Senator Diane Feinstein Trying to Kill Net Neutrality

An anonymous reader writes "According to the Register, Senator Diane Feinstein is attempting to put language into the stimulus bill that would kill net neutrality. The amendment that her provision was attached to was withdrawn, but lobbyists tell Public Knowledge that Feinstein hopes to put it back into the bill during the closed-door conference committee that reconciles the House and Senate versions." Bad Senator! No Cookie!

Comments

How ridiculous.

[andytrevino]

Democrats NEVER hide unnecessary spending or unrelated projects in omnibus spending bills. They're for responsible government, remember?

Change! Transparency!

Re:How ridiculous.

[EastCoastSurfer]

They are all crooks. The hypocrisy of the democrats who ripped on republicans and Bush and now ignore it when they do the EXACT same type of stuff just kills me.

Change we can believe in ROFL. I'll bet now not one real change will happen.

Re:How ridiculous.

[ForrestFire439]

Unlike the republicans, the democratic party has a lot of people with their own views.

Right... Because Republicans are just mindless automatons while the Democrats are the epitome of critical thought and non-partisanship. EastCoastSurfer's got it right. They're all crooks. You might want to do some reading into the history of the Democratic party.

Re:How ridiculous.

[Chris Mattern]

Because there are no rules at all as to how the conference committee should go about formulating the compromise bill.

Note that the compromise bill *does* have to be voted up or down (but no amendments) by both the House and the Senate afterwards. That is in fact the purpose of the conference committee--it resolves the paradox that the House and the Senate amend bills *separately* while they are on the floor, but must both vote in favor of an
*identical* bill in order for that bill to advance to the President for his signing or veto. If the conference committee gets too cute in abusing their powers to write whatever they want, the chambers can vote not to pass it. It doesn't happen often, but it *does* happen, and almost the only time it happens is when the conference committee strays too far from making an actual compromise between the House and Senate versions of the bill.

Re:How ridiculous.

[commodore64_love]

I think if I were president I would veto virtually every bill that crosses my desk. Congress would have to demonstrate, through a 2/3rd override vote, that they really and truly want to make law. None of this "sneak amendments through the backdoor" shit.

Imagine how much money we would save with the multiple failed bills & therefore less money spent.

Re:I didn't know Feinstein was a Republican....

[johnsonav]

What amendment changed "government of the people, by the people, for the people" to "government of the politicians, by the politicians, for the corporations.?"

Which amendment put "government of the people, by the people, for the people" into the Constitution, in the first place?

Re:I didn't know Feinstein was a Republican....

[LNX Systems Engineer]

Slashdot!

Feinstein's webpage has an e-mail me section, from which you can request a USPS snail-mail response. You know what to do!

Ms. Feinstein,

I do not believe it is your place to single-handedly eliminate this country's technological future by sneaking in an anti-net-neutrality provision at the conference committee.

You should leave that decision up to your colleagues by introducing a separate bill. You wield a very might sword, one whose power you seem to be unacquainted with.

Have some honor, respect, and dignity. For six of the last eight years, our country was plagued with a congress that did the sort of despicable things that I speak of - and you were thwarted from doing.

Take the removal of your provision from the stimulus bill as a sign: this stimulus bill has no place legislating communications policy. You are sabotaging this country's Internet future.

I should know, I work for one of our nation's largest telecoms and my team and I engineer the core networks that make the Internet possible.

Please hear my plea of openness and transparency - we, the People, expect - and should receive - more from our leaders than shadow amendments inserted into much needed legislation.

Thank you,

Mr. XXXXXXX

Let her know what you think!

[the_crowbar]

I do not live in California and am unlikely to be given any consideration from a politician elected in that state. For those that do live in California please contact Mrs Feinstein and let her know that you will definitely not vote for her again if this rider gets added to the stimulus bill. Her contact info (http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.WashingtonDCOffice):

Senator Dianne Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Phone: (202) 224-3841
Fax: (202) 228-3954
TTY/TDD: (202) 224-2501

Cheers,
the_crowbar

Re:I didn't know Feinstein was a Republican....

[Shakrai]

The joys of living in a blue state with no term limits on senators...

Even if your state wanted to it couldn't put term limits on Federal offices. It was tried and SCOTUS shot it down. We'd need a Constitutional Amendment to term limit these bastards. Given that the Congresscritters themselves get a vote on amendments through the typical process, we'll have to convince 2/3'rds of the state legislatures to call for a convention.

Re:I didn't know Feinstein was a Republican....

[Bryansix]

Because most people understand that it will kill e-commerce if website now have to pay for bandwidth to their servers and for the bandwidth to the end users (Which the end user is paying for already by the way).

Re:I didn't know Feinstein was a Republican....

[jdgeorge]

I mean, I thought it was the Republicans who were destroying America and the Democrats were going to save us? You mean to tell me that they are all beholden to business interests? Say it it isn't so!

Ah, see? And yet again, because it's a Democrat party senator going against the ./ grain, the little (D) mark after the name is absent from the intro blurb. Curious how that always happens. Whenever it's a Republican senator or congressman in the hot seat, that little (R) is right there to make sure everyone knows it. I've pointed this out before, and here it is again. Coincidence? Oversight? Not this many times it ain't.

Hmmm.... My gut thought this might be true, but my brain told me I should pay Myth Busters their due by actually taking a peek at a list of relevant stories posted in Slashdot.

By browsing through the list of stories which mention a US Senator, there is no identifiable pattern of senators being identified by party. I see many instances of less-known senators of both parties being identified with their party affiliation, and many more instances of well-known senators of either party being mentioned without noting the party.

It is conceivable that a thorough statistical analysis would show some bias, but it is not at all obvious at a quick glance. The AC's post is demonstrably false as written. the R is not always noted, and the D does show up in a negative context (such as here, or here).

I consider this myth busted.

Re:Why not?

[cayenne8]

"Your sources are diverse "

I'm at work and a bit lazy..just went for the first hits I could get when googling the topics, which I heard on various tv news stations last night and this morning.

But indeed....a mandated electronic medical record system, that is accessible and controlled by the feds? Well, I think anyone can see the possibilities for abuse. Heck, I'm not thrilled with their other databases they have on people, like the no fly lists, and the soon to come RealID databases. Add that all in with total medical history, and govt. healthcare and voila....

Look into the writings of the guy they wanted to BE in charge of health care, Tom Daschle. He's made statements "In my book, Critical: What We Can Do About the American Health-Care Crisis, I have proposed a Federal Health Board that would be a foundation from which we could address all three problems. In many ways, the Federal Health Board would resemble our current Federal Reserve Board for the banking industry."

Yeah, I think we've ALL see the great work the Fed has done with banking and all today, eh?

Again, from the guy that was to design the new healthcare system said "The decisions made by the Federal Health Board would be tough." but would be better than what we have. What are these TOUGH decisions they're gonna have to make? Rationing? Well according to this blurb "Perhaps most importantly, the Board would assess the effectiveness and costs of various treatments. He stops short of saying the U.S. should have a U.K.-style, hard-and-fast rule on cost-effectiveness. But he does say the U.S. "won't be able to make a significant dent in health-care spending without getting into the nitty-gritty of which treatments are the most clinically valuable and cost effective." his plan certainly sounds like the decisions of this board can overrule a local Dr's treatment decisions. We humans,despite looking a great deal alike, are VERY different, and a one size fits all tx regiment kinda scares me.

I"m also not thrilled with a committee deciding if I'm too old to get a particular treatment.

Sure, the medical record and collections thing looks pretty innocent as is stated in the bill, but, if you look at him wanting Tom in there to reform medical care, his beliefs, and all...no, I don't think it is much of a stretch to see what this might be laying the groundwork for...

Your Reality Check Bounced (A little history).

[weston]

Republicans always get blaimed for everything bad that happens in this country. The sad thing is most Americans don't even know which party is in control in Washington. While the Republican hating masses were giving Congress a single digit approval rating, most of them didn't even realize it was the Democrats who were in charge of Congress

Republicans: in charge of the House from 1994-2006, in charge of the Whitehouse from 2001 until three weeks ago, majority of the Senate from 1995-2006 except for a brief period in 2002 when Jeffords' defection gave the Democrats a 1 member lead (and I guess three weeks when Al Gore was still VP and it was briefly split). Supreme Court essentially narrowly split, although you can credibly argue that the Roberts appointment made the court on balance Republican to some approximation. This is essentially Republican control from 2001 until early 2007.

Democrats: majority in the house from 2006, essentially split Senate from 2006, bare majority for Democrats given Sanders and Lieberman's caucus choice. But given the narrow split, the veto stick held by a Republican presidency, and the composition of the Democratic majority (esp. blue dogs in conservative districts), "control" is a pretty tenuous term for even the two houses of congress. Meanwhile, Republicans still hold the presidency and with Alito's appointment the court becomes arguably more Republican.

Who doesn't understand which party has been in control in Washington?

In 2-4 years, the Democrats won't have that excuse anymore, and accountability is important. I have no problem with people calling them out on specific policy positions and voting them out next election if that's what it takes.

But it's ludicrous to assert that Democrats are primarily responsible for the current state of things. And it's a little extra stupid to accuse others who apparently have a better grasp of recent history than you do of not understanding what's going on. U.S. policy for the last decade has been dominated by the Republicans, there's no other reasonable conclusion. Whether the Democrats can do any better is an open question, but it's really only been askable for about three weeks.