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Congress's Techno-Ignorance No Longer Funny
pigrabbitbear writes "Since its introduction, the Stop Online Piracy Act (and its Senate twin PROTECT-IP) has been staunchly condemned by countless engineers, technologists and lawyers intimately familiar with the inner functioning of the internet. Completely beside the fact that these bills, as they currently stand, would stifle free speech and potentially cripple legitimate businesses by giving corporations extrajudicial censorial powers, there's an even more insidious threat: the method of DNS filtering proposed to block supposed infringing sites opens up enormous security holes that threaten the stability of the internet itself. The problem: key members of the House Judiciary Committee still don't understand how the internet works, and worse yet, it's not clear whether they even want to."
Ignorance is bliss. And when shit hits the fan, they can claim plausible deniability.
Seriously.
if one is receiving insane amounts of money and political clout to deliberately ignore severe problems in a proposed bill, is it still ignorance?
Congress just rubber-stamps bills that are written up by lobbyists. That has been fairly well proven.
The opposite of Progress is Congress.
I don't think they are as willfully stupid as people make them out to be, but tend to let lobbyists and industry representatives do a lot of their thinking for them - in all areas, we're just focused on SOPA and Protect-IP because they are closer to our hearts.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
all of Congress is made up of lawyers. Where are the engineers and scientists? There are none.
They're perfectly consistent positions. The position is:
"Don't allow people to fuck with the internet"
those aren't mutually exclusive at all.
the whole point of net neutrality is to say, "hey! you conglomerate of ultra powerful ISPs and media outlets can't just unilaterally control the internet!"
the whole point of SOPA opposition is to say, "hey! you conglomerate of ultra powerful media and content producers can't just unilaterally control the internet!"
Net Neutrality isn't the government regulating internet traffic. Net Neutrality is the government forbidding corporations from doing so.
No, that's not Net Neutrality at all. Net Neutrality is a whole bunch of rules that boils down to "Don't mess with internet traffic"
It's just to cheap for coorporate america to hedge it's bets when they only have to bribe.... errh I mean make campaign contributions, to 2 parties. Try to elect some representatives from the pirate party, like sweden has.
Run with the lemmings, and you'll get your feet wet.
Can't tell if you're trolling or just dim.
It's very simple. Net neutrality isn't regulating the Internet, it's regulating providers. Furthermore, it doesn't change what's on the internet, just how it gets to you. Fiddling with the DNS servers is 100% different. The analogy (not even an analogy...) is requiring the telephone company to let you call their competitors without an additional charge, vs blocking you from saying particular things.
The only thing the two have in common is the word 'internet'. Even a cursory glance shows that "don't throttle for profit" and "turn off this site" are completely different.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Vote with lead, if you see an elected official, shoot them.
Well there is a diversity of opinion on Slashdot, so you're inherently building a strawman, here.
Nevertheless, it's perfectly consistent to be pro-net-neutrality and anti-SOPA. The underlying principle here is to maintain equal access to communication technology, in particular to not allow consolidate power bases (in particular, corporations) to control the flow of information. The purpose of net neutrality is to force companies to not discriminate between information seekers and providers; this maximizes the amount of information everyone can easily access. The purpose of striking down SOPA is to prevent companies from having yet more legal power to issue takedowns, censor material, and discriminate between information seekers and provides; preventing SOPA from being passed also maximizes the amount of information everyone can easily access.
Your strawman was implicitly painting this as a debate about whether regulation is good or bad. But that's incorrect. The question is not whether we should have laws. The question is what laws.
To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.
"Combating the theft of U.S. property"...honestly? The words "theft" and "property" are HUGE red flags that these people have no clue what they are talking about.
Stupid.
I don't know why I'm typing this since it's been typed countless times before: He never said he invented the Internet.
If there were more politicians with Al Gore's level of understanding stuff we would't have all these problems.
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As a non American I hope this bill backfires and makes the younger and smarter more concerned and aware of politics. Yesterday tons of 4channers had streams of the amendment hearings and saw how ignorant politicians really are. Pissing off the internet is never a good idea.
Obama isn't going to pass it and if he did I see it causing major sites to simply change from American ownership to somewhere else. Of course really big sites like google would just be heavily censored like youtube.
Wouldn't be a bad time to go ahead and create some foreign sites now though.
I wouldn't mind going back to IRC personally.
The ignorance of our elected officials was never funny. It was sad and grossly pathetic, and still remains so.
Given the democractic system, it is a direct reflection on who we are as a people. As much as people piss and moan about the retards we end up electing, vanishingly few of said people either vote for non-retards, or run against the retards. As such, we get the government we deserve; the government that WE THE PEOPLE voted for.
Just like the corporatocracy/plutocracy/Fascist state that we're fast becoming (which is an obvious symptomatic effect of the problem), people don't get how they are empowering the very evil they rail against. Corporations would have NO power if people stopped feeding them.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
It seems to work just fine in other countries where the government isn't so corrupted by corporate interests.
What exactly is your proposed solution to the problem of corporations controlling what you can and can't do on the internet? Trusting in the benevolent, all-seeing Invisible Hand?
I mean, I would much rather having accomplished scientists, engineers, and other professions representing me than someone who majored in law in college with the sole intention of being a politician. There is a breakdown in the system, and it was completely intended - when individual senators represent and are elected by up to 60 million people (Cali) they have no connection to their constituents at all.
I mean, the process to fix it is an arduous process. We need to take money out of politics, take it out of campaigning, and we can easily use technology to develop a mutually agreed upon open platform on the internet to market representatives. Like, say, each county could host a site called elections.XXXX.gov and it would allow people to apply and run for the office. Probably have a tiny $10 running fee to keep people from flooding the sites, but besides that make it open to all constituents and all it takes is the ability to type in ones positions and appear at public debate. And then outlaw the spending of money on political advertising, because once we have an easy to access platform for knowing all the candidates where they can respectively give their standings on different political topics, we can move away from the grossly unintended 2 party system and more towards electing people and not parties that don't work in the publics interest.
Problem is, the entrenched powers have absolutely no desire to move towards a system where anyone but the in crowd of each party could ever get nominated and handed to the public. They want 2 partys because they are easier to control and mutually benefit from the status quo.
I would phrase it more like this:
"Don't let the Internet turn into a fancy cable TV system"
When I was a kid, people spoke of "illegal cable" -- modified set-top boxes that allowed them to receive cable TV without paying, or to receive premium channels without paying. Some of the earliest DRM systems were designed to prevent people from accessing cable TV channels and satellite broadcasts without paying. The entire cable TV system is the antithesis of the PC and Internet revolutions: centralized control over users and their actions, permission required to do anything, and extra fees left and right.
Now the mainstream media wants to turn the Internet into the same sort of system: centralized control, DRM, fees, and users being pigeonholed as passive consumers of everything. At issue with net neutrality is whether or not websites should be treated like "channels," and forced to negotiate with ISPs for the right to transmit over the ISPs' networks. At issue with SOPA is whether or not there should be a central authority that is allowed to disconnect systems from the network when those systems do not follow the rules imposed by the central authority.
Palm trees and 8
Imagine if they applied their level of tech knowledge to other areas. Like the economy:
"Congressman, how do you counter the charge that the 150% tax rate on the middle class and 0% tax rate on anyone making more than a million dollars in the Save Our Poor Affluent bill will result in millions going bankrupt?"
"Well, I've been assured by the good folks in the Rich Individuals Association of America that this tax rate change will result in people buying more summer homes, yachts, and expensive cars. So obviously, it will highly boost the economy!"
"But won't it...."
"Look, I just pass the laws written for me by powerful lobbying organizations. I'm not an economics nerd!"
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the backlash against usage-based billing as a consequence of network neutrality
The only acklash against usage-based billing I've ever seen is from proponents of network neutrality who point out that usage-based billing without neutrality is asking for the system to be gamed (eg your provider drops every other packet and bills you for twice the data).
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Surely packet-dropping would be nacklash, not acklash.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Wrong. Net neutrality says ISPs have to treat any content equally, they can't meter it out so that their websites go faster.
SOPA says if you do something infringing, or if you just seem like you've infringed, or if somebody who has infringed uses your website, then that website can be taken down FOR EVERYBODY. Nobody, anywhere on the internet, using ANY ISP, can connect AT ALL. Your site has been blocked, shut down, banned.
Net Neutrality is about controlling corporations who might try to squeeze extra money from certain major providers. ISPs would want to control traffic going over THEIR network. It would unfortunately massively hamstring the internet, whose value comes from the ability for so many people to put up their own content. But having net neutrality so that companies can't control their own traffic and give preferential treatment doesn't mean you can't have other regulations.
SOPA is about the government being able to control THE INTERNET ITSELF, ALL NETWORKS, ALL ISPs and shut down anything they don't like.
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OK, folks, let's concede that the government has ceased to be anything but an extension of the kleptocracy. Let's drop the left-vs-right, Republican-vs.-Democrat BS that is a dangerous distraction. Let's drop all the BS memes that have been focus-group tested by the 1% to take everyone's minds off what's really going on. OK? Let's stop pretending that Congress or any part of the government will listen to any level or form of input or bitching and change its ways. Let's just drop that stuff because it's unproductive.
Instead, let's approach this problem like the scientists, engineers, geeks, nerds, and can-do people we are and see it as a technical challenge we can solve. Society is broken, the economy is broken, government is broken. How do we fix it?
If SOPA is threatening the traditional internet, how do we route around the damage? Can we dramatically grow the number of nodes and routing capabilities? Can we design an open source ad-hoc mesh network that makes any attempt to shut it down an impossible project of confiscating every router, cellphone, car, and thing in the world that can communicate with each other?
Can we design crowd-sourcing tools that allow the 99% to track and neutralize the 1% far more effectively than they could ever do to us? Can we make it possible to in every way tell them that their BS is no longer welcome on Planet Earth?
Can we re-wire technical systems to promote and support the Steve Jobs & Woz's of the world to create a brighter future for us all?
That's really the conversation we ought to be having on /. every day, not endless hand-wringing about the supposed government and big companies who JUST WON'T LISTEN TO US.
Let's work the problem, folks.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Despite all that is politically fucked in California, or maybe because of it, we're taking baby steps towards weakening the grip of the two party system.
Citizen Redistricting Commission - The legislature no longer gets to gerrymander districts in their favor. Instead, redistricting is done by a citizen's commission drawn from multiple parties and independents. Both the Republicans and Democrats are mad about the recently released maps, which is probably a good indicator that the commission is doing good work.
Nonpartisan Primary - All candidates from all parties compete in the same primary, and the top two candidates advance to the main election. The initial effect should be to eliminate hyperpartisan extremists, but getting more moderates into office will only bode well for passing future changes to the election system.
Instant Runoff Voting - Some cities, most notably San Francisco and Oakland, have switched to IRV. IRV is basically the next step after nonpartisan primaries, so hopefully it will move statewide if it's seen as successful in city elections. Unfortunately, Jean Quan, Oakland's mayor, only won because of IRV and is now coming under fire for mishandling Occupy. The fear is that people may equate IRV with producing bad politicians, even though the traditional voting system has created more than its fair share of horrible politicians.
If things continue progressing in California, this bodes well for the nation as a whole. We were ahead of the game on having completely dysfunctional hyperpartisan politics. Term limits and other measures didn't make things better, and perhaps even made it worse. If these new steps lead to a more civil and productive legislature, hopefully the trends will get picked up nationwide.
what good is knowing about it if you can't do anything about it? Congress has an approval rate of 9%, and they still get elected. You're completely missing the point with your suggestion, which is that these people are our ruling class. You are not free. They own you.
The correct solution is to only allow individuals to donate, and then cap the donations at a reasonable amount. If everyone has the same opportunity to express your view with money, then you have real free speech. Also, you only get to donate to an election you can vote in. No donations if you can't legally vote. Corporations can't vote, so they don't get to donate. Period. Problem solved.
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On the one side you had a few (very few) congressmen/women, namely Mr. Issa, Mr. Polis, Mr. Chaffetz, Ms. Lofgren and Ms. Jackson. They spent the entire hearing pleading with the chairman and the rest of the committee to allow experts (nerds as they often said) to essentially come in and explain the internet to them, because it was obvious that 99% of the members of the committee had no idea what they were talking about. They made reasonable, logical arguments and put forth one amendment after the other trying to clarify some really vague areas of the bill, all of which were shot down by the rest of the committee usually by a vote of ~6 to 24.
On the other side you had 5 or 6 members of the committee who also admitted several times that they had zero understanding of the technical aspects of the bill, but that the bill was awesome anyway. This group was mainly the chairman of the committee Mr. Smith, Mr. Berman, Mr. Watt, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Goodlatte and Ms. Waters. They made no arguments beyond "We have to do something. This is something. Therefor we should do this". Unlike the first group they didn't care that they were ignorant on the subject, they just wanted to get the damn thing passed. I doubt anyone here would be surprised to learn they all received large campaign contributions from the TV/Music/Film industry. Check the contributions of the first group and you'll find the same industry conspicuously absent. It's also worth noting that more than half the committee never said a word during the entire session that wasn't "No" in response to an amendment vote. This third group cared so little they couldn't even be bothered to take part in the debate.
So when you're condemning this committee for being willfully ignorant just keep in mind that 5 or 6 of them don't deserve to be thrown in with the rest like that. I'll end with a quote from a frustrated Darrell Issa, speaking to the chairman of the committee half way through the second day:
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.