The Pauls’ New Crusade: ‘Internet Freedom’

Defending the Internet — and the corporations that invest in it — from government regulation is the new “End the Fed,” Paul advisors tell BuzzFeed exclusively. A new Paul manifesto: “This is our revolution.”

Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Ron Paul. Click on the image to enlarge.

Rosie Gray
BuzzFeed
7/5/2012

Ron and Rand Paul are set today to shift the central focus of their family’s long libertarian crusade to a new cause: Internet Freedom.

Kentucky senator Rand and his father Ron Paul, who has not yet formally conceded the Republican presidential nomination, will throw their weight behind a new online manifesto set to be released today by the Paul-founded Campaign for Liberty. The new push, Paul aides say, will in some ways displace what has been their movement’s long-running top priority, shutting down the Federal Reserve Bank. The move is an attempt to stake a libertarian claim to a central public issue of the next decade, and to move from the esoteric terrain of high finance to the everyday world of cable modems and Facebook.

The manifesto, obtained yesterday by BuzzFeed, is titled “The Technology Revolution” and lays out an argument — in doomsday tones —for keeping the government entirely out of regulating anything online, and for leaving the private sector to shape the new online space.

“The revolution is occurring around the world,” it reads. “It is occurring in the private sector, not the public sector. It is occurring despite wrongheaded attempts by governments to micromanage markets through disastrous industrial policy. And it is driven by the Internet, the single greatest catalyst in history for individual liberty and free markets.”…

…The language of the document tries to reclaim the issue of Internet freedom from the strange bedfellows that have staked a claim to it: progressives and tech companies on one hand, and more traditional conservative politicians like California Rep. Darrell Issa

The complete article, with a copy of the manifesto, is at BuzzFeed.

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