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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Alex Jones, and actually, you get the benefit of a loophole in our policies. | |
| For this subcommittee, we don't have an upper end on who can give you their time, so you actually have 20 minutes now. | ||
| Okay, well, I probably won't even spend 20 unless you have questions. | ||
| 15 is sufficient. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| First off, Mayor Proteum, it's good to see you. | ||
| You're looking great, and I appreciate your honesty in this whole discussion. | ||
| And Council Member Alvarez, congratulations on a new member of the family. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| And I don't know this nice lady, but I've met Mr. Hood. | ||
| He's a real gentleman. | ||
| Enjoyed talking to him about this when I first began to learn of it when he was leaving one of the board meetings, though he didn't have any details of it. | ||
| So it's good to see your attorney. | ||
| I'm not going to come in here and yell and scream this time. | ||
| I have been locked out of the producer forum, as the other producers were, locked out of the studio just the day before I came down here. | ||
| And I had heard what they had to say. | ||
| And then we had the media and people denying and saying it's not true. | ||
| So I was thinking, my God, the council is, you know, involved in some big cover-up. | ||
| And from our deep investigations, I've spent, and I don't believe that's the case now, at least with you guys. | ||
| In our deep investigation, I'm probably up to 65 hours now. | ||
| Stephan is up to how many hours, Stephan? | ||
| About 80? | ||
| A lot. | ||
| I mean, lawyers, microfilm, law libraries, calling experts. | ||
| Going over it. | ||
| And we continued to tell the board, look, repudiate what's in your minutes and what you've said about censoring people. | ||
| Repudiate this, or we're going to have to take legal action. | ||
| And understand that I actually studied the law quite a bit, and I know there was a tort reform four years ago, now it's almost five, where you, it's a tort reform, it's a good thing, where if you don't want to just go right out and sue somebody, you can have an investigative Subpoena, which the courts lean towards and almost always grant. | ||
| And that's what this hearing is coming up for. | ||
| And if that's unsuccessful, then we have the big guns. | ||
| We have violations of the contract with the city, with the charter from the early 70s, with just multi-facets, conflict of interest, dynamite stuff. | ||
| We don't want to do that. | ||
| I am the one. | ||
| I mean, there's a bunch of producers who have signed on. | ||
| A lot more are going to sign on. | ||
| I'm the one paying for this. | ||
| And I'm paying so AXS TV isn't hurt. | ||
| Whereas I can find plenty of lawyers who are ready to go right out and go up against the city and AXS television and anybody else that's involved in this. | ||
| And I know the city's not afraid of that. | ||
| You guys are up here with billion-dollar bond proposals or half-a-billion-dollar bond proposals. | ||
| The point is that AXS television is very, very important. | ||
| Just to give people some background, let me just read Stephen's press release. | ||
| ACTV producers go to court over free speech. | ||
| Austin, Texas producers at Austin Community Television, ACTV, who oppose the ACTV board of directors' moves to limit free speech and expand commercialism on Austin's public television channel, Senate 1116, are taking their fight to court. | ||
| And we will remind you, this is the birthplace of Axis Television, years before Congress codified it. | ||
| And years before the deregulation of 1996, AXS TV was born here. | ||
| This is the Independence Hall of AXS television. | ||
| We have former city council members who have shows like George Humphrey. | ||
| We have black shows, white shows, Hispanic shows, people shows, libertarian shows, Democracy Now!, Republicans, pro-lifers. | ||
| It's all on there. | ||
| It's beautiful. | ||
| And today, Attorney Steve Gibbons, on behalf of six ACTV producers, and we've got a lot more that want to sign on, just these six filled out all the paperwork. | ||
| It's filing a petition in Travis County District Court in order to depose and subpoena records from ACTV board members and ACTV director John Villarreal. | ||
| On July 22nd, ACTV board members and executive management announced a reorganization of the channels that would effectively limit free speech programming to one channel, Channel 10. The board says it will be called free TV. Austin's free speech and non-commercial public access television channels are threatened by the board's channel reorganization. | ||
| Said Stephan Ray, ACTV producer for the program Democracy Now. | ||
| Producers taking this legal step represent both sides of the political spectrum. | ||
| We get into that. | ||
| One of them is George Woolley, myself, Alex Jones, Stephan Ray, and others. | ||
| The board's limits on free speech go against the charter of ACTV, said Jones. | ||
| By that I mean the original documents that established public access television 31 years ago. | ||
| The petition cites potential violations of the Texas Nonprofit Corporation Act, the Open Meetings Act, And I kind of disagree with that point. | ||
| We're going to move. | ||
| There's much more media issues. | ||
| The Time Warner franchise agreement, the city of Austin contract with ACTV and ACTV's own bylaws. | ||
| Now, let me give you evidence of what we're talking about. | ||
| Let's go to the latest evidence. | ||
| Last night, I told my lawyer this was going to happen on Monday or Tuesday. | ||
| I said, hold off. | ||
| I just, you know, I know this is the right thing to do, but I don't want to get in this because once I get in this fight, I'm going to go all the way. | ||
| I'm sure people are going to buck up and get all, you know, get their chest out, and then it gets really serious. | ||
| I can't imagine the investigations we've done, the stuff we've found. | ||
| And so last night we go to this board meeting that was going to select this puppet board, which I'm a member of, that just advises. | ||
| And we went through these arguments about it all, being producers, and they said, well, they'll look at it a later day, but we did elect some people, and I'm on that little subcommittee. | ||
| And then I said, let's go into L.S. Teca down the street, one of my favorite little restaurants. | ||
| So I go over there, and we've got like 15 people there, and I'm sitting across the table. | ||
| John Villarreal, and I have four witnesses to this, and two of them now sworn this into the court record. | ||
| And I say, so can't we just stop this talk of restricting free speech, what's in your minutes, doing all this? | ||
| And John says, well, in September, you're going to get a handout. | ||
| We've already paid for our new series and done all this and jumped through all the hoops. | ||
| You do that each year. | ||
| That happens right now. | ||
| The deadline's August 31st. | ||
| And he goes, well, Alex, we're going to give you a little handout about 11 and 16, and you're going to be on 10. And we're going to tell you what your program is and where it can be and what channel. | ||
| Because I won't be able to be on those channels because you can't criticize anybody on those channels. | ||
| It's in their own minutes. | ||
| And I'm going, you're saying this in front of people. | ||
| We're here trying to work this out. | ||
| I've been to like six, seven meetings. | ||
| I talk to these board members at home and it's like talking to a brick wall. | ||
| I mean, either they're incredibly naive or they're slicker than senators I interview on my radio show. | ||
| I mean, it just keeps going and going and going. | ||
| It's like Ashcroft or something. | ||
| You know, there is no Patriot Act three months after it's enrolled, you know, the Patriot Act II, with the Speaker of the House, and I have the enrollment sheet from the Library of Congress. | ||
| I mean, I've got their minutes. | ||
| I've got all this stuff. | ||
| He's sitting there telling this, and I look to Lee Hill, R. Lee Hill, one of the board members, and I say, Lee, he's sitting right next to me. | ||
| I say, Lee, is this true that, you know, you guys keep denying this to the media, but it's in your minutes. | ||
| Now John just said this. | ||
| Is it true that I won't be able to be on Channel 10? | ||
| And he says, yes, it's true. | ||
| We hope you'll be able to be on Channel 10. I go, so I can't be on 11 or 16? | ||
| And he said, no. | ||
| And I said, he goes, it's the plan. | ||
| I go, what's the plan? | ||
| We can't talk about it. | ||
| It's smoky and foggy, Alex. | ||
| This in front of witnesses. | ||
| A whole table of people. | ||
| And I'm sitting there dealing with this. | ||
| I've been on Access Television as a guest for 10 years, on the air for 8 years. | ||
| I love the place so much. | ||
| We've reached hundreds of thousands of people. | ||
| So many good people can go down there and speak out in this ever-consolidated media. | ||
| And I just got word that Denver Access is being shut down in a month. | ||
| Houston just got shut down a month and a half ago. | ||
| They're shutting them down everywhere. | ||
| And it's incredible. | ||
| The establishment doesn't want us to have this. | ||
| So we can criticize the toll roads, we can criticize the checkpoints, we can criticize the police state, the people's voice nationwide, every week some new established 25, 30 year old access station is being shut down and in some cases it's this slick maneuver of, oh we're commercializing it or we're going to change his designation or we're going to have a program director and he says if you get a show. | ||
| That's not what access television is supposed to be all about. | ||
| And so I just start typing the board members names into Google. | ||
| I mean, literally on Saturday night, my wife comes down at 2 in the morning. | ||
| Honey, stop it. | ||
| I've got just stacks of stuff. | ||
| It gets more and more nightmarish. | ||
| And I'm going to look at Ron Frank's own website, ronfrank.com. | ||
| It says in corporate comments, you know, top thing, Time Warner, we love you. | ||
| You're our favorite consultant. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| Can't wait to have you back again. | ||
| Austin Time Warner, head of, you know, personnel management and development. | ||
| And I go out to other board members, and they've got big media companies, and they're former heads of major record labels, and they've got big fancy entertainment educational companies, and then I've heard, we're going to have education on Channel 16, and can't have bad stuff around that. | ||
| We're going to get grants, and all the pieces start going boom, boom, boom. | ||
| Then I go down layer after layer and layer after layer of stuff I don't even want to bring up here. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| I mean, it's amazing. | ||
| And this is a fight we're going to win. | ||
| Either with the public perception or with the council or in the courts. | ||
| And man, I've been spending 20, 30 hours a week on this. | ||
| It's exhausting, but I'm going to keep doing it. | ||
| I'm going to keep moving forward. | ||
| I'm going to continue to expose this. | ||
| And I smelled a big, fat rat. | ||
| And then we found a big, fat rat. | ||
| And, you know, the big, fat, dead rat underneath the floorboards. | ||
| And I'm saying, can we just recognize this thing? | ||
| And all I keep asking the board to do is please say that you will... | ||
| Not restrict us off these channels. | ||
| They go, it's not a free speech restriction. | ||
| It's just that if you criticize, you won't be on them. | ||
| And you will be on 10. And that's most of the shows. | ||
| We'll be on 10, where it's all controlled, and now we're taking channels that are established and censoring people off of them. | ||
| Their position in the bylaws, in the city contract, we have all this in the brief. | ||
| I mean, it's like this thick. | ||
| All the rules, you know, the state, city, county. | ||
| Everything. | ||
| It's all in there. | ||
| The contracts, everything. | ||
| And it clearly states they can't get involved in any content. | ||
| And I remember years ago, the totally different attitude of John Villarreal, who I've always thought was a really nice person. | ||
| When somebody would be on the air, you know, threatening me and saying, this is where Alex lives and stuff. | ||
| And I went to him and I said, you know, you might want to kick this person off. | ||
| And he says, no, handle it with the courts. | ||
| You know what? | ||
| I did. | ||
| That was my experience. | ||
| And I went and it worked great. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| He said, look, We would have liability if we started deciding what's on. | ||
| That's what's kept us safe. | ||
| They've never had a problem for 31 years. | ||
| You know, what, a decade ago they had an InfoSex thing. | ||
| Nothing compared to, you know, Janet Jackson or whatever at the Super Bowl. | ||
| I mean, they have a really good history. | ||
| This is something that protects them. | ||
| So I'm also trying to protect an Austin institution. | ||
| Believe me, I mean, I'm on 87 radio stations. | ||
| I make documentaries that are sold all over the world. | ||
| I do interviews on the biggest shows. | ||
| I mean, I don't need access to television anymore. | ||
| But I love it. | ||
| I have a passion for it because it stands up against tyranny, and it's an Austin landmark and institution. | ||
| You know, I'm trying to stand up for acts of television because what it is for the community and for those that haven't got the chance to get out and have their voices heard and to get involved. | ||
| And I just dearly love it, and there is so much more to this story and so many serious things that are happening. | ||
| And I talked to the board. | ||
| Some of the members of the board, some of the members seem like they're willing to listen and try to back off these past rules and laws that they have brought in, regulations, that would restrict speech. | ||
| But then as soon as one has said they don't want to do it, then another denies it, then another says, yes, we're going to do it, and you're going to be given a handout in a month telling you what channels you can be on. | ||
| So I would ask the council that is the true elected body in... | ||
| Austin, Texas, to send interrogatories, letters, registered letters to the board, and demand from them all of these working group minutes for yourself, so you can find out what these true notes are, so you can see it for yourself. | ||
| And we're going to bring you, I wasn't aware that you hadn't seen the minutes, and obviously you're very busy, we'll bring you the minutes of the stuff we've gotten. | ||
| First thing they do is come in Months and months and months ago, what month was that where they set aside the rules, Stephen? | ||
| April. | ||
| And they go, we're going to move to set aside rules that could block us from our new plan. | ||
| I mean, and then we say, well, what are the rules you set aside? | ||
| We don't know what you're talking about. | ||
| That's a mistake in the minutes. | ||
| And then, okay, well, what's this? | ||
| A few months later, about if somebody criticizes or critiques another religion, people are off the air. | ||
| We don't know what that is. | ||
| My, that's another mistake. | ||
| And then one of the board members... | ||
| She gets up at the Millennium Center at one of these forums and is asked about it, and she goes, well, we're for that because, you know, this could hurt people's feelings by criticizing other religions. | ||
| And I'm a realtor, and I almost lost a sale because somebody would want to sell to one religion because they heard something on ACTV. Well, it's not our problem if somebody criticizes some religion. | ||
| That's what religions do. | ||
| You're not going to have anything on Channel 11 if this starts happening. | ||
| I mean, period. | ||
| One religion doesn't say, we're the one, we've got all the... | ||
| I mean, it's crazy. | ||
| I mean, I've never heard of... | ||
| Russia has more free speech than this. | ||
| That is, they don't say you can't say something that's hurtful to a religion or you can't criticize a group. | ||
| I mean, it's amazing. | ||
| I'm not even kidding. | ||
| I mean, AXS TV is supposed to be all about free speech. | ||
| The birthplace of it, you know, this is now happening to it. | ||
| And again, we are legally going in to bring them in for depositions. | ||
| It's a tort reform. | ||
| And we're not even seeking money at this point. | ||
| We simply want to leave the institution alone so that it is not damaged, and so its protective membrane of free speech is not damaged, their content neutral position as providers to the community. | ||
| We don't want our individual free speech and what we do with our shows to be damaged. | ||
| We don't want any of the producers to be damaged. | ||
| I've been to four or five of these producer meetings, and there might be one producer out of 200 people that shows up. | ||
| That gets up and says they're for it. | ||
| I don't even think there's been one producer that's gotten up. | ||
| But the point is, I've never seen anyone at these meetings get up who's for this. | ||
| We are the true constituents, the producers of AXS TV. And we've had hundreds of viewers show up to this. | ||
| They're all against what's happening. | ||
| We call... | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| The staff. | ||
| I have privately talked to all... | ||
| I think... | ||
| Wait. | ||
| Every member of the staff but John Villarreal. | ||
| Or maybe one other. | ||
| Who is for this? | ||
| They all hate it. | ||
| In the first meeting, when this was announced, first board meeting, there were shouting matches. | ||
| People who'd been there decades said, what is your problem? | ||
| You can't do that. | ||
| You know, the analogy is, and then I'll wrap up if you've got any questions. | ||
| The analogy is, let's say we have a city-owned golf course, 100 years old, giant oak trees. | ||
| This has happened in other cities. | ||
| There's a lot of case law on this. | ||
| And the city says, well, we've got our board, and they say they're turning it down and putting an amusement park. | ||
| The amusement people are going to pay $50 million for this. | ||
| Everybody goes completely ape, there's lawsuits, and that board's thrown off. | ||
| So the board can say, we're God, we can do whatever they want, but they're not. | ||
| They're there to serve Austinites, serve producers. | ||
| They're to uphold the standard of what it is. | ||
| They're not there to say, let's tear down the golf course, cut down all the oak trees, and set up Coney Island. | ||
| This place has a mission, and that mission is being violated clearly from their minutes. | ||
| And then we have board members getting up on TV and saying we're going to have control and oversight over the shows and what is done. | ||
| And we have multiple board members saying it. | ||
| And then when the news calls them, they go, there's no free speech violation. | ||
| It's amazing. | ||
| And it's very Machiavellian. | ||
| Very Machiavellian. | ||
| And I have been open to discussions on this issue. | ||
| I have tried to get them to back off their position. | ||
| I have begged. | ||
| I have pleaded. | ||
| And that was only taken by most of the board members. | ||
| As a sign of weakness. | ||
| When in truth, I was simply trying to mediate this in an unofficial way so it's not escalated. | ||
| But now we're in the fight. | ||
| We're going all the way to defend free speech in the Lone Star City, in the Lone Star State, deep in the heart of Texas. | ||
| And I want to thank all those that came out. | ||
| I just mentioned it once on the radio. | ||
| I want to thank all those that came out today and gave us their time. | ||
| And just God bless you. | ||
| And I just beg this council to Then they claim, yeah, we've had council members that complain. | ||
| They won't tell us who. | ||
| Then you call McCracken's office and they say, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory. | ||
| And then our sources inside the telecommunications system at the highest levels, I don't think we want to give those names out, but Stephan's been conferring with them, looked in the files. | ||
| There's been, on average, 12 complaints a year about AXS TV. I mean, my God, I have a little sandwich shot on the road from me, probably gets 12 complaints a day. | ||
| And they admit that they've got over a thousand phone calls at McCracken's office saying they don't want this. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| And the Chronicle was saying when they wrote that hit They were getting 500 calls every 30 minutes when people were calling down there. | ||
| And I would imagine your offices have gotten calls about this. | ||
| So we want free speech. | ||
| It is popular. | ||
| And so they've tried to tell us there's no funding. | ||
| We look at the funding, it's actually increased. | ||
| While most government departments have decreased. | ||
| They have slightly increased when most government departments and government people watch and know Pay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And. | ||
| John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And I've been friends with John. | ||
| He was just Mr. Free Speech, a bigger defender of free speech than the former executive director. | ||
| And it's been a 180. And it's very sad. | ||
| It's been very painful for me. |
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