ACLU Says Net Neutrality Necessary For Free Speech

eldavojohn writes "The ACLU has recently identified Network Neutrality a key free speech issue and said in a lengthy PDF report: 'Freedom of expression isn't worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free. And the Internet is without doubt the primary place where Americans exercise their right to free expression. It's a newspaper, an entertainment medium, a reference work, a therapist's office, a soapbox, a debating stand. It is the closest thing ever invented to a true "free market" of ideas.' The report then goes on to argue that ISPs have incentive and capability of interfering with internet traffic. And not only that but the argument that it is only 'theoretical' are bogus given they list ten high profile cases of it actually happening. If the ACLU can successfully argue that Net Neutrality is a First Amendment Issue then it might not matter what businesses (who fall on either side of the issue) want the government to do."

Comments

Nonsense

[elrous0]

We'll all be perfectly free to say whatever we like...on whatever sites our ISP's let us access. And if you don't like what your ISP is doing, you can just switch to one of the hundreds of alternate broadband providers that we all have.

Wow, I think I just sprained my sarcasm tendon.

Re:Nonsense

[drinkypoo]

As long as the back haul is neutral then people are free to start up community co-op ISPs. It's not provider neutrality that I see as most important but backbone neutrality. QoS is one thing but restricting what type of traffic or who the traffic comes from is ridiculous. All connections should permit all legal connections and come with proper management to permit continual usage of the link at an appropriate speed intended to provide the same transfer to all users who are attempting to use it, and to accurately divide the available bandwidth equally (or otherwise appropriately) between the customers who have paid for it.

With that said, there is literally one choice in my county for internet access, AT&T. Everyone else here resells them. I do not count satellite which is unacceptable in a broad variety of ways. I don't necessarily trust AT&T to carry my packets to their eventual destination. Indeed, immediately after my local WISP was moved from an AT&T reseller to AT&T directly, we were placed on some seriously non-neutral segment where we had fast access to many sites (of course including AT&T, but ALSO including non-AT&T sites, meaning that it wasn't simply fast access to AT&T internal resources) but where we had essentially no access to many other sites including Slashdot and Alternet. After we [the users] complained to them en masse (reportedly) they complained up the chain and we were placed on the "proper" network, which does not [appear to] have this problem. So clearly some AT&T customers are already living on a non-neutral net...

Re:Nonsense

[internewt]

Forums, like slashdot, are privately owned. You DON'T have a right to free speech. You have a right to obey the rules of the forum sysop, even if he's a tyrant. It's his domain; his rules.

Governments have massive power over the people, and so many states around the world have come to the conclusion that making the government have to tolerate what people have to say is best for everyone. Well, except the people running the government, but that's kinda the point - to reign in the power they wield.

The most powerful entities in society come and go over time, and this can be seen through the buildings that get built. The most powerful entity in a society tends to build the biggest buildings, to show of their power, assert dominance, whatever. These days corporations build most of the biggest buildings (skyscrapers), but not so long back governments the builders of the biggest places. Further back in history, and huge churches and cathedrals were being built, and during points of history when royal families were at the top, palaces and castles were the biggest buildings around.

My point is that any powerful groups are a threat to the liberty of an individual, and we are living in a time when corporations are gaining more and more power everyday. Yes, governments may still be more powerful in some ways, but that doesn't cancel out or negate the power corporations have, and so corporations should have to allow some things they may not like for the same reasons that the government has to allow things it may not like.

Re:Nonsense

[DrgnDancer]

And DNS has to go away.

That's an interesting take on Net Neutrality I've never seen before. Are you planning to replace it with something? Or just make everyone remember every IP address they want to visit? That should be especially entertaining when IPV6 eventually gets implemented. I can just see the billboards now "Eat at Joes! And visit our website at: 2001:db8:1f70::999:de8:7648:6e80/index.html!" (IP address stolen from example in Wikipedia entry on IPv6. I have no idea where, if anywhere it goes)

Re:Nonsense

[Ichijo]

No, it wasn't a co-op ISP, it was a municipal ISP.

Re:Nonsense

[mcgrew]

McCain-Feingold

Money is not speech. If it were, the rich would have more right to speech than the poor. We are supposed to be founded on the proposition that all men are created equal, but some men are created rich and most are not. Being rich buys you privilege, but it doesn't buy you rights that others lack.

Fairness Doctrine

Again, can I get a TV station? No, there are no open frequencies left. Again, this is not an infringement of free speech rights, just an inftringement of a monied class privilege. These are not free speech issues. The "speech zones" during the last decade are, though, and these "free speech" zones are worrisome. "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed, with various degrees of success and failure, a number of lawsuits on the issue."

Sorry, buddy, take your wealth and shove it, I'm on the ACLU's side here. Your money isn't speech, and if you have to pay for speech, it isn't free speech.

Not again.

[ScentCone]

Why do people confuse the first amendment's prohibition against the government limiting free expression with somehow mandating that private people and/or the companies they form being obliged to provide a platform for everything that everyone wants to say? The first amendment isn't about forcing a guy with a printing press to do what you say, it's about preventing the government from stopping you and the guy who owns the printing press from doing what you like on whatever terms you arrange between the two of you. Same thing goes with the guy who owns the DSL line you're using, or the WiFi hotspot and the network it's wired up to. And just like the printing press, if you don't like the terms of use, build your own or shop around.

Re:Not again.

[elrous0]

My grandad used to tell black people who came in his restaurant the same thing. Damned government has no right to force private businesses to observe people's "civil rights." The niggers are always free to go to another restaurant if they don't like it.

Re:Not again.

[still cynical]

Why do people confuse the first amendment's prohibition against the government limiting free expression with somehow mandating that private people and/or the companies they form being obliged to provide a platform for everything that everyone wants to say? The first amendment isn't about forcing a guy with a printing press to do what you say, it's about preventing the government from stopping you and the guy who owns the printing press from doing what you like on whatever terms you arrange between the two of you. Same thing goes with the guy who owns the DSL line you're using, or the WiFi hotspot and the network it's wired up to. And just like the printing press, if you don't like the terms of use, build your own or shop around.

Why? Because the Internet was created by "the government", is regulated by "the government", and subsidized by "the government". The lines that carry Internet traffic are run on public ("government"-owned) land using right of ways granted by "the government". Wireless carriers are granted licenses to use public airwaves, and must provide a public service to do so (not just rake in money). At the local level, most of the carriers are monopolies granted by "the government". These monopolies are free from having to worry about competition because "the government" has agreed to lock out anyone else from access to these same right-of-ways.

THAT'S why it's a First Amendment issue. You want to be free of government rules? Get off the government tit. The government has provided a source of huge income to these companies. If they don't like "the terms of use" associated with being a government-subsidized monopoly, they are free to "build their own" Internet and run the lines over their own land. The wireless carriers can just "build their own" airwaves, I guess.

Re:Not again.

[Monkeedude1212]

Did you Grandad also take their money THEN refuse them service?

Because thats what ISP's are doing.

Re:Hmm...

[ledow]

Comcast slows all access to "ComCastSucks.com" to 1 byte per second, as well as all it's competitors websites, any newspaper who it doesn't agree with, and also refuses to share peer traffic with any game-console service / MMORPG except for the Xbox unless the user pays extra. What's the matter?! I didn't *BLOCK* anything!

There's your problem right there. Being able to shape traffic (which is effectively a temporary denial, but on millisecond-scales) is the same as blocking it for a short period of time.

The problem with net-biased (what's the opposite of net-neutral?) ISP's is not their ability to block things. It's their ability to make a service 100% unusable in practical terms even if they are 100% fine in theory. If only 1% of my TCP packets get to the destination, that's not technically "blocking" any particular website / protocol / service, but you try forming a reliable connection and downloading a webpage, or a file, or interacting with other users of the service.

Imagine the net ran through a router with an iptables rule of:

iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -m random --average 99 -j DROP

but ONLY on the websites / protocols that the ISP chooses (and / or is being paid by).

Re:Death by ACLU association.

[DrgnDancer]

I often find it ironic how conservative talking heads bash the ACLU as defending "commies and left wing nuts", but when *they* want free expression they're happy to get the ACLU involved to help. The ACLU is a one issue group. They think you have a right to say... whatever stupid, crazy, brilliant, inspired, idiotic, hateful, useful, useless, or wonderful thing you want to say. Period. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum. I can respect that.

Re:Death by ACLU association.

[DrgnDancer]

As sibling says "Citation needed". The ACLU defended Rush Limbaugh. They've defended both the KKK *and* the Anti-Defamation league. Show me an instance of them turning down a legitimate freedom of expression case. You've been told that they only defend lunatic left wing causes, but so far as I've ever seen it's simply not true. A lot of their cases defend people with extremely liberal views, but that's mostly because right now the country itself, on the whole, is rather conservative. Most of the people asking the ACLU for help are left leaning, because they are most likely to both a) trust the ACLU and b) have need of the ACLU.