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Universal Broadband Plan Calls For $44 Billion
Andy King writes "The new Obama administration has pledged to deploy next-generation broadband to every community in America, but have offered few specifics. The Free Press have published a specific plan to accomplish broadband for all." I'm not sure which will be the bigger headache when my internet breaks: waiting in line at the new government internet office, or waiting on hold for cable tech support.
The RIAA is going to love this. A big Federal investment in broadband will give the feds the leverage they need to enforce the three-strikes laws the MAFIAA will get now that their party is in power (having failed to even stall music sharing by abusing the courts). Before everyone jumps all over me, I voted for Obama, but let's face it: the Democratic party is practically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the "content" "industry".
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
It sounds like that as long as you have something to bitch about, you'll be happy enough.
I think there's something wrong with your "s" key. You should check your key-mapping.
The Constitution gives the Federal Government power to regulate interstate commerce. That's the same reason they were able to build the interstate highway system. Given how popular web shopping has become (as well as web based services), I don't think any constitutional roadblocks will present themselves.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I don't mind the government promoting the spread of broadband, but I hope that in the process it steers clear of content filtering and content monitoring. This is potentially one of those "deal with the devil" situations, so let's make sure it's done right. Let's make sure free-speech and privacy rights are well protected from the very beginning. Let's avoid a situation similar to that currently faced by public broadcasters who, due to the public nature of the airwaves, are forced to accept what would in any other context constitute unconstitutional restraint on speech.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I don't think the Constitution has really had all that much to do with the government since the New Deal. When I read the Constitution, the government it brings to mind isn't much like what we have now. That said, I do think the voters are getting what we want on average, and the country has made vast progress in the last 80 years. I guess it would be better if we ammended the Constitution instead of just ignoring or re-interpreting it, but I doubt the end result is much different either way.
already. universal healthcare, other public services, or other services that are held by private sector in other countries work very well in europe, but SOMEHOW, goverment is always 'inefficient' in united states.
or, rather, you people are WAY too brainwashed with the private sector propaganda and lobbying there. for example, the concept of 'lobbying corporation' is an abomination that exists mainly in united states. remember how they spent 100 million on advertisements on how network neutrality was 'sabotaging jobs' back 2 years ago in the blink of an eye over a month, in order to push laws to turn internet into cable tv ? if you dont, you should.
i have to say this here - if, you are unable to make your government work more efficiently than european countries, its YOUR fault. its your country, government is YOUR corporation, you are the inalienable shareholder, you should f@cking stand up and demand your rights, and your rights to be protected from private interests, yourself. someone is not going to come and do it for you.
and no, blabbering 'government is inefficient' and selling your butt to private sector WONT help, just like we saw what happened with healthcare, and credit crisis.
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You tell me, what's the carbon footprint of:
Telecommuting vs. commuting
Watching a streaming video at home vs. driving to blockbuster or a big air-conditioned theater
Shopping online vs. shopping at the mall
scp'ing gigabytes of data instead of fedexing a DVD
Having a video conference instead of flying across the country for a face-to-face.
Pervasive broadband won't eliminate any of those things, but even just a few percent reduction would be a huge payoff.
I am really tired of the recent "pork" bashing in the latest election cycles. We need infrastructure spending. I suppose you'd say that money to build roads is also "pork". Like fixing that bridge that fell down in Minnesota a few years ago because of attitudes like yours. I for one am sick of this Reaganesque attitude towards spending we've had for the last 28 years, and I'm glad we'll have people who aren't afraid to invest in the future.
Do you think Europe and Asia is afraid of using public money for these purposes? Maybe the answer to that has something to do with why we're losing ground and they are gaining.
We do need to have some harsh regulations so that assholes like Comcast and the telecom cartels don't abuse us. But that is another story...
Clearly the solution is to not attempt to regulate anything. After all, if there's anything we have learned from free market fundamentalists it's that businesses will never risk wrongdoing because the market won't allow it!
If for some reason a business turns out to have completely betrayed the public trust, then government is always at fault.
Could it just be possible that it isn't whether it's "government" or "a corporation" or a "public-private partnership" that makes the difference between well-done and corrupt, but the vision and integrity of the people carrying out the project? If Obama's people have the integrity to go with their vision, and if their vision is better than the crippled mess that private industry has largely made of the Internet - which after all started as a government project - then let them have it. Yet Obama himself has stated that in the longer term he thinks private industry can provide better management of most enterprises than government can. That may be true, if we first jail many of the crooks who have controlled private industry over the last decade, confiscate their ill-gotten fortunes, and bring in a fresh, ethically-educated generation to run our businesses.
It's the quality of the people who make the quality of the world. Whether they organize themselves into "governments" or "corporations" or "anarcho-syndicates" to pursue their goals is totally secondary to the essential matter of who's doing it. It's like arguing whether four-piece rock bands or small jazz orchestras make the better music. It's not the size or shape of the organization that determines quality, but who the people are, whether they share the right feeling, and have drive and competence.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The Commerce Clause, given its widest interpretation, would only allow for national regulation of the internet (I'm guessing this is how the ban on an internet tax got done), not building out the network.
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You're reading the Constitution backwards. It was not written to be a comprehensive listing of what the Federal government could not do. All of its limited powers were exclusively those enumerated within the Constitution. If it was not written, the Federal government had no authority in that area, absent an amendment. This was the Federalists (anti-federalists) argument for the ratification of the Constitution. The Anti-Federalists (federalists), when pushing for a Bill of Rights, were told that no such amendments were needed, as where the Constitution was silent, the Federal government would lack all power. The Constitution itself forbids the Federal government from expending funds on the Internet and the interstate, although not embassies on the Moon, if this was required for foreign relations between the Federal government of the US and one or more foreign powers. Even if this wasn't enough, the 9th and 10th Amendments make it doubly clear that the Federal government lacks such authority.
And yes, I know the current Federal government almost completely ignores the Constitution, but both this and the lack of fidelity of the people of the several States was foreseen by the Constitution's opponents before it was even ratified, and reality should not lead one to blind themselves to violation of principle.
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Whew !
I thought they were gonna ask for another 200 billion !
http://www.tispa.org/node/14
This is a deal !
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Dumbasses, the whole lot of you.
The US Government isn't going to go into the ISP business. What they WILL do is help finance and give tax incentives to actual commercial ISP's in order to get them to run lines to everywhere people live.
Right now, it's too expensive to run high speed fiber optic lines to small towns in the mid west. With incentives, Verizon could subsidize some of this initial investment with the government and run those lines. The system will be owned and operated by Verizon, not the US government.
I use Verizon as an example; it could be any business.
I think this is a necessary evil to get all of our citizens connected to the Internet. I don't love the idea completely but we will be left in the dust by other competing markets because these other governments ARE doing this, and their people are benefiting with very fast Internet connections, whereas a lot of the people in the US are still on Dial-up.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Yeah, the man's been president for OVER NEGATIVE TWENTY DAYS already, when's he going to start running the country!?
Jeez.
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The first amendment guarantees a federal ISP is censorship free.
What's funny is that a private company DOESN'T have to give you your first amendment rights, whereas, a government does.
I've read the Free Press proposal. I'm in the business, know the economics, have done some detailed studies of the Universal Service Fund (what a joke!), and recognize a mess when I see one.
First off, they're overly impressed by speed. They want 50/5 Mbps all over. You need that for three streams of HDTV via Internet, but not much else. They are out to hurt cable, and probably don't understand the nature of the copyright issues that rule those industries. They also ignore the issues facing rural providers, connecting them to the backbone, where current rules let the big Bells gouge small companies (some of whom pass the bill on to the Universal Service Fund). And where's the cost-benefit analysis? USF finances ridiculous boondoggles today. (They finance over $200k PER HOME to Sandwich Isles Communications.) Do we need more?
In fact they explicitly disclaim telecom competition as opened by the Telecom Act of 1996, favoring instead a massive expenditure on a "third pipe" closed approach, as if a triopoly were all that much better than a duopoly. In other words, it's "f* you" to the ISPs.
They have detailed plans to spend the money, but their details reflect a lack of understanding of what the actual costs and needs are. Too much here, too little there. It's like they're taking random numbers and throwing them out there, because that's how pork barrel politics works.
Their plan is classic inside-the-beltway "I want mine" thinking. It's not a good way to improve Internet access; it's a way to make some rich telephone companies richer, leaving a big bill for us to pay later.
The first amendment doesn't give rights. It is a specifically enumerated restriction on infringing on your natural right to free speech which is simply derived from the right to property. A private company has their own property rights which allow them to restrict whatever they want just as you can restrict anyone from coming in your home.
Besides... how well has the 1st Amendment worked at keeping me free? McCain/Feingold? The FCC? Protest permits?