[cjcole]

It seems apparent that the US government is pursuing a novel strategy to route around the Bill of Rights:

Steps:

* Allow (and encourage) private sector monopolies to form

* Use its leverage and influence to "encourage" those monopolies to do things which the US government is not allowed to do (examples: censorship, data collection)

The list of First Amendment precedents, for example, with respect to the government is long and detailed. On the other hand, private companies operate under fewer restrictions and can act much more freely.

So if we have a situation where there are a small number of monopolies and they, through personal relationships (marriage), lobbying, and the revolving door have a cozy relationship with the US government, then the government can effectively censor (for example) by more or less declaring "will no one rid me of these turbulent tweets" and have the monopolies jump to comply (or face increased risk of antitrust action for example).

This is a win-win for both: the monopolies avoid antitrust and other unwanted regulation by playing ball, and the government gets to ignore the Bill of Rights by "outsourcing" actions to what are in effect de facto quasi-governmental entities. It's only a loss for the people for whom the Bill of Rights was written to protect.

[getcrunk]

This is exactly what is happening. And afaict as far back as the 70's. Major isp's taking public funds, close relationship between nsa and Google

[jkhdigital]

Kind of reminds me of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. The discretionary federal budget averages like 8% of the economy--that is an ungodly amount of economic resources that can be directed to private entities to accomplish basically anything the government wants to do, regardless of what the Constitution dictates.