Republicans Introduce a Bill To Overturn Net Neutrality 441
New submitter grimmjeeper writes: IDG News reports, "A group of Republican lawmakers has introduced a bill that would invalidate the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's recently passed net neutrality rules. The legislation (PDF), introduced by Representative Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican, is called a resolution of disapproval, a move that allows Congress to review new federal regulations from government agencies, using an expedited legislative process."
This move should come as little surprise to anyone. While the main battle in getting net neutrality has been won, the war is far from over. The legislation was only proposed now because the FCC's net neutrality rules were just published in the Federal Register today. In addition to the legislation, a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by USTelecom, a trade group representing ISPs.
This move should come as little surprise to anyone. While the main battle in getting net neutrality has been won, the war is far from over. The legislation was only proposed now because the FCC's net neutrality rules were just published in the Federal Register today. In addition to the legislation, a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by USTelecom, a trade group representing ISPs.
Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
The open internet is one of the most democratizing things we have in a modern society, why is this even up for debate? What benefit would society have in enabling "Fast lanes" or "premium" connections or other nonsense? What do we get protecting commercial interests?
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, its called graft or bribery and is illegal in most other developed countries.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, its called graft or bribery and is illegal in most other developed countries.
Funny!
What other developed countries?
UK? Campaigners get government funds, political party funds, and unlimited contributions. There have been quite a few scandals in recent years where individuals receive over a quarter million pounds in a single donation, and it is all legal.
Germany? Again, government funds, plus government-mandated airtime distributed to the candidates. On top of that, individuals get whatever you can buy. No campaign contribution limits to corporations and the first roughly 3000 euro are tax deductible to encourage businesses to buy their local leaders.
France? Well, there are a huge number of tiny political factions, each well funded and owned by the local businesses. The small parties ensure the elections run favorably by making deals with other political parties (businesses).
Australia? Three decades ago they changed the law to move toward public funding in an attempt to remove private interests. The law was quickly and quietly revised to continue to allow both. Yet wikipedia claims over the last two decades, corporate donations have gone up 5x, from just under $30M to well over $130M publicly reported and millions more through other sources.
Italy? In most of the country, including the southern regions, the old families run everything. What most of the world terms "protection money" is considered basically a local tax. Corruption is rampant.
India? Greece? Just kidding, we all know these are above any form of political corruption.
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Because I have a god-given right to profit, that's why!
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that as if it didn't already happen anyway.
Here's a newsflash for you: there is no "free market" in telecom. It does not exist. It has never existed. It's all regulation, all the way down.
In actual reality, we have exactly two choice:
You'll note that not regulating at all IS NOT A GODDAMN CHOICE, so anyone who prefers option 1 to option 2 in the name of imaginary "competition" is either a shill or a moron.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Informative)
The issue is not open and unfettered internet vs. evil corporate control. It is one set of bureaucrats and corporations against another set of bureaucrats and corporations. Just because they use the words "net neutrality" doesn't mean there is anything neutrality related involved. Remember, the same national politicians got together to give us the Republic-led bipartisan "USA PATRIOT Act", which had absolutely nothing to do with patriotism.
False equivalence. Just because the Patriot Act was newspeak doesn't mean Net Neutrality is.
"free and open internet" as we knew it is not an option on the table. The discussion at hand is about how much power Washington will have to pick winners and losers in corporate fights. And who in Washington will wield that power.
Net Neutrality is not about giving Washington the power to pick winners and losers. It's about keeping that power out of the hands of service-providers.
Oh, and a few new fees and tacked-on unrelated regulations "just because".
Citation please?
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Net Neutrality regulations WERE a law passed by Congress! Specifically, Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, etc.).
The FCC isn't doing anything "new," it's just reclassifying Internet service providers from one category ("information service" to another ("telecommunications service"). And it's putting them in the category that they should have been in all along!
In other words, the FCC fucked up in 2002 when it made this ruling [fcc.gov] (where it exercised "forbearance" by not classifying ISPs as telecommunications services, even though the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that they were in fact telecommunications services), and now it's fixing that fuck-up.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
It locks in profits for big incumbent players while blocking innovation and competition. And through regulatory capture and revolving-door personnel moves those large incumbent corporations write the rules used to govern them.
Think of the Treasury Department, where our financial system rules are set by a bunch of Wall Street-bred tax cheats.
That's GOOD!?!?!?!
It doesn't though. Look at the way it works in the UK (basically what the FCC are trying to set up) All the backbone infrastructure is owned by BT openreach who sell it onto ISPs. Any one can start an ISP and get lines from openreach for public sale without having to make massive investment in building a network or paying prohibitively high fees to a private owner who can charge what the fuck they want. Therefore there are plenty of ISPs in competition all offering the product to their own niche or with their twist. You can go with BT/Sky/Virgin for full on tv/phone/net packages for up to £100+pcm or you can go with a no frills service like plusnet and get a decent speed line (8mb+) for as little as £2.50pcm or anything inbetween.
What you guys seem perfectly happy with is one provider owning everything and charging monopoly prices because your other choice is not having it and fuck you. I really don't understand how any of the US public can be for that. It's just as baffling as when a bunch of you lost your shit because the government wanted to offer universal health care to poor people. But we forget good health, like utilities apparently is a privilege not a right in the US, self proclaimed bastion of good and righteousness, that's only for the rich though, everyone else can fuck off.
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What you guys seem perfectly happy with is one provider owning everything and charging monopoly prices because your other choice is not having it and fuck you. I really don't understand how any of the US public can be for that. It's just as baffling as when a bunch of you lost your shit because the government wanted to offer universal health care to poor people. But we forget good health, like utilities apparently is a privilege not a right in the US, self proclaimed bastion of good and righteousness, that
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
The open internet is one of the most democratizing things we have in a modern society, why is this even up for debate? What benefit would society have in enabling "Fast lanes" or "premium" connections or other nonsense? What do we get protecting commercial interests?
Calling them "fast lanes" is a misnomer. But it's shorter than calling them "paying-twice-to-get-out-of-the-technically-unnecessary-but-profit-inducing-slow-lanes".
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Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
the republicans are like children to technology: or worse. the average 5 year old knows more than the shriveled old white guys that wear the R badge.
they are afraid to endorse ANYTHING the 'left' wants. its the grouch marx thing: "whatever it is, I'm against it!". that's one part of it. the other is that they see this as NOT allowing a 'nice' big business to overcharge and profetize twice for the same data.
they are not at all concerned with anyone's quality of life except what lines their own pockets. the D's are not much better, these days, but at least they are not on the wrong side of history on so many modern issues.
they have been quite brazen in how little they care for 'mr. everyman'. if you are not in the top of the rich class, you don't exist to them; and the ultra rich have no need for faster or even reliable internet. hell, they have other people 'do the internet' stuff for them, so they are very detached from reality.
but simply, its the grouch marx thing that really explains it all. too bad that we have such polarization in this country; progress has been a concept that has not been around for decades, now, because of it.
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Because there is a principle involved where a government agency has reversed a position it has held since the 1970s and without any congressional interaction changed regulation and basically confiscated large portions of the economy for the political whims of some. Its not necessarily what happened but how it happened.
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If that was the case then it would still be illegal to plug in your own phone! PSTN IS STILL UNDER TITLE II.
The only reason you can even own your own phone and plug it into the phone line is because of title II.
How do you keep getting to rewrite history to make it suit your agenda!
A belief is not facts. And just because you REALLY believe something does not make it a fact.
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You actually believe the FCC won't cater to any particular group's requests?
The fact is, while being called "net neutrality" it is not that. I support regulation free internet. IF You want to fix the "Comcast vs Netflix" problem, fix the last mile problem first. IF consumers actually had a choice in providers, beyond Cable vs others, you'd see better customer service.
Right now, the problem is entirely franchise agreements for last mile providers, NOT with anything Comcast or Netflix are arguing about. With
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Sounds great, too bad Congress has consistently failed to come up with something to fix the last mile problem.
Perhaps they should work on that while we see how the FCC rules actually work out in practice.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why should congress fix last mile. Your municipality could do it without interference at all. "
Too bad Comcast and others LOBBIED to pass LAWS that make that illegal.
Congress needs to fix the last mile by overturning the bullshit laws in states that were passed to stop competition.
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Congress needs to fix the last mile by overturning the bullshit laws in states that were passed to stop competition.
Some of those laws have already been overturned [arstechnica.com].
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, by that very same FCC the GOP wants to put a stop to.
It's almost like the FCC wants to see if a market solution will work in the long run or something.
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I support regulation free internet. IF You want to fix the "Comcast vs Netflix" problem, fix the last mile problem first.
Those two statements are contradictory. The last mile is a natural monopoly.
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The open internet is one of the most democratizing things we have in a modern society...
I think you answered your own question right there.
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WE get nothing at all. But the Congressmen supporting these bills get nice fat cheques from the big corporations who see net neutrality as a threat to their business model (especially those who make their money through the old legacy business model of selling linear channels instead of the new consume-what-you-want-when-you-want business model that entities like Netflix use)
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Rich republicans protecting their rich friends.
This is based 100% in greed.
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I'm not against net neutrality but I am against the way it happened and all the restrictions with it.
Here you have a government agency who completely reversed their position on the internet being an information services not subject to title II regulation that they have held since the 1970s and in effect creating regulation with the effect of legislation without any input or action from the only constitutionally approved processes or elected representatives. I don't care who you are, that should scare the h
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I'm sure this will be a great success, just like Obamacare and Amtrak.
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"packet police" sounds funny.
maye we should call the anti-net freedom guys "bit bastards". maybe it will stick.
"yet another bit-bastard wants to enact legislation..."
and so on.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Informative)
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You really don't know much about how cable companies are granted monopoly control over individual markets, do you? Cable companies can't just show up in town and lay down a network whenever they feel like it. Most markets have very strict rules about who is allowed to put their cables up in utility easements.
And don't even bother with the "illegal" content nonsense. The FCC does not decide what is legal and illegal.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Informative)
Two more words: batshit irrelevant.
The internet is not a broadcast medium. If you had examples of the FCC trying to censor boob shots online, you'd post them. If you had something more than concern trolling and FUD.
You wont because you can't.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:4, Informative)
You probably have one ISP to choose from. What if they dislike Slashdot and charged you extra for visiting Slashdot?
Comcast is doing that right now to Netflix. You the customer who pays an ISP has to pay three times for the same bandwidth because your ISP doesn't like the content of what you are viewing. That is the only reason.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Informative)
Netflix. Comcast. Double-charging. That happened.
Randians, like all religious fanatics, just ignore facts that interfere with their storyline....or the entire 19th Century.
willfull obtuseness + sophistry (Score:5, Insightful)
As if you don't know who Comcast is charging here.
Any more Comcast propaganda you want to regurgitate? You also know perfectly well that Netflix has offered to place storage services within ISP networks. But even if they weren't, it's none of Comcast's concern as Netflix is already paying for their access and Comcast's customer's are paying for theirs.
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This is a very simple situation. Comcast is a huge company leveraging its position as Internet gateway for approximately 20 million subscribers to get cash from others trying to provide services to those customers. In particular, they targeted Netflix because it competes with Comcast's cable TV and video on demand services.
Capacity was never the problem. The interfaces required to upgrade Comcast's interface with Cogent cost a few thousand dollars. Cogent offered to give Comcast those interfaces for fre
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh, no. Netflix, in case you didn't know, is a company, and (non-ISP) companies, much like individuals, purchase internet access from ISPs. Netflix purchased internet access from many upstream providers including Cogent, Level 3, and some CDNs (as well as investing in their own CDN, btw). Peering arrangements are not between companies like Netflix and Comcast. Peering arrangements are between ISPs. That's the first point.
The second point is that Comcast is not a transit provider. It is a last-mile provider. It will, by definition, have an asymmetrical flow of traffic. This is very much a part of the peering arrangements between Cogent et al. and Comcast. It is not a new change brought on by Netflix.
This is not about peering arrangements. This is about cable companies. Comcast, in addition to being an ISP, sells cable service. It gets revenue from any content delivered to its subscribers. This market is threatened by Netflix, and so Comcast wants to impose cable-like business arrangements on Netflix, which it sees as a content-provider. If you can't see how this is in opposition to the underlying principles of the internet, you are a fool. As soon as Comcast did it, Verizon had a go too. It wasn't going to take long for all of the last-mile networks to try to turn themselves into cable companies.
In other news, if you are anywhere near Texas, you would know about the contract dispute between Suddenlink (cable company) and Viacom ( the parent company of Comedy Central and some other channels). Suddenlink was (is) not delivering Comedy Central to its customers. But Suddenlink the ISP knows that its customers can stream Comedy Central from the web, so it is intentionally blocking access to streaming from www.cc.com. In other words, Suddenlink is degrading its ISP service as leverage for negotiations with its cable service. You may say this is an antitrust case, and I may agree. But net neutrality probably solves the problem more efficiently.
Net neutrality may not be perfect in every way. But to say that there are no problems out there that need to be addressed is just ignorant and head-in-the-sand.
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Then that's not Internet access. If I pay for Internet access, I expect Internet access.
Congratulations.
You just defined the main goal and purpose of Net Neutrality.
Netflix's traffic isn't being routed any differently than any other company's traffic. Therefore, there can be no Net Neutrality violation.
Only a paid shill could willfully ignore every example that is continually presented him that proves him wrong.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice in theory, but do you really think this government is going make things better?
Well the Republicans aren't offering a free market alternative they're just suggesting we do away with regulating the incumbents.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Informative)
In my state Republicans are:
-against net neutrality
-forbids Tesla dealerships
-want to rescind even partial deregulation in the electric and gas industries
http://michiganradio.org/post/... [michiganradio.org]
It's sickening.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
having the government step in may not be the best solution, but its the ONLY solution we can pick.
are you arguing for the so-called 'free hand' to auto correct?
(wait. you're serious??)
gov has to step in BECAUSE free market (that does not truly exist) keeps screwing the customer more and more. there is no sign of any fix coming from them; quite the opposite.
so, SOMEONE has to step in. the gov is the only other 'power' that can help balance this out of control industry.
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You said that a free market "does not truly exist," but the current situation "keeps screwing the customer more and more." So the only way to fix the current awful regulation is better regulators? Good luck with that. Remember, the very first time a net neutrality regulator gives preference over one piece of traffic over another, net neutrality regulation is broken. The regulations are then the exact opposite of what you want. How long do you think that will take to happen?
You seem confused. Enabling net neutrality would stop them from giving preferential treatment of one packet over another, if fast/slow lanes are enacted there's no choice but to inspect packets so they can charge and route accordingly. Maybe I'm confused because they seem to have applied the opposite definition to meanings in order to confuse everyone. Basically you want the one that takes ownership of essential infrastructure away from a private corp and put's in the hands of a public entity, a la the powe
Re: Why is it even a discussion? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually AT&T did apply results from the labs to the phone system. (They would have been stupid not to, they did way to maximize profit, after all.) In particular, they made huge advances in switching technologies. And how do you know they wouldn't have come out with cell phones?
I am not arguing that deregulation was bad. I just don't agree with your facts.
Further, you are being specious. The net neutrality regulations will prevent ISPs from discriminating traffic. Pricing will not be regulated, s
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the same bad ol' government broke up AT&T. Or that the net initially grew explosively under title II.
So what makes you think throwing ourselves on the 'mercy' of AT&T and Comcast will get us anything but screwed?
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:4, Insightful)
> Damn near a century of being limited to voice-over-landline under government regulation, and once regulations were lifted look what happened - internet, smartphones, ubiquitous mobile devices.
No, not correct at all. Cell phones are just a natural progression of technology. They have nothing to do with phones or government regulation or lack of it. Someone, invented a phone that allowed you to make a phone call on the golf course and it sold to be people who had money and wanted to be reached when not in the office. They just got smaller and adding the Internet to it is just a progression of the technology.
If anything, regulating the phone markets made cell phones possible since it allowed companies other than AT&T to get their own switching stations.
> Long distance calls were an expensive, big deal where everyone gathered once a week to talk to relatives for a short time.
Yes, and the government broke up AT&T and then long distance calls got a lot cheaper. You think AT&T would have ever lowered their price? Nope, the government forced them by splitting them up. You know, Regulation. Oh ya, that happened on Ronald Reagan's watch too.
Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score:5, Informative)
Do you just not understand how history works?
Before regulations you had to RENT your phone. You were only allowed 1 provider for your local phone and could pick a long distance carrier.
Insert Title 2, phone lines became dumb pipes, then all the cool stuff you posted about like internet, answering machines, caller id, modems, DSL etc came in to being. Regulations and breaking up AT&T so there was competition is what got everything going.
I say bring back the government that had a backbone and a set of balls. Break up some of these banks! Break up the cable companies! Fuck em. You will hear all the people scream about how the government shouldn't meddle in private business, but its the only thing they listen to. Start breaking them up and see how all of a sudden they start to play nice, so they don't get broken up as well.
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Why did you have to rent your phone? Because government regulations and laws enforced a monopoly.
No, you had to rent your phone because there was only one telephone utility (AT&T), and that's what their business policy was. Do you think a bunch of telephone companies sprang up with interconnectable systems, and then the government decided to force the companies to only allow company approved hardware on the client side of their systems?
Dumbasses. (Score:2, Insightful)
Back, Jack, and do it again... (Score:2)
The GOP have been and will be re-voting to overturn ACA and Net Neutrality so often they need ACA for their carpal tunnel syndrome.
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the republicans are the groucho marx of this decade:
whatever it is, I'm against it! [youtube.com]
just wish it was funny...
Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
"We found a way to reframe the debate from 'Republicans vs. Freedom' to 'Republicans vs. Big Government', so we're going to do that both to hammer home that 'Democrats are Dictators' meme and because we're getting fat stacks of cash from the people who stand to profit from it".
Just goes to show (Score:3)
Sorry I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of US law/politics, but aren't these republican politicians actually breaking the law by representing the interests of national corps instead of what is in the best interest of their own consituency's voters? (and if not why not?)
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There's no law saying you have to "represent the interests" of "their own constituency". How would you even prosecute that? If we have an objective way of determining everyone's best interest, we wouldn't need lawmakers.
Second, the House of Representatives is citizen-elected, the FCC is an unelected bureaucracy. I'm not so naive to think Congress is acting in my best interest, but the fact that they're opposing the unelected bureaucracy should raise some red flags. Specifically, they're probably unhappy tha
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FCC, all by itself, asserted its authority over the Internet, which they have no statutory authority over.
With the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress gave the FCC the power to: “promote competition in the local telecommunications market”.
Communications Act of 1934, Title II, the second subsection (202) clearly states that common carriers can’t “make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services.”
Using #1, they classified ISPs as #2. Seems OK to me.
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As opposed to what happened at the FCC, where a bunch of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats just made up a whole bunch of new rules?
I mean if you want to frame the argument in hte worst possible light concerning how shit gets done, at least congress is electable. Which is a far cry from what the FCC is. Even if you like what the FCC did here, it should scare the shit out of you, assuming you care about preventing tyrannical bureaucracies.
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Sorry I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of US law/politics, but aren't these republican politicians actually breaking the law by representing the interests of national corps instead of what is in the best interest of their own consituency's voters? (and if not why not?)
Read all about the "Citizens United" decision here. [wikipedia.org]
Corporations are people under US law and "people" can spend as much as they want on election campaigns.
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Corporations are people under US law and "people" can spend as much as they want on election campaigns.
Corporations are persons so they can be be a party to contracts and be legally held to them. I mean, you want corporations to be accountable, right?
Also, what part of "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech" don't you understand?
Not "Congress shall make no law against individuals", not "Congress shall make no law against unions". NO law. Any law restricting the movement of speech, including political contributions, is unconstitutional. You don't need to bring "person" into it.
It's kind of obvious that "freedom of speech" now belongs primarily to those who can pay big bucks for it.
One of the worst decisions ever. Corruption has been enshrined in law.
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Feeling left ouot (Score:2)
I used to be a republican, back in the Reagan days. But these days (hell, since Bush Jr.) my "traditional" views have all but been marginalized. The democrats aren't much better.
Although I don't (yet) feel ashamed of the D's, as I do about the R's like when shit like this occurs. Can they make it any more plain they're bought and sold??
(Well past) Time to find a new party...
Libertarianism, the new face of the GOP? (Score:5, Insightful)
This one goes out to all you libertarians who've been lining up behind the "New GOP", the Republican party that says it's looking out for individual liberties rather than corporate greed.
And yeah, I know what the truly die-hard among you are about to say: that the people who own Comcast have a right to assemble and agree to strangle internet commerce if they want to. But I say, if you allow wealthy corporate interests to accumulate far more power than the weakened government, they effectively *become* the government, and when they "exercise their liberties" it's indistinguishable from tyranny.
Re:Libertarianism, the new face of the GOP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Small shops have been dead for a decade. and laws did not do it, it's back room deals like "franchise agreements".
If you think this will kill small shops, then you need to actually learn about the industry and how allowing big companies to run rampant have caused every problem we have today.
Re:Libertarianism, the new face of the GOP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there's a term for that - Confirmation Bias. These Randian notions are just as reasonable - or as asinine - as saying starting a business will lead to fraud, bribes, sexual harassment, and toxic waste siphoned into the river. Because what other businesses have done, all businesses will do.
Baseless tautology is baseless.
Which can only be addressed by heavy regulation, or by (gasp!) socialized infrastructure. Both of which are anathema to Randians, so this brings us to the second term of the day: Cognitive Dissonance.
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All domestic utility networks except water and sanitation were originally unregulated competitive markets which condensed into natural monopolies without government help: the value of a network increases dramatically with its size, so the biggest ones swallowed all the smallest ones. I'm sure you know about Westinghouse and Edison setting up parallel electricity networks in New York, but it was even more extreme for the telegraph. In 1850 there were 75 telegraph companies [eh.net], ten of which served New York; in
Crappy set of rules. (Score:2)
Does nothing to open up the last mile to competition.
Manages to insert the government even more in the internet.
Can't be certain what it will actually do at this point.
Still I have more hope in this than I do Comcast to do anything but completely screw things up.
Re:Crappy set of rules. (Score:5, Informative)
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I happen to love the decision regarding municipalities. It was mindboggingly insane that those laws could get passed anywhere and good reason to bring back the "He needed killing" defense.
Redefining broadband was pointless and little more than playing around with the parameters of an already corrupt system of subsidies.
Title II is better than nothing but not what needs to be done. I don't care if ISP X wants to set up fast lanes or not as long as I can choose not to use them. What we have from the FCC is v
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Yes, exactly!
However, Government can screw this up, and inevitably will. But unlike Comcast, I'll never be able to rid myself of our friendly helpful bureaucrats.
It shall be called... (Score:2)
Lobbying and Contributions (Score:5, Informative)
Here is some basic information about the legalized purchase of the relevant legislation:
Lobbying:
https://www.opensecrets.org/in... [opensecrets.org]
Contributions:
https://www.opensecrets.org/in... [opensecrets.org]
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a 'troll'? Somebody must have changed the moderation guidelines again.
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a 'troll'? Somebody must have changed the moderation guidelines again.
No, somebody just works for a telecom company and thinks net neutrality is a bad idea, so they're resenting the fact that bribery played a part in the legislation and are reacting to the presence of a fact they don't like.
Either that, or it's a paid proxy for a telecom company downvoting it. I believe I've noticed a trend on slashdot of downmoderation of comments opposed to institutions of the sort who hire propaganda people, but haven't done a thorough analysis so it's only anecdotal.
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:5, Insightful)
Came here to ask this. Found it second post. Well done, sir.
It's gets silly these days to think of congresscritters as "Democrat" or "Republican" on issues like this. Who represents Comcast? Who represents Google? For damn sure none of them represent voters.
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:4, Interesting)
t's gets silly these days to think of congresscritters as "Democrat" or "Republican" on issues like this. Who represents Comcast? Who represents Google? For damn sure none of them represent voters.
This is true; however, it seems the net neutrality is going to become a partisan issue, because Comcast et al can use GOP economic rhetoric (baseless or not), and the GOP leadership think the money is worth the political risk.
Once anything becomes a partisan issue, then tribalism replaces sanity. Expect some GOP faithful computer geeks to slowly edge towards the party line.
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:5, Interesting)
There's also the ultra-libertarian view (which really isn't very libertarian) that the government should literally do nothing. Any regulation by them is seen as bad regulation. Damn the consumers, they think if we let something like this stand then sooner or later the government will decide to ban child labor as well.
Seriously, we have a lot of members of congress who think that their one and only duty is to oppose all government action of any kind (though a subset of them approve of military action as an exception). Then mix in the true market believers as well, who think that the free market can solve all problems as long as the government stays away from it.
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:5, Insightful)
As little as possible to these morons means even local politics should do nothing. But it won't work in this case, because telecom is not a local issue, it's not even a state issue. You can't tell Comcast what to do when you're in a little town.
And don't forget, these hardcore politicians with their "states rights!" mantra were the same ones who manages to get several state governments to forbid their municipal governments from bypassing Comcast to have their own internet service. True hypocrites.
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:5, Insightful)
This assumes that the private sector has a vested interest in helping the citizens. In practice it does not. The private sector is very often the enemy of the citizens. Once they've got a monopoly or trust in place then they'll cheat and steal more than most governments will. Even without the monopolies they do their best to extract as much as possible out of people's wallets.
In reality you can't vote with your wallets if you're poor, or even if middle class. The only way the citizens have managed historically to rein in the power of the private sector is by electing governments to do this. Sure, it's not a perfect system but there has been no other system in history that has done it better.
What we've got now is not a system of reduced regulation or of high regulation. What we have is a mixed up system where the big economic interests are given a free pass to be abusive, or the ability to write their own regulations. Everyone else though has to follow the regulations and rules. The internet infrastructure within the US should follow the same guidelines and principles that are in place for telephones and broadcast media (the internet of last century).
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I do NOT believe that to be the case with vital infrastructure. which I consider the internet to be.
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:5, Funny)
Keeping politics local means less oppression
never had a Home Owners Association where you live I see
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:5, Insightful)
the federal government SHOULD be doing as little as possible.
One thing they should do is stop companies from raping the population hand over fist. A lot of people over there seem to like being charged (or charging) extra for everything because it's the American way, also mumble mumble competition
Re: Lobbying and Contributions (Score:4, Funny)
You do know that, if elected, Mickey would make us all slaves right? Write in Ralph Nader if you want to make a point. At least he used to run.
Write in Cthulhu. Why settle for the lesser of two evils?
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More than just lobbying. Factually, a heavily censored public communications network heavily favours authoritarian governments, which is exactly what every single for profit corporation is (an authoritarian privatised element of governance geared to favour a minority with majority share holdings). So access to public communications censored via cost ie only the rich can play, favours both the Republicans and Corporations. So net neutrality favours democracy and biased by wealth internet access favours fasc
Re:Lobbying and Contributions (Score:5, Informative)
Your #1 - AT&T, spent $3 million on lobbying.
That's about 1/10 of what net neutrality proponents Google and Facebook spent.
No, they spent $3 million on contributions, $14 million on lobbying.
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Just because you can hook a modem up to a phone line and send data over the copper doesn't mean that your phone company is an ISP then, either, right?
I don't know if you know what "tele" and "communications" are but when you put them together, the name alone indicates communication at a distance which is exactly what the internet was created to do. Having ISPs regulated as telecommunications services makes perfect sense to me.
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What's at issue is if the FCC's unconstitutional, unregulated expansion of power. Without identifying any previous violations, without even utilizing the courts, and without any act of Congress, they single-handedly declared their authority over one of the most free realms of commerce we have today.
People can keep saying that, but it's clearly untrue. Title II is part of the Communications Act, which is law passed by Congress. Now you can argue they misinterpreted that law and I'm sure someone will in court soon, but to say there was no law is either ignorant or lying.
Re:Government != Internet engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
Unregulated? Without any act of Congress? You do know that "Title II" refers specifically to a law, passed by Congress, as updated to cover modern telecommunications, right? And you do know that they tried doing stuff before, and the Courts told them "you have to use Title II classification to do this," right?
I'm not even going to start on the fact that you think sending data is somehow not "telecommunications."
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Nope, the FCC specifically declined to intervene in peering agreements like Netflix-Cogent-Comcast:
You were saying?
Unregulated? Without any act of Congress? You do know that "Title II" refers specifically to a law, passed by Congress, as updated to cover modern telecommunications, right? And you do know that they tried doing stuff before, and the Courts told them "you have to use Title II classification to do this," right?
Last time I checked, the Internet was an Information Service. That designati
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Last time I checked, the Internet was an Information Service. That designation was created by Congress for some reason... You can't have it both ways.
Are you still throwing that bullshit around? The last time you checked, it was an "Information Service" because the FCC reclassified it as an Information Service in 2003. It was under Title II before that, and moved OUT of that classification by the FCC.
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And such classifications are at the discretion of the FCC.
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Net Neutrality is a routing rule that has been with the Internet since the beginning. You don't "overturn" it with an act of congress.
No. But the courts overturned it [thewrap.com] which is why the FCC went back and came up with a different approach to prevent predatory practices.
How the Internet is designed is a job for engineers and no one else.
That's a nice sentiment but it's terribly naive. When content producers buy out the service providers, they make their engineers do all kinds of stuff to the design of the network to jack up profits and otherwise abuse their monopoly power. This is why the FCC ruled that the service providers must act like common carriers.
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Net Neutrality is a routing rule that has been with the Internet since the beginning.
Wrong. It's a concept that was first given that name in the early-to-mid 2000s and was first put into writing by the FCC in 2005 in a non-enforceable policy document. The principles that are central to the concept of net neutrality were first enacted as rules in the mid-90s as part of Congressional "open Internet" legislation. Prior to that, they were the de facto policy, rather than a de jure policy, given that the small-time players back then lacked either the incentive or the ability to break net neutral
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Barack Obama 2012
Communications/Electronics $18,985,831
http://www.opensecrets.org/pre... [opensecrets.org]
Mitt Romney 2012
Communications/Electronics $7,119,313
http://www.opensecrets.org/pre... [opensecrets.org]
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"Remecial Civics" (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean the same Congress that delegated power to the agency in question to make just these sort of rules??? If Congress wants to pass new legislation to revoke that authority (or the budget of the agency under the Executive), it is free to do so - but that does nothing to change the fact that Congress approved it in the first place. You can find similar examples on everything from pot [forbes.com] to DADT [acslaw.org].
Re:"to review new federal regulations" (Score:5, Informative)
That's not really what happened here though. Congress long ago gave the FCC the authority to classify communications, establish rules for them, and enforce those rules...which is exactly what the FCC has been doing all along.
Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to (re-)classify cable, DSL, and wireless broadband in 2002, 2005, and 2007, respectively, under Title I of the Telecommunications Act, even though Title II had applied to some of those previously. After all, it was a burgeoning industry, so the lighter touch afforded by Title I made more sense, and there were other laws on the books to prevent the worst of the nasty things those companies might do.
Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to establish policy regarding net neutrality in 2005, establish ancillary regulations piecemeal over the years, or establish stronger protections for net neutrality in 2010. After all, as these companies were getting bigger, it was becoming more and more important to ensure that they acted in ways that were fair, and with the previous rules protecting against nasty things expiring, it was time to establish new ones.
Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to enforce fines against ISPs in response to nasty things they were doing. After all, them's the rules.
But then the Supreme Court slapped down one of the rules over a procedural issue, saying that if the FCC wanted to enforce that rule, they'd first need to reclassify those communications under Title II. The FCC attempted to work with the ISPs to come up with a middle-ground, but the ISPs refused to budge, so the FCC finally went and did exactly what the Supreme Court had suggested: they used their Congressionally-granted authority to reclassify those communications under Title II.
And now, suddenly, Congress is throwing a hissy fit. Why? Because, as it turns out, it isn't a burgeoning industry made up of companies like Prodigy and CompuServe still. Instead, it's made up of massive media and telecommunications conglomerates like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon with hundreds of billions of dollars on the line, and they are not happy with having an appropriate classification applied to them, given that it's a lot more fun to be a misbehaving behemoth.
The text of the rules has been public for months, even though it hadn't been added to the Federal Register yet. This isn't a "we have to pass it to see it" situation at all. And Congress has no good reason for sticking their noses into this situation, unless you consider the millions [opensecrets.org] and millions [opensecrets.org] of dollars they're receiving to be a good reason.
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And now, suddenly, Congress is throwing a hissy fit. Why? Because, as it turns out, it isn't a burgeoning industry made up of companies like Prodigy and CompuServe still. Instead, it's made up of massive media and telecommunications conglomerates like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon with hundreds of billions of dollars on the line, and they are not happy with having an appropriate classification applied to them, given that it's a lot more fun to be a misbehaving behemoth.
The FCC answers to Congress. When your boss is not happy with your work, your boss is not throwing a "hissy fit".
Also note that there are corporations both for and against Net Neutrality. I hope you don't think that Google, Netflix, and Facebook pushing Net Neutrality is purely out of the goodness of their hearts. They're pushing rules that benefit themselves ... and not necessarily the end-users.
Re:"to review new federal regulations" (Score:4, Insightful)
The FCC answers to Congress.
No, it doesn't. The FCC is an independent agency of the United States [wikipedia.org]. While it may have been established and granted its authority by Congress, and while it may fall under the Executive Branch, it answers neither to the President nor to Congress, except inasmuch as the President nominates individuals to fill vacancies for commissioner seats and the Senate confirms them.
Also note that there are corporations both for and against Net Neutrality. I hope you don't think that Google, Netflix, and Facebook pushing Net Neutrality is purely out of the goodness of their hearts. They're pushing rules that benefit themselves ... and not necessarily the end-users.
Oh, sure, and that's a fair point that I entirely agree with. That said, what I was getting at is that Congress is getting involved this time around because there are major political contributions influencing decisions, and if you use those links I provided to see how much the companies you listed have been contributing, what you'll quickly find is that Google is the only one in the ballpark of the telecoms. Facebook is barely a blip and Netflix isn't even listed. These ISPs are pumping massive amounts of money into Washington to buy votes, and it's working.
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