The Fox News Network is suing comedian Al Franken in an effort to block publication of his upcoming new book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.

The mainstream broadcast media in the U.S. have thus far avoided reviewing Weapons of Mass Deception, the new book by PR Watch editors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber. Nevertheless, the book debuted this week at #4 on the San Francisco Chronicle's paperback best-seller list.

"After years as political agnostics, the programmers and engineers who orchestrated the technological revolution of the 1990s are trying to reboot government," writes Joseph Menn. "They have money, earned during the boom. They have time, found since the bust. And they are using their technological savvy to recruit even casual Internet users to their causes." Menn looks at the new "techno-populists" such as MoveOn.org and DigitalConsumer.org.