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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.
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.
Nonono. Group of luddite imbeciles opposes net neutrality.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
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.
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.
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.
... better solution would be to break up these government created monopolies and allow for competition in the markets.
Care to name any conservative groups with your solution above as part of their platform? I'd really like to send them a check. Thanks!
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.
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.
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. . . .
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"?
> 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.
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...
Are there any liberal groups with this solution as part of their platform? Just curious....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
That threads not as slender as you think it is:
http://www.publicintegrity.org...
Supports: Conservative candidates
Location: Washington, D.C.
Founded: April 10, 2012
Website: americancommitment.org
Social media: Facebook page, Twitter profile, YouTube channel
Finances: Not available
IRS Form 990 filing: Not available
Principals:
Phil Kerpen (president, founder): Kerpen is the former policy and legislative strategist at Americans for Prosperity and previously worked at Club for Growth. He is chairman of the Internet Freedom Coalition and a Fox News opinion columnist.
Profile:
American Commitment was founded in April 2012 by former Americans for Prosperity strategist Phil Kerpen. The group’s website says it is dedicated to individual freedom, limited government and economic growth. It has generally supported Republican candidates running for federal office.
Americans for Prosperity is known as a Koch-brothers-backed, politically active nonprofit, but Kerpen denies American Commitment is linked to Americans for Prosperity. When asked by the Washington Post if billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch were funding American Commitment, Kerpen would not answer, saying only that he takes the privacy of all American Commitment donors very seriously.
In mid-July, Kerpen said the nonprofit had raised $7 million. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, American Commitment is not legally required to publicly disclose its donors. But the Center for Responsive Politics discovered that the group had received a $1.6 million grant in 2011 for "general support" from another nonprofit, the Arizona-based Center to Protect Patient Rights.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, American Commitment spent nearly $2 million on ads that expressly advocated for the election or defeat of federal candidates in the 2012 election. That includes $1.4 million spent in Arizona's U.S. Senate race on ads supporting Republican Jeff Flake or opposing Democrat Richard Carmona.
Many of American Commitment’s ads have avoided federal disclosure because they do not explicitly advocate for or against a candidate, and because the ads aired more than 30 days before a primary or 60 days before the general election.
For instance, between June 28 and July 10, American Commitment aired seven different television ads in Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and North Dakota, all opposing Democratic candidates. Another series of ads opposed the farm bill and its food stamp provisions criticizing three House Republicans: Steve King of Iowa, Frank Lucas of Okahoma and Vicky Hartzler of Missouri.
The group also made large ad buys over the summer in Florida, where it spent $1.1 million opposing Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, according to the Orlando Sentinel, and in Ohio, where it spent $1.2 million opposing Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, according to the Washington Post.
American Commitment also runs NoMandateTax.com, which opposes the Affordable Care Act, KeystoneXLNow.com, which supports the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, and WarOnCoal.com, which opposes President Barack Obama’s efforts to decrease hazardous emissions from coal-fired plants.
They also operate ALECpetition.com, which urges people to “reject anti-ALEC bullying.” The American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, is a partially Koch-backed, unofficial lobbying outfit that is run by mostly Republican state lawmakers and corporations that work together to write and promote “model legislation” that often makes it into the nation’s statehouses.
ALEC’s tax-exempt status has come under scrutiny for having written some of the most contentious legislation in the country, including voter ID bills, anti-union bills and stand-your-ground gun rights bills. The Center for Public Integrity has been tracking AL
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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.