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White House Responds To Net Neutrality Petition
bostonidealist writes "The White House has officially responded to a We The People petition created on January 15, 2014, which urged the President to 'direct the FCC to classify ISPs as "common carriers"' after the D.C. U.S. Court of Appeals 'struck down the Federal Communications Commission's open internet rules.' The White House statement says, 'absent net neutrality, the Internet could turn into a high-priced private toll road that would be inaccessible to the next generation of visionaries,' but notes, 'The FCC is an independent agency. Chairman Wheeler has publicly pledged to use the full authority granted by Congress to maintain a robust, free and open Internet — a principle that this White House vigorously supports.'"
-nch? Now there are indeed laws by which the FCC must operate. There is for example a law or are laws that define what a common carrier is. So how about hurling metric boatloads of attorneys, engineers, sociologists or what have you, at the FCC, to convince them that ISPs are really common carriers? At one time an ISP was arguably an information provider, say when they all provided Usenet feeds. But it has been more than ten years since I've been able to get a feed from any ISP. I don't even get my email from my ISP anymore. I get connectivity, that's it. I don't even use their DNS. So from my point of view at least, as well as those of many common types of Internet users, the ISPs are common carriers now, even if they weren't before.
Please mail me URLs of software employers.
>I love how Obama signs 100 executive orders a day
Your post was satire, right? In reality, Obama has issued less executive orders per year than every other modern President.
>he can't be bothered to ask the Cable and Telecom Monopolist he appointed to chair the FCC to do anything.
It's like you didn't even read what he said, or just assume he *means* the opposite of what he says...but given your past history of inaccuracy....
The FCC is no more "independent" than the IRS.
Note the recent scheme the FCC was going to try, putting bureaucrats in the newsrooms of broadcasters to "study" the reporting of news. Which got quickly withdrawn soon as word got out.
That would have been putting a Regime "political officer" into newsrooms to threaten the LICENSES of broadcasters who don't "praise and worship" Pharaoh.
Corporatism != Free Market
I call BS. On average Obama signs only 38 executive orders per YEAR. On average only one more than Bush, and 10 less than Reagan https://www.politicususa.com/2014/02/16/myth-busted-analysis-reveals-president-obama-behaving-dictator.html
when something sound ludicrous, you should look it up instead of blindly repeating it like some half-wit parrot.
http://www.snopes.com/politics...
The quote ois accurate, so I"m not sure why you are porting it. Oh Right, you are a half-wit parrot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Please don't let facts get in the way of a perfectly good teabagger diatribe.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Comcast sent us more campaign donations than you did.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Correct. It is an independent regulatory agency.
"So how about hurling metric boatloads of attorneys, engineers, sociologists or what have you, at the FCC, to convince them that ISPs are really common carriers?"
How about that? have you sent them a letter? have you contact local experts to get them to send a letter? organize anything?
Or do you just complain until someone else does all the work?
And yes, logically they are common carriers.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The White House response to this really just uses a lot of words to say "No comment".
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
This is fucking insipid. But as long as it adds to the mirage that Your Government Cares, then let the show go on right?
I think any communication between the public and our government that is open and transparent has value. Even if it does not get the desired result immediately, it influences public opinion in our government as the people observe the ebb and flow of government in action. Government officials are almost always influenced to at least some degree by their public perception.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
He has authority over federal agencies, federal commissions are setup to be independent for a reason, mainly to prevent the stupidity that you want.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
"uh, how much money do you have to contribute for us to listen to you?"
That is ALL they care about. ( well, that and destroying the country as fast as possible before time runs out )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We don't really know that petitions don't get attention from the WH, but it is an interesting question. I suggest we start a petition for the WH tell us whether they take petitions under serious consideration or not.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
*sigh* 2 minutes of Googling demonstrates that average hasn't actually changed much: https://www.federalregister.go... 2013 - 21 2012 - 38 2011 - 33 2010 - 35 2009 - 39 Super majority or not, he signed more in the first two years than he did in the second two.
The truth that Chairman Wheeler was a cable industry lobbyist is here wrapped in just enough rabid partisan garbage to leave everybody unsatisfied.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
that super majority lasted a matter of days. 24 days.
http://www.usmessageboard.com/...
It really isn't that difficult to google for the facts you know. Really, seriously.
True, and well-worded, but I think it's a bunch of handwaving. If he truly believed in an open internet, he'd do something about this more than just saying: "I'm gonna let them handle it"
You must be new to this whole "government" thing.
In general they do nothing. And in general that is actually the best response.
Usually when they do take fast action it is the wrong action. The kneejerk reaction laws are written by organizations that have their own aggressive agendas, they provide them to the legislators during an emergency under the promise that the bad provisions can be corrected later... but they seldom are.
The correct course, even though it is slow and tedious and painful, is for Congress to act deliberately.
Even in the best of times trying to force Congress to pass a law that benefits the people is nearly impossible. Often it requires a massive upswelling, grand marches and presentations and events that are daily on the news until the congress-critters realize they must take action or lose their jobs. In the worst of times, like today, even that wouldn't work since they cn trivially deflect the most severe upheavals with "We worked on a bill but the other party shut it down".
Examples of that were the civil rights movement, the Vietnam and Korean war protests, more recently we have the occupy movement and the tea party movement. It takes considerable force to make congress move, and even these multi-million member groups tend to produce only slight changes in government.
Sadly, the correct action is also the action we are least likely to see. It may not be the one the nation wants, but given the national attitudes and apathy, it is probably the one we deserve.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
I don't think there has ever been a drastic and/or immediate shift in policy based on a "We the People" petition ... no (I could be wrong, so fee free to correct me here if needed)
However by simply answering the petition, the White House has helped to illuminate the problem for the less tech savvy folks who still follow politics. You'd be astonished (or maybe you wouldn't) to realize how many people have absolutely zero idea what "Net Neutrality" actually means. This response, no matter how neutered, will cause at least a small percentage of people to say "Hold on a second. What's this 'free and open Internet' concept?"
Couple that with the real or perceived repercussions and non-techs may actually start putting the pieces together "Why is my netflix so slow today? And what is the white house babbling about now? hey!" light bulb
This signature is false.
How is the that "best thing?" That is the worst outcome. It is better for people to want to change their government, than for them to just not care at all. If it disillusioned them about political parties, then I'd support your statement, but outright not wanting a voting populace goes against the very fabric of this structure we call a nation.
It's like you didn't even read what he said, or just assume he *means* the opposite of what he says..
Its like YOU didn't read what he said.
He said nothing, he promised nothing.
Instead he delivered PURE 100% Obama speak for "Yeah I hear you, now STFU and stop raining on my parade."
The FCC is an independent agency. Chairman Wheeler has publicly pledged to use the full authority granted by Congress to maintain a robust, free and open Internet — a principle that this White House vigorously supports.'
He sort of fails to notice the Courts just took away all of that Congressionally Granted Power.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
So, no one elected has any authority over this powerful agency? Is that what is being claimed? Then we have a problem, no?
... that is, should he have chosen to sign the laws, the laws passed without his signature while Congress was in recess, or the congress overrode his veto.
Strictly speaking, President Obama cannot just declare that ISPs are Common Carriers. I expect the law says that the FCC determines that, and FDR or some such signed the law that established the FCC, at the time the Common Carrier status was to regulate the phone companies.
However the president does have a lot of power, as I said, to present evidence to the FCC during hearings, to write friend of the court briefs, to petition the courts and so on.
But I'm pretty sure he could not just sign an executive order.
Were that the case, that an executive order could just overturn a law, we'd see a lot more executive orders than we presently do.
Please mail me URLs of software employers.
Check your facts - while he's spent more than any other president, the spending is only 11.2% more than Bush. His new spending, removing existing spending he inherited from Bush in 2009, is $203 billion (2005 adjusted $) and the total since that high point has reduced 5%. By comparison Bush increased spending (again, adjusted) by 33% in his first term and 34% in his second. Regan increased spending 41.2% during his presidency.
Adjusted for inflation, Obama has increased the budget by a lower % than any president since Herbert Hoover.
I call BS too. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu...
Bush: 290 orders signed
Obama: 169 orders signed
I love how Obama signs 100 executive orders a day ordering various federal agencies to implement his radical agenda
Obama has only signed 170 executive orders since 2009.
That's less than Bush and Clinton btw.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Except Obama didn't spend the money. Congress did. Obama signs laws. The laws the gave the budget crunch were on the books before he got to office. There would be less debt if there were a grand bargain in 2011.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The 'playlist for the dance' will remain the same as long as there are effectively only two parties to choose from at voting time.
And this is why you should support every Tea Party candidate that you can. Now, wait, hear me out. You may not agree with their politics, but you have to admit they're really stirring people up, both on the left and the right. Now, I know, what you're going to say: "They'll ruin our entire system, set the rights of $GROUP back 100 years, make the middle class poor, make the rich richer, and leave us all out to hang and dry!"
And you'd probably be right. And I support that. Yes, I support my quality of life dropping, at least temporarily, if it means we can reboot this entire thing and start over again. There are millions of sane, level-headed liberal folks out there who realize the mess of shit we're in. Just as there are millions of sane, level-headed conservatives out there who realize the same. You see, the average, middle class working person, which whether we admit it on Slashdot or not, most of us are, aren't in support of socialism, no more than we are in support of capitalism. It's a balance. It's not black and white, we're for a decent world to live in. One we can hand down to the next generation and say "See, we tried not to fuck it up so bad, made a few things better, made a few things worse. Give it a shot and see how you do."
But we need to get back to basics. We need a government that builds and maintains infrastructure. Roads, schools, sanitation, water, energy systems. At least at the basic level. We can still have toll roads, we can still have private schools, for those who want them. But government needs to get out of the business of micromanaging people's lives. Now, why should you support the Tea Party? Because if you're so sure they're going to fuck everything up beyond recognition, bring the whole system crashing down to the ground, LET THEM! Then you can rebuild it with your input as you see fit.
As it stands, it's the only real option we have left. No one wants violence or any of that kind of thing here in America. Call it exceptionalism, call it whatever denigrating term you want, I think we're above it. We're not stupid enough to end up shedding the blood of our own people, are we? Over such bullshit as Obamacare, or welfare, or abortion? We can agree to disagree. We can find a compromise that works for everyone, if we stop letting the power structure call all the shots and control every debate with the black and white all or nothing rhetoric. We're not all so different. Not as different as you'd think we are if you watch cable news or read every political blog on the web. We really can fucking get along without secession or violence or this radical idea or that radical idea. But we need to reboot, and the only way to do that is by electing someone who's not a D or an R.
Put the partisan, emotionally charged rhetoric down just long enough to get our country (world?) back. Then we can get right on back to debating about minutia and Justin Bieber. But the hole in the ship isn't getting any smaller, and the guys with the blue and red hammers and nails are only using them to beat us about the head. We can get back to that once we use them to fix the hole and pump out the water. Anyone but the incumbent. That's my vote.
To bad your insults don't help either. Obama could meet with his appointed head of the FCC and strongly encourage him to make the internet common carrier.
Fuck, Obama can call him on his phone and have the FCC do it with their pen.
Its one thing he CAN actually in this case do all by himself.
But it would be for the good of the citizens, and not the cable and telecom industries, so it isn't going to happen.
I am so fucking fed up with the citizens getting screwed no matter what.
I do love how, to prove Obama is bad (and he IS bad, just for REAL reasons... ), people trot out the debt. Yes. It's high. Yes, Obama spent a lot of money. But lets face it, the deficit is going DOWN, not up. He inherited a mess, he's cleaning it up, and if we want to blame anyone, we should blame the folks that repealed the Glass-Steagal act (which includes Clinton) for creating our gigantic mess.
If you want to hate on Obama, stick to real facts. There are plenty of reasons to hate on Obama. But he's not responsible for the accumulation of all the debt that came before him, nor is he responsible for the economic situation that we find ourselves in. Go blame the assholes that deregulated an industry that almost immediately started creating a gigantic economic bubble and then begged for help when it popped.
This thread is going to be full of whining. Lots of blame. Lots of arguing. Lots of links to sources.... but no action.
Wolf-PAC.com. Go. sign up. DO SOMETHING. I drove an hour today to get to my state capitol, visited my state rep, and asked him to sponsor legislation to call for an article V convention to FIX the problem. The problem isn't and R or a D next to someone's name. It's that money buys influence. It's that our reps are elected almost completely based on who raises the most money. And that isn't their fault. It's YOURS.
You vote based on partisan hackery and don't bother to educate yourselves. You're all fired up to argue on the internet, but can't be bother to call your damn rep and tell them what's on your mind. And to boot, you vote based on made up knee jerk reactions. They're playing you like a fiddle. Ok, mostly the Right here, I really do have to show my bias. :D Really, a Muslim? A secret Muslim? F'ing stupid... but the laziness crosses party lines.
Fix your brain, get off your ass, and go FIX IT. Stop whining on the internet. Stop arguing uselessly with random strangers on the internet. It wasn't even that hard to call my rep, get a meeting, and start working on a solution.
Sorry, I'm a little frustrated by all the stupid arguing. Also, the stupidity. Go. wolf-pac.com. Sign up. Work with the people in your state (many of whom are in the OTHER party, and you'll hang out with them and discover they're actually quite intelligent and put a lot of thought into their beliefs).
^^ That dude is dead on.
People that argue against different presidents based on spending should be shunned.
First, the conversation devolves into uber-lameness where different jackasses start trotting out more shitty numbers out their ass.
Conversations with things like "But as a percent of GDP divided by the number of years, adjusted for inflation." are fucking lame. Use real reasons to make an argument --- even if the argument is wrong, anything is better than a nerd numbers fight.
For fucks sake!
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
What some people on the right wing mean by "small government" is - small enough to drown in a bathtub. They believe government is "in the way" and the less there is of it the better. These people are so naïve about human nature that they actually believe social harmony can be obtained via absolute freedom, oddly that is the same problem the extreme left wing "flower power" people had when I was a kid. They expect that people will be fair minded with each other when government gets "out of the way". They think people will respect property rights, etc, without any enforcement. They think a gun rack over the mantelpiece will be a deterrent to an aspiring warlord. Basically they live in a thought bubble blown by people who want to control them, but to do that they must first tear down the protections afforded by the existing social structure.
Now here's the funny/ironic part, these people think a center-right president is the one with the radical agenda!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The funny thing is --
Chinese workers are paid with Chinese money. You are paid in greenbacks and I'm pretty certain you would complain if you were handed plain paper.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It gets better when you realize that the rest of the right wing mean by smaller government is one run exclusively by them.
Look at it this way the republican who wrote the patriot act is pissed that a democrat is abusing his law in such a way. his answer. it isn't smaller government but to pay a dedicated top secret clearance law firm tens of millions of dollars annually to justify the poorly written law.
If republicans really wanted smaller government then they should be trying to get things like the patriot act NSA spying programs not only under control but shut down to save on government spending. but not one republican will actually push for that.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
He sort of fails to notice the Courts just took away all of that Congressionally Granted Power.
The courts took away nothing. Anyone who was following the story knew that it was almost certain to go that way - the FCC didn't have the authority to create a "third option" the way that it did. The FCC can either classify ISPs as telecommunications providers or not, that's pretty much it.
Obama has weighed in to the extent that he's able. It would be nice if people would some day figure out that the independent agencies that comprise the federal government are independent for a reason. Every time you push for Obama to just roll in and take over the FCC or the justice department, etc., and make them do what you want them to do, and every time you blame Obama for failing to take these drastic steps, what you're really pushing for is a greater degree of authoritarianism. When you say that you hold the president accountable for everything that the federal government does, what you're really saying is that you want the president to directly control all of the federal government.
Very impressive. It's not often you get modded +5 insightful for setting up a series of strawmen and knocking them down.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
just the other day he said no plain english "if congress doesnt act, I will do everything I can to go around it"
YET when it comes to doing things we actually want him to do he gives us BS speak
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
It's actually more severe than that - the legislative brach passes BINDING LAWS that appropriate money, and the executive branch merely complies with the laws passed.
Everyone likes to blame the President for budget deficits, but outside of asking nicely for stuff at the beginning of the process, and putting his signature on whatever comes back from Congress in the end, he / she has fuck-all to do with how it's divided up. That's how the Founders wanted it, and that's how it still is.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Even congress, up until very recently they had no idea either, and they started making up all crazy ideas of what it meant and confused it with other issues.
Net Neutrality, is the concept that all intermediate networks exist just to relay data, and don't discriminate based on content, and they simply move data, and don't set policy.
On a technical level, it prohibits all routing beyond layer 3 of the OSI model, as well as priorititizing one destination or another.
The concept is the network is entirely seperate, and merely a platform, for the content. Its also the network should not interfere with the content. It was an unwritten rule of the internet, almost since day one. In its early years, it also shielded ISPs from liability?
Someone accessed kiddie porn, made terrorist threats, or did some other illegal stuff, that passed through ISP XYZ's router, no one ever did as much as accuse them of hosting the content.(now I guess comcast is to big to jail so they don't care)
This has sometimes confused with other issues such as the cost of broadband, its availability among demographic groups(the digital divide).
He's actually not the retard, he's informed. Money need not come from a fiscal year budget act. A great example is the $1.4T deficit of FY2008. The budget as passed had a $400B deficit between outlays and projected receipts. TARP and the ARRA were both passed after the FY2008 budget was passed, making them "off-budget", giving us a total deficit of 800B. Then, outlays came up $800B short of the amount projected on the budget. This was actually a systemic issue during Bush. Many budgets were passed with vastly optimistic receipt projections, making their budgeted deficits artificially low. It seems common for people to use absolute dollars when trying to hammer on Obama for the deficit, and then reducing it to mere percentages when talking about the reduction in the deficit that has occurred since FY2008. To put it in absolute dollars, the deficit today is $700B less than it was the year he took office, or said another way- Obama has presided over the largest spending reduction in US history. That's of course a slanted viewpoint, but so is the one being peddled trying to make him appear to be a spend-monger.
I'm not saying one person writing a letter is going to get an entrenched politician to change a core political platform. That's silly.
What I am saying, is that it is MORE effective then filing a petition on the white house's petition board.
Your congressman might not actually read your letter but he'll be informed of the "numbers" of people and letter that comment for or against a given issue. The president of the United States spend ZERO time with that petition system. None. It is 100 percent driven by staffers and the ONLY it is there is to cherry pick issues people petition for that the white house ACTUALLY wants to do and then they will cite that petition as the reason they're doing something. When in fact, they wanted to do it anyway and probably would have done around the same time but its sound better if they have the petition.
What is more, the president is not supposed to be petitioned by people like some king holding a common council. That is the job of your REPRESENTATIVES. Who are also have a lot more sway over federal policy then you're likely to get.
Can you influence it completely? No. Which is ONE of many reasons why limited government is superior. In limited government, if the government does something you don't like you can usually avoid them or ignore them without it impacting your life much. With expansive government you cannot avoid the consequences of bad legislation. The ACA would be a good example of that. You can't escape it. Its like a giant black sucking hole of money and stupidity.
We'll see if there are any survivors from that one... but so far its looking pretty much like the most idiotic thing the US federal government has ever done. Not the most evil or destructive... just the most stupid.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.