Net Neutrality Supporters Hammered In Elections

Pickens writes "Gigi Sohn writes in the Huffington Post that one of the results of the mid-term elections was the defeat of Representative Rick Boucher, the current Chair of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, widely recognized as one of the most tech-savvy and intelligent members of Congress, and long an advocate for consumers on a wide variety of communications and intellectual property issues. Boucher has been the best friend of fair use on Capitol Hill writes Sohn. In 2002, 2003 and 2007, Boucher introduced legislation to allow consumers to break digital locks for lawful purposes, a fair use exception to the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and while the odds against that legislation passing were always great, Boucher understood the symbolic importance of standing up for consumers' rights to use technology lawfully. 'As important, he served as a moderating force both on the House Energy & Commerce and Judiciary Committees against those many members of Congress willing to give large media companies virtually everything on their copyright wish lists.'"

Comments

Re:No they were not

[timeOday]

Nobody said they were hammered "because of" their support for net neutrality. That in itself was obviously not a big issue. But this election was a lurch to the right, which does not believe limiting corporations (e.g. net neutrality as a small example) serves a greater good.

Re:Net neutrality is not capitalism

[dgatwood]

There is a third option. I refer to it as the "single payer public option" just to get up the ire of the Tea Party folks. It's remarkably simple:

• The government builds and owns the infrastructure and pays for it with public funds.
• The government leases access to the infrastructure and allows ISPs to tunnel traffic over it in a non-preferential fashion.
• The government transitions this to a government-owned nonprofit infrastructure corporation after ten years of operation (or after it is solvent if that takes a little more than ten years).

This takes the infrastructure costs out of the equation, making it possible to have substantial competition even in smaller markets. More importantly, however, it means that the government is not in control over the content because the government is not the ISP, and after ten years, the government is not even involved except in hiring somebody to run it. The key part of this is nonprofit. By taking the profit motive out of the equation, this ensures maximum areal coverage for minimum cost, yet does so in a way that minimizes the government's control over the infrastructure.