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Maine Passes a Net Neutrality Resolution
Spamicles writes "Maine has become the first state in the US to pass legislation on net neutrality. The resolution, LD 1675, recognizes the importance of 'full, fair and non-discriminatory access to the Internet' and instructs the Public Advocate to study what can be done to protect the rights of Maine Internet users. A 2005 decision by the Federal Communications Commission put in jeopardy net neutrality principles that had been in place since the inception of the Internet." Maine's resolution may be more symbolic than effective. This isn't the first time Maine has been out in front of other states on a controversial issue.
Your voice means NOTHING if you don't submit it via the proper channels. If you care about your politicians, then VOTE. If you care about FCC decisions, then COMMENT. It's your civic duty. When people argue politics with me, my first question is: "In the last election, did you vote?". If the answer is no, then I refuse to discuss politics, after telling them "I don't care what you think, your opinion doesn't matter!".
I commented to the FCC, and I sincerely hope you did, too. Here's my comment to the FCC, first posted to slashdot here. Here's what I wrote:
Airwaves belong to everyone. Although transmission is regulated,
reception is open and unrestricted. And the only purpose of the
regulation is to ensure that the openness of the medium is preserved
and the utility of the radio space is not compromised.
This is as it should be. Everybody benefits when the utility of a
common resource is preserved. Otherwise, the phenomenon of the
"Tragedy of the Commons" rears its ugly head. Here, overly agressive
private consumption of a public resource causes a compromise of the
utility of the common resource, to the detriment of all, including
the private individuals hogging the resource!
The Internet is, by definition, a shared resource. It's a peering
agreement based on communications protocols which enable all of its
parts to cooperate together, seamlessly, for the public benefit. Any
part can access any other part as though all parts were local. It's
the first, truly open, global communications system whose immense
potential for benefiting humankind has barely begun.
It is now up to you, here, to declare for our progeny, that this
shared, common resource shall remain open and free for the benefit of
all, to ensure its use, utility, and power so that everybody can benefit.
Balkanizing this public medium with an "unequal" internet, where the
common carriers of the traffic are free to degrade access to portions
of the network not in their personal interest, serves only to pillage
the utility of the common good. It provides enhanced short-term
profits for the pillager, but degrades the overall utility of the
network.
Please, please please, follow the forefathers before you who have
declared that this land be preserved for the common good, and those
who declared that the roads be preserved for the common good, and
those who have declared that the nation's power grid and telephone
grid be regulated to preserve their utility for the common good.
The utility of the Internet should be preserved. Please, please, keep it neutral.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It's why there ARE states - the term "state" can literally mean "country"
Somewhat ironically, the 50 states in the US, however, are not states in that sense...
They were, quite literally, separate nations until they united under the Constitution of the United States. This isn't new, and a modicum of research will reveal this.
Their relative influence over American life, however, has gone up and down quite a bit over the years. The GP seems to be pointing out that state independence is on a bit of an upswing. He's probably right about that.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I won't speak for the GP, but I am not historically ignorant, and I don't think that his post should be blown off like you seem so keen on doing.
Throughout U.S. history there are identifiable patterns or periods when power has shifted between the States and the Federal government -- although the overwhelming theme has been from the former to the latter, there have been some periods where the reverse has occurred. I think it's entirely possible that the current uber-Federalism has reached the end of its rope with the public, and we're starting to see a loss of patience for highly centralized government, and a desire to decentralize some authority back out to the States. People want more accountability, and it's just not clear that the Federal government is in a position to provide it.
Although it's not a total non sequitur, I'm not sure that bringing up the Civil War is really relevant to the discussion; it's nearly impossible to have a rational discussion of the Civil War without getting wrapped up in the historically-related (and still partially unresolved) issues of agrarian-vs-industrial economies, slavery, and 19th century politics. (Particularly slavery -- it's hardly worth even trying to discuss the abstract issue of states' rights when anyone on the states' side of the argument is going to be called pro-slavery. It's like Nazism; it just stops the discussion.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's good someone battles for states' rights, even if it falls to the states themselves, because neither party supports states' right anymore. The Bush administration gained power by suing in federal court to block a state court's ruling on a state issue, thus losing for the Republicans at the national level all credibility in championing states' rights, which used to differentiate the Republicans strongly from Democrats. In their heedless and desperate grab for power both then and after 9/11, they lost their party identity.
Get the states mad enough and they can call a Constitutional Convention and effectively rewrite the Constitution to strip the federal government of power. Whether the federal government would allow this or use the military to prevent it (and whether the military would obey) becomes an interesting question after the events circa 1865, when the fundamental notion of states participating voluntarily in a union shattered, for better or for worse depending with high correlation on your latitude with respect to the Mason-Dixon line.
Perhaps now the best thing would be to contact your representative legislators and let them know that Maine has set an example that should be followed...HOWEVER...and this is a BIG HOWEVER...
e xts/LD167501.asp
p ?LD=1675
:) - Zapped.Info
We should be careful before celebrating and actually READ the resolution. I must admit that I have not read the resolution and while everything looks great on the surface, sometimes, we the people, end up getting duped into thinking our rights have been preserved when in fact they were diminished. I doubt that is the case here, but we should read the resolution with magnifying glasses before celebrating and promoting it.
Here is the bill text from Maine's website which must be behind the times because the leading page still reads, "Not yet determined"
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/billt
Leading page:
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/LD.as
Well...I've got some reading to do
It's important to know that I forgot what I thought I knew when I thought I knew it all:Now I don't even know whatIknow.
QoS is fine and ISPs should be allowed to apply QoS to their traffic to give priority to, say, VoIP over, say, BitTorrent. Taking away the rights of ISPs to apply QoS
The 2 issues that the "anti-net neutrality" crowd should be focusing on are:
1.When ISPs give preferential treatment to, say, CableCo VoIP over, say, Vonage. Or give preferential treatment to a customer who pays extra for the privilege.
and 2.When ISPs deliberatly limit the speeds of certain data (based on network protocols, port numbers, source and destination address or whatever else) so that that data can never go at the full speed of whatever broadband link you have.