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Conservative Groups Accuse FCC of Helping Net Neutrality Advocates File Comments
jfruh writes Conservative groups opposed to net neutrality have a beef with the FCC, claiming the commission helped pro-net neutrality advocates file comments on the subject without similarly helping opponents. In other news out of this camp, it turns out American Commitment, an advocacy group with ties to the Republican billionaire Koch brothers, sent out 2.4 million letters to Congress opposing net neutrality but only collected about 814,000 signatures. The group then generated three letters to Congress for each person signing the petition, one letter to each of the signer's two senators and one to each signer's representative.
Isn't that their whole ideology, that the world isn't fair?
814,000 is just over a third of 2.4 million (2,400,000). That's a damned good return rate on a mass spamming. It's kind of pathetic that so many people would support the Koch brothers in their efforts to make sure that internet dissent finally stops screwing with their business model, but I don't see why this is interesting news. As for the petition being sent to the senators, again, how is this news? Every PAC does this. You get people to sign a petition, and you send a letter in each person's name to each of their representatives. Sometimes they send one to the POTUS as well. The summary seems to be implying that there's something dishonest about this; if true, it's dishonest whether it's the Koch brothers or Earth Defense Alliance. I'm personally rooting for Earth Defense Alliance, but let's not get carried away looking for malfeasance in common practice.
Burn Baby Burn: Capitalism Inferno. Let's set all rules and regulations to protect public on fire. Let the capitalist overlords rule America. America is turning into the land of the free "to do anything if you have deep pockets" and home of the brave "enough to snatch a sandwich from a child."
Go Koch Go!!! You guys are the new bomb, the bomb that will implode the US economy soon.
That's kind of what you do. Why would you send a letter or email to only one of your two senators?
Every online form I've ever seen lets you write to your two senators, your house rep, and frequently also the white house or other applicable office. They take your input on the online form and either print and mailvit or aggregate it and send the comments and signatures to the people's congressional representatives.
doesn't fall far, it just gets duplicated.
Nonono. Group of luddite imbeciles opposes net neutrality.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
As someone who has myself flirted with PARTS of the Con philosophy at times, I say to a bunch of nitwits: you are intellectually incapable of understanding this issue. It's not about what you think it's about. DAYUM, but Cons can be stupid. (And, I hasten to add, so can Libs. It has become all about warping EVERYTHING to fit one specific fixation).
then we must be against it! Fire up the astroturfing machine!!!
Like many things based in science or technology, I think the conservatives simply do not understand the call for net neutrality. But they do understand that many people with liberal tendencies are for it, therefore, they must oppose it. I'm (somewhat) convinced that there are people at Fox News or similar conservative outlets that stir up and create controversy where there is none, just to get their base frothing at the mouth...which equals more ad revenue.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Is basically what these people are - or want to be. Reading the wikipedia article on the subject ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... ), it's hard to distinguish the behavior of the current conservative groups in question and the unscrupulous landowners who lived along the Rhine:
"They hindered commerce by imposing unauthorized tolls and tariffs and at times by sometimes ransoming or hijacking the goods outright..."
Free market my ass: the real goal of all these crony capitalist "conservatives" is rent-seeking (man, that's another good article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...)
That's all Dems got.
"Conservative groups" Oh the bad bad boogie men! Its stupid biased like this that turns people away. So if you want to alienate people, but all means keep it up.
I am a conservative and I many I know who are as well who are all for net neutrality because big government forces and supporters have granted communication companies an oligopoly. A MUST better solution would be to break up these government created monopolies and allow for competition in the markets.
This is corporatism, which is closely linked to those who support big government and more regulations, creating more barriers to entry and destroying the free market.
Initial apathy in looking for help turned in to shock of an outcome and now crying and being a sore loser after the fact while attempting to pass the blame from themselves to the FCC.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
This is utter bullshit. The GOP used to be more of a classical liberal party, but has become nothing more than the political arm of Wall Street.
Fuck them. I'm done. I'll never vote for another one.
Since the only groups interested in defeating net neutrality are big business wanting to pillage their customer's wallets, why should the FCC have helped those with larger budgets than the FCC?
The internet NEEDS net neutrality, enforced with exceedingly high financial repercussions for violating the terms. Like a million dollars for every "BIT" that is impeded or accelerated by the offending company.
How many oxygen producers (trees) did it take to accomplish this goal of having giant piles of letters thrown away once the post office was finished hauling them around to the whitehouse and congressional offices?
There are three kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither is on your side, pound the table.
an advocacy group with ties to the Republican billionaire Koch brothers
As much as you want it to be, this is not a negative thing by itself.
You would think that conservatives that believe everyone should have an equal voice without government intervention would be behind a move to make it that companies can't throttle traffic from any provider and that the consumer is the one that pays for the bandwidth up to the point of the ISP's border router.
If I buy a plan from Comcast or Verizon it is rated at a specific speed on which they all put transfer caps.
I should be allowed full bandwidth to any file, video, webpage that I want to view on my computer.
I should not have the government making deals where huge companies are allowed to take over 60% of the broadband market and then strongarm companies like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Youtube or any provider of any type of content to make them pay more when a comcast customer views their content.. just so it will stream correctly.
If comcast has issues with use during the evening and with more people now cutting out their tv station and going with a mixture of antenna and netflix or another provider its because Comcast is not serving their customers.
I would be more than happy to pay Comcast $10 a month for 10 stations that I pick that are not pay such as HBO or sports packages. All I want is locals, FoxNews and a Couple networks like Discovery, FoodTV and a sports channel to watch Baseball and Hockey since the teams wont broadcast on Over Antenna stations anymore.
But it is a Scam.. We have to pay for 125 channels in the basic digital lineup and in my home the very maximum would be 25 channels that we ever watch.. with a normal day being 5 channels that we watch.
I don't want to pay for BET or OWN or MSNBC which comcast owns .. or Al Jazera or crap i don't watch and don't support...
I want 10 cable stations and my local OTA stations which would bring me up to about 35 channels since the antenna channels in my area have a lot of subchannels.. that would be amazing if I could pay$10 just for that.. and $25 more a month for basic broadband that would give me 500KBps down and 100KBps Up...
I could live with $35 a month for that and that is what it should be for me.
Right now I pay $115 a month and the only difference is I get 100 stations that i NEVER watch .. NEVER
And that is why everyone is dropping comcast's tv lineup
And Republicans and Democrats and the FCC need to realize the reason things have changed is because our bills have doubled or more in the past 10 years yet we don't get more.
We were all forced to move to Digital TVs .. Yet comcast's basic digital takes TV Signal that is broadcast over the air which I can get as 1080p with an antenna and they dumb it down to 480p ... the same is true for all of their basic digital stations which broadcast in HD yet we have to pay Comcast $50 more a month and Rent more expensive boxes for each TV because if we don't Comcast Degrades the signals that I can get with an Antenna let alone any cable only network.
Comcast got Obama Elected .. they have racists like Al Sharpton on their MSNBC station that incite riots where tens of millions of dollars worth of stores are burnt to the ground and towns destroyed.. they are never held accountable for their acts.
They will not be held accountable for their business practices either.
Nope, its when they have no skills and the company isn't allowed to replace them with workers that would actually do the job that people get riled up.
> would be to break up these government created monopolies and allow for competition in the markets. :)
A shame that you are against that, since you are for the status quo
I mean sometimes it's better to leave it like it is and something there is a need for a change. Why do you think you are 'conservative'?
This is why we can't have nice things.
Note the story said "linked", not "controlled" or "influenced". The Koch reference is just fox-news style baiting. You're just as shallow as the Fox News mouthbreathers. We have to be better than that.
Are we really supposed to believe 814.000 Americans signed a petition to prevent them from using their internet as they see fit? Never mind the fact the triplicated the single signature purpose, this is flat out unbelievable.
Less than 1% of this type of mail congress will receive this year...
Whatever Conservatives want, do the opposite.
American Commitment, an advocacy group with ties to the Republican billionaire Koch brothers, sent out 2.4 million letters to Congress opposing net neutrality but only collected about 814,000 signatures.
They're trying to Koch block Net Neutrality, or am I pronouncing that wrong.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The koch brothers are some of the biggest scumbags around, end of story.
Any time something said to criticize the right mentions the Koch Brothers as a menace, it's probably BS.
In this case, the BS consists of:
1) The "is tied to" claim. If it was actually run by the Koch Brothers, they'd say so. If you read the links, you'll find that the "tie" is that the founder previously worked at a group with Koch funding.
2) No comparison to other signature campaigns to say whether other signature campaigns send letters to multiple people as well. And really, what did you expect them to do, have three separate campaigns for "collect signatures to your senator", "collect signatures for your other senator", and "collect signatures for your representative"?
"Conservatives" since Reagan are really about one thing, and that is continuing the consolidation of power and wealth in the hands of the few(whether you want to call them the 1% or not doesn't matter), at all costs .
Whether it is environmental issues, health and safety, human rights, etc; the "Conservative" agenda is really quite an affront to anyone on this planet who values things like clean water, justice for the marginalized, a safe workplace, and yes, a media and telecommunications system that isn't biased for and towards that "few" that controls most of the wealth and power in the US.
People like the Koch brothers, Karl Rove and rest would have the non-critical thinkers in this country swallow their load of absolute and unadulterated bullshit. They know most of the American electorate are ill informed and scared(Thanks Rupert!) and they also understand that control of the media and how getting even more control will put them in a position to "manage" the political system in the US like never before.
The "Conservatives" like to throw around that Freedom word, yet in reality, their agenda is really only about giving them more freedom to destroy, despoil and enslave.
With that being said, don't assume I'm some Obama lover, as I regard his administrations attack on whistleblowers, absolute disdain for privacy protections, etc really on par with what "Conservatives" want. On those fronts Obama, The Kocks and Karl Rove are on the same page.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
> a web form is not you writing letters.
So if I type my comments into a web form, I'm not writing. If I use a quill pen and parchment, that's writing, I presume? What about a mechanical typewriter?
> You are being the useful idiot, allowing someone else to have their say over and over again. At the very least such astroturfing should be ignored by politicians.
It's called AGREEING. Often, my personal position on an issue is a expressed well by an EFF author, who also took the time to cite verifiable facts. It's not fraud or misrepresentation to say "I agree with this statement ". I think it's important for our representatives to know that position is held by many people, not just the one person who wrote down what we're all thinking. I might therefore sign the letter which represents my thoughts, while adding any additional comments that I wish to express.
Most often, I write my own separate comments rather than signing a letter I agree with, but that's just because I enjoy doing my own research and citing the sources that I think are best. If someone else agrees with me and wants to add their name to what I wrote that accurately represents their opinion on the matter.
Nope, that's not it, but thanks for regurgitating this talking point.
If the workers had no skills, then their loss would cost the employee nothing they need.
The fact is your company works absolutely fine without you forever, but once you've run out of stock, without workers at the bottom end, you have no business at all.
Better get used to it when all the GOP fund-raising sites suddenly disappear from the Internet.
Have gnu, will travel.
For a group that just loves to scream "democracy!" and "republic!" they sure don't want the wrong sort of people having a say in their government, what with fighint tooth and nail to reduce early voting, vote-by-mail, and now, apparently, making it harder to file opinions with government agencies.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
Because the air traffic controllers were unskilled labor in your world?
Who is John Cabal?
Koch BROoooooTHEeeeeeeRrrrrSSssssssss!!!!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Wow. It must have been like that scene at the end of "Miracle on 34th Street".
Well, I have to admit, this is a good way to reduce the value of writing your congressman to absolutely nothing.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
> The web form has no area for typing your own comments.
False. You like to just completely make things up out of thin air, don't you? See that box labeled "Add your public comments" on their forms?:
http://action.americancommitme...
I see a lot of whining about how the FCC worked with groups in favor of the new rules. I don't see one whit of proof that those opposed to the new rules asked for help. Maybe they are just jealous that the people on the other side thought to ask for assistance, and it never occurred to these clowns to do so.
First, I want net neutrality. I'd prefer if it came through market competition rather then government fiat because I worry that that will lead to the FCC regulating the hell out... and that could lead to the internet being less of a free place. But I want our data to flow neutrally through the internet.
That said... the FCC really has no right to take sides in any political debate. That isn't their place. They are not to be advocates of any position. They are to enforce the law. They're police officers for communication. They are not community organizers.
Beyond that, I'll just make the comment that while I do think data should be neutral there should be some flexibility for VoIP and other types of data that require low latency. Compared to something like bit torrent or netflix streaming... you just don't need low latency for that. You just need bandwidth. If your data is delayed by half a second but it is all going into a cache then who cares.
I do NOT think this should be a paid service where you get your communication slowed down if you don't pay and get a faster channel if you do pay. Rather, I think that the communication should declare its needs to the network. And that communication protocols that do not need low latency should voluntarily declare that they are happy with high latency.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It would have been better if they weren't skilled. Then it would have been trivial to man thier stations when they walked off the job and left innocent people at risk in the air without any traffic control.
And yes, anyone crying about Reagan and the air teaffic controlers is either stupid and purposely doesn't kbow the entire situation or sadistic and thinks its perfectly fine to risk other people's lives for personal gain. Neither one is needed in society.
They're all being disregarded anyway, what are they complaining for?
Twinstiq, game news
don't want the competition, got it.
that the other side is not a bunch of evil greedy robbers that will kidnap and eat your children. that;'s why they keep on pretending for th eneed to be "balanced". It helps them to pretend that they have a legitimate leg to stand on.
So you agree, Raygun unnecessarily risked American lives to further his anti-American ideal of Big-Boss-Is-Right Capitalism?
Well, that was a breakthrough!
Why do you want to ignore reality in order to impose your fantasies?
The air traffic controllers walked off the job with planes in the air and passengers on them. They decided to violate existing laws and strike and in the process placed quite a few people's lives in jeopardy. Supervisors- without much experience actually doing that job and others not specifically involved in the strike- had to take over and the government had to send air force personnel to some airports in order to land the planes safely.
Why you want to twist this shit and ignore those things is beyond me. You are not cute or funny calling Reagan- Raygun, all you are doing is showing the world what kind of imbecile you are. Please just stop it and learn something for once.
I agree that the lack of consumer choice is definitely to blame for this. I also think declaring ISPs as common carriers would keep the net neutrality we always had for years without government stating ISPs must treat packets equally regardless of sender.
This was my letter to the FCC during the net neutrality public comment period:
As long as telecommunication companies have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the return on the investment entrusted to them by their shareholders, they have no choice but to shape the direction of the internet in ways that will do so. Market forces that can often help keep that responsibility in check with the best interests of the public at large are absent in telecommunications, as most of these companies, and certainly the largest of them, enjoy little to no competition in the areas they serve. Even in markets that have more than two telecommunication providers to choose from, there is very little in the way of competitive behavior. While this may smack of collusion, the obvious truth is that none of these incumbent providers wish to engage in an expensive price war that races to the bottom, and a services war that races to the top. They are able to avoid competitive practices in the absence of pressure from start-ups or municipally-operated internet service.
Access to the internet is now a part of modern life in the United States of America. It is used to find a job, get an education, select and consume goods and services, and above all...communicate with others and our government. The fact that this very letter is available to those members of the FCC who are inclined to read it, along with countless other U.S. citizens, is made possible by the internet.
And that internet, which has created jobs and wealth from within our borders and without, has succeeded and thrived under the unspoken principle that all data regardless of its nature or point of origin will be delivered uninhibited to its intended recipient. This unspoken principle is of course, Net Neutrality. Some of our members of congress, well-meaning though they may be, are under the mistaken belief that Net Neutrality is a new idea. In fact, the internet has been neutral since its inception. Given its unprecedented and inarguable success, supporters of Net Neutrality simply wish to keep the internet the way it is and always has been.
Internet service providers state that senders of large amounts of data, like Netflix, place an undue burden on their systems and the only way to recoup the cost to deliver that data is to charge a higher amount for what they call an “internet fast-lane”. Pricing structures are already in place though to deal with the sending and consumption of large amounts of data however, without the need to discriminate. Netflix pays for the data it uploads on a megabit per second (Mbps or bitrate) basis during peak times, and even distributes video at lower quality for those ISPs unable to deliver video at the higher bitrates. Consumers also have the option pay extra to the internet service providers to deliver data at higher bitrates, and often do. These are marketed and sold under package names like Blast, Turbo, or simply High Speed. So Netflix and the like already pay more for higher bitrates, and consumers already pay more for higher bitrates. What the telecommunications industry is doing with “internet fast-lanes” is clearly double-dipping.
Reclassifying internet service providers as common-carriers solves these problems. It will increase competition by lowering the bar to entry for newcomers looking to focus on delivering the best service at lowest price. It will make internet access more affordable to more Americans for their daily basic needs, and bringing the speed and price of that service on par with other nations of the world. It engenders the long-held principle that data should not be discriminated against based on content or sender by creating a barrier between the creator of that data and the transport and delivery of that data. This allows for the continued growth in the technology sector, and fosters innovation by small businesses that may one day become the next Facebook, Google, or Netflix.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
I thought this was something that spanned across both side of the aisle, I guess I was wrong. However, now that I think about it, it seems like everything, down to what color Skittle is the best, is being made into a liberal vs. conservative these days.
The Kochs are LIBERTARIANS (who support things like gay marriage and pot) and NOT Conservatives.
This is not a "mistake" - it's well-known among those who pay attention to politics. It is, therefore, a political tactic. The guys on the left pick a billionaire or two who opposes hard-left policies (you have to be WAY over to the left, like many modern "progressive" Obama-era Dems, to get the pro-gay and pro-pot Kochs to oppose you) then throw tantrums about him/them (Harry Reid has spent more time screeching about the "Koch Brothers" on the Senate floor than working on budget legislation) and then mis-label him/them to be members of your actual opponents (like calling the Kochs "conservatives" or "Republicans")
There's nothing new here: during the 90's the Democrats chose Richard Mellon Scaife as their "rich boogeyman" who they used to shriek about in all their ads and campaign rallys. Recently, Bill Clinton spoke at the funeral of Mr. Scaife, referring to him as a friend (you are not suppposed to remember the spittle that used to fly when he used to howl about scaife in the 90's). This is just standard political theater for the left, which pretends to hate the rich and be oppressed by them (the better to rally their socialist-leaning base) while actually being more in bed with "the rich" than the Republicans: Bill Gates, Faxebook Zuck, Geoarge Soros, Warren Buffet, the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, etc are ALL DEMOCRATS.
The gap between the rich and the poor has grown wider and faster during the Obama years than ever before. Ignore this; you are not supoosed to notice. Koch Brothers! Koch Brothers! Koch Brothers!
Ebola? Koch Brothers!
ISIS? Koch Brothers!
College grads who cannot get jobs? Koch Brothers!
Russia moving in the Ukraine? Koch Brothers!
Lowest labor force participation since the 1970s? Koch Brothers!
Safety was the main reason FOR the strike and most of the air traffic controllers at the time were VETERANS.
Nope, they wanted more pay, less hours (32 hour work week) and to be separated or an exception from the civil service laws/rules.
The reasons stated for busting the union was about safety.. What fantasies people invent.
It seems like the only thing that will make you oppose net neutrality is being a politician.
Help? They set up a website. Just because we know how to type a URL into an address bar and not the search bar and know to read the page to find the comment section, doesn't mean they gave unfair help. Just because they made sure that their website is working properly in what it's suppose to be doing, doesn't mean they helped the other side. Besides, isn't making sure the minority is heard affirmative action? Aren't republicans against affirmative action?
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
That's a petition on Obamacare. The American Commitment "petition" on net neutrality is here.
http://stopinternetregulation....
It is as I describes, and does NOT feature a comments box. So you are the one who is factually wrong and "making things up out of thin air."
Apology?
For decades, the "Federalist Complaint Center" was the forefront of social conservative censorship, and placing businesses in control over all radio and TV stations more or less preventing competing voices by regulation.
The instant the FCC proposes something the least bit fair, its a fucking conspiracy. But these are the same people who hate the government, except when the government is shooting at anti-capitalist, or even just plain old non-conservative actiivists.
You equated a private group spending their own money to advance their belief/opinion with a branch if the federal government spending our tax dollars stacking the deck for one side of a purportedly fair debate on net neutrality.
I bet you thought by tossing the Koch brothers into the mix we wouldn't notice your attempt at a false equivalency.
Better luck next time.
Ken
Right. They walked off without one second of warning, no prior negotiations and no days to prepare.
Oh, wait, that is false.
What DID happen was Raygun saved his bacon by putting overworked, out of practice supervisors on the desk, replacing supervisors with persons entirely unfamiliar with ATC, and then ramming through at least 4 unqualified ATC's.
Our Near Strike Events are WAY up and the burnout rate is even WORSE than it was.
so, what do we know? Another republican drinking the Kool-aide won't change the history.
Less hours, so the burnout and failure rate would go down. Which, surprlsingly, is exactly what happened Post-Strike when Raygun initiated the national slowdown until he could work in his scab labor.