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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.'"
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.
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.
I like muppets.
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.
Do you like German cars?
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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!!!!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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.
Demented But Determined.
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.
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
Increased government is a badthing for the internet. Small government republicans monkeyed around too much, its only going to get worse now...
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.
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?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
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".
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.
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.
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.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
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.
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
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 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!
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?
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:
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.