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Why the FCC Is Likely To Ignore Net Neutrality Comments and Listen To ISPs
Jason Koebler writes: Time and time again, federal agencies like the FCC ignore what the public says it wants and side with the parties actually being regulated — the ISPs, in this case. Research and past example prove that there's not much that can be considered democratic about the public comment period or its aftermath. "Typically, there are a score or so of lengthy comments that include extensive data, analysis, and arguments. Courts require agencies to respond to comments of that type, and they sometimes persuade an agency to take an action that differs from its proposal," Richard Pierce, a George Washington University regulatory law professor said. "Those comments invariably come from companies with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars at stake or the lawyers and trade associations that represent them. Those are the only comments that have any chance of persuading an agency."
I am shocked, Shocked I say.
Government agency run by former lobbyists support current lobbyists. In related news it's reported that water makes things wet.
'...time and time again, federal agencies like the FCC ignore what the public says it wants and side with the parties actually being regulated...' This is because the FCC -- just like the CRTC here in Canada -- are run by former employees of the companies, and will side with their former employer every time, as they'd rather help them than the public at large. It boils down to conflict of interest, but nothing is ever done about it.
Michael
http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
...where she stops, everybody knows. They are going to listen to the ISPs because the current head of the FCC is the former head of a communications lobby group, and the current head of a communications lobby group is the former head of the FCC.
Really? Amazing, if you staff a regulation body with the people from organizations that are supposedly being regulated by that body, it fails? Really? Who could have possibly imagined that!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And corporations are people, my friend...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Henry Ford quipped. "If I asked the American people what they wanted, they would have said - faster horses".
Two words: Regulatory Capture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Turn the EFF into the NRA of online rights. If the EFF had 5,000,000 dues paying, donating, voting, vocal, invested members, we wouldn't be having these discussions about ISPs writing their own laws. The hardest part is already done: organizing some people who know what they're doing into what is now the EFF.
People just need to decide that their rights are worth at least $25/year.
Like Netflix has done, and YouTube is starting to do. Point out which ISP's are not providing you with the bandwidth YOU bought to download the content YOU requested.
Google can even do better. In order to not detract from the bandwidth YouTube has available for an ISP users, it can stop crawling web sites on the ISP's network. After Verizon or Comcast sees that none of their hosted platforms are indexed on Google, then Google can offer to sell them separate 'hi-speed' indexing peering points.
Uh, the other option is to not allow pricing for prioritized traffic based on where it's sourced.
This is not rocket surgery.
When you respond to a call for comments from a federal agency, don't say it sucks. Say what's wrong and provide solutions.
Solutions should come in the form of exact text changes that the editor can copy and paste into the document. People are lazy. Text talks.
See this: http://csrc.nist.gov/publicati...
In my comments, each comment comes with a resolution..
E.G.
The diagram shows inputs to functions including entropy, personalization string, nonce and Additional input. However the text calls out only the
nonce input as being optional. By omission it leaves the optionality of the other inputs ambiguous. In a specification, where there is a list of items,
some optional, some mandatory, it is necessary to identify the optional or mandatory nature of every item.
Also, “depending on the implementation” is redundant and adds no meaning.
Proposed resolution:
Replace
Figure 1 provides a functional model of a DRBG (i.e., one type of RBG). A DRBG uses a DRBG mechanism and a source of entropy
input, and may, depending on the implementation of the DRBG mechanism, include a nonce source. The components of this model are
discussed in the following subsections.
With
Figure 1 provides a functional model of a DRBG (i.e., one type of RBG). A DRBG shall implement an approved DRBG algorithm and at
least one approved source of entropy input, and may include additional optional sources including a nonce source, personalization string,
and additional input. The components of this model are discussed in the following subsections.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I first heard about regulatory capture in an economics class where it was referred to a the Stockholm Syndrome for regulators. It's a well documented phenomenon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... It also doesn't help when regulators are guaranteed well paid future jobs within the industries they are currently supposed to be regulating.
The government is corrupt, morally bankrupt, and will do what those with the most money want them to do. As someone suggested above, if the EFF was the NRA of Internet it would be a different matter. But, in the end, since this really is an issue of two conflicting corporate interests, and one of these interests just happens to mirror that of the people.
Frankly, I think net neutrality will win out in the marketplace because of the things some companies, e.g., Google, are doing to let their users know that the ISP's are throttling them. The ISP's can't prevent them from doing this and ISP's customers can choose another ISP that doesn't do it, or at least offers better performance. Another possibility is that the content providers the ISP's are throttling will eventually become ISP's themselves, especially Google.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
Well, let's see how "shocked" you are when the "well-reasoned, evidence-backed, meaty, professional arguments" result in your surfing becoming a lot slower, and any websites YOU decide to publish somehow don't get much traffic, because people won't wait on slow websites, as is well known. Yeah, I'll bet you'll just be happy as a clam with that, won't you? You won't see any evidence of the system being broken then, either, will you? Clearly, the problem will resolve itself you only just educate yourself a little more (presumably with what benefits the corps, and not you.)
Sure. Brilliant.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Herein lies the kicker. Yep, Wheeler was placed there specifically for that purpose. It's an old Scientologist trick. They couldn't get the OK as far as their tax exempt status so they got their own people hired into those positions in order to make the decision in their favor. And, you know what? You can't do anything about it other than try to show proof that they did so with that intent, the intent to subvert the democratic process. It is a subversion of it but they know you can't do anything about it, so all they have to do is feign the desire to have the public concern heard even if they never intended to listen, and then make the decision in the ISP's favor. Wheeler, and his masters, knows that once the decision is made it will take Congress to counteract it. Then of course you have the President and the Vice President both of which favor the big corps that pay for this lobbying.
The amusing thing is that if you remove mention of a specific agency or actor, the above tactic is what all the big corporations and industry groups are using to subvert the public interest to serve their profit interest and this infestation of governmental agencies works regardless of who is in power (as long as you contribute to both parties - or at least the party in power).
There's even a term for it: Regulatory Capture
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The problem is that the FCC has limited regulatory power unless it reclassifies Internet access as a telecommunications service, which is considered the "nuclear option." Prior attempts to enforce neutrality have been thrown out by the courts. At this point, to do anything meaningful they'd probably have to involve Congress... And I bet you can figure out how likely that is.
Let's not kid ourselves here, internet service absolutely IS a telecommunications service by every measure of the word. It should be classified and regulated as such.
Consultation is NOT about demonstrating that there are a lot of people opposed to a decision; that's what the democratic process of the commision, congress etc is for. Consultation properly is to raise specific issues that the bureaucrats haven't thought of, to ensure that the final regulations will achieve what the bureaucrats want it to do, or to identify why the implementation will fail. So lots of identical objections will achieve nothing; a detailed examination of why the regulation will have unintended consequences in area 'X', will get attention - as long as the people tasked with reading them don't give up because there are so many.
While I'll agree that largely they are going to be ineffectual anyway, I don't think we help the cause with the current "copy/paste this as your comment" mentality. Just go to any of those public comments sections on the government sites and a massive majority of comments are identical, usually a complete set, one each of a pro and a con argument that someone just simply is told to copy/paste to "help the cause" from whatever side sent them. I just cringe when they also contain awkward wording, or even spelling/grammar errors in the original text - that of course propagate to every single one that someone pastes in. There are so few original comments it all just looks like PR/social media campaigns, not citizens giving actual, thoughtful comments.
That said, again, yes, I'm sure a lot of folks don't want to waste time because they don't think it matters any way, and it probably doesn't - but like I said, it doesn't help the cause or likely make anyone monitoring/reviewing them pay attention when they have read the same exact comment worded the same exact (often poor) way hundreds or even thousands of times. It's not a vote, it's an invitation to comment - but we treat it like one.
The sky is blue.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The FTC seems like they have the right tools to tackle net neutrality, whereas it's not clear that the FCC does. For example, they could declare that ISPs letting certain peering links saturate to unreasonable levels without disclosure is an unfair and deceptive trade practice. If a customer purchases Internet access, they expect equal access to all of the Internet. They could also declare that cable franchise monopolies interfering with competing video services (like Netflix) is an anti-trust violation.
No, the other option is to force infrastructure owners to stop selling ISP services and create a compulsory license fee for ISPs that wish to have their signal carried over the infrastructure.
Over night you have market competition.
we can still win this fight.
give up, the system is rigged. If they can't fool us, maybe they can persuade us to give up.
The FCC is supposed to answer to Congress. Congress makes the laws that define the scope of FCC responsibilities. The FCC should only listen to the public as it pertains to regulated entities doing something wrong or the FCC not doing its job.
I do agree that the FCC head should never be a shill for the regulated industries.
The chairman of the FCC is a dirty industry insider and does not give a fuck about the American public. All I know is that the next president had better fire his ass and put someone in there that will not game the system.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
At this point, reclassification is exactly what pretty much every pro-net-neutrality group (and therefore, every citizen who uses their automated comment-submission systems) is asking the FCC to do.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I think the FCC may end up postponing the change in net neutrality because it could have a tremendous effect on the upcoming 2014 Congressional elections if they go against the overwhelming wishes of the people commenting on its proposal.
Since we are talking about the US 'market' here; what the fuck are you smoking?
I pay them every month. If you are reading this, are you paying your share?
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
RE: To whomever modded this post "Flamebait" -
Thank you. If only we could publicly point that shit out when politicians say it on the campaign trail.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The problem is that the FCC has limited regulatory power unless it reclassifies Internet access as a telecommunications service, which is considered the "nuclear option."
How about instead, they reclassify the Cable line or Wireless Data as the telecommunications service and say Provide competing IP providers equal access to the Cable or Wireless Data link to customer facilities, Or Else: All services over that link are telco services for you, including internet, by stating that A telecommunications service always exists for every end-user connection..
So an ISP is not a telecommunication service, BUT the Internet service itself carried over an exclusively owned link to the customer facility IS a telecommunications service UP to the protocol layer where the customer first has choice of who to direct packets to.
In other words: conditional classification. Not all internet services necessarily have to be classified the same. Let's start organizing and classifying IP service for regulation based on the characteristics of the service.
Skip trying to create competition entirely.
make internet a local utility with heavy regulations.
stop making laws (created by telcos) that bar cities from instituing their own connectivity.
and finally force the telcos to use the funds they recieved as part of the tax breaks for past decade or two to expand and improve service....you know, like they were supposed to with those funds, instead of just pocketing it, increasing their profits with money supplied by taxpayers.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The FCC is supposed to answer to Congress. Congress makes the laws that define the scope of FCC responsibilities. The FCC should only listen to the public as it pertains to regulated entities doing something wrong or the FCC not doing its job.
The FCC is an independent agency. Congress defines the scope of it's powers and the president appoints it's chairman and members of the board. However, when exercising those powers within the scope of it's statutory authority the FCC is answerable to no one, not even the president. If the FCC pisses off congress they have the power to redefine the scope of it's statutory authority, but that's about it.
I do agree that the FCC head should never be a shill for the regulated industries.
Agreed. If congress had any backbone they would place ISPs under Title II by statute and take the decision out of the FCC's hands.
If you have ever worked for an agency of government, especially at the Cabinet Level or just below, you know that they have a built-in conflict of interest. Their mission is to promote the interest of the constituants they have, the industries they regulate, and the conflict is that they are charged with, at least in theory, with regulating them. The catch is, and this is built into the Constitution itself, Congress controls the funding of them. If a powerful, well-funded business does not want a regulation imposed on it, it has many tools to fight, and more now that the Roberts Court has given them unlimited power to exert financial pressure on members of Congress to do their bidding.
Now, in the case of the FCC, they do have a legitimate function to regulate limited resources, broadcast bandwidth in this case, and so they are even more inclined to bend to the pressure of intense lobbying and money spent to garner control of a precious resource. In this area, the power of the ISPs to game access to the bandwidth by throttling connections is quite large. and that seems to render the idea of Net Neutrality moot. The public has to use its economic power to answer this if it vexed. Much of business power is based on the laziness of people. People pay a premium for convenience and give up lots of power thereby. If people start believing that the ISPs are abusing their power and being helped by the FCC, then they will be able to change this.
There is plenty of talk about going to non-IP networks, even low-power store and forward meshes that do not use regulated bandwith or the wired Internet at all. Maybe this is an answer. Remember UUCP? Is there anything to stop people from sending encrypted private data over a public wireless network to another phone?