Slashdot Mirror
GOP Senators Move To Block FCC On Net Neutrality
suraj.sun writes "Seven Republican senators have announced a plan to curb the Obama administration's push to impose controversial Net neutrality regulations on the Internet."
"The FCC's rush to take over the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect consumers," says Sen. Jim DeMint, who I'm sure truly only has the consumer's needs at heart — since his campaign contributions list AT&T in his top five donating organizations.
The FCC's rush to takeover the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect consumers.
The FCC is trying to protect consumers, you fuck. Honestly, do these people believe that anyone will swallow lies like that?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I like that the FCC is trying to ensure net neutrality but I have two problems with it.
First and foremost, if you're being honest with yourself, these kinds of decisions are too important to leave up to people in non-elected positions. Just because I agree with the decision they made doesn't make it right to try and do an end run around the politicos to get their way. Imagine if the FCC were doing the opposite, and trying to encourage a non-neutral net.
Secondly, this wouldn't be a law on the books. All it would take for this policy to change would be a new management at the FCC. That means both that businesses couldn't count on it staying the same for any kind of long term and that the next election cycle could see it thrown out the window without so much as a vote in congress.
Put it through congress the way these kinds of policies were always meant to be. At least give the American people the chance to pretend that they can still influence their congressmen and make it a bit more difficult for the policy to be overturned when the political winds change.
huh ? especially when these and 2 other companies hold almost all american backbone infrastructure in their own hands ? and for some reason, they are acting in unison. gee. i wonder why that is.
really. who will protect the consumer from their stranglehold ? 'invisible hand' of the market ? fairies ? what do you do when 4 companies hold an entire nation hostage, act together ? wait for 4-5 years for a new backbone provider to come up ? do you have that time ? and dont bullshit me about 'competition' by the way - it has never been a reality in between mega companies at the very top. they always act in conjunction.
Read radical news here
Noting that an evil republican has AT&T (the PAC and its employees on their own) be #3 on his donors list makes him bad... but the fact that both the Telecom Services & Equipment AND Telephone Utilities (just to name a few industries) overwhelmingly has been giving to Democrats makes them... good? Or is that just not worthy of mentioning?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
"Freedom of Consumer Choice" implies that most consumers have a choice when selecting a broadband provider. Lots of folks are stuck with good ol' Comcast because they're the only provider in the area.
Oh yes, they believe that people will swallow them. I'm making a kind of personal anthropological study of the changes to the US right (which, to most of the Western world, is becoming the "far right", or possibly "So far right, it's in danger of wrap around"). These people truly seem believe that *any* kind of government is an evil threat to liberty (how these people can draw a salary as a government employee is an excellent example of living with cognitive dissonance - *my* government job is OK, *my* farm subsidy is an exception to the rule of free markets). There seems to be a growing group who would prefer that the sum total role of government would be to issue all newborns with a bible and a gun, then vanish for all eternity.
I caricature, of course. Not all republicans are this far gone. Unfortunately, It's getting hard to find any vocal examples who are not.
Fucking hell. What about the need for fundamental reform to protect citizens?
I'm glad my elected officials feel they need speak up for consumers, and not constituents.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
you must not have a phone or cable tv.
Because forcibly disbanding a party with views opposing your own is the best way to stop totalitarianism! :D
I honestly don't see much difference between ANY "hard liners."
in the united states, you have people who will vociferously fight even legislation that is good for them and increases their rights, like common sense healthcare reform, because they would rather believe demagogues on the radio and propaganda outlets on the television that report "the news"
behind these demagogues and propaganda outlets are big business concerns, who have realized they can pay to have opinion swayed in their direction by demonizing brain dead obvious common good legislation that costs corporations money. they have convinced the idiots to fight for the reduction of their own rights. they call legislation in the name of the common good "socialism," "liberalism," or any number of demonized words whom those who oppose "socialism" or "liberalism" don't even really understand
all they know is "socialism is a bad word." well, what does socialism mean? "its means bad stuff." could you define it ideologically please? "it's anti-american." would you like to know the 19th century american history of labor rights- "shut up you communist fascist terrorist"
this is what intelligent americans are up against: corporations whipping up the low end of the iq curve into a rabid hysteria
americans: go to europe. ask a european about socialism. you will find out the word is boring and just common sense. europeans have a much higher standard of living then you, dear propagandized low iq americans. they also have much higher taxes... but they DON'T PAY FOR SERVICES YOU PAY A LOT MORE FOR
truth, idiots: you're still taxed, whether for health care or oil or broadband, but by corporate boardrooms instead of uncle sam, and you are taxed a heck of a lot more! idiots: you are being manipulated by trolls in the employ of big business to think things against your own self-interest, and you are too stupid to see it. wake the fuck up
rest of the world: i apologize that the american experiment in democracy has been warped by corporate influence. there are still americans who recognize the threat and would like nothing more than to remove that corporate financial influence from our democracy. unfortunately, it is very difficult to fight billions of dollars in lobbyists and media buys. but we're trying. wish us luck. if we fail, then the usa becomes nothing more than a slave state to corporate interests, and any slave who dare suggests big business should pay more for the care of their slaves is "unamerican." unbelievable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Im usually not pro regulation, but in this case I cant see how doing nothing is pro-consumer. The arguments about regulation stifling innovation would have made more sense 15 years but today its usually just small companies creating stuff that gets bought up by the big companies. The costs are already passed to the consumers so its not like regulation would make that any different, if anything it would encourage the companies to actually become competitive and put some effort into support and network quality rather than just sitting back and enjoying their monopoly knowing that in many areas you have no choice.
In the area I live, I have 2 choices for Internet access, Time Warner or AT&T, i can opt for 3rd parties for DSL but have to pay local loop and access charges that make 3rd party solutions more than twice as expensive. Many parts of town have one or the other but not both. The rural areas south of me have no choice other than hughes net since the cable and phone companies don't feel expansion out that way is worth their time and money. Both the cable and phone company bundle their services to the point where the "cheap" access ($30 a month) is barely better than dial up. The area is so over subscribed and even on a good day in the off peak hours I rarely get half the advertised speeds. I support my clients via vpn connections and regularly do offsite backups, etc. I was forced to move from a residential connection to a business class because according to the cable company I used too much bandwidth. I now pay around $100 a month for a slower connection than I had 5 years ago and each year sees an increase in prices of at least a couple bucks.
I was involved in a project years back to attempt to bring municipal wifi to our downtown area, the cable and phone companies pitched a fit and managed to block it. 3 years ago a second cable company tried to expand into the area, it too was blocked.
The US model of telecommunications is extremely flawed IMHO, between locked carriers, subsidized phones, local carrier monopolies, and free reign to change the "rules" at any time the current model is a mess and as is there is absolutely no hope of it getting better.
The biggest problem I see is that the carriers want the best of both worlds, they want us to pay for their buildouts and upgrades through tiffs and tax incentives, but then want to be the sole provider as well. Rather than spend money expanding capacity, they throw in caps to artificially increase capacity while at the same time advertise streaming media, online gaming and other bandwidth intensive things as the reason to get them in the first place. I cant see things really improving until something changes.
So you want to get rid of both Democrats and Republicans then? Seriously, there is no left party in the US. Maybe if the Pirate Party gets enough clout that they can be put on the ballot, you may be able to see a centrist party but all the rest (Current Ruling Party, Previously Ruling Party and Independents) have been respectively fascist/nationalistic, far right and right.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
There is the Geek way of defining it: "No filtering, blocking, or censoring of content going across the wire." (simplified, but you get my point)
The other is the politician way of defining it: "all speech on the Internet must be neutral and balanced". Essentially, the equivalent of the "Fairness Doctrine" that was imposed (and revoked) on the visual and audio media years and years ago.
Unfortunately, this distinction is lost in a lot of these discussions. Do not assume that just because it says "Net Neutrality", that it is defined as you think it is.
For the record, I am for the former and against the latter.
Does the FCC censor your telephone calls? No.
Because making ISP's common carriers would give consumers the same protections to the internet that the FCC gives for telephony.
Learn what the fuck you are talking about before you post, please.
Compared to the rest of the world they're a right-wing party, really.
I'm so tired of that sentiment.
Blar.
I trust bureaucrats very little but I trust politicians not at all.
I live in New Jersey... I KNOW better.
A promise is something a politician breaks at the first smell of a dollar bill waved in his tax fattened face.
We'd do a lot better without elected officials (who owe favors and/or money to the people who paid for 'em.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
dpolak said nothing about censorship. You, however, are twisting his words.
Blar.
now that i've equalized you're knee jerk partisan trigger points, are you with me on the rest of my words?
or is it that you say its ok that you are a manipulated fool... because democrats are manipulated too
seriously? that's your weak ass fucking argument?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
wow 'fierce' competition. really, is there ? microsoft dominates a certain segment of market, apple the other. both try to dominate customers, and often get fined due to their restrictive behavior.
not only that, software market is totally different than other markets, in that if you have an app made for a certain platform, you are stuck with it, for aeons. you cant change it. there are still many banks using as400.
whereas on ALL other fields of life, megacorporations dominate everything.
its really capitalism, corporationism that doesnt work. we will be free of these issues once people like you realize that.
Read radical news here
Please show me a historical basis for natural monopoly. The theory of "natural monopoly" was developed to justify the government supporting AT&T becoming a monopoly over telephone service back at the beginning of the 20th Century. The closest thing I know of a monopoly developing without direct intervention by the government is Microsoft.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
"raping" the government? I'd say that it's a good deal more consensual than you paint it.
No, I see the corporations as subverting the process of government to suit their own needs - it becomes a tool by which they stifle competition, choke off competitors, and take advantage of consumers.
I disagree that the solution is to "enact socialism," the solution is to strictly curtail the power and scope of government, and limit it as much as possible to police/military/courts, rather than giving it a vastly expanded role in managing every other aspect of society.
I would argue that the two are so closely intertwined that it's quite hard to tell where one begins and the other ends at this point - taken independently, corporations are not necessarily the enemy, and neither is the government.
But when they collude to oppose the best interests of the people they are supposed to serve, my solution isn't to say "Well give more power to the government then, so they can fight off those evil nasty corporations." All you're doing is ceding more power to a body that is already controlled by the people you claim to want them to fight.
Wanna make a point about Jim DeMint getting contributions from AT&T? Harry Reid got more from AT&T ($44K for Harry, $36K for Jim - see: http://politics.usnews.com/congress/reid-harry/donors) - I hear he supports Net neutrality (http://mydd.com/2006/6/10/harry-reid-and-net-neutrality)... I don't think money determines support for a given bill, otherwise Harry owes AT&T donors a refund...
Ken
You don't understand what "far left" is. It's when a guy in a black leather jacket with a Nagant comes to your small store and says that it now belongs to the people - that is "far left". Socialized healthcare is not "far left".