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As Google expands it book search service, consumer privacy protections are shrinking. Privacy watchdogs want the search giant to takes steps to ensure our privacy. And Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission on journalism and public media.

The closing of the Bay State Banner, Boston's only black-owned community newspaper, is another example of the systemic crisis facing journalism. And Verizon is back in the Massachusetts legislature with a new video franchise bill that could harm community media.

(Intro) Mercy me R,E,H,D,O, double G.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told FCC nominees Mignon Clyburn and Meredith Attwell Baker that the FCC was broken and he expects them to fix it. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor about the Internet and the First Amendment.

New FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski wasted no time in moving the process of creating a national broadband plan to the top of his agenda. And the new criteria for broadband stimulus funding make Net Neutrality a basic rule of the road.

The House considers legislation on protecting consumers from online marketers' secret data mining for behavioral advertising. Julius Genachowski become Chairman of the FCC, and the Personal Democracy Forum mashed up politics and technology for the sixth year.

The Broadband Internet Fairness Act would help prevent overcharging by Internet Service Providers by requiring the companies to submit their pricing schemes to the Federal Trade Commission for approval. And the Allied Media Conference incorporates a wide range of issues and artists, educators, and social justice organizers who use media as a tool for change.

I wrote this while I lived in a motor home in the woods near Pine Top Arizona. I woke from a dream of leading a drum section out of a castle that was saying farewell to medieval looking troops. The details of the World Trade Towers bombings were on the radio ( and I seldom listened to radio then ) I hung my flag at half mast.

Local radio wins a victory in the courts and gets a hearing in Congress. And the ACLU helps lead the way in unblocking websites based on "viewpoint discrimination" in Tennessee and Indiana schools.

A rich discussion about the future of journalism, the importance of public media and the urgent need for high-speed broadband access throughout the United States took place in Washington, D.C., as stakeholders from each sector sat together to talk about issues of content production and infrastructure.