Saturday, May 29, 2010




Liberty Net Jamfest


I've been trying to listen to the May 22 - 23 recording of the Liberty Net with the emphasis on the word trying. I used to hear the transmissions between the ultra-right-wing ham radio operators live on my portable shortwave radio but reception usually sucks. So now I download the latest meet-up from the archives at http://3950.net.

Last Saturday jammers were out in force, illegally blocking the Lib Netters. Loud rock music and stupid comments from "Buck Rogers in the Holland Tunnel." I don't agree with most of what the Lib Netters espouse; I'm just trying to track conspiracy theories. Discussion during the last Liberty Net dealt with the theory that North Korea blew up the BP oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon, causing the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Why? Because South Korea built the rig.

One Lib Netter said he gave that theory a 30 or 40 percent chance of being true, unlike Rush Limbaugh's "Environmental wackos blew it up" speculation that only rate a two percent with him. He read an article that stated that President Obama was covering up the story, keeping it from the American public.

There could have been some more discussion on the topic but the jammers came on and most of the recording is their interference. So much for my tracking.

But there seems to be an alternative for the Lib Netters: the Web. A couple of them worked around the jammers by streaming through Stickam, an online service that carries the Saturday night net live. They could keep commenting via audio or by using the instant messaging feature.

So as disagreeable as some may find their ultra-conservative views, the Liberty Net will keep pushing on, maybe even to the point of doing their discussions only online. That's OK until the cyber-jammers show up but unlike SW transmissions, such jammers should be easier to block and locate.

Free speech means the freedom to speak.

2 comments:

Leigh Hanlon said...

Agree with you 100 percent. I can remember how angry I was back in 2001 when hackers took down components of Hal Turner's site and/or broadcast -- and boasted about having done so.

I disagree with just about everything Hal Turner says and stands for, but he has a right to say it. (Well, most of it -- he's had some highly publicized problems lately.)

Has anybody heard from militia radio broadcaster Col. Steve Anderson lately? Is he still locked up?

Doug said...

It is amusing that anyone believes that suppressing the voice of those with whom they disagree somehow makes it so that those who would listen to these others will eventually start agreeing with those doing the suppressing.