Sunday, July 16 through Thursday, July 20. The campaign will encourage Andronico's to adopt an exclusively cage-free egg policy as other socially responsible grocery chains already have.
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The Federal Communications Commission met at Stanford University on April 17 to hear discussion on the future of the Internet. Scores of local Internet users and activists spoke out for 90 seconds each on network neutrality and other concerns. After packing an east coast public hearing with hired seat-warmers, Comcast, AT&T and other industry heavyweights did not show up this time around.
Audio: Public Comments and FCC Closing Remarks | Lawrence Lessig Presentation to the FCC | Mixes about Net Neutrality
