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 The amendment that her provision was attached to was withdrawn, but lobbyists tell Public Knowledge that Feinstein hopes to put it back into the bill during the closed-door conference committee that reconciles the House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.

[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: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

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.

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.