Democrat Win May Be Good News For Internet Policy

Null Nihils writes "Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain. At any rate, it isn't hard to see a shift in U.S. information technology policy coming over the horizon. Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), strong supporters for Net Neutrality, will most likely take command of Internet policy, but Democrat commitments regarding privacy, data retention, and digital copyright have yet to be made certain. A C|Net article discusses the likely shift in priorities at Capitol Hill. 'If (Democrat Rick) Boucher gets the nod as chairman, a broadcast flag becomes far less likely and changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention sections become politically feasible ... If Rep. Howard Berman, however, gets the job, the recording industry and motion picture industry will have a staunch ally as subcommittee chairman.'"

Comments

Nothing will change

[dada21]

The Democrats pander to big business just as often (if not more often) than the Republicans do. They're just more able to offer it as some sort of "equality" of certain selected racial or income classes. Don't believe that we'll see anything better come from them that we did the Republicans -- remember, many Democrats voted for Republican pork so that the Republicans would vote for Democratic pork. Nothing will change.

The Internet is best left alone -- and deregulate communications as much as possible to allow for more competition. That will help everyone with lower prices, more competitive levels of service based on what the customer needs (rather than a one-size-fits-all solution), and better service levels due to the reduced cost of meeting regulations and restrictions.

We have just as much to be worried about with the Democrats in power as the Republicans. The Democrats are no friend to the free market, which means we'll see more restrictions on speech (ie, copyright and patent extensions), more restrictions on actions (ie, paying wages equal to the production of the worker) and more restrictions on competition with offshore companies (ie, forced benefits, federalizing of programs that should stay local, and probably higher barriers to entry against entrenched corporations).

The Democrats and the Republicans are two sides of the same face of the coin -- the left side and the right side of authoritarianism or Statism. The opposite side is freedom, something no political party (not even the Greens nor the Libertarians) are about.

If you want freedom, start voting for none of the above like I do.

Re:Nothing will change

[panaceaa]

One needn't look much further than the DMCA, which was passed unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by our Democratic president, Bill Clinton, to see that Democrats don't respect the Internet any more than Republicans. What needs to happen is more technological education of politicians, not party changes. With the changing of the majority party we won't have a chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation committee claiming the Internet is a series of tubes, but I bet his replacement won't know particularly more.

Re:Nothing will change

[no1nose]

Hopefully, we will have political gridlock. Dub'ya won't be allowed to run unchecked any longer. I was no Clinton fan, but I would be glad to see life return to the way it was back in 1996-2000. Those were very prosperous times for all of us.

Demo's controlled the president and Repub's controlled the House and Senate = gridlock. The Lewinsky affair took up all of the government's processing power, allowing the economy to flourish. Now that the Demo's control congress, we will probably see some charges brought against Bush (you know Iraq, etc...) They won't have time to pass economy hindering regulations! [Napolean Dynamite]YES![/Napolean Dynamite]

Re:Nothing will change

[TheoMurpse]

freedom, something no political party (not even the Greens nor the Libertarians) are about

Care to explain how Libertarians aren't about freedom? I'm really curious. I mean, the only elected official I know of is Ron Paul (life member of the Libertarian party), and he consistently writes about freedom, and has voted a lot in favor of freedom (which includes freedom of spammers -- witness his vote against the CAN-SPAM Act).

Re:Nothing will change

[Anonymous Coward]

One needn't look much further than the DMCA, which was passed unanimously by the Republican Senate.

fixed that for you.

Re:Nothing will change

[Anonymous Coward]

I was reading the parent post with the header scrolled up, and was thinking, "wow, this is some serious crazy".

Then I scrolled up and saw the poster was... dada21. Ah, the world continues to spin on its axis.

Re:Nothing will change

[Maximilio]

The Democrats and the Republicans are two sides of the same face of the coin -- the left side and the right side of authoritarianism or Statism. The opposite side is freedom, something no political party (not even the Greens nor the Libertarians) are about.

Forgive me: where the hell have you been for the last six years? In a spider hole? I can definitely tell the difference between having Democrats and Republicans in charge.

Also, please note that many of the new Democrats elected are not from the mold of Joe Lieberman (though we unfortunately failed to replace his ass) but rather were endorsed (and WON on the basis of that endorsement) -- from the netroots. Micro-donations from actual citizens. So their campaign contributors are all a bunch of ordinary folk, and they're not going to be allowed to forget that.

So, -1 for ignorance, and -2 for intentional ignorance. Try again!

Re:Nothing will change

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Libertarians are about the moral value of Independence, which is not the same exact thing as freedom. Independence from other's control, independence in thought, indepencence in finances, independences from coercion. Independence can be and is a huge component of freedom, but is not the only thing which freedom consists of. If Libertarians would all understand this distinction consciously, they could turn it into a very persuasive political message. But good luck with that. Herding Libertarians is hard because they're so darn independent.

Re:Nothing will change

[TheoMurpse]

Please tell me what subset of "freedom" is not encompassed by "independence," as I'm a libertarian-leaning person, and would like to know what could be done to my philosophy to make it more popular.

Re:Nothing will change

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Simple answer: Freedom is inherent. Independence is won. There's a lot of shades of meaning in there, but articulatig that moral value clearly would give Libertarians a huge rhetorical boost.

I'm not a Libertarian, but I generally like Libertarians. I think about politics in the meta sense mostly, so I find it interesting to theorize about beliefs other than my own liberalism.

I'm writing a series of articles, released irregularly, in my journal. Friend me and you'll eventually see the next one I have planned, which goes into more detail about the moral basis of Libertarian rhetoric. I warn you though. I am an absolute asshole. A sexual deviant, actually. So there will be a certain icky feeling to friend me, if you can stand it.

Re:Nothing will change

[dr_turgeon]

We have seen this argument forever--usually when things start to improve. Believe that I am sympathetic to the notion that these Democrats are far from perfect. But I refuse to accept this static interpretation above.

The "nothing will change" message is not impartial as it may seem. It blurs things. It is an attempt to spread our rightful contempt for the current administration to any moderate improvements that could be made.

I consider this to be partisan disinformation of the "Apple is just as bad as Microsoft" variety. It encourages the hopelessness necessary to prevent realization of the differences.

It's good for checks and balances

[WilliamSChips]

That's good news in general.

Re:It's good for checks and balances

[BunnyClaws]

This is good news we will have gridlock for the next 2 years. The bad news is we may have a Democratic president and congress without checks and balances. Then we are back in the same boat with a different captain.

Re:It's good for checks and balances

[Jonny do good]

I actually doubt that the deomcrats will get a President into office. Just looking at the people being considered for President next election the Democrats are talking about extreemists, the Republicans are atalking about McCain. Not that I really belive McCain is a good choice for President, he is a more of a centrist than extreemist. The Democrats were talking about Bayh (spelling?) for a while and he would have been a good candidate, he is centrist.

The extreem left has hijacked the Democrats much like the extreem right has hijacted the Republicans. Since the democrats won this election I think their leadership feels that they now have the mandate that the republicans had and will send another leftist to run for President. During this past election the Democrats had a lot of centrist candidates which helped them win in the battleground states. The problem with this is that those candidates were young and will not be seen as a possible Presidential candidate. They are going to push for Clinton and Obama, both of whom are pretty far left. Neither of them has a chance of winning the Presidency. McCain has shown that he doesn't tote the party line and sticks to his guns which tend to be in the middle (not on all issues but if you look at his track record he tends to be centrist).

The Democras are in a good position to be able to take both congress and the Presidency but their leadership is full of people like Dean, Clinton, and Pelosi. Although Pelosi has suprised me in her poise lately, her track record is one of a leftist. It will be interesting next election but I actually think that the Democrats have their opportunity but will shoot themselves in the foot by running a bad candidate. The Republicans will probably run either McCain or Guliani (spelling?) both of which have been able to be centrists and are well respected but a lot of America. The choice of candidates will leave the majority of Americans (who are not left or right wing) with little choice but to go for the middle ground.

Re:It's good for checks and balances

[dpilot]

I used to like McCain. But if he's running on "personal integrity" he damaged that when he cozied up to the White House. I'm not talking about GWB, I'm talking about Karl Rove, the man who smeared McCain in Carolina and helped smear Kerry with the Swifties. (I checked up on it afterward - someone did a followup investigation, and the Swifties' allegations were proven false.) The Bob Jones appearance left me with a bad taste of pandering to the far right, too.

As for extremes, there is no extreme left in the US. Bernie Sanders is probably about as far left as we get. From what I hear from non-USers, the US has the far right, and our "far left" is slightly right-of-center, to the rest of the world.

By the way, Joe Biden appears to be running for 2008. He has always impressed me in interviews about being plainly, but intelligently spoken. Nor did he preach, but answered the questions and kept a sense of humor.

As for Hillary, I have some true (not neo-) conservative friends in New York, and they have been quite pleased with the actions of Senator Clinton. I have a suspicion that the 1994 Congressional election was a life-changing, view-changing event for her. She may feel partly to blame for the Republican Revolution and what it did to here husband's Presidency. (IMHO, Bill Clinton made the best of an adversarial relationship. Who else balanced the budget in the past century, with whatever Congress?)

Back to 1994, I really feel that we missed a chance, there. I don't know what the National Health Plan was going to be like, and I don't honestly care. What I don't like is that after 1994 all debate about health care was shut down cold. As a nation, we jammed our fingers in our ears and yelled, "Na-na-na-na! I'm not listening!" In the meantime, the whole system drifted onward. One of the key reasons for jobs being sent overseas has been health care. Employers have shifted plans, passing more cost over to employees, where they haven't dropped plans entirely. Uninsured find that their health care costs are even higher, because providers have been "negotiated down" by insurers, and they're transferring costs.

Our health care financing system is a complete mess. It's badly broken. We chose not to address it in 1994, before it became a real problem. We're still not. (IMHO, tort reform doesn't address the real issue, and is simply a bone to business.)

Re:It's good for checks and balances

[Jonny do good]

I will agree with you on almost everything, the problem with Clinton is her national image as a coniving politician. She has actually been pretty centrist on most issues buy she has a very bad national image. New York doesn't represent America and her favorible view in New York doesn't translate to national support.

Most Americans don't really care about if we are right of center compared to the rest of the world. What matters to Americans is American issues and our world policies, not really what the rest of the world thinks of us. In the U.S. left of center is left of center to us, it doesn't really matter what left of center in the rest of the world is in an American election.

I would agree with you that there needs to be reform to our health care system, although with our demographics a socialized system really isn't very feasable. The baby boomers are coming into retirement age and having the younger working age citizens pay for it doesn't really work out economically. I also agree that tort reform doesn't completely address the issue although it is a step in the right direction. Lawsuits themselves don't really cause health care costs to go down, insurance is the problem. Reducing malparcitice insurance (a huge percentage of health care costs) would help. More work needs to be done on other issues. I am not really for forcing companies hands because I believe that a free market with controls to keep in in check by anti-monpolistic legislation is the best way. Insurance companies are a huge problem in several ways. They drive down the price they have to pay to health care providers by leveraging their power, then jack up the rates to their customers. This leads to doctors having to charge higher prices to uninsured because they don't make any profit (well, maybe some profit but very slim margins) on payments from insurance companies. Strict regulation of the insurance industry is deperately needed in this country. To me it just doesn't make sense that the insurance industry as a whole made record profits last year after the largest natural disaster in U.S. history. That just shows how broken the insuarnce industry (and legislation governing it) is.

The U.S. government should offer a health plan similar to medicare for all citizens that are unable to afford their own or through their job. That is the step that no one in politics is really ready to make. The costs will be high for such a system but a completely socialized system will result in two major problems. If the government is the one paying doctors they will be unable to make much of a profit, this will reduce the already low numbers of doctors comming from the U.S. American health care provides the highest quality in the world (wealthy foreigners flock to this country for treatment), although it isn't available to all (the problem). A socialized system will reduce this quality. The other major problem with a complety socialized system is the cost. If people think that taxes are high now (they really aren't that bad but if we raise them there are serious economic consequences) they will become outragous in order to fund such a system. In order to balance our budget taxes will have to be on the order of 50-60% of income to support this system and maintain other government programs (I am not for keeping many of them at current levels but the government has a very poor track record of actually cutting spending. Even under Clinton when we had a suprlus it was not due to fiscal responsibility, it was due to very high economic growth and a moderate level of increases in government spending. If you want data on this I can dig it up but our budget never went down in real terms, it only went up at a lower rate than tax revenue. Very similar to the surplus in the 1950's or 60's, I can't remember the year but unexpected growth allowed a surplus back then until the government realized it could raise its budget).

Ultimately socialized medicing would run into the same problems that social security is about to experience. Contrary to poular belief

So?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

While I may adore the internet I've got to say it's rather small potatoes on the grand scale of things. I think we need to worry more about terrorist attacks after we pull out of Iraq than we need to worry your mum might find out Sexyslut99372 is your sister on Myspace.

Side note : I'm not saying ZOMG TERRORISM! I'm saying we're dived into a can of worms and with the current "run away" or "stay forever" political sides in the current war this is dangerous in the big picture.

Re: So?

[hotdiggitydawg]

I think we need to worry more about terrorist attacks after we pull out of Iraq than we need to worry your mum might find out Sexyslut99372 is your sister on Myspace.

If that's the case, I think your sister is more likely to die at the hands of your mum...

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only can of worms is imagining that the two options offered are "run away" and "stay forever." It's campaign rhetoric and if you think that the Democratic party really believes that we should "cut and run" or that the Republican party really believes we should "stay the course" then you probably shouldn't be voting to begin with.

yes. i went there.

[User 956]

At any rate, it isn't hard to see a shift in U.S. information technology policy coming over the horizon.

Coming from the party that invented the internet, this is great news. I bet that when their staff sends them an internet, they get it right away, instead of being all tangled up in the tubes.

Rose Colored Glasses

[Scoria]

I'm all for change, but let's not overlook the fact that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

Re:Rose Colored Glasses

[gowen]

Sure, signed into law. All that means is that he didn't consider it important enough to veto, as a lame duck President. I was introduced in the House by Howard Coble (R-NC) and passed by a Republican controlled House and a Republican Senate.

Re:Rose Colored Glasses

[InsaneGeek]

>passed by a Republican controlled House and a Republican Senate

If one looks at the real vote you'll see how partisan your statement talking about who was in the majority is. Hint, look and see if there was a single senate vote against it (voice vote in the house, so no records of who was for/against it). If there wasn't a single vote against it in the senate, than who is the majority has absolutely no meaning other than to be partisan trying to get the Dems off the hook, when in reality they are just as much on the hook as everybody else.

Re:Rose Colored Glasses

[Travoltus]

... and sent to Clinton by a Republican Congress.

Let's hope the Democratic Congress can be the agent for change here.

Re:Rose Colored Glasses

[Trogre]

... but still signed into law by Clinton nonetheless. He had used his power of veto plenty of times before, so why not here? His lack of a veto on this one indicates support for it.

Or are you saying that Bush shouldn't be held responsible for any of the legislation he's signed into law, since he just doesn't consider any of it important enough to veto?

Leave it alone

[AKAImBatman]

For once, I agree with dada21. Leave the internet alone. All this Net Neutrality flap is doing is ensuring that we'll be screwed one way or another. i.e. Senator Stevens will tell you that he's pro-Net Neutrality when his bill is actually anti-Net Neutrality. On the other hand, if you pass a law, you may make it impossible for ISPs to properly support time-sensitive services like VoIP. (VoIP being the use that Internet Tiering was originally designed for.)

The FCC is already regulating the situation, and will slap down any provider who improperly abuses their tiering abilities. So leave it the heck alone. Anytime Congress gets involved, we merely end up with the opposite of progress.

Re: Leave it alone

[hevenor]

Someone should explain to me about this internet tiering....how do you give preference to a particular server that uses TCP/IP and avoid an application that says "wrap my data in a privileged packet". How can you avoid this?

Re:Leave it alone

[rootEToTheIPi]

If con is the opposite of pro, then what is the opposite of progress?

Who wrote this headline? Off base I'd say...

[PenguinRadio]

Look here:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?typ e=industryNews&storyID=2006-11-09T091511Z_01_N0945 8311_RTRIDST_0_INDUSTRY-DEMOCRATS-DC.XML

"I'm trying to contain my joy," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman told The Hollywood Reporter.

Look at the fact--Rep. John Conyers take over Judiciary. You can say 'Boucher is great, or Berman is bad' but they are minor players compared to Conyers and the power of the chairmanship (Conyers was the author of the 'analog hole' bill along with a host of other bidding on behalf of the RIAA).

Stop drinking the Kool-aid. This was no better a result than the previous crowd staying in control...

Since when are internet taxes good policy?

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't a tax Dems don't like.

STOP IT!!!

[eno2001]

Stop trying to tie politics into every goddamned thing in the world!!! Face it, ALL politicians are knobs. I dno't care if you look at any political party, when it comes to technology, the positive or negative impact on it that a politician can have is far more tied into that individual's understanding of technology. It has nothing to do with Republicans being more "tech savvy" or Democrats being Mac users or the like... It has everything to do with whether or not the politician thinks the internet is a series of tubes, or whether he believes that filtering the internet is unreliable because of what it cuts access to. Stop trying to make this a political issue. It isn't. These knobs will vote for whatever they think will get them more votes around election time and more money between elections. Jesus you people are fucking thick!!!!

Re:STOP IT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new 'round here parts. We Uhmericans invenned thuh innuhnet tubes, so stop complaining 'bout our political mudslinging. Hee-haw!

Re:STOP IT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop trying to tie politics into every goddamned thing in the world!!!

But everything is tied to politics... It just isn't always tied to a political party.
Think about it, I know you can.

Sounds like communist regulation.

[rogtioko]

So now the Democrats are going to force us 'to not respect copyright' in some instances.
We'll have less freedom.

Now in Both House and Senate Flavors!

[Dr. Eggman]

As the democrats have secured both the house and the senate, it'll be interesting to see what happens the the house Net Neutrality bill famously blocked by Senator Ted "Tubes" Stevens. My representative's co-sponsorship of that bill cinched his otherwise shaky (with me) run for senator. Now that he is a senator, I can only hope he can either get it out of committee hell or help reintroduce it in the newly democrat controlled senate.

Tabs

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean you idiots will stop shutting down guitar tab websites?

Seriously, that's got to be the most retarded thing ever..

More to worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

Increased government is a badthing for the internet. Small government republicans monkeyed around too much, its only going to get worse now...

Re:More to worry about

[dpilot]

I don't know where you come up with the description, "Small government republicans." It certainly doesn't apply to the past 6 years. They've been small when it comes to regulating business, big when it comes to giving out contracts, small when it comes to monitoring those contracts, and big when it comes to interfering in common peoples' lives. Oh, and "conservative" appears to have nothing to do with fiscal responsiblity or conservation of resources. IMHO, today "conservative" means conserving their wealth and power.

I've always held myself to be a moderate. My brother says we still live by the Republican values we were raised with, but today that makes us Liberals. In 4th grade, before really understanding politics, there were 2 of us favoring Barry Goldwater against LBJ. Having learned more about Goldwater since then, I guess I can call myself a conservative, a moderate, a liberal, and a Goldwater Republican - truthfully on all counts.

Re: The DMCA

[nuzak]

Golly I feel like I'm on a phpBB now ...

The DMCA has a lot of noxious amendments, but it's actually a good law otherwise. Current copyright law just let owners of Intellectual Property (a concept some don't like, but it predates the DMCA) just haul off and sue sue sue everyone in sight as soon as they saw content that was infringing. The DMCA lets content providers at least make a good-faith effort to remove the offending content via the infamous "DMCA takedown" procedure, BUT it lets the accused "infringer" challenge the takedown (a procedure sometimes called a "putback") and demand that the folks demanding the takedown either put up with legal action within 14 days, or shut up, at which time the content goes straight back.

So yeah they can get a "free" 14-day takedown, but the situation prior to that was to skip straight to legal demands that would put the host of the content in immediate danger, which would more often than not result in permanent removal regardless of the merits.

Stuff like the "circumvention devices" nonsense needs for sure to be cut out of the DMCA, and the stacking of the legal system against the little guy is sort of outside its scope. But at least the hosts with the deep(er) pockets aren't being targeted first.

Laws can trickle

[Orange Crush]

Why is Slashdot so damn US-centric? Are does anyone else outside the USA really care for the political propaganda crap on Slashdot?

Because the Internet is pretty US-centric. That's more a matter of audience makeup, which is changing. However, regulation and asshattery by US lawmakers can affect people connecting to and from other countries as well. Not to mention other nations enacting their own laws similar to the way things are being done in the US w/ regards to technology.

As long as...

[sdaemon]

As long as the dems don't try to take my Internet tubes away, I'm happy. I'd hate to have to start using that Big Truck again.

Re:Wrong, one thing will change!

[vertinox]

The Democrats pander to big business just as often (if not more often) than the Republicans do.

Something will change and that is simply that President Bush will not be able to pass what he wants and neither will congress will get bills past the veto.

This simply means that less legislation will be passed which in turn means less pork and effectiveness of corporate lobbying.

Sure they can still lobby but since congress can't get their bills passed, it will be a moot point.

As they say... The Government that Governs least, governs best!

Still... Isn't it sad, that the only way to have our government work for the people is to have it not work at all?

re: US-Centric

[garcia]

Why is Slashdot so damn US-centric? Are does anyone else outside the USA really care for the political propaganda crap on Slashdot?

I suppose we'd have to take a peek at the number of Slashdot subscribers and their webserver stats to see why the "editors" choose to be "US-Centric".

In addition to that, you have to look at the fact that Slashdot itself is based in the US and has American "editors".

At least the whining stopped

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear all those Repuke wingnuts screaming that they lost because of fraud? Blaming Diebold and those cheating Democrats.
Demanding endless recounts in the races they lost narrowly. Whining "count all the votes".And now that it is over and they have lost blaming it on the stupid American voters?
No you don't.Kind of refreshing isn't it?
This is neither Troll nor Flamebait maybe a little off-topic.

RE: At least the whining stopped

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, is your troll saying that the editors and slashbots are a bunch of double standard hypocrites?

Re:At least the whining stopped

[Scudsucker]

They didn't compain about fraud because Democrats don't run Diebold, and they didn't ask for recounts because they didn't think they'd win anyway. If Burns or Allen thought there was a snowball's chance in hell that they could win on a recount, you can bet your ass they would have demanded them. As for whining, keep this fact in mind: if there had been a full statewide recount of the votes in Florida in 2000, Gore would have won the electoral vote as well as the popular vote.

Now that Republicans are having problems voting too (at least one candidate for govenor and one candidate for Congress), hopefully there will be a bipartisan movement for accurate, annonymous, verfiable voting methods, like Oregon's vote-by-mail system. And that severe penalties will imposed on attempts at disenfranchisng voters, like robo-calling them to say their location has changed or that they will be arrested if they show up.

RE: Here comes all the politicking....

[HotBBQ]

When your country of origin comes up with a better way of getting information through all those tubes and puts up the majority of the money to make it happen we will make all /. posts your-country-centric.

Ted Stevens is no longer chairman of the commerce

[Serveert]

committee in the senate.

I think we can all be happy about that.

Re: Here comes all the politicking....

[SydShamino]

Re: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205785&cid =16788711
Why is Slashdot so damn US-centric? Are does anyone else outside the USA really care for the political propaganda crap on Slashdot?

Yeah, just last week I went to slashdot.co.de and complained about how German-central their political coverage was. It was especially true in terms of technology. Even though Germany was the principal founder of the internet, and also still the controlling force for some aspects through its dominance of ICANN, that isn't right. Plus, given Germany's strong global presence, even though they use their political and economic weight to lead or dictate policies across the globe, none of that means they should be talking about politics on a web site based in their country written in their language.

Certainly not on a website devoted to technology, especially one with a subcategory called "Politics" that can be disabled by any viewer who wishes to not see those type of stories.

Re:Here comes all the politicking....

[bcat24]

Why is Slashdot so damn US-centric?

Click and you shall find.

The Democrats won? Damn!

[DrJimbo]

Now I'm going to have to find the receipt for those millions of masks I bought. I sure hope I can still return them.

Well, at least I can make a couch out of some of the extra FedEx boxes.

Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[rsborg]

Good:

Montana Sen. Conrad Burns' loss to Democrat Jon Tester comes as a blow to broadcasters. Burns, a former broadcaster, was one of the industry's most reliable supporters on Capitol Hill.

... this means ClearChannel/Infinity/etc. have to deal with a) newcomer and netroots-enabled Tester and b) lost a strong supporter

Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, often sided with the cable industry over broadcasters in the inter-industry fights that shape policy. He also led the fight against media indecency.

... less legislation of morality

It was a power at least one chairman was ready to exert even before he wins back the gavel as Dingell told reporters he didn't plan to be idle. Dingell already was pushing the FCC to make a thorough examination of AT&T's $81 billion merger with BellSouth.

...well more good news. Less mergers = less likely we see draconian implementations.

The Bad: Well, Hollywood is better friends with the Democrats.

The Ugly? Well, both are pretty beholden to our corporate masters... unless we're willing to get our government to revoke corporate charters (ie, the corp death penalty), we're not going to starting winning that war.

Let's not forget...

[dantheman82]

that MPAA CEO Glickman was a former Democrat congressman originally thrown out by the Republicans in 1994. Behold the irony of the Republican haters on /. meeting the MPAA-supporting Democratic in new leadership in the House. You can't win, can ya?

Sometimes a few Reagan quotes seem appropriate:
* The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
* The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
* The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Re:Let's not forget...

[sheldon]

that the RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol was the chief of staff of Bill Frist (R-TN). Poor Democratic hater... you just can't win, can ya?

The really sad thing is those Reagan quotes have been more accurate than ever with regards to the Bush Republicans.

A few PJ O'Rourke quotes seem appropriate:
* The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.
* When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
* Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Re:Let's not forget...

[sethstorm]

* The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
* The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
* The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

After 2003, it became this:
* The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the company and I'm here to help.'
* The best minds are not in the Midwest, much less the coasts. If any were present in significant quantity, business would push for increased college tuition and anti-citizen "competitive admissions".
* If it prospers domestically, outsource it overseas. If it's unionized, bankrupt the domestic arm. And if it guts the middle class, invest in it.

While Glickman is someone who needs to be put in his place (and outed every time he attempts influence), those quotes are quite apt at why the US went hard left.

Re:Who wrote this headline? Off base I'd say...

[Happy Monkey]

It's also used improperly once in the article.

No Seriously...

[eno2001]

I mean it. Internet policy is NOT a political issue. I don't care if you're a right wing, left wing, center, or looney wing voter, the politician you love only cares about the money they get from the media corporations. If they stand to make a good deal of money by passing legislation that says you aren't allowed to transfer music from the internet to your music player if you don't use Microsoft DRM (on all platforms), they will do it. And you can't do a damn thing about it other than not vote for them next time. But where does that leave you since you may not want to vote for the opponent and the third party or write in candidates don't stand a chance of winning? This is not political. This is purely an economic issue. And as long as you submit to buying the services that are artificially restricted just because they're popular or easy to use, you're going to get shafted. This is NOT about politics. Quit trying to make it seem that way and wake the fuck up you knob goblins!

Re:No Seriously...

[audiedog]

Wrong! Because of the economics of it, the internet is even more a political issue. The two tiered internet still has a chance with the Republican lame duck congress, and you can bet your @ss that the republicans will do everything they can to push through every bill they want or need now, before their chance expires. The phone companies who are pushing to get pay for performance internet access will make sure a vote occurs before January 3rd.

A great definition of politics is on Wikipedia: Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. The group desperately needs to make a decision on net neutrality, and painting the issue as already decided through economics stymies the action required. Even if you believe it, don't say it. It undermines what power we do have. Do something constructive instead, because apathy and cynicism serve no one.

Re:No Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet policy is NOT a political issue.

But it is, as long as we have a government. You may not want to see it but politics affects every aspect of our lives.
Think about it, I know you can.

Hey Markus!

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrat Party it is!
Sore Winner or is it Whiner?

That's because

[justkarl]

Al Gore invented the internet...

But really, I think I would agree that Democratic politicians have a better grasp of what the "internets" are.

Something I've never understood about the "tubes"

[Optic7]

I consider myself very technologically savvy, have been working in IT for 15 years, 10 of those in networking, and I've honestly never understood why people deride the politician that made the "tubes" analogy so much. Isn't the analogy of tubes or pipes fairly accurate to describe the Internet's physical infrastructure? What's so weird about that? Someone please explain it, I honestly want to know. Thanks in advance.

Next: walking on water

[Cardiakke]

Next week at the latest People will be walking on water! Beer will be free! The economy will be the best ever! Gas will cost 10 cents a gallon! A Theory Of Everything will be revealed! Warp drives in you car! Teleportation! The Democrats are in town! The Democrats are in town!

No Gore-types, please

[Quila]

I do not want to see a resurgence of clipper chips and key escrow, both Democrat initiatives.

Democrats are not necessarily your friends.

No law, just let the ISPs keep pulling their bull

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, if you pass a law, you may make it impossible for ISPs to properly support time-sensitive services like VoIP. (VoIP being the use that Internet Tiering was originally designed for.)

The ISPs would be able to support "time sensitive services like VoIP" if only they weren't oversubscribing their lines. They sell 8Mbit connections, then cry foul when someone attempts to actually use what they've bought, claiming that some unwritten limit referenced but not specified in the contract allows them to throttle your speed to a level lower than what you paid for. What is that limit? Most of them are not going to tell you, because then they'd have acknowledged that your 8Mbit connection, isn't.

As for this fake "tiering" where someone else pays more so I can get the bandwidth I supposedly paid for in the first place, if you think ATT should have the right to charge Vonage for what I do, then my mother would like a new Mustang, what's your address so I can send you the bill?

I'll believe it when I see it

[J.R. Random]

Hollywood is very liberal and the Democrats get an awful lot of their campaign money from that virtual place. Those are the same folks cramming DRM down our throats. So, no, I don't expect the Democrats to be any better than the Republicans on this issue.

TAX IT..

[stewie's deuce]

TAX IT. TAX IT. TAX IT.

yeah.. sounds like good news.

Re:TAX IT..

[Anonymous Coward]

sound better than "BORROW IT! SPEND IT! BORROW IT! SPEND IT!"

some text so the lameness filter will be happy

Sorry, can't agree...

[Optic7]

I won't question your obvious disillusionment (sp?) with politicians and the political process, but I just couldn't let this pass:

deregulate communications as much as possible to allow for more competition. That will help everyone with lower prices, more competitive levels of service based on what the customer needs (rather than a one-size-fits-all solution)

What country have you been in for the last 10 years? Maybe you haven't been following what has been happening in the communications and broadcasting industries in the US lately since the loosening of regulations took place? Just to refresh your memory, the result has been the exact opposite of what you describe: there's been rampant consolidation in both industries - the communications industry is down to 2 or 3 major players (AT&T/SBC, Verizon, and maybeSprint), and the broadcast industry is down to a handfull of major players as well (radio for example, is down to 2 companies that own most of the radio stations in the US, Clearchannel and Infinity), with concrete and drastic results against free speech. So how has deregulation in the communications industry helped competition or anything else other than mega-corporations pockets again?

Ed Markey

[IronyChef]

Oh right, wise friend of the internet Ed "On Friday I urged the Bush Administration to 'apprehend' and shut down whoever had created a new website that enabled persons without a plane ticket to easily fake a boarding pass" Markey...

Re: Ed Markey

[Dachannien]

In response to #16789247:

Oh right, wise friend of the internet Ed "On Friday I urged the Bush Administration to 'apprehend' and shut down whoever had created a new website that enabled persons without a plane ticket to easily fake a boarding pass" Markey...

Markey was right. That website produced forged documents, where the express purpose for producing those documents is to evade federal law enforcement (specifically, the TSA). Both the forging and the use of the forged documents are crimes, and the federal government has every right both to shut down the site and to prosecute the site owner.

Now, if one believes the site owner's reasons for making it - to show how gaping a security hole this is - then he doesn't deserve to spend the next 20 years in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. Hopefully he can make a deal with prosecutors for some sort of probation, at the end of which this incident gets expunged from his record.

Also hopefully, federal regulators will take this as the lesson it was meant to be, and beef up security around this whopper of a hole.

Re: Something I've never understood about the...

[Otter Escaping North]

I consider myself very technologically savvy, have been working in IT for 15 years, 10 of those in networking, and I've honestly never understood why people deride the politician that made the "tubes" analogy so much. Isn't the analogy of tubes or pipes fairly accurate to describe the Internet's physical infrastructure? What's so weird about that? Someone please explain it, I honestly want to know. Thanks in advance.

Out of context - the comment seems about as funny as a random line from Monty Python. The speech Senator Stevens gave was a halting, rambling affair that maintained an amazingly consistent level of anger/passion. He made numerous statements that belied a decidedly uninformed perspective on e-mail, e-commerce, and the internet at large.

The now infamous comment; "it's a series of tubes!" came at the end of a diatribe about how the "internet" that his staff had sent him last Friday was, apparently, clogged up with all the movies being offered by commercial operators. The statement was delivered with such gusto, such conviction that you swear the old fella truly believed they were a bunch of literal tubes.

Was it a technically sound statement, in and of itself? Perhaps...but it seems clear from the rest of the speech that it was more Clouseau than Sherlock.

That's comedy.

Except for one fact

[davmoo]

Nothing radical (in either direction) is going to happen during the term of the next Congress. While the Dems have small majorities in both the House and the Senate, the President still wields a "veto" stamp. And the Dem's majority is not enough to override a veto in either the House or the Senate. Presidink Shrub is still a major factor, and one third of the equation, whether we like it or not.

Overall, the next Congress will be as much a do-nothing Congress as the current one has been. But while they won't restore any of the (many) rights we have lost, at least maybe they won't take away the few we have left.

Depends on what you are looking for

[sheldon]

First of all the headline is wrong. It's 'Democratic', not 'Democrat'. Your grammar is worse than mine, and mine is pretty bad.

But as far as internet policy concerns, it's hard to say what will change. The Democrats are generally better with small business, as the Republicans tend to favor the big donor moneyed set, so we'll see a bit more promotion of competition and open access to the "tubes" and such. Nasdaq tech companies certainly did much better in the 1990s then they have recently.

But are they going to favor changing copyright law and such? Doubtful. I hope they can roll back patent changes that allowed patenting of business processes and such, we'll see.

Honestly though, with the fucking mess Bush has created with our foreign policy, I doubt there's going to be much time spent on these types of low-priority domestic issues. It's going to be Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, some Afghanistan, and more Iraq for the next two years until we finally pull out of the Bush Folly.

Dont count on it

[nurb432]

Unless it makes their big business friends more money and keeps them in office. ( though really, that can be said for EITHER party.. its all the same. )

checks and balances

[Gospodin]

I've seen several comments bemoaning the idea that if the Executive and Legislative branches of government are controlled by the same party, we somehow no longer have "checks and balances." Checks and balances have nothing to do with party affiliation, and everything to do with the different branches being able to override the others from time to time. You might argue that when the Exec and Leg branches are controlled by the same party then they don't exercise this power as often, but that's a different issue. Besides, the third branch (Judicial) is supposed to prevent even these excesses by striking down unconstitutional laws.

Re:Something I've never understood about the "tube

[AeroIllini]

In response to Something I've never understood about the "tubes" (#16789037)...

This is why.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kiZ-TqvVdGM&mode=relate d&search=

Meet The New Boss...

[Prototerm]

...Same as the old boss.

"Who" says we won't get fooled again?

Net neutrality is free and open?

[anthony_dipierro]

I thought "net neutrality" was a proposal to restrict free enterprise on the Internet.

Cure worse than the disease?

[illspirit]

Net neutrality is all well and good until Hillary and the other nanny-state loving think-of-the-children cultists start passing insane laws to "protect" kids from social networking and videogame sites. Expect COPPA x10 requiring webmasters to need everything short of a DNA sample before letting anyone post anything. Expect data retention laws requiring webmasters log every page view forever. Don't be too surprised to see a law saying webmasters of gaming fansites/blogs/etc.. must get an ESRB rating (especially those who host mods). That is if they don't try to nuke the ESRB in favor of a Federal game rating system.

Then again, maybe they'll be too busy poking Dubya with a stick to get anything done...

Corrected: Democratic Win May Be Good

[nedron]

I can't figure out why it's so hard for people to get this straight. I suppose the person who composed the title of the post and the author of the quoted piece may not be American citizens. Just for clarification, there is no "Democrat Party". A Democrat is a member of the Democratic Party.

[Democratic] Win May Be Good News For Internet Policy
Posted by Zonk on 2006.11.09 15:50
from the little-from-column-a-little-from-column-b dept.
[ The Internet ] [ Politics ] [ Your Rights Online ]
Null Nihils writes "Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain. At any rate, it isn't hard to see a shift in U.S. information technology policy coming over the horizon. Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), strong supporters for Net Neutrality, will most likely take command of Internet policy, but [Democratic Party] commitments regarding privacy, data retention, and digital copyright have yet to be made certain. A C|Net article discusses the likely shift in priorities at Capitol Hill. 'If (Democrat Rick) Boucher gets the nod as chairman, a broadcast flag becomes far less likely and changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention sections become politically feasible ... If Rep. Howard Berman, however, gets the job, the recording industry and motion picture industry will have a staunch ally as subcommittee chairman.'"

The Republic Party are bitter losers

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republiscums like Bush use the term "Democrat Party". It is incorrect.
The majority of Americans support and elected the Democratic Party.
More here:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060 807ta_talk_hertzberg

Re: #16788757

[WilliamSChips]

Demanding endless recounts in the races they lost narrowly.

Exactly that is happening in Virginia, and in NC as well IIRC. From Republicans.

I hope this means...

[Anonymous Coward]

bigger tubes for everyone!

diebold

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall... there was a story on Slashdot about Democrats whining pre-election about the Diebolds. After a victory you accuse the GOP of such crappiness. I can't believe how stupid you all are. The truth is that we are stuck in a 2 party system that doesn't always do the best for its people. However, I do believe that ANYONE can do better than the likes of Nancy Pelosi. She has quite the shotgun approach to politics. In fact, her arguments are all unfounded. She shouldn't take a stance on issues and she would seem a lot smarter.

Democrates and Republicans won in 06, maybe not US

[OldHawk777]

Democrats win by political default. Republicans lose by delusional obscenity.
Neither political party appears to comprehend the reality that in a two legged
race one leg always crosses the finish line first and neither lose the race.

Democrats and Republicans won in 2006 because there is never a viable third option for US.
So, I still strongly fear for our National Security, The USA Public Welfare, and world peace.

Also, the dogmatic/religious followers of Democrats, Republicans, Televangelist/NeuFaschist ...
others appear to be unaware of what is Democracy and that the only true business of any
government is the welfare of the citizens/public.

Governments are critically flawed and treasonous when attempting to enslave or exploit citizens
for private interest, power, war, commerce, religion ..., and/or legislating non-injurious sex or
personal activity ... ... ..., prevention of science/medicine and technology research and
development ... ... ..., anti-competitive control of commerce and economy ... ... ....

Re:Something I've never understood about the "tube

[Anonymous Coward]

T"en movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? [...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material"

Maybe because he called an email he had gotten "an Internet". (Sound clip here) He actually did say that, the ... in the quote is him studdering to no end. Just because he semi-got the physical reference correct, it's like a kid who didn't study for a test and circled random answers, he might have gotten 1 or two correct, but the rest of the test was wrong.

I'll take influence for the win, Alex.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't get to say this in one of the other stories but there are two things to keep in mind. One much like a marriage, a candidate is taken as an entire package. You get all, or none. Second voting for the "lessor of two evils" really isn't the proper way to look at it. See it more as "I now have a candidate I can influence for X amount of years"*.

*Because while civic duty may start at the ballet box. It most certainly doesn't stop there.

Did I hear a spin machine starting somewhere?

[rackman]

Seems like we are already touting our next would be overlords and saying how much better all of life will be. Meet the new boss same as the old boss...We are far from the first thing that politicians(Democrats, Republicans, Libertatians and Communists) think of when they cast thier votes.

What's wrong with this picture?

[ZoneGray]

"... supporters for Net Neutrality, will most likely take command of Internet policy"

Think about it, how could "command of Internet policy" equate to freedom, unless the "commanders" refrain from using their power? Which, in Washington, is sacrilege. Even the "smaller government" Republicans forgot about that once they had power.

Liberals don't pass laws to solve problems that might arise in the future. Leftists do that. This is not a comment on the election; just because R's are sleazy doesn't mean that D's are not. Wake the fuck up, and realize that you're being conned by big business into supporting something, simply because other businesses are against it. The companies that are pushing this legislation, even though I like them, are NOT trying to preserve our freedom, they're trying to enhance their profits.

Preventing hypothetical problems is one of Washington's oldest tricks. They pass a law, the problem never arises, and they say, "See, it worked." Stop falling for it.

Re:Something I've never understood about the "tube

[compro01]

i personally don't quite get it either.

a slightly better idea would be to describe it as a bunch of tanks (data repositories/servers) and taps (individual connections) connected via tubes.

still, for a non-technical politician, the "tubes" analogy is not that far off plane.

Normally, I'd agree. But we're talking about Rick

[MacDork]

Look at Rick Boucher's track record on internet legislation and tell me he's a knob again. If all of congress were lined up to be shot by a firing squad, and I were given the opportunity to save just one of them... it'd be Rick Boucher. Patrick Leahy could go to the front of the line though. He is definitely in Hollywood's pocket.

I wonder if...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the Republicans will cry foul should a Dem president actually turn that anti-terror legislation against them? Will they see the irony when they are being hauled off to gitmo? And will the people who's rights they casually tossed out the window in the name of fighting terrorism come to their defense?

Re:Something I've never understood about the "tube

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been working in IT for almost 20 years, and I don't get it either. We've always referred to networks as "pipes". Especially when trying to explain bandwidth and whatnot to non-technical people. The garden hose/straw analogy has been around forever.

I can make a guess that it's just liberals trying to make a stupid joke about a conservative.

Re:Ted Stevens is no longer chairman of the commer

[foniksonik]

Yes, make way for Ted Kennedy....

Bull!

[Guppy06]

"Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain."

No, all we've done is replace the darlings of the telecommuncations businesses with the darlings of the media businesses; the party of Stevens with the party of Feinstein.

Which party's president signed the DMCA into law again?

Re:Who wrote this headline? Off base I'd say...

[Random BedHead Ed]

Stop drinking the Kool-aid. This was no better a result than the previous crowd staying in control...

Far from true. You rightly point out that the Democrats present us with new challenges, especially those of us who believe in copyright reform (in some respects they may be worse for that issue). But I'm not a one-issue voter. So here are some others:

• In times like these foreign policy is far more significant an issue than copyright, and the Repubs made a mess of foreign policy.
• Ditto with fiscal policy. We went from 90s 'tax-and-spend' to an entirely new idea: 'spend-and-spend'.
• Think you have privacy rights? The right to an attorney? The right to be charged with a crime if you're detained? Basic constitutional rights have been ignored by the executive branch and then (just a couple weeks ago) rolled back by the legislature. Have you read about the US citizen who was tortured yet?
• Congressional oversight died at some point in 2001. There has been virtually no oversight over the executive branch by the legislature since Clinton left office. During his terms, Congress logged 140 hours testimony into whether he used the White House Christmas card list to help with fundraising. Compare this to 12 hours of testimony into the Abu Ghraib scandal that helped fuel the Iraqi insurgency. Congress issued 1052 subpoenas for testimony during the Clinton years. It has issued 0 to the Bush White House.

The last item on the list is probably the most important. If I could choose between the president doing whatever he'd like without oversight and having a broadcast flag on my TV signal, I'll take the broadcast flag and feel lucky for it.

Re: Something I've never understood about the...

[Optic7]

Ah, thank you for the answer and the best description yet of what happened. I looked it up on youtube and found this (audio only though): The Tubes Speech. You're right about it being a halting/rambling/angry speech, with a bunch of technical inaccuracies.

Re: Here comes all the politicking....

[foobsr]

written in their language

From Wikipedia: "English is a West Germanic language that developed from Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons. English, having its major roots in Germanic languages, derives most of its grammar from Old English. As a result of the Norman Conquest, it has been heavily influenced, more than any other Germanic language, by French and Latin. From England it spread to the rest of the British Isles, then to the colonies and territories of the British Empire (outside and inside the current Commonwealth of Nations) such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others, particularly those in the Anglophone Caribbean. As a result of these historical developments English is the official language (sometimes one of several) in many countries formerly under British or American rule, such as Pakistan, Ghana, India, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, and the Philippines."

"Starting in the late 16th century, the English, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch began to colonize eastern North America. The first English attempts--notably the Lost Colony of Roanoke--ended in failure, but successful colonies were soon established."

Also: http://www.worldlingo.com/en/resources/language_st atistics.html

CC.

Re:Something I've never understood about the "tube

[Anonymous Coward]

While anyone who knows anything knows that if more than 80% of your bandwidth is being used, you need a fatter pipe, and any QoS you do will kill your in latency, Senator Stevens had the workings of the Internet poorly explained to him by people who would stand to benefit from implmenting QoS. When he went before Congress to tell everybody how the Internet works, he sounded like an idiot. People like to latch on to one detail of something and turn it into a sound bite- instead of saying 'Stevens' model of the internet is inaccurate', we say 'the "tubes" metaphor is ridiculous'.

Re:Something I've never understood about the "tube

[Quince alPillan]

It wasn't so much the "series of tubes" remark that was so off base, but the rest of the speech.

From Wikipedia's article on the Series of Tubes remark:

Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? [...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

From the remarks about his staff sending him an Internet, to an obvious lack of understanding on why it got delayed its easy to tell that Mr. Stevens doesn't have a clue. That this same person was criticizing net neutrality and possibly influencing others against it is frightening.

elementary, my dear Watson

[Scudsucker]

Because Stevens wasn't making an analogy. That's how he actually sees the Internet. Any more questions?

stongly disagree

[Scudsucker]

The public has a right to expect public oversight of the Internet, because the public paid for it. The Internet was devloped with taxpayer dollars, and fiber is run across public land, and even private land with the use of eminent domain. So when big business plans to turn the Internet into a money minting machine for their own benefit at the expense of the public's, the government needs to step in and put a stop to it.

The problem with Libertarianism's deregulation-for-the-sake-of-deregulation is that nature, and the economy, abhors a vacuum. Government officials, while frequently corrupt and incompetent, are at least answerable to the public. Corporate officials, while frequently corrupt and incompetent, are not. If the government is unable to regulate, business will step in and do their own regulating - with only their own interests in mind. Which is not to say that everything should be regulated, but that even Libertarians are probably happy they no longer have to rent their phones from AT&T.

Re:stongly disagree

[AKAImBatman]

If you were paying attention, I already mentioned that the FCC is regulating the matter. My point is not one of complete deregulation, but one of oversight already being in place. The reason why the ISPs are attempting to twist the anti-Net Neutrality as if it were Net Neutrality (See? Consumer Bill of Rights!) is because they want to get rid of the FCC oversight. They can only do that if a new law gets passed.

On the other hand, if an actual Net Neutrality law gets passed, it will either kill time-sensitive services outright (bye, bye VoIP) or have so many loopholes that the law would be effectively impotent.

Re:stongly disagree

[Scudsucker]

If you were paying attention, I already mentioned that the FCC is regulating the matter.

And if you were paying attention instead of looking for a chance to get snippy, you'll know that leaving it in the hands of the overly corporate friendly FCC is a bad idea. Deregulation? Broadcast flag? Continuing to call a 256 Kbps connection "high speed" when people in foreign countries have 100 Mpbs to their homes? Reclassifying broadband from "telecommunications service" to "information service" to shut out small compeditors?

Look, we already know what the telecom companies want to do and what will happen if they aren't kept in check. The only variable involved is how greedy they will get in blackmailing Google and other content providers. Nipping this in the bud now will save hundreds of millions for consumers, content providers and even the telecoms - no sense in them buying all new bandwidth controlling equipment if later regulation makes it worthless. The only winner here would be Cisco.

On the other hand, if an actual Net Neutrality law gets passed, it will either kill time-sensitive services outright (bye, bye VoIP) or have so many loopholes that the law would be effectively impotent.

Nonsense. Just write the law to allow prioritizing certain kinds of traffic (VOIP, video) while preventing ISPs from blocking compeditors or double charging for access. It's really not that hard.

just one problem:

[Scudsucker]

everything is political. Everything.

Re:Wrong, one thing will change!

[Scudsucker]

As they say... The Government that Governs least, governs best!

Katrina should have retired that old chestnut.

one problem with your rant

[Scudsucker]

...most of your "leftists" are actually firmly conservative. Like Clinton, paid any attention to how she has positioned herself since getting elected? McCain is no centrist - he has sterling conservative credentials. He only appears "centrist" to you because the far right wing has dived into the deep end of facism. Torture, no trials, indefinite detentions, warrantless spying...yup, facism.

If you want an actual "far left" politician, you'll have to go to Cuba to find one.

oh, hardly

[Scudsucker]

The bad news is we may have a Democratic president and congress without checks and balances. Then we are back in the same boat with a different captain.

And what did Clinton and the Democratic Congress do from 1992 until Republicans took over in 1994 that was so bad? Did they do anything that was even on the same planet as: Katrina, Iraq, NSA warrentless spying, torture, suspending habeas corpus, indefinite detentions, adding trillions to the debt, etc etc. Frankly, we NEED the Democrats to have both Congress and the White House for a few years to undo all the damage Republicans have caused over the last six. And unlike the Republican Party, many Democratic politicans and large parts of the Democratic base will not stand for the sort of incompetence and corruption that the GOP has displayed over the last twelve years.