SOUNDS LIKE CENSORSHIP TO ME:

The heads of the House committee and subcommittee overseeing communications issues, respectively, have asked the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) to study the use of “telecommunications to commit hate crimes.”

While NTIA, which is the Bush administration’s telecommunications policy advisory arm, already produced a study on the topic under the first president Bush back in 1992, Reps. John Dingell and Ed Markey urged it to update the study given the rise in the Internet since them. But, according to a release from the commitee issued Monday, they also said they are also “particularly” interested in studying “uses by broadcast facilites licensed on behalf of the public by the FCC, and whether such uses convey messages of bigotry or hatred, creating a climate of fear and inciting individuals to commit hate crimes.”

Given the flexible definition of “hate crime,” I think we can be sure that whatever comes of this will be a politicized effort to shut down debate. Of course, this will go away if the NTIA suggests that news reports that make terrorists look good count as incitement to hate crime. . . .

UPDATE: Should this count? I think it encourages hatred and violence. And the perpetrator has a record of this kind of thing.