There's A 'Let Me Google That For You' Bill

[babylonsister]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/let-me-google-that-for-you-act-coburn-mccaskill

There's A 'Let Me Google That For You' Bill
Daniel Strauss – April 11, 2014, 11:57 AM EDT17755


Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a new bill this week called the Let Me Google That For You Act of 2014 (seriously).

The bill is meant to cut down on "the collection and distribution of government information" by prioritizing using Google over spending money to obtain information from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

NTIS, run by the Department of Commerce, is a repository of 3 million scientific, technical, engineering, and business information.

The bill would abolish the NTIS and move essential functions of the agency to other agencies like the National Archives. The bill's name is a play on a snarky website that links to Google's search engine.

"No Federal agency should use taxpayer dollars to purchase a report from the National Technical Information Service that is available through the Internet for free," the bill reads.

The idea behind the bill is to stop federal agencies from spending, say, more than $100 to get government documents if the documents are available online for free.

[longship]

1. That's wonderful, I think.

Just trying to consider the possible blowback...

R&K for visibility.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Makes too much sense....

It'll never fly.

[freshwest]

3. Seeing's how google search results are slanted toward commercial, paid political posters and bots...

It's another bill to dumb down Americans, deny them relevant and scientific data and privatize formerly public information. And only being released as news to sell the corporations that sponsored and wrote the bill to be introduced.

It's along the lines of what is being done in Canada to wipe out data, science and reseach that corporations don't want available to the public so they can keep on making a profit while they steal and pollute. No data to refute their crimes, gee whiz.

We're supposed to cheer this as a budget cutting deal based or an oh-so-simple, so-let's-do-it solution for the alleged sake of common sense, when we know there is huge bias in the results.

And to profit billionaires at google and make them the owners of it. It ain't free and instead of a group we paid for to increase the public knowledge, selling us for the cost of packaging the information as a product, we are the product google will be selling.

More proof that we have no vision or ability to reflect on the ramnifications of this loss of public knowledge, as The Idiocracy marches on.