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FCC To Vote On Net Neutrality On December 21
GovTechGuy writes "The FCC just released its tentative agenda for the December 21st open meeting, where the Commission will vote on whether to adopt rules to preserve net neutrality. According to the agenda the FCC will consider 'adopting basic rules of the road to preserve the open Internet as a platform for innovation, investment, competition, and free expression.' House Republicans have already promised to oppose any solution put forth by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski."
What does the FCC have to do with this, again? Last I checked, internet was not transferred directly over the air like traditional television, so they have no more jurisdiction over internet than cable TV.
I always hear that the Democratic Party is as much "in the pocket" of big business as the Republicans. But isn't the FCC part of a Democratic Party led executive branch? Am I missing something? Is Hollywood or some other big Democratic Party contributor pro-net-neturality?
Are the Republicans promising to vote it down because they're opposed to Net Neutrality, or because they're opposed to a Democrat? Serious question.
Hopefully Congress will vote before December 21 to actually grant the FCC the power to actually govern communications as originally intended... you know they are Federal Communications Commission, its got the word in its name...
The American people are getting the government they deserve, and I hope they fucking choke on it.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Instead of fighting Republicans, the FCC should just re-designate the internet lines as "phone lines" and apply existing common carrier rules.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
FCC doesn't care about content in and of itself, but rather how it's treated, which is the entire point. It doesn't matter if the 'content' is outside of the US. What matters is how your local ISP treats your connection to said content. It's also not strictly about blocking content (although that is inherently a part of the larger picture as some will threaten exactly that, like Comcast has threatened with Netflix.
It simply requires that an ISP will treat all content equally. That way they can't discriminate against a competing firms 'content' by reducing the quality of service for that content, while increasing the quality/bandwidth of their own offerings. It levels the playing field.
This wouldn't be as big an issue if content providers were not subsidiaries of telecom providers and vice versa. The first step that should be taken is to separate the internet provider from any content. It is a conflict of interest and spells nothing but trouble for the end user.
I just wish they would regulate internet like they do utilities. it has become an integral part in peoples lives. It is not much different than phone service in that regard.
But hey, when your core voter base is a bunch of pisswater guzzling, bible-banging, NASCAR fans who get their news from Glenn Beck and social opinions from Reality TV, I guess you don't even need to attempt to hide your hypocrisy since the majority of retards who voted for you are too dumb to think.
Wow. If that isn't blatant typecasting if I have ever saw it...
Time for a true story...
The night that Obama was elected into office, I was downtown in a major US city. The moment that it was announced, a woman working a local convenience store turned from the TV she was watching and shouted, "Obama is elected! Everything is going to get better now!" Her coworkers cheered. She then proceeded to go back to her TV and cigarettes and not worrying so much about doing a good job. You see, the problem with your typecasting is that it can work both directions. In my case, I saw someone who was relying on another person to fix their life for them. It made me sad, actually. I ended up not even buying what I wanted to get because I just wanted to get out of there.
The fact of the matter is, there are a lot of smart people and a lot of dumb people living in the US, and a lot of people in between. However, we're all just human, and classifying a group of people as you did does nothing to actually solve the problems of this nation that we live in and only exacerbates the divide between political lines.
Or maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to swilling a Bud while I read 1 Corinthians and yell at the driver's on TV (and hope for a good crash).
and when people ask me why I don't like Republicans, I just give them answers like this. Whenever it's Big Business vs The People, we know where they're lobbying.
Would be nice if they lose and We (The People) win this time.
The problem is that it is not the role of elected officials to do what is in the best interest of Big Business OR The People. Elected officials swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. You're right that far too often Republicans are willing to decimate the Constitution if it lines the pockets of their corporate donors. The inverse of that are Democrats, who shred the Constitution to line the wallets of the people that receive entitlements and make up their voter base.
I'm very skeptical about net neutrality because I don't like giving the federal government more power, and this inarguably does that. Once the FCC tells ISPs what they can and cannot do with traffic on the lines, they have that power forever. That means that, like another commenter pointed out, the government now has the right to filter and censor content. I also think that this is an abuse of the oft-abused commerce clause of the Constitution and is therefore not under the purview of the federal government.
Finally, I don't like the way that this is being done. If the FCC has always had the authority to do this, why didn't they do it before? They waited until they knew that net neutrality would never make it through Congress and then "discovered" the authority.
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
Must be nice living in a Blue state and getting all those benefits and food of the farm subsidies to the Red States.
You fail to see the bigger picture and are more interested in the us vs. them mentality.
You mean, the socialist farm subsidies used to pay farmers NOT to grow food? And that is just part of the welfare the red states get. What about all the homeland defense spending on states with no real targets?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton