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US Congressman Wants To Ban New Internet Laws
SchrodingerZ writes "Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, has drafted a bill for the internet. The bill, aptly named the Internet American Moratorium Act (IAMA), is, 'a two-year moratorium on any new laws, rules or regulations governing the Internet.' In short it hopes to deny any new government bills related to lawmaking on the internet for the next two years. The bill was first made public on the website Reddit, and is currently on the front page of Keepthewebopen.com, a website advocating internet rights. 'Together we can make Washington take a break from messing w/ the Internet,' Issa writes on his Reddit post. The initial response to the bill has been mixed. Users of Reddit are skeptical of the paper's motives and credibility. As of now, the bill is just a discussion draft, whether it will gain footing in the future is up in the air."
A law to not make laws? Why not just not pass the laws you don't want?
Will it help net neutrality, or will it be more designed to favor corporate profiteering and plundering at the public's expense?
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Until you realize that this will also put a moratorium on things like privacy laws, as well as put a hold on any action regarding things like bandwidth caps, net neutrality, and copyright enforcement legislation. That may be good or bad, depending on how we're represented, but I'd rather have the debate in congress, rather than have them be forced to sit idly by while the incumbents go unchecked.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
They cry about their precious "Net Neutrality" even as this bill unconditionally outlaws...
1) Data retention mandates.
2) New surveillance powers, claims, etc.
3) Any new intelligence community moves into further "securing the net" (think about that recent controversy over the NSA secretly claiming to "invade private networks")
4) New powers to seize domain names or any thing else Hollywood wants
Yeah, what a trade off. Give me some of that DoJDHSDoD Internet love any day so long as Verizon has to be 100% "fair and neutral..."
The Corruptman in question is against Net Neutrality. To force net neutrality, laws are needed. This guy wants to stop that. He wants unbridled and unchecked market forces to regulate the Internet.
We know who the market it is, HINT: it ain't you and we know the market wants to destroy net neutrality. This corruptman isn't proposing a freeze, he is proposing government do nothing while business gets to do everything it wants.
If you want to see if this is a good idea, fellow republican corruptmen forced the government to step aside and let the financial industry do whatever it wants... how is that economy going US of A?
People say that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others. Well, tight government control is the worst of all systems to regulate markets. Except for all the other methods.
Always follow the money. Who is paying this guys salary? No, not you you silly voter. His election campaign fat cat jobs once he retires. YOU don't factor into his decision making, never have, never will.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Now, instead of not passing laws, we're passing laws to not pass laws?
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Hasn't Congress got more urgent important stuff to do? Like avoiding this fiscal cliff that everyone is talking about..
skeptical of the paper's motives and credibility.
Being skeptical of our government is among the most important patriotic duties of U.S. citizens. The Declaration of Independence is an impassioned ode to the enduring beauty of critical enquiry of the motives and actions of government. Regardless of how we feel about Rep. Issa, it is our duty to challenge his statements.
a discussion draft
One of my common complaints about the state of our government is that our elected officials, when addressing complex issues, focus more effort on directing public opinion than on fostering public debate. The goal of our leaders should be to bring the nation into the analysis, not to establish our conclusions. By presenting this as a provocative entree rather than a finalized declaration, he has given us a kernel upon which to found the discussion.
For my part in that; I think a moratorium is a double edged sword. Authoritarian versus libertarian is only one dimension, another is organizational versus individual. It is possible to believe that individual rights to speak and associate freely on the Internet should be subject to less government authority and also that that organizations (lobbies, unions, corporations, religions) should be more limited in their permits to influence or monitor the behavior of individuals on the Internet. A moratorium could prevent the government from censoring individual speech, or it could give ISPs a two year foothold on selective restriction of online activities.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Last night during dinner, a thief walked into my home and asked me whether or not he should put a moratorium on robbing me for the next 2 years.
Just go away. Just leave us alone—now and forever!
...because you are being misdirected. Issa is as slimy as they come and a paid whore for the telecom industry. Among the many disservices he's done for his constituents was voting for retroactive immunity for the phone companies (all of them, save QWest) who held the bag while various agencies violated our rights and spied on us without judicial supervision. If he's putting something as radical as this in place, there's a reason and you can bet that it's not something that is good for us.
Gerrymandering goes on across the board. Both parties do it as much as they can. Have you seen Jackson Lee's district? Or the Illinois 4th? Those Democrats would not be in office if not for racist carve-outs. Of course some gerrymanders aren't for partisan political reasons. Arizona's famed 2nd looks funny because the Hopis and Navajos didn't want to be represented by the same congresscritter.
Lawmakers can't tie their hands like this save by constitutional amendment.
In practice they can. For example, the rules of the U.S. Senate, readopted as each new class of senators is sworn in, require 60 percent assent for a "cloture" motion to proceed on a bill. Without cloture, the minority with 41 to 49 percent can threaten to "filibuster" the proceedings by giving hours of off-topic speeches.
False.
They want to keep your data and resell it.
Like most other corporation, they will use anything they can access to make money. Just like corporation will poison local water sources.
", you don't get to opt out the way you do with a relationship with a corporation"
You never get to opt out of a relationship with a corporation. You can stop buying their products, depending,. But they will continue to use anything that have about you to make money anyway they can. You may not be active in the relationship, but it still exists.
The Government has check and balances, you have recourse, you have accountability. None of those things exist with corporation unless they are mandated by the government to have them.
Corporation would lock the doors and let you burn to death if it was cheaper for them. Never forget that.
If you did a transaction with a corporation, and then 6 months later your data gets copied by an unauthorized source, what can you do?
We have 100+ yeas of history regarding corporate behavior in the US, and 100s of years of history on corporate behavior in Europe.
We no what happens when they are left unchecked, and it isn't good.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Not me. We all need at least one new copyright bill: add an exemption to DMCA's anti-circumvention prohibition (and the associated manufacture/sale/etc part), to legalize non-copyright-infringing uses.
Users need it, hardware and software industry needs it, and even the entertainment industry needs it (to increase media sales).
Actually we need the whole anti-circumvention garbage totally repealed, but I'm putting the above narrow exemption forth as a compromise. I'd appreciate it if the Slashdot crowd would refrain from explaining that my "narrow" exemption is essentially the same as repealing the whole useless mess. ;-)
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Even if this ban is implemented other than as a law, it can still be effective because as you pointed out, a bill has to be passed in both chambers. If a procedural rule in one chamber stops the bill from being passed, the bill cannot be passed in both chambers and thus cannot become law.
No, its not. Its Issa making a symbolic, substance-free gesture in order to generate the illusion that he is interested in stopping government messing with the Internet. When you look at the substantive legislation affecting how the government does or does not regulate private industry and activity that that Issa has sponsored in the last year, that illusion is hard to maintain. See, particularly, H.R. 3782, the "Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act".
Between the two major parties in the US, I'm solidly in the Democratic camp -- and yet I can still recognize that there are plenty of Republicans that have sponsored or supported good legislation (even recently.) But Issa's empty symbolic gesture isn't doing here isn't something good, its doing something empty, meaningless, and distracting.
Congress finally admitting they don't know wtf they're doing when it comes to technology & the internet. So in bureaucratic fashion they pass the problem on to their successor.
How is Obama going to veto something that isn't going to get to his desk?
The meat of the bill is the part where it forbids any regulatory agency from creating new rules. Remember, regulatory agencies operate under the authority of Congress, certain functions reserved to Congress under the Constitution being delegated by Congress to that agency under that laws that created it.
But in general, each Congress can make its own rules, and is not restrained by previous Congresses. Usually, they just adopt the previous Congress' rules. But they can make a rule that binds them for the rest of the Congress. Technically the rule can be rescinded, but that can be made much harder to do than simply passing legislation that the rule prohibits. In addition, if the rule has popular support, then those pushing to rescind the rule will be at a political disadvantage.
Oh, those poor confused Republicans - even when they decide to do something, it's only to make sure that they won't do something.
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.