Homeland Security Running NBC-Owned PSAs 240
An anonymous reader writes "A few months ago, Homeland Security's ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) group started placing an anti-piracy video PSA on various domains that it had seized. What it didn't say was who created the PSA. A Freedom of Information Act request by Techdirt has revealed that the videos are actually created & owned by NBC Universal, but nowhere does Homeland Security publicly admit this. As Techdirt writes: 'Could you imagine how the press would react if, say, the FDA ran PSAs that were created and owned by McDonald's without making that clear to the public? How about if the Treasury Department ran a PSA created and owned by Goldman Sachs? So, shouldn't we be asking serious questions about why Homeland Security and ICE are running a one-sided, misleading corporate propaganda video, created and owned by a private company, without mentioning the rather pertinent information of who made it?'"
public-private partnership (Score:5, Interesting)
In the UK we call this the public-private partnership (PPP - no, not that PPP), private finance initiative, introducing competitiveness into service provision, blah, blah, blah. What it actually means is a hegemony of large corporations selected by government cronies which siphon money off the tax payer to provide a service you either didn't want in the first place or which was once provided much more effectively at cost.
When finding out that a government is paying money to a corporation for a service, there is only one necessary question: what compensation will be paid to the men in government who made the decision by the executives of the firm which just won the multi-million-currency contract?
I assume this is a rhetorical question. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh come on, what's the big deal? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Seriously - Obama sure as hell meets the definition of FASCIST, doesn't he?"
He's a fine Republican President and I resent that insult!