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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.
Unfortunately, our elected representatives no longer represent our interests. Case in point: both democrats and republics in congress are taking a stand against net neutrality regulations, and there just are not enough third party representatives right now.
Palm trees and 8
The FCC's rush to takeover the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect consumers
Oddly enough he still uses the words "fundamental reform", which would imply a piece of legislation.
DeMint probably supports McCain's Internet Freedom Act of 2009. Which prohibits the FCC from placing any regulation over the internet.
Of course, not to be confused with the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009. Which is the actual net neutrality bill that asks the FCC to enact consumer protections.
Though neither bill is technically aptly named, since in both cases the "freedom" of one body is going to limit another. Consumers and corporations just have competing interests here. That's how it goes.
The problem is that it isnt the federal government enforcing the monopolies, hell.. its not even the state governments doing it.
Its every little community preventing the build-out of alternative infrastructure.
"His name was James Damore."
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.
The FCC can only do what the law that created it allows it to do, plus other powers granted to it by Congress through additional legislation. This isn't an "end run around the politicos." The legislature has already given the FCC the power to do this. It's the whole reason we have agencies: we grant rule-making power to experts so that Congress can focus on other issues.
Imagine if the FCC were doing the opposite, and trying to encourage a non-neutral net.
Then we'd have to live with the consequences of an agency exercising the powers duly granted to it by Congress. We could petition the FCC not do so, and we could lobby Congress to override it, but there wouldn't be anything inherently inappropriate about it as long as it's within the FCC's rulemaking authority.
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.
As a technical point it would be "on the books" (the Code of Federal Regulations) and it would probably carry with it the force of law. But anyway, your argument could just as easily be applied to all regulations. The fact that they can be changed without Congressional approval is a feature, not a bug. It allows the regulations to be updated more frequently, for one thing. For another, deference to the executive branch is a decision Congress made when it passed the law giving the FCC the power to make these kinds of rules.
And anyway, that argument basically amounts to "since this good thing might be taken away later, we shouldn't bother with it in the first place," which isn't a very good argument at all since ultimately everything is subject to change, even the Constitution.
Summary: The US private sector has already proven itself incapable of creating the internet. What makes ANYONE thing that in managing it they won't make the same type of mistakes that prevented them from creating it? What makes anyone thing that given a free hand, they won't simply destroy it, or at the very least cripple future growth.
There are certainly some grey-haired ones here on Slashdot. Think back a bit... a bit further. Go back to those prehistoric days before 1995, for a moment. Better yet, back a bit further still.
There was an internet. It existed in some universities, DOD installations, and DARPA contractors. It had email and ftp. To exchange information there was this thing called Usenet, which was actually useful before Green Card and AOL opened the floodgates. To publish information there was this nifty thing called gopher. Something called a web might have just barely been starting. Oh yeah, bang-paths, too. I almost forgot about those.
Then there was the private sector. Compuserve, AOL, GEnie, Prodigy, TheSource, home-grown BBSes. People on Compuserve talked to people on Compuserve and accessed information Compuserve made available or partnered for. Ditto for AOL, GEnie, Prodigy, TheSource, etc. NONE OF THEM WERE ANYTHING LIKE THE INTERNET!! ALL OF THEM WERE VYING FOR THE WHOLE PIE!! Now I'll quit shouting. In the private sector, many of those home-grown BBSes networked with each other. Modems dialed modems late at night when rates were low, and moved information from island to island.
My point is simply this in the US the corporate sector plays a winner-take-all game, cooperating only when necessary. They had several years in which they could have bridged their networks together, (peering?) and they didn't. They all wanted to be the Winner, they all wanted to take all.
It's even worse than this, because NONE of those prior networks were terribly versatile. They all fielded what the corporate business plans called for. They supported applications, they supported functions.
This is also really key. The corporate networks were essentially fixed-function - they didn't support simple transport.
The internet came along, and not only was it built on cooperation, so EVERYONE could play, it was built on transport, not function. Who thinks that when they sent the first email from node to node, they were thinking about p2p, streaming video, TOR, bittorrent, MMORPG, skype, SETI and Folding @Home, clouds, grids and the like? They were thinking ahead though, and realized that things could come beyond their current imagination.
From what I can see, business interests haven't learned SPIT in the intervening 15-20 years. They want to erect walls so they can extract more money from under any rock they can turn to find it. They want to give preference to their content over any other. They know what they like, and make sure it can happen, they know what they don't like and hinder it as they can get away with it, and they neglect what they don't or can't imagine, or perhaps hinder it out of caution.
In the US, the government has no monopoly on stupidity.
In the US, the marketplace is so messed up as to be virtually incapable of addressing corporate stupidity.
In the US, the campaign process is so messed up as to be virtually incapable of addressing government stupidity.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Rather than allow other vendors to string their own "wires" the wires should be run as a public utility allowing anyone to sell their wares over them. I don't want to see 10 more wires hanging on the poles outside my house to to have my street dug up 5 different times so someone can bury their own wires. Just give me one pipe and allow any ISP or other service to sell to me as they will.
You do understand that segregation in the South pre-Civil Rights Act existed by force of law, not by choice of business? The segregation on the buses that Rosa Parks protested against wasn't there because the bus companies wanted it. On the contrary, the bus companies wanted to run integrated buses because it made more business sense, but a law was passed requiring them to segregate their buses.
You do not need to legislate that businesses serve all people, those that will take money from anyone who wants to buy their services will be more successful than those who refuse to do business with certain persons for reasons not related to business. For example, in the 50s, many white owned night clubs would only book white acts and only allow whites in. Amazingly, the most successful night clubs at the time were black owned night clubs that would allow anybody in who wanted to pay (and after one booked Buddy Holly because they thought he was black, would book any act that appealed to their audience).
Personally, I do not know any conservatives that want big government in any flavor at all. All the conservatives I know have seen that the more that people strive to get big government to control big business, the more big business controls government.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison