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ACLU Study Wary of Broadband Providers
An anonymous reader says "The ACLU recently had a study done that suggests that broadband access is a threat to internet freedom. Their study focuses on the control available to broadband providers who don't have to deal with the same level of competition or regulation as ISP providers. The result is the ability to radically control internet access combined with the omnipresent corporate incentive for profit, whatever the cost to free speech."
There are loads of ISP's offering broadband (ADSL) here in the UK some of which explicitly say you can serve anything legel and have as many pc's as you want hanging off you connection and tell you how to setup nats etc...
The UK regulater makes a hell of a lot of noise, the UK had a public monopoly upuntil a few years ago and the regulator keeps trying to force down prices offered to ISP's for dialup and ADSL access.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
What is wrong with corporations having an incentive to make profit? That is what they are there for.
Companies have no incentive to support free speech, the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to them. If you don't like what cable companies do then don't use them. Don't try to impose your will on others.
This has nothing to do with speed.
It's the fact that if 90% of users are on 1% of the providers. They control everything, this can include blocking of http request to a host they deem "obscene" or "dangerous" if they feel like it. That's bad. They could censor anything they want, and because they control 90% of the users, most will be affected.
"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech"
That means exactly what it says--Congress is not allowed to place restrictions on what ideas or views may be expressed. This does not mean that private entities are not allowed to restrict what may be said or expressed on their own private property--in fact, they MUST be allowed to do so because if they are not, then their property rights are being infringed upon. All the First Amendment guarantees is that you are allowed to express yourself without fear of punishment. It doesn't guarantee you a medium for expressing yourself other than your OWN PRIVATE PROPERTY. Your rights do not trump the rights of others, including rights of property.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
And... Congress having the right to establish Post Offices and post Roads (even if you take it to mean email/internet) doesn't protect your rights to use the internet how you want. It simply gives them the right to create a national ISP.
Freedom of the speech/press only protects you from government regulation. It doesn't protect you from private businesses restricting your use of their services for those rights. No one forces you to use their service.
Bringing this all together... if Congress chose to create a national ISP, THEN you might be able to claim free speech/press on it. But, since Congress hasn't chosen to operate a national ISP, this is really a non-issue.
But their idea that "The Government Must Act to Protect the Internet" is just not going to happen. Especially under George II's reign. If anything, the government has gone out of its way to *ruin* the internet starting with the '96 Telecommunications Act, which also encapsulated (IIRC) the CDA. Then they passed the DMCA, COPA and now they want to force DRM down our throats. This congress and this administration is, in large part, squarely in the pockets of the large corps. I wonder if we could get Rick Boucher (D., Va.) to run for president in 2004? I have reviewed his voting record and he has a perfect civil liberties score AND he is entirely against all the above silliness.
It's a good thing that the Bill of Rights was passed when it did. Now it wouldn't even make it out of committee...
Sure. I have no problem not running servers on my residential connection. I agreed not to, and they have valid business reasons for asking us not to. They don't put technological means in place to prevent it -- such as NATting their entire RR customer base, which allows people to play games, etc.
And, Time Warner will let me run a server -- if I buy a "business class" connection. I will add that the business-class RR connection, which allows servers, is still a lot cheaper than other bandwidth alternatives.
They are actually very reasonable about it.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I agree. This is the difference between capitalism and a free market. When there is a monopoly, there is no free market because the buyer can't choose different suppliers. Yet monopolies are often the result of a long term capitalist market.
Having a free market should be the goal--not a capitalistic one. Unfortunately, the government seems to be pushing for a capitalistic market that is tightly regulated (as in enforcing policies that define every way the company should act). This is much like communism--the only difference is that the government doesn't own the companies on paper. Maybe it is this way in some countries, but it is this way in my country (the US). They don't even seem to punish most real criminal behavior--just bring down everyone with absurd contradictory and restrictive standards.
It should be that the government maintains a free market by enforcing anti-trust laws (which they don't--just look at Microsoft) and punishing actual criminal behavior--such as fraud, theft, murder, etc.
You, sir, are a liar.
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