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Obama & McCain Conflicting On Net Neutrality
longacre writes "For all their incessant bickering in the first two presidential debates over conflicts of interest and government regulation, PopMech columnist Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics: Net neutrality. John McCain and Barack Obama have stated elsewhere their opposing views on the issue, with McCain being opposed to Net neutrality and favoring light regulation of the Internet, while Obama is in favor of neutrality and seeks Government involvement. In any case, since there is no standard accepted definition of 'network neutrality,' until the candidates elaborate on their positions (which they both declined to do for this piece, nor anywhere else so far, for that matter), 'both sides can make a credible case that they're the ones defending freedom of innovation and open communication.'"
Obviously. Both sides refuse to clearly state their positions so that they can define them... after the election.
"Of course we mean X. We always meant X. Why, did we ever say otherwise?"
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This is a minor issue, not a vital one. I'm glad they don't waste debate time talking about it.
I personally am on the fence on this issue. As a libertarian, I am against government regulation and pro-free market and net neutrality seems to me to be a regulation against the telecom providers to do what they want with their lines. But on the other hand freedom of communication and open networks are definitely positive things, so I do wonder how an unregulated free market would handle this issue. It's somewhat off topic, but would be interested in your thoughts, especially if you also consider yourself libertarian.
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What's the Constitutionality of network neutrality legislation?
IANAL, but I think it would be a hard sell to Constitution-following legislators (oh, how scant their numbers are these days). I think there could be some applicability for the Interstate Commerce clause (Art. 1, Sec. 8: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes), however intrastate networks would and should be unfettered by Federal law. It would be up to the several states themselves to enact neutrality legislation if they so desire.
Personally, I'm against Federal legislation for network neutrality, partially on principle, partially on the the grounds that I fear/know that the Federal government listens to lobbyists and corporations more than citizens who designed and currently use the thing.
I would prefer to see an easily-joinable coalition of Internet-based companies and ISPs which democratically--one vote per entity--chooses regulations in an RFC-like manner and punishes with disconnection/shunning any entity which violate these regulations.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Posting anonymously because I modded in this thread.
You seem to misunderstand what Net Neutrality is. Net Neutrality is the principle that telecoms can't favor one type of net traffic over another. Since the telecoms are in a sense the gatekeepers of net access, then they have the technological power to do this.
The ONLY way to keep a business from doing something within its power is (obviously) to pass legislation against doing that thing.
Guess what? Legislation = "government involvement"
I'd be interested in knowing exactly how you'd MAKE Comcast stop downthrottling bittorrent without, you know, making them. Care to elaborate?
This issue is difficult because it is about the freedom of people to exchange information vs the freedom of the market. But in the current situation I think it is one of the very minor points; ensuring that not too many people lose their livelyhoods is the big issue now and will be so for some years.
Typical...article going too far to look "balanced"...unfortunately, our standards for journalistic objectivity now require MSM to throw out all analysis and simply ask dimwitted questions and repeat the candidates talking points.
In this case, the article is really bending over backwards to make the false point that:
by saying that:
That statement is simply false. Of course anyone could quibble over the definition of any word ad infinitum, but the general idea is no tiered service.
This is where everyone who is in favor of John McCain flames me with how my links and definition of 'net neutrality' isn't exactly right..blah blah blah...I used to work in IT, and everyone...I mean everyone I worked with in our rather large company had the exact same basic understanding of 'net neutrality'...the wiki definition is as good as any and represents the general idea as it is understood in common usage
It's blatantly obvious that when it comes to net neutrality issues, Obama is the one who favors an internet unfettered by tiered service "packages" that do nothing more than deliver less for the same or more $$$. Why do we have to pretend that "net neutrality" is some nebulous, undefined thing that the candidates haven't talked about in enough detail...if you want more specifics, just look at the list of laws that have tried to promote net neutrality and failed, then look who voted for or against them
Obama is best for net neutrality by a mile...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Don't be absurd and call Obama a socialist, you'll offend real socialists.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
While it's interesting to know where they stand on the NN issue, do you really wanna tell me *that's* what will determine to whom you're voting?
So explain to me how their positions are actually different?
because that might give something for an undecided voter to hold against them. And the news media is aiding an abetting - they can get more words out of a vague question than one that can be answered.
For instance, one of the topics where the candidates differ greatly is on firearms and 2A issues. But it has flat-out been ignored in this campaign. The liberal interpretation of this is that guns just aren't all that important with everything else going on; the conservative interpretation is that gun issues can only hurt Obama - there's a lot of pickup trucks out there with gun racks and union stickers - so the debate moderators aren't bringing it up. The more realistic interpretation is that guns have become like abortion - folks on both sides have hardened and are sure votes, and the general public has settled on a "fundamental right with restrictions" stance and just don't really care right now. They may care on an individual basis later, when Susie gets knocked up or Johnnie gets mugged, but as a whole the populace has reached equilibrium.
Or Net Neutrality is just too obscure for Jane "I just captioned my first lolcat!" Doe.
(Yes, that's an actual quote from my daughter. I died a little bit inside.)
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Clearly you simply have no idea wtf you're talking about.
Net Neutrality == the idea that if I visit a website, that website won't get preferential treatment (in terms of bandwidth or latency priority) because they've paid my ISP for the privilege. Or: all content is created equal. Note: this does *not* rule out QoS to, for example, reduce latency for real-time applications, at the expense of increased latency for bulk transfers, as per Comcast's recent announcement, as that prioritization is not based on the source or destination of the data, but instead on the protocol being employed.
This definition says *nothing* how this fairness comes about. However, given the stances that telecom companies have taken recently, my belief is that the government may need to step in and impose regulation in order to ensure that net neutrality is preserved. And this just so happens to be Obama's stance. McCain, however, would prefer to leave private industry to sort things out on their own. 'course, given how that's worked for the financial world... well, colour me skeptical.
Exactly. The number one priority of being an informed voter is making sure we are never exposed to the other side.
</snark>
you were right about that, what you were wrong about was which one was contradicting himself (I won't say lying about his position, because they are probably both doing that).
McCain claims he is against net-neutrality, but for regulation - they are the same thing. Of course, that could still be non-contradictory if you assume he is for regulation, but not the same type that net-neutrality would imply.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
This is what it says in his tech policy: "Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others." Go read it yourself: http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/technology/Fact_Sheet_Innovation_and_Technology.pdf
"You seem to misunderstand what Net Neutrality is. Net Neutrality is the principle that telecoms can't favor one type of net traffic over another. Since the telecoms are in a sense the gatekeepers of net access, then they have the technological power to do this."
Thereby perpetuating the myth the Telecoms have been trying to spread.
Net Neutrality is NOT about discriminating against types of traffic, it's about discriminating based on the SOURCE of that traffic. It has it's seeds in comments made by ATT and others about how they own the pipes and how Google and other heavy producers should pay them for the privilege of their content traveling over ATT's lines.
Since this is nonsensical in it's face, the telcos and cablecos have spun it so that Net Neutrality is about "types" of traffic and managing QOS. This gave them natural allies in the **AA's, and set up the straw man where people who are arguing against net neutrality are just Bittorrent users pissed that their speeds are down.
And you've bought into it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
PopMech columnist Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics: Net neutrality.
Hm, what a coincidence, I'm puzzled that they have yet to be substantively challenged on any vital issue.
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His website echos what I've seen him state several times, that like most other issues, he isn't a fan of government regulation in business. I've yet to see him say he is anti-net-neutrality, or that he wants government regulation.
Obama was very pro-net-neutrality, so he gets points for that, except the stance disappeared from his website, so the promise is less clear. This is also a guy who promised to vote against the FISA bill over and over again, even the day before the vote, and then voted for it.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide, and whose anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html
Futurist Traditionalism
From John McCain's website: "John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like 'net-neutrality,' but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices. John McCain has always believed the government's role must be rooted in protecting consumers."
From Barack Obama's senate website: "So here's my view. We can't have a situation in which the corporate duopoly dictates the future of the internet and thatâ(TM)s why I'm supporting what is called net neutrality."
John McCain has put forward an excellent bill in the Senate called the Community Broadband Act of 2005, which Barack Obama has not yet signed on to. Interestingly, this bill is supported by EDUCAUSE and more than 40 education and trade associations, public interest groups, etc. This bill would protect the ability of local governments to provide Internet services to their communities.
(See another great Educause article entitled A Big Blueprint for Big Broadband
Though Obama hasn't signed on to the McCain community broadband act, he has stated that "Every American should have the highest speed broadband accessâ"no matter where you live, or how much money you have. We'll connect schools, libraries, and hospitals. And weâ(TM)ll take on special interests to unleash the power of wireless spectrum for our safety and connectivity."
Sorry, but you are over-simplifying the argument. There is not just one definition of Network Neutrality, but three commonly-held definitions.
The main topic link to Network Neutrality on Wikipedia is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Definitions_of_network_neutrality The links you provided are to the sub-topic of Network Neutrality in the United States.
The three definitions are:
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Barriers To Entry
(that's assuming anyone is motivated enough to start an ISP so they can get a good Internet connection)
But you libertarians (I'm judging you by your response) say "But we'd remove the barriers to entry by doing away with all regulations!"
The problem is that when you turn the market into a free-for-all, the bigger and better-established companies rapidly outcompete the smaller ones, monopolies or cartels form, and they use their newly found free reign on everything to create new barriers to entry (say, heavily throttling inter-ISP traffic) which can't be broken down because there are no laws or regulations...and you're worse off than ever before.
Honestly one of the few political ideologies I just can't wrap my head around is libertarianism. One basic premise is good - minimize market regulations - but it's like you guys just want to do away with them all willy-nilly and you either don't think through the ramifications or have an incredibly simple and naive idea of what they will be.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics
Perhaps the candidates and their supporters are distracted by their retirement investments disappearing in the post-free/greed market meltdown?