"Shut up!" they explained.

Yes friends, having gotten as much traction and they are going to on gun control, the Dems are now moving along to speech control. Stating by defining a "journalist". Otherwise know as the "Saving the New York Times by killing the Internet" law.

A Senate panel on Thursday approved a measure defining a journalist, which had been an obstacle to broader media shield legislation designed to protect reporters and the news media from having to reveal their sources.

The Judiciary Committee's action cleared the way for approval of legislation prompted by the disclosure earlier this year that the Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed almost two months of telephone records for 21 phone lines used by reporters and editors for The Associated Press and secretly used a warrant to obtain some emails of a Fox News journalist. The subpoenas grew out of investigations into leaks of classified information to the news organizations.

The AP received no advance warning of the subpoena.

The vote was 13-5 for a compromise defining a "covered journalist" as an employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information. The individual would have been employed for one year within the last 20 or three months within the last five years.

Now, I should say right here that if the AP thinks that the NSA isn't recording 100% of every damn thing that every single individual at the AP says and does on-line and by phone, from the CEO to the night janitor , 24/7/365, then the AP is living in a dream world. Because the NSA is most certainly doing all of that, at the very least.

What this is about is a fig leaf of legality so the DemocRats can give their good friends in the media a "get-out-of-jail-free" card while going after everyone else with the full weight of the US federal government. Everyone else meaning blogs.

[Senator Dianne Feinstein, D. Ca] said the intent was to set up a test to determine a bona fide journalist.

"I think journalism has a certain tradecraft. It's a profession. I recognize that everyone can think they're a journalist," Feinstein said.

Translation, Dianne Feinstein gets to decide who will to talk and when, not you. So shut up and get back to work, peons.

Watch out for the steep part, kids!

My predictions:

1. There will be journalism licenses issued in the United States of America before the 2016 elections. Possibly before the 2014 election.
2. The bill will receive bi-partisan support.
   

Because I bet you the Republicans want the internet to shut up even worse than the DemocRats do. The Tea Party can only beat the Dems if they stage a revolution in the Republican Party first.

This is why they call it a slippery slope my friends. Because the ride picks up speed quickly as you go along. Then you get to the 100 foot cliff...

The Phantom