Secrecy, Privacy, Protectionism Everywhere

Strange confluence of events coming across my desk today. I have received emails or read blog posts about the following today:

• The National Football League has told news and sports Web site publishers that they may not publish more than 45 seconds of video footage shot at a team's facility if that footage involves anyone other than the standup reporter. They're afraid such video will interfere with their property rights and cut into their glutted revenue stream. What crap. (Details)
• Major League Baseball teams have been barring fans from carrying banners into the stands that they consider "in poor taste." They've been doing this for a while, but their sense of "poor taste" has taken a strange turn against sloganeering about Barry Bonds. WTF? (Details)
• High-tech PR firms are cracking down on programmers and other non-execs showing up on Web video interviews and blogs without the firms' permission. Which they never give, by the way. One wag was apparently fired for appearing on Robert Scoble's "ScobleShow"! (Details)

I can't help wondering if the Bush-Cheney Regime's policy of Government-in-the-Dark isn't contagious. We have lived through an era of the greatest reduction in individual liberties and freedoms in our nation's history. I hope we are nearing its end with the forced exit in a few hundred more long, tedious days of an administration that has absolutely zero respect for anyone outside their increasingly tightening inner circle.

(Thanks to Tony Seton for the pointage on the first two items above. And, Robert, if you read this, great shot of you on the front page of the Merc on Saturday. You looked genuinely excited about getting your iPhone!)