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Democrats Introduce 'Save the Internet Act' To Restore Net Neutrality (cnet.com) 174

Posted by msmash from the fighting-back dept.
As expected, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday introduced the Save the Internet Act, which aims to restore open internet rules that were repealed in 2017. From a report: The Obama-era rules, which lasted from 2015 to 2018, banned broadband providers from slowing or blocking access to the internet or charging companies higher fees for faster access. Democrats in Congress have said the repeal allows for large broadband and wireless companies to "control people's online activities." "86 percent of Americans opposed Trump's assault on net neutrality, including 82 percent of Republicans," said Pelosi during the press conference on Wednesday. "With 'Save The Internet Act,' Democrats are honoring the will of the people." Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey tweeted out a copy of the bill on Wednesday, saying nearly every Democrat in the Senate had joined him to introduce it.
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Democrats Introduce 'Save the Internet Act' To Restore Net Neutrality More

Democrats Introduce 'Save the Internet Act' To Restore Net Neutrality

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  • Here we go again.. They want to have *another* run at net neutrality...

    Have at it guys, but we all know what is going to happen. It *may* make it out of the House, but it is dying in committee in the Senate. Nothing but the next election can possibly change that and by the looks of things, that's rapidly slipping into a snowballs chance of surviving in a very hot place....

    Maybe if you had a time machine.....Naw, after 3 movies, we all know how that ends...

    • Re:Save the Clock Tower! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thevirtualcat ( 1071504 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @04:56PM (#58227736)

      Well, they know that. It's the same as when the Republicans put bills on Obama's desk to repeal the ACA. They knew he'd veto it and that they wouldn't be able to override it. It's about signalling to the voters "this is what we'll be able to do if you put us in charge." It's not a new phenomenon.

      • I don't know if Net Neutrality is a big enough deal to most voters for it to matter. The Dem's would be better off pushing things like gun control, protections for abortions, and other things that their base cares about if they're just signalling. If you want to signal that you're rich, you get a flash car and a gaudy but expensive looking wrist watch. That's going to be more effective than buying a $50,000 fountain pen [forzieri.com] because most people won't be able to pick up something like that as a signal for wealth.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by bobbied ( 2522392 )

          I don't think playing the abortion idea is a good one.. It may shore up the base but if the polling is any indicator, it's a net loss for democrats as the overwhelming majority of voters do NOT support unlimited right to abortion past viability (say about 22 weeks), much less up to the moment of birth. And I believe that the polling is about 50/50 for abortions just before a detectable heartbeat.

          It may play better in heavily democratic areas, and shore up the base, but abortion is an issue that inflames th

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            It may shore up the base but if the polling is any indicator, it's a net loss for democrats as the overwhelming majority of voters do NOT support unlimited right to abortion past viability (say about 22 weeks), much less up to the moment of birth.

            No Democrat have ever argued for such a thing either.
            That concept is something Republicans claims that the Democrats want to make people hostile towards it.

            What the most extreme people in favor of abortion wants is that abortion should be allowed in all cases where the pregnancy threatens the mothers life.
            Instead of both the mother and child dying it should be allowed to kill the baby to save the mother.
            And that is the most extreme advocates.

        • It doesn't matter if it gets killed in the Senate or vetoed. Sure, the veto will have more prominence in the news cycle, but the House passing a bill that gets killed in the Senate will still make the rounds in the relevant publications. (Here we are talking about it, right?) There are many ways for them to signal their agenda to the voters. This one in particular has the advantage of putting them on record as supporting whatever the policy is while forcing their opponents to go on record opposing it.

          • If it passes, I suspect it will still have some legal issues given how it is worded. It is essentially micromanaging decisions by the executive branch (repeal and restore regulations) rather than being new legislation that requires net neutrality. If the legislation stands it would be problematic as it will freeze the Obama era ruling as it is unless there is further legislative action, meaning that regulators could not tweak any rules in this regard even if they become out of date or have problems.

        • I don't know if Net Neutrality is a big enough deal to most voters for it to matter.

          Hillary lost Wisconsin by 0.6% and Michigan by 0.23%. A small shift can mean a lot.

          The Dem's would be better off pushing things like gun control, protections for abortions

          These are loser issues for the Democrats. Most people agree with them on abortion and guns, but the passionate single-issue voters that actually turnout are on the other side.

          The Democrats learned this from the 1994 Republican landslide after they passed the Brady Bill. When Obama tried to close the "gunshow loophole" after Sandy Hook, many politicians in his own party refused to support him.

          • The Democrats learned this from the 1994 Republican landslide after they passed the Brady Bill. When Obama tried to close the "gunshow loophole" after Sandy Hook, many politicians in his own party refused to support him.

            Looks like they didn't learn that lesson. Citation: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/27... [npr.org]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          I don't know if Net Neutrality is a big enough deal to most voters for it to matter. The Dem's would be better off pushing things like gun control, protections for abortions, and other things that their base cares about if they're just signalling. If you want to signal that you're rich, you get a flash car and a gaudy but expensive looking wrist watch. That's going to be more effective than buying a $50,000 fountain pen because most people won't be able to pick up something like that as a signal for wealth.

          • So you're saying that the direction things are going is that people who use Netflix and other streaming stuff will have to pay more for the huge additional portion of the pipe that they use? So my cost will be less?

      • Re:Save the Clock Tower! (Score:5, Informative)

        by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @05:15PM (#58227848) Journal

        Well, they know that. It's the same as when the Republicans put bills on Obama's desk to repeal the ACA. They knew he'd veto it and that they wouldn't be able to override it. It's about signalling to the voters "this is what we'll be able to do if you put us in charge." It's not a new phenomenon.

        The Republicans tried to repeal the ACA 54 times when Obama was in office. IIRC, only one of those times did a bill make it out of Congress and to Obama's desk, where he vetoed it. So I think it's "bill" in the singular.

      • Well, they know that. It's the same as when the Republicans put bills on Obama's desk to repeal the ACA. They knew he'd veto it and that they wouldn't be able to override it. It's about signalling to the voters "this is what we'll be able to do if you put us in charge." It's not a new phenomenon.

        And then the GOP won the House, Senate, and White House and...didn't repeal ACA. (Okay, they're working on it...sort of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org])

    • The point is to change how _you_ vote (Score:5, Funny)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @05:00PM (#58227772)
      by bringing light to an issue that's being ignored. The hope is you'll see this and turn out in the next election and give them a Democratic Congress (House & Senate) and President so we can pass it in 2 years.

      The only question is, what will you do? Me? I'll be there at the primaries voting for Bernie.

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by bobbied ( 2522392 )

        Bernie?

        Yes PLEASE, give us Bernie, the guy who embraces the crazy left wing of your party... PLEASE! Talk about an entertaining election, the old aging socialist on the left and Trump standing clearly in the middle making Ole' Bernie look like the hypocritical leftist he is every day. It will be a land slide to the right, both in the House, the Senate AND the Whitehouse. It will be fun to watch... You do know that he's already behind in the polls right?

        In fact, I may need to send Bernie a few dollars, ju

        • Re:The point is to change how _you_ vote (Score:5, Interesting)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @05:44PM (#58228028) Homepage Journal

          Yes PLEASE, give us Bernie, the guy who embraces the crazy left wing of your party... PLEASE!

          Polls suggested that Sanders could have beat Trump, and that Clinton couldn't. And lo, she didn't.

          Sanders' popularity has led every other Democrat towards the left, because he showed that centrism is not the winning strategy.

          At least some (if not many) people who voted for Trump claimed they would have voted for Sanders, because they wanted to shake up politics. It is likely that those people will vote for Sanders if he makes it through the primary. They might well be enough to swing the vote.

          • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

            by bobbied ( 2522392 )

            That was then...

            https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/elections/

            THIS is today.

            I do hate to tell you this (ok, not really), but by all appearances, Trump would win the election today with Sanders as his opponent with far fewer competitive states than the previous election with Hillary. The one you want on your ticket is Biden.... He's polling the best of the flock right now, even though he's not actually IN the race officially yet. But the star player doesn't take the field until near th

            • Hillary was doomed to lose from the start because the far right was bitterly opposed to her from the first day that she said she didn't like to bake brownies. This is a continuation of the whole whitewater fiasco where they failed to get an impeachment and they're continuing to follow the crusade started by Gingrich (who turned out be even sleazier than Bill). The conspiracy theories have been going strong for a couple of decades. I don't think there's anyone living that the far right base hates more than

              • Never mind the whole optics of looking like she was pre-ordained to be the candidate. If Democrats want to win, they need to put forward a moderate and centrist candidate.

                Sanders earned the nomination (which, as you note, he didn't then get) by not being those things. That's not what liberals want. What we want is a genuine leftist, not another corporation-appeasing, warhawking centrist.

                • But Liberals != Democrats. And liberals are a small subset of people who did not vote for Trump. The problem is having only two valid parties both of which are controlled by the extremes in their party, then they get to the general election and the general public don't want the extremes. Maybe we need a centrist party so that the sane people have someone to vote for?

                  • Maybe we need a centrist party so that the sane people have someone to vote for?

                    There's nothing sane about the status quo. Corporatism will kill us all.

          • Mod parent up (Score:4, Insightful)

            by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @06:14PM (#58228202)
            Sanders has changed the discourse of an entire nation. We're seriously talking about universal healthcare for the first time since the mid 90s.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              I feel compelled to point out that Donald J. Trump was talking about universal healthcare in the 2000s.

          • Polls suggested that Sanders could have beat Trump, and that Clinton couldn't. And lo, she didn't.

            Which poll suggested that Clinton couldn't have beaten trump? The poll of Fox and Friends newscasters? You don't get to arbitrarily re-write history. The past election was typified by one truth: No representative poll predicted that Trump would beat Clinton, and that the pollsters generally didn't have a clue.

        • "crazy" being the operative word.

          Medicare for All? The rest of the world does it. Ending the 8 wars? They're pushing 20 years. Green New Deal? It's a jobs program, like we did in the 30s when wealth income equality got as bad as it is today.

          It won't help the Dems chances. It pisses off wealthy donors. They'd do better to keep their heads low. They're taking a stand for something. Much like Bernie does with all his policy. That's what leaders are supposed to do.

          • The one and only good thing about Trump is that he has awakened non right wing Americans. Social media has shown what the republicans have always done sure as this.

            There are more sane Americans than you realize. They typically don't vote over the religious zealots, rich, and rednecks combined with redistricting but are starting. Infact obamacare low approval was from people who didn't feel it went far enough!

            Bernie might be to the Dems as Reagan was to the right where Carter was the Trump. I think new blood

            • What the election showed is a lot of hypocrisy on the right. The fact that the party that was excoriating Bill Clinton for his lack of character goes and starts bowing at the feet of someone with even less moral fiber, and even the evangelical wing were holding their nose and voting for him. Almost everyone in the Republican party that was bitterly opposed to Trump in the primaries suddenly changed their tune and made Trump their best friend. Trump even insulted Ted Cruz's wife but Ted still goes and cam

              • Personally, I never thought Trump could make it though the primaries. I was supporting Cruz. Once Trump had the nomination, I voted republican because there was a chance he'd better support my views.

                HOWEVER, at this point, given Trump's track record in office, I'm glad Cruz didn't win the primary. Trump has really knocked it out of the park. I wasn't expecting much from Trump, but he's been consistently delivering well beyond what I dared to dream he would.

                Bernie doesn't have a snowballs chance in 20

                • The goals of the right were to reintroduce tarifs? That's pretty much the opposite of what fiscal conservatives push for, at least since Hoover days.

                  • Ah... Well, I've NEVER called Trump a conservative. I've only said that he was obviously better aligned with my views than Hillary was.

                    Remember, the way you play this game is you vote for who you think will most advance your views in the primary of the party that best represents your views. Then in the general election you vote for one of the two candidates that has a chance of winning.based on how well you think they will represent your views.

                    So, I supported (and voted) for Cruz in the primary, but then

        • Trump is unqualified and unstable to be president. Bernie can easily win. FYI Bernie is pretty centrist to the average European. Only on shithole America where people die and go bankrupt from curable diseases who actually have health insurance actually consider him radical. America is so extreme right and corrupt that it needs Bernie more than you can imagine

          • Trump is unqualified and unstable to be president. Bernie can easily win. FYI Bernie is pretty centrist to the average European. Only on shithole America where people die and go bankrupt from curable diseases who actually have health insurance actually consider him radical. America is so extreme right and corrupt that it needs Bernie more than you can imagine

            I'm discussing polls here. In the polls I'm seeing right now Bernie loses to Trump, even worse than Hillary did. Also, don't forget the incumbent advantage goes to Trump this time. But we are nearly 2 years out from the only poll that counts, actual voting and ANYTHING can happen.

            I actually think that until Biden gets in or announces he's not running, the polling is generally useless. If Biden is in, he's going to suck all the air out of the room and the other democrat hopefuls will start to drop like fli

  • A meaningless gesture (Score:3)

    by timholman ( 71886 ) on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @05:16PM (#58227854)

    This vote is every bit as meaningful as all those votes to defund Obamacare prior to 2016, when the Republicans ran the House - in other words, not meaningful at all. It's very easy to take a stand when you know the bill will never pass the Senate, or survive the President's veto. It gets much, much harder when the vote actually stands a chance of passing. Note how quickly the support to defund Obamacare evaporated the moment the Republicans controlled both the House and Senate.

    Now the Democrats are playing the same game. No one cares about meaningless symbolic gestures. But if the Democrats had control of the Senate, suddenly a great many of them would be getting visits from lobbyists for major telecom companies, reminding our elected representatives just who is calling the shots, and net neutrality would suddenly be taken off the table.

       

    • No one cares about meaningless symbolic gestures

      Actually people do. It shows what each side is likely to do should they actually get in power. It's why these symbolic gestures are repeated time and time again.

  • Read the actual bill (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Facebook and Amazon are big supporters of this bill. For that reason alone I'm skeptical.

    • Of course they are. They don't want to be charged extra by ISPs. If the ISPs supported it, then I'd be skeptical.

  • All this bill does is restore the corporate written FCC regulations that existed previously, that did NOTHING to support real network neutrality.

    Give us one example of a problem since that was repealed. One.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      Ok.

      Comcast quality of service has gone down, network speeds in general have gone down, Verizon cut off multiple firefighters tackling wildfires endangering the lives of crews and civilians, telemedicine has become unsafe.

      That should be enough.

      Either admit to being wrong or don't bother replying.

      • The firefighters should have been operating on a completely different tier and on different channels. They should not have been allowed to be sold a bill of goods by SV hucksters who want everything 'on the Internet'. The fucks who designed and sold the "cheap" tools for the firefighters should be punished, not the carriers that the hucksters assumed would be 'good enough.'

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mcl630 ( 1839996 )

      https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2... [potsandpansbyccg.com]

  • Federal rules and laws that protected NN approved wireline.
    Less innovation.
    Less ability for gentrified communities to get new networks.
    If your telco likes your wireline plan, they can keep you on your NN approved wireline plan.

    • How, exactly, does an ISP blocking your access to a new company improve "innovation"?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        Not what this political net neutrality is about. It's not about censorship or equal access, the Dems want to put the Internet back under control of the FTC (which is what Obama NN was) rather than FCC where it has always been.

        If it's under the FTC mergers of media conglomerates is easier. The AT&T and Time Warner merger recently blocked by Trump's FCC is what Dems want to pass. Under Obama's rules we saw massive monopolization of news networks, media and information distribution channels, that's what De

        • the Dems want to put the Internet back under control of the FTC (which is what Obama NN was) rather than FCC where it has always been.

          Uh...no. "Obama NN" was making Internet Service Providers FCC Title II services.

          ISPs are currently FCC Tittle III services, and the Republican plan is to let the FTC deal with blocking/fast-laning/zero-rating. However the Republicans have neglected to give the FTC any authority to do so.

          The AT&T and Time Warner merger recently blocked by Trump's FCC is what Dems want to pass.

          You mean the merger that Trump's administration just approved?
          Also, if the Democrats wanted that merger to go through, why did the Obama administration block it?

          Under Obama's rules we saw massive monopolization of news networks, media and information distribution channels

          You've got your timeline wrong here. The massive wave of mer

  • The internet is doing just fine, and deregulation is what allowed it to become an amazing miracle that has benefited everybody on the globe. And yes, for all of the misgivings about the spooky, corporation$, I trust them more than I trust the government.

  • about what Team Red or Team Blue promises they will do, you should take a deep breath and come to a simple realization. ... ..
    .
    Regardless of which team we're talking about and regardless who is in power, they both have one thing in common:
    *** What they say and / or promise they will do and what they actually get done are rarely in harmony with one another. ***

    Every few years they play the public like a well trained orchestra. Every few years the public falls for it, again and again.
    DECADES of this bullsh

  • Seriously they say they will pursuit legislation to address NN and save the Internet. Yet they go and pull this shit?

    Democrats appear to be too lazy to even bother writing a real bill that cleanly addresses the issues of NN. They couldn't be bothered to peel anyone away from the war effort against orange clowns?

    All this does is reinstates the same bullshit regime in place earlier with it's hodgepodge of arbitrary forbearances, looming threat of POTS style regressive USF taxes and pointless POTS era regula

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