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No Action Yet from Supreme Court on Montana Appeal; Journalist Rory O’Connor on Perils of Facebook and the Web

Attorney Carl Mayer and activist Adam Fergatch return to update us on the important Montana appeal that challenges Citizens United; journalist and author Rory O’Connor’s new book is Friends, Followers and the Future.Mayer explains that the Court’s last conference of the current term is this Thursday, June 21, and Fergatch urges listeners to keep calling Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock at 406-441-2026 and ask him to invoke the 11th amendment to protect the precedent of the Montana top court’s ruling that conflicts with Citizens United.  In an op-ed in the June 16 L.A Times, Bullock seems intent on grandstanding by trying to persuade the same bloc of justices to overturn their own decision–taking a major gamble that the Court might make things worse as it kills Montana’s 100-year-old ban on corporate campaign contributions.  We also talk about Adam’s song about the case, which you can view here. And we discuss the propects of a 10-year fight to amend the Constitution, which would inevitably lead back to the Supreme Court.

At 37:11, journalist and author Rory O’Connor talks about his new book, Friends, Followers and the Future: How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media.  Visit the book’s webpage here.  O’Connor offers many important insights into Facebook, its shifting privacy tools, Zuckerberg’s view that privacy is passe, and the CIA’s monitoring of Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.  He talks about the need for filters to sort through the masses of information, and the challenge for users in knowing what is accurate and what isn’t.  We talk about the power Google has, and the irony that it promotes Google+ as the social network that respects your privacy.  Get more from Rory here.