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Mainstream media (MSM) is a term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large mass news media that influence a large number of people, and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought.[1] The term is used to contrast with alternative media which may contain content with more dissenting thought as they do not reflect prevailing opinion.

The term is often used for large news conglomerates, including newspapers and broadcast media, that underwent successive mergers in many countries. The concentration of media ownership has raised concerns of a homogenization of viewpoints presented to news consumers. Consequently, the term mainstream media has been widely used in conversation and the blogosphere, often in oppositional, pejorative, or dismissive senses, in discussion of the mass media and media bias.

According to philosopher Noam Chomsky, media organizations with an elite audience such as CBS News and The New York Times, successful corporations with the assets necessary to engage in original reporting, set the tone for other smaller news organizations which lack resources by creating conversations that cascade down to smaller news organizations using the Associated Press and other means of aggregation. An elite mainstream sets the agenda and smaller organizations parrot it.[1]

The advent of the Internet allowed the expression of a more diverse or alternative viewpoint which may contrast to mainstream media, to the point where the term mainstream media is seen in pejorative terms.[2]

Lamestream media is a common pejorative alternative. Sarah Palin referred to "lamestream media," notably around 2009 during her participation in the Tea Party Express, in the context of what she perceived as media misrepresentation of the Tea Party movement.[3][4][5]

Another term, originating on anonymous message boards, for the Mainstream Media is the anacronym "MSM". The terms is widely used by many on 4chan and Reddit, often as shorthand for the phrase "Mainstream Media".

In the United States, movie production is known to have been dominated by major studios since the early 20th Century; before that, there was a period in which Edison's Trust monopolized the industry.[citation needed] In the early twenty-first century the music and television industries was subject to media consolidation, with Sony Music Entertainment's parent company merging their music division with Bertelsmann AG's BMG to form Sony BMG and Tribune's The WB and CBS Corp.'s UPN merging to form The CW. In the case of Sony BMG there existed a "Big Five", later "Big Four", of major record companies, while The CW's creation was an attempt to consolidate ratings and stand up to the "Big Four" of American network (terrestrial) television (although the CW was actually partially owned by one of the Big Four in CBS). In television, the vast majority of broadcast and basic cable networks, over a hundred in all, are controlled by eight corporations: News Corporation (the Fox family of channels), The Walt Disney Company (which includes the ABC, ESPN and Disney brands), National Amusements (which includes CBS Corporation and Viacom), Comcast (which includes the NBC brands), Time Warner, Discovery Communications, E. W. Scripps Company, Cablevision, or some combination thereof.[6]

There may also be some large-scale owners in an industry that are not the causes of monopoly or oligopoly. Clear Channel Communications, especially since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, acquired many radio stations across the United States, and came to own more than 1,200 stations. However, the radio broadcasting industry in the United States and elsewhere can be regarded as oligopolistic regardless of the existence of such a player. Because radio stations are local in reach, each licensed a specific part of spectrum by the FCC in a specific local area, any local market is served by a limited number of stations. In most countries, this system of licensing makes many markets local oligopolies. The similar market structure exists for television broadcasting, cable systems and newspaper industries, all of which are characterized by the existence of large-scale owners. Concentration of ownership is often found in these industries.[citation needed]

In the United States, data on ownership and market share of media companies is not held in the public domain.[citation needed]

Over time the rate of media mergers has increased, while the number of media outlets has also increased. This has resulted in a higher concentration of ownership, with fewer companies owning more media outlets. In 1983, 90% of US media was controlled by fifty companies; today, 90% is controlled by just six companies.[7]

(*) As of July 2013, News Corporation was split into two separate companies, with publishing assets and Australian media assets going to News Corp, and broadcasting and media assets going to 21st Century Fox.[10]

Although Viacom and CBS Corporation have been separate companies since 2006, they are both partially owned subsidiaries of the private National Amusements company, headed by Sumner Redstone. As such, Paramount Home Entertainment handles DVD/Blu-ray distribution for most of the CBS Corporation library.

A 2012 Gallup poll found that Americans' distrust in the mainstream media was higher than it had ever been, with 60% saying they had little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust had increased since the previous few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been before 2004.[11]

Throughout 2016, Google and Facebook had been targeted to disperse a substantial amount of fake news, with the aim, it was claimed, of confusing Americans about various topics. Following the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election and during the campaign, Americans who supported Hillary Clinton were especially enraged about the noticeable amount of fake news about the election on the two websites. It was said that Facebook has been targeted in order to sway the American people with a particular agenda during the electoral cycle, although the chief executive of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg stated that "Facebook did not have a role in the recent presidential campaign". It was also reported that the insurmountable number of "fake news" posts about the election had increased the number of Americans distrusting the media.[12]

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Mainstream media - Wikipedia

President Donald Trump announced he was running for office on June 16, 2015. The following day, white supremacist Dylann Roof opened fire in a historically black church located in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people in the hopes of launching an all-out race war.

Of course, those two events aren't directly linked. "But its certainly symbolic,"Heidi Beirich, director of Southern Poverty Law Centers Intelligence Project, tells Newsweek.

"There doesnt seem to be a single marginalized population that was left out of the emboldened reaction to this election,"she said. "There has been a massive explosion of violence across the country, and an increase in the number of hate crimes against virtually all minority groups. The numbers are definitely going up in 2017."

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Two years after Roof sat in on a bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, before taking out his gun and shooting the local parishioners, reports of hate crimes against black, Muslim, LGBTI, Sikh, Jewish and Hispanic communities have only continued to surge. Meanwhile, groups like SPLC and the Human Rights Campaign say battling the rise in hate-based violence will largely take place online in the coming years, where racists and those prone to committing attacks against minorities feed off of radicalized content and fake news.

A church youth group from Dothan, Alabama praying in front of the Emanuel AME Church on the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting on July 17, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. John Moore, Getty

When looking at the data, it becomes immediately clear that spikes in hate crimes and racial tension havent only impacted black communities, like the Episcopal Church. There were at least 1,314 reported cases of anti-Muslim bias in 2014, according to the FBIs annual Uniform Crime Report. By 2016, that annual figure soared to 2,213.

Anti-Semitic incidents also rose in 2015, the latest year the Anti-Defamation League has data on, rising three percent to 941 total incidents nationwide.

Of all the hate crimes carried out that year, over 48 percent were committed by whites.

"We know that the normalization of violence, particularly against marginalized people, creates a culture of complicity and acceptance of hate based violence,"Sarah McBride, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, tells Newsweek. "We also see that the political climate fosters violence. As anti-transgender measures are introduced across the country and the rhetoric is turned up, we are hearing from the community an increased vulnerability of harassment in their daily lives."

In total, hate crimes rose from 5,479 reported incidents in 2014 to 5,800 the next year, when Roof made his decision to act on a months-long quest he had documented at length across the web and on his racist website, TheLastRhodesian.com.

Roof, who wassentencedto death on Jan. 10, 2017,was reportedly an avid reader of Daily Stormer, a hate-mongering website loaded with racial conspiracy theories, fake news and anti-Semitism. The sites readership also included James Jackson, who penned a suicide manifesto before driving from Baltimore to New York to kill a random black man with a sword, as well as Thomas Mair, an extremist loner who murdered BritishParliament member Jo Cox.

The 23-year-old also searched on Google for information about the case of Trayvon Martin, in which George Zimmerman shot and killed the 17-year-old black teenager, and more broadly about information on crime statistics.

"I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up it was obvious Zimmerman was in the right," Roofwrote on his site."But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words 'black on White crime' into Google, and I have never been the same since that day."

His search led him first to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a right-wing group documenting black on white crime and publishing gruesome content online. Roof says the information he absorbed online led him to believe there was a much deeper issue of violence targeting whites than the widely-reported Martin case, even though all of the data across the country supports the opposite notion: the United States is dealing with a racially-based crime issue of whites attacking blacks and other minorities.

To this day, fake news sites like Daily Wire appear on a Google search of "black on white crime"before the FBIs fact-based statistics.

A Google search for "black on white crime" shows misleading sites like Daily Wire ahead of fact-based data published by the FBI on June 16, 2017. Chris Riotta, Newsweek

"Theres been a general loss of civility in online discussions on race, gender and religion,"Beirich said. "Maybe if Google displayed factual results for Dylann Roof instead of misinformation at the top of their news pages, we wouldnt be here, facing the anniversary of his massacre."

Though there arent statistics to indicate broad trends in hate crimes throughout 2017 yet, violence against marginalized communities is seemingly continuingto soar, specifically against trans women of color, the LGBTI community and Muslims. The SPLC reported 1,372 reported bias incidents between the November election and early February, just after Trump was sworn in.

"We have to as a society understand the urgent crisis and epidemic of violence that we find ourselves facing, and we must not tolerate the kind of hate, discrimination and violence that is all too common,"McBride says. "Hate breeds discrimination, discrimination often times breeds violence. These are all connected to one another. We cant tolerate hate, we cant allow hate to foster in our laws and in our hearts. Thats why its on all of us to take action to stand up to speak out."

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After Dylann Roof Shooting, Hate Crime Rates Are Soaring Because of Fake News - Newsweek

First of all, its not like this is really a new argument theGOP has decided to put forward following this shooting. Just a few days prior, Eric Trump railed about the hate that has been heaped on him and his father following a report that The Donald had been skimming money from Erics charity foundation directly into his own pockets.

In reviewing filings from the Eric Trump Foundation and other charities, it's clear that the course wasn't free--that the Trump Organization received payments for its use, part of more than $1.2 million that has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization. Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.

Additionally, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which has come under previous scrutiny for self-dealing and advancing the interests of its namesake rather than those of charity, apparently used the Eric Trump Foundation to funnel $100,000 in donations into revenue for the Trump Organization.

Erics response to this report, which came from that dirty rotten hippy publication Forbes,was to argue that All Morality is gone and these are not even people. But its actually more telling to listen to what else he said because he made this not just personal, but into a specific target attack on the entire Democratic agenda in general.

Asked by host Hannity, Dont you wish you went to Washington so you could deal with this everyday? the presidents son sneered at Democrats.

Ive never seen hatred like this, he responded. To me, theyre not even people. It is so so sad.

Morality is just gone, he continued. Morals have flown out the window. We deserve so much better than this as a country. Its so sad you see the Democratic Party and they are imploding. Theyre imploding, they have no message. You see the head of the DNC who is a total whack-job. Theres no leadership there. And so what do they do? They become obstructionists because they have no message of their own.

Democrats are obstructionists because they have no message of their own? Frankly, the Republicans and the president havent even taken the first steps to try and reach out to Democrats on anything. Demsactually do have some fairly specific proposals on healthcare, but instead congressional Republicans passed a bill without their inputdespite a horrible CBO score and now the Senate Republicans are doing the same thing almost literally under the cover of night using a secret bill that no one has even seen.

I would argue that our agenda is to remain part of the Paris Climate Accord, to further investments in, and support of, clean and renewable energy sources rather than gut them, to retain and repair the Affordable Care Act rather than repeal it, to strive to make college affordable if not free, to address the opioid crises by increasing access to treatment rather than cutting that funding, to increase mobility for workers whove lost their jobs by helping them retrain for newly emerging industries rather than cutting that funding orgutting worker safety rulesand that stating that position or pointing out Trumps legal and ethical failings doesnt come from a place of hate. It comes from a place of truth.

Most peopledon't criticize Donald Trump because they hate him, its because they love America and seriously fear what he seems intent on doing to it, and to the rest of the world.

But now, after lastweeks shooting we have ongressional Republicans complaining that their constituents have come up to them and angrily said that theyre trying to get people killed [by repealing the ACA.] They argue thats not fair, and thats just so so mean.

Yeah, well, math, facts and commonsense show that between 25,000-36,000 people per year will likely die if ACA is repealed without a viable replacement:

Uninsured adults are at least 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults who have private insurance. See state-level breakdowns of the 26,100 people between the ages of 25 and 64 who died prematurely due to a lack of health insurance in 2010.

Nearly 36,000 people could die every year, year after year, if the incoming president signs legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act.

This figure is based on new data from the Urban Institute examining how many people will become uninsured if the law is repealed, as well as a study of mortality rates both before and after the state of Massachusetts enacted health reforms similar to Obamacare.

So when people say this, they arent beingmean,theyre being factual. This is not hate speech, thisis criticism. Fact-based criticism.

Civility is generally a good thing. But something I thinkbeing more civil isnt whats really being asked here. Yes, of course, we should focus and be critical of theissues and, where reasonable, refrain from demonizing any particular faction or group. But IMO thats not what these Republicans are asking for.Whats being asked isfor liberals to simplyshut up, and then all will be well.

I dont speak for anyone but myself, but I can pretty much guarantee thats. not. gonna. happen.

After the many previous mass shootings that have plagued the nation, the complaint from the right has typically beenNow is not the time to make things politicalwhen people mention that perhaps the reason so many people are getting killed by guns, might have something to do with the prevalence of guns themselves. In response, theyve often argued that this critiqueis an attack on everyones SecondAmendment Rights. Asking for trigger locks is too much. Asking for comprehensive background checks is too much. Our rights are clearly more important than the lives lost.

It doesnt matter that America averages 33,000 deaths per year as a result of firearms.It doesnt matter that over 60% of those deathsare suicides by people who are perfectly legal gun owners, not criminals, not gangbangers, not terrorists. Itdoesn't matter that the Alexandria shooting was the 154th mass shooting so far this year, and not even the only mass shooting to occur that same day.It doesnt matter that this particular shooter was a legal gun owner, who had a history of violence against women and perhaps that has as much do with his final actions as anything specifically political. We maynever really going to know for sure what his motivations truly were.

But none of that matters because we have to protect our rights, damnit.

Now were told that the real problem isnt that we have more guns in the nation than we have people, its because some people have the nerve to use their First Amendment rights totalk too much and that theyare just too vulgar.

Talking with Fox News, Gingrich pointed fingers at left-wing hysteria that he says has exploded ever since President Donald Trumps election last fall, as evidenced by Kathy Griffins latest stunt in which she held up a likeness of Trumps severed head.

The intensity on the left is very real, Gingrich said. Whether its a so-called comedian holding up the presidents head in blood, or its right here, in New York City, a play that shows the president being assassinated. Or its Democratic leading national politicians who are so angry they have to use vulgarity because they cant find any common language.

Right, so Kathy Griffins joke-failwiththe fake Trump head that hadblood coming out of his whereveris why a guygrabbed a gun and went after Republicans?

Remind me exactly who was it that invited Ted Nugentwho once said Barack Obama and Eric Holder needed their heads chopped off and Hillary Clinton should be hangedto the White House for dinner again?

Then again, maybe its all the fault of Shakespeare?

[Don] Trump Jr. retweeted a report about those witness claims, and he also approved another tweet by a conservative commentator linking the shootings to a recent production of Shakespeares Julius Caesar that depicted the presidents assassination.

Because its not like somebodythought to do the same thing, a modern day version of Julius Ceasar including the assassination of the head of state, when Obama was president.

Except that they did in 2012.

While Delta Air Lines and Bank of America have dropped their sponsorships of New Yorks Public Theater over a President Trump-inspired staging of Shakespeares Julius Caesar, corporate sponsors at the Guthrie Theater had no public reaction to a 2012 staging that featured a black actor in the role of Caesar.

Caesar is stabbed to death in the middle of the play.

I am a person that believes that hateful rhetoric can sometimes inspirenegative outcomes, so Im not ignoring the center of their concern.But I do think theres a difference between strong rhetoric and violently dangerous hateful rhetoric. Theres a difference between strong speech built on facts and hate speech built on lies, and I have my doubts that many ofthe Republicans really know that difference at all.Theyre just using this tragedy as an opportunity to attack the First Amendment rights of those they oppose while taking no responsibility of their own.

For example, there was the time this guy showed up a pizza parlor because someone was promoting a totallyfalse story that Hillary Clinton and John Podestawerelinked to a child prostitution ring. And Imnot just saying he was there because of thatstory.He said he was there with a gun because of that story.

A North Carolina man was arrested Sunday after he walked into a popular pizza restaurant in Northwest Washington carrying an assault rifle and fired one or more shots, D.C. police said. The man told police he had come to the restaurant to self-investigate a false election-related conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton that spread online during her presidential campaign.

I for one do not recall Republicans criticizing the deliberate spreading of this false story and finding fault with the media outlets that pushed it without having a shred of proof.But now, today we have this:

Fox News anchor Melissa Francis then played a clip from Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) who said some of his best friends are Democrats and that the House passes a lot of bipartisan legislation, but its the major issues that lead to political discourse that has in my opinion, led to such an uptick in just hateful, hateful rhetoric of all sides, and I stand here today and say stop. We have to stop.

BERGMAN: I agree with Rodney wholeheartedly in that the hateful rhetoric serves no positive purpose. In fact, today it served a negative purpose. But unfortunately, and Im looking at all the media in the eye when I say this: friendships and cordial relationships dont make good news. So I can tell you, especially as the president of the freshman class of Republicans, we are united along with our Democratic freshman counterparts to bring civility back to the 115th Congress.

FRANCIS: So you think its the medias fault?

BERGMAN: I think the media is complicit if they keep inciting, as opposed to informing.

The media areinciting instead of informing? You mean inciting like telling people what the CBO score for Trumpcare is?Yeah, okay.

I just have to say Im skeptical of Republicans who claim they really want to stop all the hateful, hateful rhetoric on all sides.Its not like we heard all this Kumbahyah talk when it was suggested that somebody may have helpedincite violence against dozens of congressional offices by using a map placing targets on their districtsI didnt hear Republicans saying people shouldnt do that.

Gabrielle GIffords is who said it.

On April 23, 2010, an angry phone call came into a congressmans office in Tucson, Arizona. The voice on the line was a male, on the young side, brimming with fury over immigration. The caller announced he was going to come down there and blow the brains out of the congressman and his staff, an aide later recalled. Then the caller said he would do the same to Mexicans crossing the border. Minutes later, police evacuated the offices of Rep. Ral Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat whose congressional district sits immediately to the west of Gabrielle Giffords. [...]

As several media outlets reported, the door to Giffords Tucson congressional office was vandalized last March after her vote in favor of the health-care bill. But the event that ratcheted up the violent chatter was the April signing of Senate Bill 1070, an Arizona law that gave local police broad powers to discover illegal immigrants.

As shown by the above video, it was Gabriel Giffords herself who brought up the issue of the crosshairs map before she was ultimately shot in head, and fiveothers persons were killed, by a crazed shooter in Tucson later that year.

But rather than denounce rhetoric that actually did promoteviolence and vandalismat the time, instead what we heard back then was Blood Libel.An argument based on the ideathat Giffordsherself pointingout the incitement, was itself asource of the incitement.

To his credit Rep. Steve Scalise himself had much better things to say about Giffords than Palin did.

Still as a result of all this, I dont take these fresh newplatitudes all that seriously. I reallydont think theyre sincere because there have been plenty of chances for that sincerity to be shown, and repeatedly they have failed.

We didnt hearthis call for civility and unity from the GOPafter Sandy Hook which Trump-pal Alex Jones says was a false flag and Paul Ryan said Obama was only talking about it to distract from his failed policies,not after the Holocaust Museum Shooter who was planning to target David Axelrod, or the Knoxville Unitarian Church Shooter,which was an attack on liberals inspired by a book from a frequent OReilly guest, or Dylann Roofs murder spree in Charleston in reaction to the trial of George Zimmerman and right-wing rhetoric about excessive black violencepushed by the CCC and oftenshown on Bill OReillysprogram, or the attempted attack on the Oakland ACLU and Tides Foundation inspired by the overblownrhetoric of Glenn Beck about those organizations, or the Las Vegas cop killers who were from the Bundy compoundand said they wanted to spark a revolution against the government, orthe attack on Planned Parenthood inspired a by phony video by right-wing anti-abortion activists, or the Alt-Reich Nation killer who knifed ROTC Cadet Lt. Richard Collins to death earlier this year, or the Sikh Temple shooter who mistakenly thought the worshiperswere Muslim, or last months terrorist in Portland who killed two bystanders with a knife after harassing a pair of Muslim girls, or the more1,000 Hate crimes that sparked up immediately after Trumps election.

Im not holding my breath that things are suddenly gonna get all unity-like because Rep. Scalise was shot in the hip.Hopefully, he and all the rest recoversafely.But Im terribly sorry I just cant take empty meaningless platitudes like thisseriously.

Or this.

To which I say...

Sure Im a skeptic, but Im not a cynic. Im not saying theres absolutely no hope.If the GOP can take responsibility and apologize for their ownparticipation in this escalating rhetoricthe way that Kathy Griffin apologized within hoursI just might believe them. Maybe.

I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it had came up when Trump was saying "KNOCK THE CRAPOUT OF THEM!" tohis rally crowds.

I might believe the GOP was sincere aboutharsh rhetoric if it came up when Trump was saying "I'll pay for your lawyers fees" to beat protesters.

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoricif it came up when Trump said 3-5 million illegal votes were cast against him.

I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if they didn't lie about "Voter Fraud" while gerrymandering and suppressing the Democraticand minorityvote.

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoricif it came up when Trump said Judge Curiel was too racist a Mexican to make a fair decision.

I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it came up when Trump said Gold Star Father Khazir Khan was allied with ISIS.

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoricif it came up when Trump said Mexicans were rapists, killers and criminals. And some, a few, were good people.

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoric if it they had ever said the same thing to #AltRightbigoted so-called free speech championtrolls like Miloor Richard Spencer.

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoricif it they ever recognized a terrorist when he's a white guy andhis victims are liberal, black or Muslim.

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoric if, when Russia wageda CyberWar against America, they wouldnt stick their heads in the sand or else#BlameObama for something he once said to Medvedev.

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoric if they didn't call the findings of all 17 intelligence agencies and the investigation of18 different mysterious contacts with Russians a "witch hunt."

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoric if people likeJason Miller werent calling Senator Kamala Harris "hysterical" for asking Jeff Sessionstough questions.

I might believe the GOP was sincereabout harsh rhetoric if it came up when Eric Trump was saying his fathers critics were"not even people."

I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoricif so many of them hadntsaid Barack Obama was an illegal alien with a falsified birth certificate, anillegitimate president, a secret Muslim, an Arabthe anti-Christ, a communist, a socialist, a liar, a criminal, a drug dealer, a welfare thug-in-chief, a food-stampPresident, was incompetent, a fraud,aradical black liberation theology Kenyan Mau Mau revolutionist anti-colonial who simply wasnt smart enough to get into Harvard or become editor of theHarvard Law Review without affirmative action, who neededBill Ayers to ghost-writehis own best-selling book about his own life and fatherbecause hereallyhated America and all it stood forandwhen they werefeeling boldwas a nigger.

But none of that has happened. Not yet. We havent heard an apology for any of it either. Im not expecting we will.

As a result I have no intention of backing off the Republicans or Trumpwith what I have to say about them or their policies one iota.I will not be giving them an inch. The state of my dangerously factual liberal rhetoric will remain strong, and it will remain loud.

And to be honest, I lied, Im not sorry about it at all. Not even slightly.

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The state of my dangerous liberal rhetoric will remain strong and loud - Daily Kos

After a leaked National Security Agency document alleged Russian operatives attempted to hack into a Florida voter polling software company used by Humboldt County in the 2016 presidential election, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla sent a letter to the federal agency Thursday questioning why the state was not notified earlier.

As the chief elections officer in the most populous state in the nation, I am seriously concerned about the NSAs failure to provide timely and critical information to Americas elections officials, Padilla wrote to NSA Director Admiral Michael Rogers. ... We must be prepared and remain vigilant. Proper preparation requires clear and consistent collaboration among federal, state, and local officials. The NSA cannot afford to sit on critical information that could be used to defend against cyber-attacks.

The five-page classified National Security Agency memo from May that was leaked to the news website The Intercept stated Russias military intelligence unit, the GRU, hacked into the Florida-based voting software company, VR Systems, in August 2016. VR Systems provided voter polling software to Hart InterCivic, which the Humboldt County Elections Office contracted with to provide voter e-polling software.

County officials said that there is no evidence that the hacking attempts were successful or that Humboldt County was a target, and that the e-polling software is not involved in vote counting.

Humboldt County is the only county in the state that contracted through VR Systems, according to the Governors Office of Emergency Services.

The Office of Emergency Services and Secretary of States Office offered aid to the county last week to bolster its cyber-security systems, but County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Kelly Sanders and Information Technology Division Director Jim Storm said they are confident in the protections already in place.

Yes, [the Secretary of State] did some preliminary checks looking at known email addresses, Storm said to the Times-Standard last week. There was no evidence that we were hacked or anything like that.

Will Houston can be reached at 707-441-0504.

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Secretary of state expresses 'serious concern' with NSA after hacking document leaked - Eureka Times Standard

At the center of the gun control debate, few things are as hotly disputed in the United States as the Constitution's Second Amendment.

History of the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment provides U.S. citizens the right to bear arms. Ratified in December 1791, the amendment says:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

James Madison originally proposed the Second Amendment shortly after the Constitution was officially ratified as a way to provide more power to state militias, which today are considered the National Guard. It was deemed a compromise between Federalists those who supported the Constitution as it was ratified and the anti-Federalists those who supported states having more power. Having just used guns and other arms to ward off the English, the amendment was originally created to give citizens the opportunity to fight back against a tyrannical federal government.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the inalienable rights of citizens.

Interpretations of the Second Amendment

Since its ratification, Americans have been arguing over the amendment's meaning and interpretation. One side interprets the amendment to mean it provides for collective rights, while the opposing view is that it provides individual rights.

Those who take the collective side think the amendment gives each state the right to maintain and train formal militia units that can provide protection against an oppressive federal government. They argue the "well regulated militia" clause clearly means the right to bear arms should only be given to these organized groups. They believe this allows for only those in the official militia to carry guns legally, and say the federal government cannot abolish state militias.

Those with the opposite viewpoint believe the amendment gives every citizen the right to own guns, free of federal regulations, to protect themselves in the face of danger. The individualists believe the amendment's militia clause was never meant to restrict each citizen's rights to bear arms.

Both interpretations have helped shape the country's ongoing gun control debate. Those supporting an individual's right to own a gun, such as the National Rifle Association, argue that the Second Amendment should give all citizens, not just members of a militia, the right to own a gun. Those supporting stricter gun control, like the Brady Campaign, believe the Second Amendment isn't a blank check for anyone to own a gun. They feel that restrictions on firearms, such as who can have them, under what conditions, where they can be taken, and what types of firearms are available, are necessary.

The Supreme Court and the Second Amendment

While the right to bear arms is regularly debated in the court of public opinion, it is the Supreme Court whose opinion matters most. Yet despite an ongoing public battle over gun ownership rights, until recent years the Supreme Court had said very little on the issue.

The Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

One of the first rulings came in 1876 in U.S. v. Cruikshank. The case involved members of the Ku Klux Klan not allowing black citizens the right to standard freedoms, such as the right to assembly and the right to bear arms. As part of the ruling, the court said the right of each individual to bear arms was not granted under the Constitution. Ten years later, the court affirmed the ruling in Presser v. Illinois when it said that the Second Amendment only limited the federal government from prohibiting gun ownership, not the states.

The Supreme Court took up the issue again in 1894 in Miller v. Texas. In this case, Dallas' Franklin Miller sued the state of Texas, arguing that despite state laws saying otherwise, he should have been able to carry a concealed weapon under Second Amendment protection. The court disagreed, saying the Second Amendment does not apply to state laws, like Texas' restrictions on carrying dangerous weapons.

All three of the cases heard before 1900 cemented the court's opinion that the Bill of Rights, and specifically the Second Amendment, does not prohibit states from setting their own rules on gun ownership.

Until recently, the Supreme Court hadn't ruled on the Second Amendment since U.S. v. Miller in 1939. In that case, Jack Miller and Frank Layton were arrested for carrying an unregistered sawed-off shotgun across state lines, which had been prohibited since the National Firearms Act was enacted five years earlier. Miller argued that the National Firearms Act violated their rights under the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court disagreed, however, saying "in the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."

It would be nearly 70 years before the court took up the issue again, this time in the District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008. The case centered on Dick Heller, a licensed special police office in Washington, D.C., who challenged the nation's capital's handgun ban. For the first time, the Supreme Court ruled that despite state laws, individuals who were not part of a state militia did have the right to bear arms. As part of its ruling, the court wrote, "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."

The court would rule on the issue again two years later as part of McDonald v. City of Chicago, which challenged the city's ban on private handgun ownership. In a similar 5-to-4 ruling, the court affirmed its decision in the Heller case, saying the Second Amendment "applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Despite the recent rulings, the debate on gun control continues. Incidents like those in Aurora, Colo., and Sandy Hook, N.J., only serve as motivation for both sides to have their opinions heard and considered.

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The Second Amendment & the Right to Bear Arms