Bill Would Ban Paid Prioritization By ISPs

jfruh writes In the opening days of the new U.S. Congress, a bill has been introduced in both the House and Senate enforcing Net neutrality, making it illegal for ISPs to accept payment to prioritize some traffic packets over others. But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.

Comments

Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.

That's because Republicans believe in the free market not communism.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Opportunist]

Funny. Their actions would suggest they believe in pork barrels.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[bmo]

"That's because Republicans believe in the free market not communism."

Funny, the current bunch Ds are typically to the right of Reagan.

And no, the Rs aren't in favor of any kind of free market either. And "free markets" don't exist, ever - they are an imaginary construct much like "friction free inclined planes" in physics.

--
BMO

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're funny.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[dywolf]

Oddly enough, Net Neutrality is about protecting and strengthening the free market such that it remains free and competitive.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[diamondmagic]

No, Net neutrality is a routing policy about how to prioritize packets that people can choose to implement.

Using the government to mandate it upon everyone, under threat of legal action, whether it's a good solution or not, is an entirely different issue.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[OhPlz]

This bill does nothing to address that problem.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is exactly why the ACA was passed in the 80s.

Seriously, what the fuck? Do any of you even remember Reagan?

Re:Fuck the libs!

[rwven]

I can't tell if you're intentionally being ironic or not, considering the vast majority of ISP offerings in any given area of the US are essentially monopolies.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[dywolf]

a routing policy that protects and strengthens a competitive free market among internet based services and companies.

im well aware of what NN is.

and one aspect of its implications is that big fish cant pay for preferential treatment or an unfair advantage, allowing upstart "internet startups" a fair shot as taking on goliath. the task of a startup taking on an existing leviathan is hard enough on a level playing field, just by virtue of being a tiny nobody going against a big somebody, but its everyones interests to preevnt Goliath from stopping David from even born. And that is one aspect and implication of a sound NN policy.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[dywolf]

really, its not that hard a concept to grasp why NN helps free market ideals.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem of insuring that rent seekers don't destroy the value of an open Internet is a collective action problem because it's in each ISP's interest to tax the hell out of usage as heavily and as _opaquely_ as possible(i.e. suppress pricing feedback so consumers, even if they had a choice, wouldn't know when to exercise it), even if when all ISPs do this the overall wealth creation is less.

The solution to collective action problems is government. Government is therefore the ideal institution to impose net neutrality.

Net neutrality channels profiteering into a more transparent and efficient mode of economic activity. It's an extraordinarily simple rule, and so the regulatory cost is de minims.

If you want to refute the argument, you need to either 1) show that an open Internet is less efficient at generating wealth than one that is heavily tolled, or 2) show that the problem is not a collective action problem in actuality.

Obviously there are all kinds of theoretical approaches: dramatically open up radio spectrum so it becomes cheaper for new ISPs to enter the market, mandate transparency in tolling practices, etc, so that consumers can easily and rapidly switch ISPs. But that's a pipe dream.

In practice net neutrality is the simplest and cheapest way to address the problem. Maybe in 100 years things will be different and we can drop the rule.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[ganjadude]

as opposed to the libs who never want to spend on pork? or have you forgotten the bridge to nowhere??? If you were talking about all politicians Id agree with you

Re:Fuck the libs!

[JeffOwl]

Not sure where you were going with that, but the bridge to nowhere was sponsored by Republicans.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Free markets always end up in monopolies. You having monopolies is proof of the free market in action.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

> That's because Republicans believe in the free market not communism.

Republicans also believe in the white-bearded, robe-clad old man in the sky, but that does not make it true. There is no such a thing as free market

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Ichijo]

Republicans believe in the free market not communism.

Then maybe you can list some Republicans who object to the currently widespread practice of cities forcing businesses and developers to provide more parking than the market wants and is willing to pay for of its own accord? Are there any true laissez-faire Republicans in Congress?

No, Republicans quickly turn into socialists whenever it benefits Big Oil.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

or have you forgotten the bridge to nowhere???

What does the Gravina Island Bridge have to do with "liberals"? It's biggest advocates were Alaskan Republicans. Sarah Palin tried to blame it on Congress after the fact even though she was an advocate for it before becoming the VP candidate.

Re: Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a good solution. It forces ISPs to physically provision all areas where they compete with adequate service so as to provide a heterogeneous population of customers and content providers with enough bandwidth to live up to a level of service they claim to offer.

I'm tired of lags, drags and delays when the bandwidth my ISP contracts to provide and for which I pay is well above what is ncessary for any individual's web use.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[nobuddy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Fuck the libs!

[ganjadude]

good call. that was a huge mistake on my part. Thanks for pointing that out.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reagan was staunchly conservative when it came to the traditional issues of opposing labor unions, government regulation, and detente with the communists.

It can be argued, however, that many current liberals (whether or not stylized "neoliberal"), and particularly the dominant powers in the Democrat party, are to the right of Reagan when it comes to economic policies such as free trade, an independent central bank, a balanced budget[1], etc.

But that's a good thing, in my book. The default predisposition should be to support those things. That the Democratic Party does support those things in practice (despite all the rhetoric by both parties, and the hand waving by Republicans) makes it all the easier to vote Democrats into office.

[1] Vice President Cheney was fond of saying "deficits don't matter", and the GOP followed his lead for nearly 8 years. He got that idea from Reaganites and so-called supply-side economists.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Tailhook]

the current bunch Ds are typically to the right of Reagan

Do any of you even remember Reagan?

What do you mean? We are awash in staunchly pro-life, tax cutting, government bashing, communist hating Democrats that want to aggressively expand military spending, appoint moderates like Rehnquist and Scalia, outlaw hiring of illegal immigrants and casually joke about nuking the Soviets on live radio.

You can't swing a cat without hitting one of these right wing Democrats.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Staunchly conservative when it came to opposing labor unions? Maybe when compared to liberals of his time. However, he was the president of a union prior to being POTUS. In today's political climate the GOP wouldn't consider his actions in regards to the unions to be staunchly conservative, they would denounce him as being pro-union.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[KermodeBear]

I believe you need a slight correction: Conservatives believe in the free market. Many republicans are not conservatives.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[beelsebob]

The free market requires that you can get your goods to the market. Allowing a cartel to stand in the way of getting your goods to market is anti free market, not pro free market.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

for decades government action was not needed because players on the internet simply respected principle for principle

If you have a solution, where we can preserve net neutrality without government action I'm all ears, and I would preffer a non-government solution. The problem is mostly comcast and other edge providers and it stems from a giant conflict of intrest between their internet business, and their media business. I'd love to see the internet defend itself.

that said, failing that, I accept government intervention as a last resort.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Fire_Wraith]

It would be great if we could have an actual debate, on actual solutions, to actual problems.

Thing is though, on this and many other issues, the politicians/parties don't believe there's a problem, won't propose solutions, and try to shut down, derail, or otherwise prevent actual debate by distorting the issues.

I would love it if the debate were between Republicans proposing measures to actually increase real competition, versus Democrats proposing measures to prevent the various companies from screwing over their customers. A situation like that, where most of the politicians were actually advocating for what the average citizen wants/needs, would be pretty close to ideal, and the outcome would at least be a reasonably close solution.

At least the Democrats in this case are trying to suggest solutions. We need Republicans that recognize there's a problem and propose solutions, too.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[PopeRatzo]

Reagan was staunchly conservative when it came to the traditional issues of opposing labor unions, government regulation, and detente with the communists.

He also expanded the size of government, raised taxes, granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants and benefited mostly from a monetary policy put in by Paul Volcker during the Carter Administration. If it hadn't been for the tough love policy re: the dollar and tightening money, there would have been no "Reagan Recovery".

Not to mention that he listened to astrologers and pissed in a diaper. He also invaded Grenada because he wanted to make sure he went down in history as a victorious wartime president. Who pissed in a diaper and talked to astrologers.

Fuck Ronald Reagan. I hope there's an afterlife just because I want him to be suffering in hell, where he certainly went after he fucked the United States for generations.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Such revisionist history. Could you envision any current liberal deciding to fire practically every air traffic controller in the country when the union went on strike, rather than negotiate?

Or on another current liberal favorite issue: giving speeches denouncing the very concept of government providing healthcare as a stepping stone to communism (one of Reagan's often replayed famous speeches)?

The Economic Tax Recovery Act he pushed did the following, none of which would be supported by current liberals:
    phased-in 23% cut in individual tax rates over 3 years; top rate dropped from 70% to 50%
    indexed individual income tax parameters (beginning in 1985)
    created 10% exclusion on income for two-earner married couples ($3,000 cap)
    phased-in increase in estate tax exemption from $175,625 to $600,000 in 1987
    reduced windfall profit taxes
    allowed all working taxpayers to establish IRAs
    expanded provisions for employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)

Re:Fuck the libs!

[CaptainDork]

This.

And, if we put profits first, but make that "We The People"'s profit, net neutrality is not a partisan subject.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

But all can't buy edge/cache servers placed directly on a vast amount of ISP premises, which is in fact buying a faster pipe to the consumer (done today by CDNs and services that are big enough to in fact be their own CDN), should that be forbidden then? That would have significant negative impact on many services we take for granted today.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[fustakrakich]

You need to vote for candidates that aren't owned by the financiers, and you have to stop reelecting the ones who are. It's pretty straight up.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[fustakrakich]

...Republicans quickly turn into socialists whenever it benefits Big Oil.

No. Both factions turn into 'socialists' whenever it benefits Big Business. Do not single out the republicans. You're just playing their game.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[locopuyo]

If we addressed the real problem which is ISP monopolies we probably wouldn't have a problem with net neutrality.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[T.E.D.]

And "free markets" don't exist, ever - they are an imaginary construct much like "friction free inclined planes" in physics.

Exactly. Adam Smith, the guy who invented the term in the 1700's, argued that it was the job of Government to do its best to regulate markets to keep them as "free" as possible. Previously, government action mostly consisted of helping the rich and connected build and protect their market monopolies. Sound familiar?

Re:Fuck the libs!

[sjames]

So if Netflix doesn't like a particular broadband provider they can switch to one of the many others currently connecting the same customer...

Or they could urge their customers to switch to one of the many better providers in their area...

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Em Adespoton]

Such revisionist history.

All history is revisionist. Anyone claiming otherwise is trying to sell you something.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Em Adespoton]

But all can't buy edge/cache servers placed directly on a vast amount of ISP premises, which is in fact buying a faster pipe to the consumer (done today by CDNs and services that are big enough to in fact be their own CDN), should that be forbidden then? That would have significant negative impact on many services we take for granted today.

There's nothing wrong with buying a faster pipe to the consumer -- the problem is in buying priority on the existing pipe.

Think of it this way: net neutrality is about having a single set of speed laws that apply to everyone, no matter how much money they pay for insurance/tolls/etc.

On-Prem caching is more like moving some of your company's employees to the county where they work, so that they don't have to travel as many of the roads. Sure, not all companies can do this, but doing it eases the congestion for everyone, which is a good thing.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[SuricouRaven]

Healthcare reform, for example. The democrat solution is to just throw money at private insurance companies, when the rest of the developed world long ago set up some sort of universal public coverage system. The democrats are also quite happy to throw money at the military, though perhaps not to the same extent as the republicans.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[SuricouRaven]

Conservatives currenly consist of several conflicting ideologies - the political, social and economic conservatives - as described by Tony Perkins, who is himself all three with an emphesis on social. They are held unified by a common political party (republicans) and opponent (Democrats/liberals). This political situation lets them work effectively together even though their ideologies would otherwise conflict on some issues.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[LessThanObvious]

Step 1. Talk publicly about freedom, Step 2. Vote only to protect corporate freedom, Step 3. Get reelected and repeat.

Net Neutrality is broad issue that deserves our unyielding support. The Netflix/Comcast debacle is a corner case that is debatable in some respects.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Curunir_wolf]

outlaw hiring of illegal immigrants

That's already illegal. It's just not enforced very well, and even when it is, they only prosecute the shell company used for labor by the big developers, who act all shocked that their subcontractors would have hired all those illegals. Even Tompkins Builders did it on a federal building in Richmond. Oh, look I found a reference.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[frisket]

Previously, government action mostly consisted of helping the rich and connected build and protect their market monopolies. Sound familiar?

Yep, sounds like Republicans to me. And Democrats. "Government" in the US means "government by the rich for the rich".

One of the problems is that there are two right-wing parties and no left wing at all. When Republicans froth at the mouth about socialism or communism they haven't a clue about what really is; they just think it's the same thing as government control, forgetting that their governments have been just as controlling as the other incompetents'.

Where the GOP went wrong was in getting into bed with the pro-lifer, fundamentalist, flat-earth, =3, bible-thumping loonies, who are further to the right than Hitler. They need to ditch those associations — a better choice would even have been the libertarians, who despite their own looney ideas on state control are far closer to the original Republican ideal or liberty than Oral Roberts or the Waco flakoes.

Re: Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the small startup that wants to deploy a low latency service but can't afford to install a caching server on every street corner like the big corporations do? A paid prioritization scheme would be a good, low cost workaround for these little guys that want to deliver the same snappiness as the big players. Or what about real-time services like VoIP, medical appliances, games, etc that would benefit from prioritization? Instead of letting these business models work itself out, we want to quash any new innovation while totally ignoring the real problem - zero ISP competition.

You know, it should raise some eye brows that the biggest proponents of NN are these tech giants like Google and Netflix. They want to regulate the ISPs to keep their own delivery costs down and protect their own bottom line - in the end they don't give any more of a shit about your 'Internet freedom' than the likes of Comcast and Verizon.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

He also flirted with membership in the Communist Party before becoming POTUS, as many actors did in the 1930s. But his experience with the Communist Party, both before and especially during his tenure at the Screen Actors Guild, is what turned him into a virulent anti-communist. And for that matter, his experience as President of the Screen Actors Guild is also what eventually strengthened his opposition to labor unions. He was forced out of SAG by the membership, FWIW.

I'm not saying that the lessons he took away from those experiences were or were not reasonable. I'm saying that just because you participated in something doesn't make you a life-long advocate or even guarantees that you remain sympathetic.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[tnk1]

Which candidates would those be again?

While obvious in theory, the proposed solution lacks something in the practical application department.

There are two types of national-level candidate these days: owned and crackpot. Sometimes there is overlap.

At this point, I just vote for the candidate who is being paid by the special interests and corporations I dislike the least.

Let's face it. There's no mystery about why this has happened. Increased centralization, expanding governmental involvement, and the sheer growth in the population of the country mean that national campaigns are bigger prizes and more competitive than ever. That causes an arms race which requires a metric fuckton of money to fund campaigns.

Even if the politicians didn't work for corporations or special interests, the fact is that every national representative and especially senator is less and less beholden to any one individual as the population has grown. It's like representing a 100,000 man army on a board with one piece.

If the campaigns and parties can keep people neatly bundled into deliverable packages, you don't even need to care really what they want. Example, the African American population. They're so loyally Democratic, that the Democratic party takes them for granted and the Republicans don't even try. Is it any wonder that there's been little forward progress for that population since the Civil Rights era?

The only solution to this is to break down the responsibilities of a national government and its representatives in to pieces. If there was a right to life, socialist, pacifist, fiscally responsible, technologically inclined voter, and you let him vote for different people to specific specialties, we'd have representation what matched our real preferences. Instead, if he's really, really against abortion, he's now a Republican, despite his pacifism. Or if he was really, really a believer in social programs, he's now a Democrat. However, as you can see, neither party is a comfortable match for what he really believes.

We need to break the current federal government monopoly on every possible policy area, and add elected representation for smaller portfolios.

Re: Fuck the libs!

[Em Adespoton]

What about the small startup that wants to deploy a low latency service but can't afford to install a caching server on every street corner like the big corporations do? A paid prioritization scheme would be a good, low cost workaround for these little guys that want to deliver the same snappiness as the big players. Or what about real-time services like VoIP, medical appliances, games, etc that would benefit from prioritization?

The small startup that wants to deploy a low latency service needs to sign agreements with those who they want to provide that service to. Paid prioritization won't give them anything they don't already have, and would likely price them out of the market completely. Real-time services like VoIP aren't affected, as this is a different issue (as has been explained repeatedly, ad nauseum). Medical appliances? If they're depending on ping time or bandwidth for life-critical functions, that's a design flaw. Games? This goes back to your first scenario: games can already use Akamai/Azure/etc. which have local caching. If you discover you've suddenly become really big and those networks can't build out your support anymore... well, then you're no longer a little player and should be able to afford to install your own caching servers (which the last mile ISPs should be more than happy to install).

I'm not sure if you're intentionally conflating the issues, or just unclear what's going on at the technical level. Hopefully it's the second.

Instead of letting these business models work itself out, we want to quash any new innovation while totally ignoring the real problem - zero ISP competition.

You might want to quash any new innovation, but the rest of us want to limit abuse by entrenched players -- abuse which already exists and is well documented, which happens whenever they're not legislated to prevent it. This entrenchment is also used to limit ISP competition, as you can't start up a new ISP without navigating the loops and hurdles erected by the current players. Title II would actually level this playing field, and make things slightly easier for new ISPs, while limiting abuses by the entrenched players. This is because Title II doesn't actually place too many requirements on the service providers until they start building out expensive and complex solutions -- at which point navigating the rules becomes more expensive and complex, which richer and more complex companies should be able to manage with minimal difficulty. It's mostly about transparency and accountability -- the more you do that could hide abusive practices, the more closely you have to report your actions. You can see why the entrenched players don't like this option.

You know, it should raise some eye brows that the biggest proponents of NN are these tech giants like Google and Netflix. They want to regulate the ISPs to keep their own delivery costs down and protect their own bottom line - in the end they don't give any more of a shit about your 'Internet freedom' than the likes of Comcast and Verizon.

Why? Google and Netflix (and Blizzard and TekSavvy) want to regulate the ISPs to prevent double dipping and abuse of a shared resource. Of course they want to keep their own delivery costs down and protect their own bottom lines -- but that's a straw man here. Just as I should not have to pay Google, NetFlix, Comcast and Cox separately to receive one stream of data, neither should any other node on the Internet have to pay to send data over a network that I've already paid to receive. That would be like me paying a toll on a road to get to work, and then the road owners turning around and billing my employer to let me get to work as well -- and then turning around and also billing the separate entity(s) that own the on and offramps to that road. Once I've paid to use that road, other people who want to do business with me shouldn't have to pay for me to use that road as well.

See: the

Re:Fuck the libs!

[sumdumass]

lol.. you are so funny.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[fustakrakich]

You know, none of that can possibly happen until people vote for politicians that will write the appropriate legislation, and then, if they did, then the problem is solved. See, that's the thing, none of you people think this shit through.

As for 'limiting' the feds, screw that. The corrupt locals are no better. You will just have a bunch of battling little fiefdoms, like in middle age Europe, leading right up to another world war. Travel would be impossible with the resulting border bureaucracies. Do you really want to relive in a pre-civil war USA? Well, maybe if you're a white male, with some property, I would suppose so. For me, there's no time like the present

Re:Fuck the libs!

[sumdumass]

The republicans seems to think that you are getting what you paid for, that you are getting the speed and services you pay for so the fast lanes or prioritized access would have to be in addition to that.

There is the problem. Many people are saying this sucks, but not saying the right words. Of course it's hard to get proof your ISP is limiting your speeds to below the package plan they sold you, but start making accusations of fraud and deceptive business practices against them.

Tom Wheeler said when talking about fast lanes, that he didn't have a problem with them as long as the consumer doesn't get cheated. I agree with him, there should be no problem with prioritized packets as long as you are not slowed down or interfered with in order to deliver them. But as soon as you mention that, you get bombarded by idiots who cannot finish reading the comment trying to tell you how wrong you are because they refuse to read the as long as you are not slowed down in the process part.

Of course I think it's already taken care of and existing consumer protection laws would likely cover it. If an ISP slows your connection down to below what you purchase in order to favor someone else', they have committed fraud. and no, the "up to speed" qualifier does not exempt them from anything because the speed will never be faster than what they limit it to. A 2 meg connection will never be the 10 meg sold when they purposely limit it to 2 megs. IT can only be up to 2 meg.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[sumdumass]

Talk to your city council FFS. Congress has absolutely no constitutional authority over the issues of parking you just mentioned outside of Washington D.C and it has abdicated most of that to a "city government". Its all a local issues with your local politicians.

Do they not teach government and civics in school any more?

Re:Fuck the libs!

[sumdumass]

Who is allowing a cartel to stand in your way?

If you purchase 3 apples from me and I only give you 2, is that not fraud? If I constantly short you is that not deceptive business practices (check you state laws)? So if I sell you a contract to mow your yard all summer long when it needs mowed and mow it only once right before fall, did I not enter into both deceptive and fraudulent business practices? How about if I include the magic words, "up to" the end of summer?

So if anyone is selling you internet access and purposely failing to deliver it, how is that a free market? If you think that is happening right now, you probably should complain to the regulatory agencies that you are being cheated (again, check with your state plus the feds for those).

Re:Fuck the libs!

[towermac]

"deciding to fire practically every air traffic controller"

Um, no. He didn't decide shit. It was the law, and the controllers broke it.

Reagan pissed off the union leadership by getting so many union members to cross over and vote for him. He beat Carter so very badly; it was embarrassing.

So, they put his back against the wall pretty much the moment he came in. It was a win-win for the union leadership and their Democrat bosses. Either Reagan would back down and issue some executive order delaying the mandatory firing of striking Federal employees, or; they would score political points against a mean old Republican for firing hard working patriotic Americans just trying to keep us safe.

They ended up getting option B, and the thousands of dudes that gave up good jobs for that bit of political theater felt a bit screwed afterwards.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[towermac]

Obviously you weren't there.

He was president for 8 years. How could the government not grow if the country did? But in any case, Congress funds the size of government, and the deficit, not the President. And they beat him politically, a lot.

I was making minimum wage, $3.35 an hour, in 1983. Reagan's tax cut took my $125 weekly check to $135. That was a big deal for me. You guys can revise all you want about his 9 tax increases or whatever, I was there.

Cuba was in the process of taking over Grenada, and there were a lot of Americans there. But yeah, Reagan knew the difference between Grenada and Iraq.

Reagan knew enough to generally leave monetary policy alone. He didn't fuck it up like this current guy and one before him.

And also, his peed diaper was probably smarter than you.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[towermac]

Where have you been?

The Feds will withhold grant money, tax money; squeeze a whole state if they have to, until you get on board and comply.

It's cute the way you bring up constitutional authority in this day and age.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[OhPlz]

Personally, I'm in favor of community fiber. You can drum up support for that locally and actually stand a chance of accomplishing something. Whatever the feds do will be stuffed with pork and by the time it's signed into law, it will be contrary to the original stated purpose of the legislation. Hoping that the Dems or the GOP will actually do something for us is an exercise in futility. We have to try and get it done ourselves, or it isn't happening.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Ichijo]

Congress has absolutely no constitutional authority over the issues of parking you just mentioned...

When has that ever prevented anyone from objecting to something?

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Ichijo]

No. Both factions turn into 'socialists' whenever it benefits Big Business.

So in other words, yes.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[DrJimbo]

[...] there should be no problem with prioritized packets as long as you are not slowed down or interfered with in order to deliver them.

I did read your sentence to completion and I still vehemently disagree with it. At first I thought you were suggesting there be a fast lane as long as there is not a slow lane but, of course, that makes no sense. Then I figured out you are fine with a fast line paid by the sender as long as the slow lane meets some minimum bandwidth requirements. How can the customer complain since they are getting the extra fast line bandwidth "for free"?

One of the many obvious problems with this scheme is that it can quickly devolve to a situation that squeezes out all of the mom and pop content providers (the general public) who can't afford to pay for the fast lane. It reminds me a little of those idiotic "deals" from ISPs that let you lock in your current bandwidth and payment rate for life. As technology improves, increases in bandwidth should far exceed increases in costs.

I admit that in a static situation where my bandwidth to and from certain corporations suddenly increases is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. This seems to be the situation you envision. The problems start when the original static situation evolves over time. You can easily get into a situation where bandwidth to and from certain corporation is basically free while all other bandwidth is exorbitantly expensive. In the US, at least, the last mile is already a big corporate, unregulated rip-off. Why open the door to make it much much worse? The only way it could possibly be feasible would be for massive regulation of the minimum bandwidth and maximum fees of the slow lane. If the fast lane (and especially the slow lane) are unregulated then it will become a consumer nightmare. If you regulate it enough to work so consumers are not "slowed down or interfered with" going forward into the future then it will be a nightmare for everyone and the fast lane will be worth little.

I am also reminded of the RICO laws and things like civil forfeiture where the government can basically steal stuff from you without ever even charging you with a crime. Those bad laws were passed under the guise of "we are only going to use them on the really bad guys". Perhaps those were the intentions when those laws were passed but a few years down the road some police department reads the law carefully and figures out it can be used as a great way to raise sorely needed funding for the department. And, guess what? It is also legal. A rough rule of thumb is that any law that can be abused will be abused eventually. Why needlessly open up another channel for abuse when we gain nothing by doing so?

If you are a poor person on a sinking ship would you like a policy where the rich people get the fancy lifeboats and the poor people get lifeboats that were deemed adequate many years ago? Or would you prefer a policy where the poor and the rich are all put into the same lifeboats?

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

> one of the many other offerings in your area!

Viewed from outside of the US... I'm always puzzled by this. How is it that the regulatory authorities in the US allowed ISP consolidation to this degree?

It just seems totally insane to me that you really can't just go move ISP. I live in the middle of a ancient forest on the side of a mountain in Australia and I can choose from around half a dozen, each of which actually have their own equipment in the local exchange.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[CaptSlaq]

You know, none of that can possibly happen until people vote for politicians that will write the appropriate legislation, and then, if they did, then the problem is solved. See, that's the thing, none of you people think this shit through.

As for 'limiting' the feds, screw that. The corrupt locals are no better. You will just have a bunch of battling little fiefdoms, like in middle age Europe, leading right up to another world war. Travel would be impossible with the resulting border bureaucracies. Do you really want to relive in a pre-civil war USA? Well, maybe if you're a white male, with some property, I would suppose so. For me, there's no time like the present

Shens on "Local ones are no better". The scope of the havoc they can wreak is significantly smaller and more affordable than what can be done at the federal or even state level. They may still be power grubbing jerks, but at least the scope of it is reduced to the point that it doesn't affect the pockets of someone else that they aren't beholden to.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[CaptSlaq]

While there is a modicum of truth to this statement (Consolidation and merging to help offset costs for all parties are business considerations), a true free market would allow for the rise of a competitive entity if there was enough demand for it. As it sits right now, even if there's demand for an option, the local (and federal, with regard to wireless) government granted monopolies stop any potential uprising before they can even be considered.

That said, I do think that the vast majority of people are currently "OK" with the option they have, so perhaps there wouldn't be any real change anyway.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[CaptSlaq]

"We're from the government, and we're here to help!"?

Re:Fuck the libs!

[CaptSlaq]

No. Both factions turn into 'socialists' whenever it benefits Big Business.

So in other words, yes.

"Yes, but only part of the story." You must be an elected official too.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, the current bunch Ds are typically to the right of Reagan.
 
Pro abortion
Pro gun control
Pro gay marriage
More or less pro marijuana
 
Right of Reagan? Huh? Care to cite a real metric for this claim? I'm finding more and more that people who champion liberal causes are willing to be stupid enough to say that the current crop of Democrats are right of Adolf Hitler and the sheep just applaud in agreement with no real backing.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[fustakrakich]

Well, it hasn't ever worked out that way. All you get are border skirmishes and bigotry that invariably become global if not for an irresistible force to put the hammer down on all the dumbasses. All this crap I'm hearing sounds like typical Confederate sour grapes bullshit. It's been done before. And unfortunately it looks like it will be repeated again, and again. Whatever corruption you find in a representative government can be traced right back to the voters. That is where the problem is, and nowhere else. The government and the people in it are a reflection... if not a bit of a caricature.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[pnutjam]

exactly, it makes all the equations come out easier if you assume the cow is perfect sphere.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[pnutjam]

Thank God your here, my house is on fire and I have to settle a contract dispute with the renter.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[mr_mischief]

They might be called Republicans, but anyone supporting that project was a liberal underneath their costume.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[mr_mischief]

See, this just shows the screwed up nature of calling the R the right and the D the left. Pro abortion rights? Rightist. Pro gun control? Leftist. Pro gay marriage? Rightist. Pro marijuana? Rightist.

You see, the "right" or "conservative" traditionally wants a smaller government with less control over people's daily lives. The "left" wants more and bigger government with more control over the population.

The current parties are both hybrids. One claims to want a smaller, leaner government with less control over _industry_ and _markets_ but more control over _lives_. The other wants bigger social spending and more control over _industry_ and _markets_ but to let the individual do pretty much what they want.

Many Democrats these days fiscally are more in favor of limiting spending than Reagan did, meanwhile wanting to infringe less on individual rights.

If we had anything other than this false dichotomy of a self-reinforcing two-party system we may just find a party in some amount of power that wants to get the government out of your office _and_ your bedroom as much as possible.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[mr_mischief]

Title II does, though. If they are regulated under Title II then they can't have a monopoly on the utility poles.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[micahraleigh]

Opposite. Adam Smith called his strategy "hands off" and "laissez faire" has been a household term since.

Regulatory intervention is the opposite of hands off.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[PopeRatzo]

Obviously you weren't there.

I voted in both elections that Reagan won.

Cuba was in the process of taking over Grenada

That is enormous bullshit. Are you sure you were there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Reagan's tax cut took my $125 weekly check to $135.

But by the time Reagan was done, your $135 weekly check only bought $117 worth of stuff.

And also, his peed diaper was probably smarter than you.

And his astrologer was smarter than you. And more honest.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[toddestan]

Err... what? The ACA, with the insurance mandate, was basically the Republican response to HilaryCare from the 90's. Of course, once the Democrats embraced it, the Republicans immediately disavowed having anything to do with it.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[sumdumass]

At first I thought you were suggesting there be a fast lane as long as there is not a slow lane but, of course, that makes no sense. Then I figured out you are fine with a fast line paid by the sender as long as the slow lane meets some minimum bandwidth requirements. How can the customer complain since they are getting the extra fast line bandwidth "for free"?

That is correct. Except the slow lane would be the lane with the speeds the customer purchased. For instance, suppose someone is poor or on a fixed income and decides to get the slowest broadband offering in their area because they just check email and facebook and occasionally look up a recipe. So this person gets a 1.5 meg line for $15 a month or something and other speeds are offered for $30 and up. Now suppose I want to stream video to them but I cannot reliably or with quality at those speeds, but I could if I had a fast lane to them. So I up my fees by 10 cents a customer and pay the ISP a small fee to speed up access between that person and my servers and now they can subscribe to my 24/7 streaming cat cam and pink ponies extravaganza. Now this person who could not previously use my service without doubling their internet costs can become my customer.

That's sort of a silly argument, one that relies on a reality which you think might happen rather than one that was proscribed. IMHO- It would be a fraudulent and deceptive act of business for an ISP to purposely limit the speeds of any connection to levels below what they are selling the customers. We are not entitled to anything more than what we are sold but we are entitled to what we are sold without the seller purposely limiting it for any reason.

I admit that in a static situation where my bandwidth to and from certain corporations suddenly increases is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. This seems to be the situation you envision. The problems start when the original static situation evolves over time. You can easily get into a situation where bandwidth to and from certain corporation is basically free while all other bandwidth is exorbitantly expensive. In the US, at least, the last mile is already a big corporate, unregulated rip-off. Why open the door to make it much much worse? The only way it could possibly be feasible would be for massive regulation of the minimum bandwidth and maximum fees of the slow lane.

NAh.. The slow lane would simply be the speeds the ISP sold you. I get people chiming in often who think they found the trump card with the "up to" qualifier on advertised speeds but that also fails. You see, if they sell you 10 meg service and purposely and intentionally limit that service to 2 megs, then the most you would have is up to 2 meg service. So deceptive bait and switch and outright fraud would be happening if they tried to pass 2 meg service off as 10 meg. The "up to" has to apply to limits in speeds outside their direct control like unusual congestion or equipment failure or something.

If you are a poor person on a sinking ship would you like a policy where the rich people get the fancy lifeboats and the poor people get lifeboats that were deemed adequate many years ago? Or would you prefer a policy where the poor and the rich are all put into the same lifeboats?

Seriously, if I was on a sinking ship, I do not think it would matter one bit whether I was rich or poor or whether the guy next to me was. Just get me on the life boat that isn't sinking. I do not need a crystal chandelier or champagne bar on it, just something that isn't sinking and somewhat protects me from the elements. If you think it matter, please by all means stay on the ship and discuss this with others who think it matters.

Re:Fuck the libs!

[catprog]

Nope. They are all probably using the one companies equipment in the exchange. But due to the law down here the other companies are allowed to use it along with the local lines.

Yay partisanship!

[Anonymous Coward]

But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.

WooHoo!

On another note, whenever those assholes work together, Watch out! Like when the PATRIOT act was passed. Or when the criminal Wall Street crooks were given a free ride and bonuses to boot at taxpayer expense.

And where were the Teabaggers then? Nowhere.

But there was plenty of those people condemning the Occupy Wall Street kids! Who were protesting against taxpayer money waste!

Fox News watching morons.

Re:Yay partisanship!

[Anonymous Coward]

So the minority dems whip up a grandstanding bill they know is dead on arrival and you blithering idiots sing their praises.

You dummies had the presidency, a big majority in the House and a super majority in Senate and none of this happy horseshit got done. No "immigration reform". No "net neutrality." All you got was ACA and most of that is still being deferred.

Here's the thing; whether your world view is really best or not, if you need more power than you had then to get it through you can forget it. You won't live to see it.

Re:Yay partisanship!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not wrong, you're just an asshole.

The thing is immigration reform and net neutrality were just in there infancy of being talked about while the ACA was being passed (something that was "crammed down our throats" after 40 years of discussion). So something that was discussed for many years was finally done when they had the chance, but by the time those other issues came to the forefront not a single one of those things held true except for holding the presidency. How far should we go back?" How come the stupid dumbocrats didn't pass net neutrality in the 80's when they had a majority", herp derp.

So here is the real thing. Net Neutrality wasn't even really an issue when they held the "supermajority" that they held for all of what, 6 months. So yes they could have got those things passed, in that 6 month window, if they had been issues, and if there was not more pressing things going on at the time.

Re:Yay partisanship!

[Anonymous Coward]

So the minority dems whip up a grandstanding bill they know is dead on arrival and you blithering idiots sing their praises.

Kind of like trying to repeal the ACA (AKA: That Nigger In The White House Care) 47 times, huh?

Re:Yay partisanship!

[ganjadude]

tea party didnt exist at the time of the collapse....

Re:Yay partisanship!

[mrchaotica]

You're right, failing to uphold net neutrality and reform immigration is not what we should be upset about. Failing to punish NSA treason, close Gitmo and protect the environment (all issues that did exist during the Democrat supermajority) is what we should be upset about!

Re:Yay partisanship!

[nobuddy]

Incorrect. The Tea Party was formed in 1986 by the Heritage Foundation and Phillip Morris as an astroturf effort. It just got popular enough to be noteworthy in the 2004 elections, and really took off in 2008.
All revealed in the documents obtained from heritage and Phillip Morris in the tobacco trials.
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/...

Re:Yay partisanship!

[TemporalBeing]

You're right, failing to uphold net neutrality and reform immigration is not what we should be upset about. Failing to punish NSA treason, close Gitmo and protect the environment (all issues that did exist during the Democrat supermajority) is what we should be upset about!

If you think the Dems would be able to do that...well, I got a bridge to sell you.

Closing Gitmo was never feasible. Obama ran on it because he didn't know any better and it sounded good. But once you learn the details, it neigh impossible without letting everyone loose, and most of the people in there are people no one wants let loose.

As far as the NSA is concerned, the liberals/Dems are far more likely to support what the NSA was doing since they are in favor of a "Nanny State" to start with; and they're too tied to corporations to let anything major get through as far as the environment is concerned.

Re:Yay partisanship!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Democrats never had a supermajority. They relied on two Independents to avoid a filibuster.

If you count the two Independents caucusing, then the Democrats only had a filibuster-proof supermajority for 9 months. From April 28, 2009, when Arlen Specter changed parties, to February 4, 2010, when Scott Brown took office, replacing the deceased Senator Kennedy.

That's just fact. And recent history.

However, none of that is a defense of the Democrats. Lots of Democrats actively supported, and still do, those programs. (Well, not sure what the nebulous issue of "the environment" is.)

Re:Yay partisanship!

[sjames]

If only the democrats had proposed this bill when they had a majority. They waited till now because they want it to fail but prefer that the Rs hold the bag. Much like the Rs putting bills they don't want before congress when the Ds are the majority.

Re:Yay partisanship!

[Anonymous Coward]

...most of the people in there are people no one wants let loose.

Well, wrong I think: most people (I know, and in my [biased] estimate indeed most of the people outside of US, which is a lot) think that the Gitmo inmates are illegally imprisoned, and should be released. That does not mean that I think they are innocent -- but that is besides the point, really...

Re:Yay partisanship!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo.

Re:Yay partisanship!

[Drethon]

You're right, failing to uphold net neutrality and reform immigration is not what we should be upset about. Failing to punish NSA treason, close Gitmo and protect the environment (all issues that did exist during the Democrat supermajority) is what we should be upset about!

If you think the Politicians would be able to do that...well, I got a bridge to sell you.

Corrected that for you.

Re:Yay partisanship!

[mrchaotica]

Closing Gitmo was never feasible. Obama ran on it because he didn't know any better and it sounded good. But once you learn the details, it neigh impossible without letting everyone loose, and most of the people in there are people no one wants let loose.

I don't give a shit whether no one "wants" them let loose; unless they can be charged with a crime then they must be let loose! We don't have a goddamn legitimate choice about that!

As far as the NSA is concerned, the liberals/Dems are far more likely to support what the NSA was doing since they are in favor of a "Nanny State" to start with; and they're too tied to corporations to let anything major get through as far as the environment is concerned.

What a perfect little pawn of the establishment you are! You've fallen for the "us vs. them" propaganda hook, line and sinker.

The reality is that the Democrats are left-authoritarian and the Republicans are right-authoritarian, which means that they both completely agree that totalitarian NSA oppression is Peachy Keen and Awesome.

Nevertheless, there are more politicians in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party who at least pay lip service to civil liberties, and if they had any integrity whatsoever they should have at least tried to act when they had the chance.

Re:Yay partisanship!

[ganjadude]

interesting. I wouldnt say it was even noteworthy in 04 however, it wasnt until 08 that anyone really knew anything about it

Better bill than the other net neutrality bills

[will_die]

Depending on how they word the "paid for" portion this could be a better bills then most of the other bills. Provided that it allow customers to pay for and allow the ISPs to block some types of traffic.

Re:Better bill than the other net neutrality bills

[Shatrat]

This still doesn't address the real problem, when an ISP degrades traffic which competes with their other revenue streams. I.E. a cable company degrading netflix traffic or a telephone company degrading skype.

Re:Better bill than the other net neutrality bills

[Anonymous Coward]

"Real"? When did this actually happen in the "real" world?

Re:Better bill than the other net neutrality bills

[Anonymous Coward]

It's happening right now.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-throttling-netflix-traffic-even-after-its-pays-for-more-bandwidth

Gloriously Short Bill

[jacks smirking reven]

Credit where credits due, the actual bill itself (linked in the article) is only 4 pages in total and although IANAL it does seem to be straightforward and to the point. It also generously defines "edge provider" as

(A) any content, application, or service over the Internet; or
(B) a device used for accessing any content, application, or service over the Internet.

Maybe someone with a bit more knowledge can poke a hole in it, but in this age of 1000+ page bills that no-one seems to have the will to read it's a nice change.

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with your sentiment, there are a few parts I'd like some clarification on:

It links and amends heavily the Communications Act of 1934, so knowing what provisions of that apply to this bill would be nice.

And the part I'm not sure about, wouldn't a literal reading of this make services like akamai and other CDNs illegal? How do CDNs fit in with this bill?

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad it actually made a difference between content delivery networks and internet traffic.

Even though some could argue that private CDNs are a case of allowing one company to get faster connections over those without their own, it is still a legit business strategy.
Loads of public CDNs exist these days anyway so it is hardly an issue for any business below a middle class one really, hell, even small business can afford pretty beefy CDNs.

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[jfengel]

It's short only because it's telling the FCC to do the real work. The key bit is:

Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall promulgate regulations that...

A lot of major laws are like that. The law itself grants some kind of authority to an executive branch department, and they come up with the regulations that implement that authority. That can often run into many thousands of pages, and they can change literally every single day. Regulated industries often have employees whose sole job it is to ensure that they're in compliance with the regulations.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Congress aren't experts in the domain. The executive branch employees are (or at least, are supposed to be). They work with the industry experts to clarify all of the corner cases and vaguenesses that make up any complex issue. And the issues are complex; they often seem simple to outsiders but only because they don't know what they're looking at. The same thing probably happens in your job.

The departments aren't completely unsupervised. They report, ultimately, to Presidential appointees, who have to be approved by Congress and produce regular reports to the Congress. And when things go wrong, they get hauled in front of Congress to explain themselves.

Er, digression aside... what would have happened were the bill to pass (it won't) is that the FCC would produce a lengthy set of regulations, which would surely provoke all kinds of outrage as the actual nitty-gritty details are less pleasant than the overall sentiment. In fact, I'd say that they're aware that it won't pass, which is why they get to make it so vague. Real bills, the kind where they want to strictly limit the authority of the departments to get exactly what they want, are the result of compromises within the legislature and are usually much more detailed. You can get the details in legislation or in regulation; the former is more permanent and the latter is more flexible, which can be good or bad depending on your point of view of the matter at hand. But there will be details, and they're going to be voluminous.

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[Cyberax]

CDNs are third-party entities that provide you a service. ISPs are not allowed to discriminate against them.

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[KermodeBear]

That can often run into many thousands of pages, and they can change literally every single day. Regulated industries often have employees whose sole job it is to ensure that they're in compliance with the regulations. [...] This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Congress aren't experts in the domain.

And when you have thousands of pages of regulations, so many that you need compliance experts, that drives up costs for the business and ultimately the end consumer. It raises the barrier of entry for new companies, and tilts things in the favor of large, established corporations, reducing potential competition. Want to help the entrenched monopolies? Pass regulations.

Don't get me wrong - not all regulations are bad. We need some regulations (don't dump radioactive waste into the water supply, for example), but our government goes crazy with them and we end up with a tangled mess.

I believe that regulations (which are just laws passed by an agency) should be voted on by congress. No, I don't expect congress to be an expert in internet communications, but they don't have to be an expert if we really do need them to do something. They don't need to know the contents of the header of an IP packet and they don't need to know what a subnet is. They just need to have the gasp of general concepts (communications carrier, content provider, etc.) that your average joe already understands (or can understand), and write some basic, simple laws.

I do believe that it can be that simple. No law or regulation should be so complicated and so complex that your average person is unable to understand what it means, and it shouldn't be so long that it spans a thousand pages or more. It sure as hell shouldn't be passed without being read on the floor. It's endemic of a serious problem in general in our legislative process.

What I think I'm arguing for, in essence, is a refactoring of our existing laws (to make them far fewer and more simple) and forcing them to be talked about and passed in the open, where it's easy to see what is happening, where the common person can (and should) be able to understand what is being proposed and offer input.

This does not mean that domain experts shouldn't be involved - of course they should be - but the end result should be short and simple and voted upon.

Okay, I'm going back to my world where politicians actually give a crap about the country. Bye!

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

CDNs are third-party entities that provide you a service. ISPs are not allowed to discriminate against them.

CDNs very often pay to have their edge servers placed in ISP networks, and that way buy a faster pipe to the consumer for their services on that ISP's network.

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[Cyberax]

If they are independent entities then I don't see a problem. If an ISP starts to discriminate against them (for example, favoring one CDN) then the bill will apply to that situation.

Re: Gloriously Short Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISPs will favor the CDNs (and services large enough to be their own CDN) that pay them to host cache servers.

Re: Gloriously Short Bill

[Cyberax]

Yes, that's OK as long as CDNs are independent business entities and ISPs do not discriminate on price and hosting conditions.

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[towermac]

Hear hear!

When are you running?

Re: Gloriously Short Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's OK as long as CDNs are independent business entities and ISPs do not discriminate on price and hosting conditions.

Ok, but then people use different definitions of net neutrality, because some have used the example of fx Netflix (their own CDN) getting what they call preferential access to a ISP network compared to competitors -- by paying to have edge servers on premise -- as against net neutrality and unfair advantage vs smaller players..

Re: Gloriously Short Bill

[Cyberax]

That's OK. ISPs just have to provide equal opportunities (within reasonable bounds) for Netflix competitors to interconnect their own CDNs.

Re:Gloriously Short Bill

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe someone with a bit more knowledge can poke a hole in it, but in this age of 1000+ page bills that no-one seems to have the will to read it's a nice change.

Poke a hole? I pay $20/month for DSL. Fast enough to stream videos just fine. However, I don't give a fuck about that. Discussion groups and email are my fair.

If I could pay less ... say $10/month ... and you pay more for "prioritized" traffic, then I'm fine with that. I'll sneak my data in the black frames of whatever rubbish you pay too much money for.

Like a lot of people that intend to use force to get your way, you have assumed we all want the same thing. We don't.

Microsoft controls everything

[Russ1642]

I didn't know Bill Gates had the ability to control ISPs in this way.

Proper Net Neutrality

[lgw]

I've not been a fan of previous "Net Neutrality" efforts, because they didn't seem likely to fix the problem. This, however, is great. It totally undercuts the ISP extortion racket, without trying to fix a technical problem.

The big ISPs can always find a loophole in any law that tries to prevent throttling by some technical rules - that's what engineers do: we game a system to maximize some value. Bad approach. By instead saying "do whatever, but you can't charge money for priority access simply removes the incentive to do it in the first place. Good approach.

Re:Proper Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, this seems like it would get to the positive goals of net neutrality without creating technicality situations that might, for example, make it illegal to de-prioritze transmission of some hacker's DDOS packets.

Re:Proper Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful; it doesn't do anything to address Dish's Sling service competing with Comcraps' offering. Nothing in that appears to address broad throttling of classes of service.

Re:Proper Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Would this bill stop the reverse - giving discounts to those that don't want certain prioritised traffic?

That is, $60 for an internet connection, but if you don't need high speed to Netflix, we'll reduce your bill by $5. If you don't need high speed to Google, we'll reduce it by another $2.That is, after the connection cost has been increased by $10

Re:Proper Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

> By instead saying "do whatever, but you can't charge money for priority access simply removes the incentive to do it in the first place.

Haha, so naive you are. If they can't charge money, that doesn't mean they can't barter. For example, Disney could give the cabletv side a couple of free channels in exchange for fast lanes on the internet side. I'm sure that when there are hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, they'll figure out a way.

Re:Proper Net Neutrality

[towermac]

What would be nice would be some real politics in Washington. Say, the Republicans support this (some already do btw), in exchange for Keystone.

Heh. I know, I was dreaming...

Re:Proper Net Neutrality

[lgw]

Yeah, but it's a good dream.

Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, the free market. If you don't like what your broadband provider is doing, just switch to one of the many other offerings in your area!

Imagine going back in time 15 years and

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine going back in time 15 years and warning everyone about all the crazy shit coming down the pipe. They would send you to the funny farm!

-The presidential election will be decided by one vote... on the supreme court.

-There will be a nuclear terrorist attack on New York, perpetrated by Israel, the Bush administration, and the Pentagon, with obvious evidence right out in the open, and nobody will question it.

-The attack will be used as bait and switch to wage a $3 trillion war against a country which didn't even have anything to do with the patsies, let alone the actual attack.

-There will be a resurgence of fascism and slavery, and people will call it freedom.

-Two Skull and Bonesmen will run against each other in 2004. They will refuse to talk about it and everyone else will be cool with that. Isn't democracy great?

-TV will be mostly fearmongering, propaganda, celebrity gossip, and reality shows about giant-assed sluts. There will be a time when the truthiest TV news will be on Comedy Central. "The Onion Reality" will acquire meaning.

-A black gay foreign muslim communist will become president. He will spend most of his time golfing, reading from a teleprompter, and watching drone bombings. By any objective measures he will be worse than Bush, but the left will love him, because thinking anything else would be racist.

-The Fed will print tens of trillions of dollars and give it to the banks, including many foreign banks, but hyperinflation will be delayed because the economy will suck so bad that people will hold held their dollars tight. People will be awed by the power of central planning.

-Billion dollar scams will become so common that most will be ignored. Only one person will go to jail, and only because he stole from Zionist charities.

-Housing will be sliced and diced so many ways that people will end up getting foreclosed on by multiple banks that they never even signed with. Nobody will have clear title to their house. And nobody will go to jail.

-They will change the rules so that bank accounts can be raided due to bank failure, in addition to all the other excuses for legalized plunder. Banks will stop paying interest. Despite all this, there will not be bank runs. One might think that's because everyone will be more afraid of cops stealing their cash, but no. It will be because everyone will be brick stupid.

-A passenger jet will be abducted to Diego Garcia. The media will blame terrorists, then aliens and black holes, then back to Kim's giant ass.

-There will be SWAT team raids over raw milk, unpaid student loans, feeding the homeless, etc, etc. Babies will get their faces blown off. The only people who will go to jail (or the morgue) will be the innocent victims.

-The Russians will become the good guys.

But we're just getting started! Think of all the crazy shit coming down the pipe for the NEXT fifteen years! If we don't get at least one hoaxed ailen attack by 2030, Krugman and I will be very disappointed.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-02/2015-will-be-all-about-iran-china-and-russia#comment-5617702

Re:Imagine going back in time 15 years and

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to see you modded down. The "black gay foreign muslim communist" thing must have done it. I thought it was funny. You know, because of this 'new' political correctness' on steroids, we probably can't air any more the 'All in the Family' reruns anymore.

Anyway, right on! You hit it on the head, but nobody wants to hear, in fact, they will try to shut you up. The truth is the enemy.

Re:Imagine going back in time 15 years and

[wxxy___]

Reality is insane enough without hyperbole, conspiracies, or racism. What AC posted would be much more effective if he left out things like claiming 9/11 was a nuclear attack.


The government will either molest your family or photograph them naked before you are allowed on a plane.

All of your internet and telephone data is being captured by the government.

Torture is de facto legal.

Not only are those things are openly done and accepted, they are explicitly approved of by the populace and questioning them gets you labeled as unamerican, at best.

Democrats don't want this to pass

[cfalcon]

If the Democrats wanted this to pass, they would have brought the bill to floor when they had a chance of it actually passing. Far too many in the Democratic party are in the pockets of those that won't let this pass, but by bringing it up now, it can look like the Republicans are the bad guys.

Which, they are. Both parties are opposed to net neutrality. But this bill is just there for grandstanding. The Democrats could have made net neutrality happen MANY times in the last few years, so this is just to try to smear team red, even though team blue agrees with them totally on this issue.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[TheNastyInThePasty]

Who would the Democrats win points with? No one knows what Net Neutrality is and nobody cares.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Black Copter Control]

Yep. Perfect timing. Between the timing, and the fact that (even if it passes), it doesn't seem to address the most grievous of the net-neutrlity issues (ISPs blocking or degrading competing services to force customers to use their extra-cost service). It really seems like they just don't want to see net neutrality really pass.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[cdrudge]

It was introduced in the middle of last year in the House, where it was summarily sent to a subcommittee to die. It had no chance as a bill with zero Republican sponsors ever passing the House, just as it will quickly die in this Congress.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Enry]

The Dems haven't had a majority in the House for the past 4 years. This wasn't a bit enough deal for others to rise to the level of legislation until the past..maybe 18 months.

As for the Senate, well, requiring 60 votes to get anything done put a damper on that.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to break this to you, but the Democrats can't bring up shit now. It will be just like it's been in the Senate since harry reid was put in charge there. He's been the active shield for the emperor for 6 years now.

I love how it's always the bad Republicans, always blocking things, always their fault, the party of no, oh and Fox news and people that align with the Tea Party (you know less goverment control because that would just be so bad). Yet, it's the emperor who's now decided he's going to veto anything that doesn't go along with his agenda, and if he doesn't get his way, why he'll just get his pen, get on his phone, call up valorie jarrett and ask her what to put in the executive order to just do it anyway, and then brag about it, and if you dare to say anything why you are racist. Jobs (how many times has he told us this will be his highest priority now)? Nope, not if we build a pipeline to bring oil to market quicker (oil that will get to market no matter what, so what exactly are you preventing here? Oh, preventing the tree huger component of your party from getting their panties in a twist). The list of these examples can go on forever.

I'm a Republican, and on the surface, I agree with this. Network traffic should not be throttled, period. Don't have enough bandwidth, then fucking fix the problem.

Oh, and you forgot to blame Bush.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[neoritter]

I'm quickly losing hope with this Congress, day 2 and we're already doing the present a bill partisan BS.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Democrats wanted this to pass, they would have brought the bill to floor when they had a chance of it actually passing. Far too many in the Democratic party are in the pockets of those that won't let this pass, but by bringing it up now, it can look like the Republicans are the bad guys.

Which, they are. Both parties are opposed to net neutrality. But this bill is just there for grandstanding. The Democrats could have made net neutrality happen MANY times in the last few years, so this is just to try to smear team red, even though team blue agrees with them totally on this issue.

Not after they lost their supermajority in the senate, which was years ago.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[mjm1231]

Yep, that's why nobody submitted anything to the FCC comment filing.

Oh wait: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Anonymous Coward]

This ... It's not a network neutrality bill, it's a "protect the incumbents from well-funded competition" bill.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[rtb61]

Every company with smart CIO should know by know exactly what net neutrality is and how it will advantage 99.99% of them. The total campaigns contribution that would be favoured by net neutrality far exceed the campaign contributions of those who favour an internet they can censor, which implies being able to intercept and analyse all communications. Without net neutrality corporate and industrial espionage will explode, there is simply far too much money to be made by doing it for those who oppose net neutrality not to do it. Insider trading information, green mail, proprietary secrets, all would become accessible without net neutrality. So pass it on to all CIOs that memo warning the board about the nature of some corporations and what they can do when they totally control the flow off information across the internet and how dangerous to their own companies profitability that it really is. In risk terms it cost them absolutely nothing to get rid of real risks and lwill save them a bunch of money in direct costs, so screwing over the incumbent telecoms and pigopolists is really in their favour, so 'screw em', they are all potential competitors and should not be trusted with any power at all.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[alen]

i bet 99% of the comments were i hate my isp, i want 100mbps down 24x7 for $35 a month, i want my precious netflix, etc

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Anonymous Coward]

And even if they did know, most Democrats vote based on the race or gender of the candidates and grievance politics issues. Net neutrality is for mostly rich, mostly white nerd types.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[jfengel]

If the Democrats wanted this to pass, they would have brought the bill to floor when they had a chance of it actually passing.

When was that, exactly? The Democrats haven't had control of the House since 2010. They did have a brief period where they had a veto-proof majority, back in 2009, but that only lasted a couple of months (after the Minnesota election was finally resolved, and before Ted Kennedy died and was replaced by a Republican). They devoted that time to health care. They didn't expect to maintain that advantage long, though they didn't expect it to end quite so soon.

Since then, there has been no chance of anything passing. Nothing has passed since then, aside from naming a few post offices and re-authorizing existing laws. I agree that the Democrats don't expect this bill to pass, and that this is more publicity stunt than serious attempt at legislation, but they might well be willing to pass it (or something like it) if they could. But they can't; the last Congress was the least productive in history and this Congress may manage to be even worse.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Anonymous Coward]

The Democrats haven't had control of Congress since like 2009. The Republicans took control of the House in 2010. Therefore, the Democrats wouldn't have passed net neutrality "in the last few years" even if they disposed to it.

That's not a defense of the Democrats. Just a point of fact.

Also, the issue of net neutrality has grown significantly over the past 5+ years. In 2008 it was still mostly a theoretical argument. It's now become abundantly clear that advocates of net neutrality weren't simply crying wolf--the wolves have shown themselves. ISPs are both taxing content providers in a manner that is particularly opaque to their immediate customers and thus not susceptible to market correction (presuming people even had meaningful choices in broadband), and they've proven entirely unwilling to plow those profits into improving service.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Lendrick]

That's actually a fairly reasonable thing to ask, from a technological and price standpoint.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Saanvik]

Hate to break this to you, but you don't know what the h*ll you are talking about. Bills can be introduced in the House at pretty much any time by any representative.

Quoting from http://www.house.gov/content/l...

"Any member in the House of Representatives may introduce a bill at any time while the House is in session by simply placing it in the “hopper” at the side of the Clerk's desk in the House Chamber."

It's also quite easy to introduce a bill into the Senate.

BTW, the previous Senate voted on a higher percentage of bills that originated in the House than the last time the Democrats held a majority in the House, so let's just put that tired claim about Senator Reid to bed, shall we? It's complete nonsense. Of course, that's only the first piece of nonsense you wrote, but the majority of that could be defended by claiming its your opinion.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[TemporalBeing]

Since then, there has been no chance of anything passing. Nothing has passed since then, aside from naming a few post offices and re-authorizing existing laws. I agree that the Democrats don't expect this bill to pass, and that this is more publicity stunt than serious attempt at legislation, but they might well be willing to pass it (or something like it) if they could. But they can't; the last Congress was the least productive in history and this Congress may manage to be even worse.

Nothing has passed since then b/c Democrat controlled Senate brought only the minimal it had to to a vote; anything they didn't like they didn't bring to a vote; saving Obama from having to veto anything; and then blaming it on the Republicans and the House for not giving them what they wanted.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[T.E.D.]

I'm old enough to remember that in a bygone era this was how legislation was made. You float a few trial balloons, and then see what happens politically to those who shoot them down. If the people who shoot that balloon down take enough crap, they won't be so quick to do it next time. If the idea is popular enough, eventually, some people in both parties will start signing onto the bills, and one will pass.

So if you care about this issue, play your part. If you don't, go ahead and say nasty things about both sides and go back to playing Call of Duty.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[Anonymous Coward]

I get that in Thailand for exactly $35 a month, but I suppose the USA can't compete with Thailand's infrastructure and economy

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[theshowmecanuck]

Yes, and Obama was elected in 2008. So why the fuck didn't they do it then. Also, why didn't they pass an affordable care health act then as well. Because the Democrats are incapable of working together, and/or are in the same pockets of business as the Republican are. There are a lot of things they could have done in that short time. But they fucked it up.

Re:Democrats don't want this to pass

[jfengel]

Obama, by himself, can't do anything legislatively. As I explained above, the Democrats couldn't do anything by themselves except during a brief period in 2009, during which time they managed to produce one epoch-making piece of legislation.

It's true that Democrats don't work well together, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. The Democratic party represents a number of different points of view. The health care bill that we did get is driven by the fact that a number of Democrats are genuinely uncomfortable with single-payer legislation. You can call that "in the pockets of big business" but they were genuinely reflecting their constituents desires (as demonstrated by the fact that most of them got creamed anyway by accusations of "soshulizm" in the next election). The Democrats' big-tent mentality is what wins them the Presidency; Republican insistence on ideology is keeping them from scoring a national majority.

The Republicans have been seen as highly effective, but only in banding together as the "party of no". You're going to see them produce little to no real legislation over the next two years, unless they radically change. The few positive ideas they have are not broadly acceptable (lowering taxes on the wealthy, eliminating social safety nets). You'll notice that they haven't been touting any alternative to the ACA, and if they try to repeal without replacing they'll find that a lot of people like actual provisions of the act. (The one they don't like is the one that pays for it, and I'd be tickled to see them eliminate *just* the coverage requirement, which would be hilarious.)

Now the Democrats get to spend two years filibustering everything the Republicans try to do (primarily eliminating environmental and safety regulations) and look more or less unified in the process. They still won't look unified, because they've got more than enough votes for the filibuster, which means that some Senators who imagine their seats are vulnerable will cross lines, but they'll be there when they need to be. And that's as the Democrats come into what should be a strong 2016, as they take back some seats that they shouldn't have lost in the 2010 wave election (just as the Republicans last year took back some seats they shouldn't have lost in 2008).

Which returns us to a Democratic Senate, probably a Democratic President, and probably a Republican House come 2017. At which point the Democrats will again fail to push a liberal agenda because they're not really a liberal party, and haven't been for a very long time. They're the party of everybody driven away by the batshit right-wing agenda of the Republicans.

Fuck the libs!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republicans believe in "free" market that helps the most powerful Corporations.

This is what's wrong...

[Last_Available_Usern]

and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.

To preface, this is not a partisan-based slam. This is a slam on our entire system. The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people" (not pronounced "corporations") shows our biggest hurdle that we as a country need to overcome. Not race/gender equality or financial disparity, but the ability of this country to be propelled forward by a system that is representative to the needs of the many, not the powerful.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[diamondmagic]

To preface, this is not a partisan-based slam. This is a slam on our entire system. The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people" (not pronounced "corporations") shows our biggest hurdle that we as a country need to overcome. Not race/gender equality or financial disparity, but the ability of this country to be propelled forward by a system that is representative to the needs of the many, not the powerful.

I don't even know where to start on how dangerous this is. This is populism straight up, tyranny of the majority, screw any minority/individual's rights.

When any group of people can hold a vote and force someone out of their house - or take away their property or life - that's plain wrong.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah? What are you gona do about it? Nothing, exactly. Now shut up and eat your fries.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

When any group of people can hold a vote and force someone out of their house - or take away their property or life - that's plain wrong.

You're being hypocritical.

Political parties are groups with the power you describe.

The people voting directly on what the people want would be far better. And no one would be thrown out of their house or anything like that unless that system grew to be far more corrupt than we currently are.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your representative are all bought for already and the republicans are the worst of it. There is no possible reform to this any more, just a slow, painful death like the USSR.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[Obfuscant]

The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people"

Citation required. "Universally wanted" is a pretty strong statement considering that the vast majority of the people don't know what the problem is, much less that there is a problem.

And when the "problem" can be described as "network provider asks a commercial data source to help pay for upgrading the network connection that the commercial data source is filling up at a profit for the commercial data source", it's not going to be considered a problem this law would help instead of hinder, by many people. "Wait, you mean my ISP can't ask XYZ to help pay for upgrades to a network connection that XYZ is profiting from? I have to pay more so other people can do something I have no interest in?"

Re:This is what's wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

basicly now that the dems know that anti-corporate bills won't pass, and they are loosing their jobs, they are simply just running through whatever legislation that they know the 'pubs will veto so they can take credit for doing nothing, and smear the republicans for it later.

that said, the dems have no intention of letting this bill pass.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[GameboyRMH]

Some group in a society holds overruling power, and if the majority doesn't hold it then the minority does. There's nothing inherently wrong or dangerous about populism.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[fustakrakich]

...our biggest hurdle that we as a country need to overcome. Not race/gender equality or financial disparity, but the ability of this country to be propelled forward by a system that is representative to the needs of the many, not the powerful.

It would definitely be a first, but it is important to make sure the 'many' don't overwhelm the one. A dictatorship of the many is no better then any other kind. What we are bumping up against are the limits of majority rule.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even know where to start on how dangerous this is. This is populism straight up, tyranny of the majority, screw any minority/individual's rights. When any group of people can hold a vote and force someone out of their house - or take away their property or life - that's plain wrong.

That's a solved problem. It's the reason the Constitution includes a judiciary.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[MacDork]

I don't think it's realistic at this point to expect much change from the government. Unarmed black men die by cop in the streets and that's all part of the plan it seems. Even the black president appears to do nothing but pay lip service to the problem. Internet freedom seems downright secondary when unarmed kids are being shot by cops regularly.

To the point, I think what we are witnessing is the end of what we currently understand as the internet. Net neutrality wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the ISP monopolies in the first place. NSA spying and weakening encryption standards leaving the whole system backdoored. DMCA is the icing on the cake, destroying free speech one github repo at a time.

I fully expect wireless mesh networks to be the next generation of internet. People will laugh about the days when we were so stupid to trust Facebook servers with so much as a password. They will of course, use something similar to SSH, where the client holds the key and the password. The idea that one company could have stood as a gatekeeper between you and your pizza order from the shop on the corner will seem like pure stupidity.

It is stupidity. There's absolutely no reason those pizza order packets need to travel thousands of miles from my handset, up to a cloud server, where it's intercepted and inspected by the NSA before it is passed down another wire belonging to another ISP who's going to charge a fee or slow the order down, just to reach a pizza shop a mile or two down the road. (assuming that pizza shop didn't get an illegitimate DMCA takedown over a photo of a cheese pizza). It is simply ridiculous when every square mile of modern civilization is saturated with wireless radios. I'm sitting in range of 16 wifi access points right now. Everyone I know carries a phone with not only wifi, but bluetooth, and LTE too.

This is dumb. And when enough of us developers step back, and think, and see how very dumb it is... we will create a new solution. The dim witted management in the form of government will proceed to try to screw up our new internet as best they can, until they succeed and we start the process all over again.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[westlake]

The fact that we accept something won't pass despite it being universally wanted by "the people" (not pronounced "corporations") ....

The geek's first mistake in politics is to begin by assuming that everyone wants what he wants.

The second is to forget that people outside his own group may be actually and quite naturally aligned with the interests and values with whatever corporate entity he chooses to demonize.

Net neutrality is a distant, ill-defined abstraction.

What you see at ground level are the tens of millions of users drawn to add-supported and subscription media services like Netflix. This isn't how the geek expected the Internet to evolve or the purposes it would serve. But good luck trying to put the genii back into the bottle.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[ogdenk]

Is this AC really an agent provocateur?

Re:This is what's wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the problem though, Fox news will turn the republican voter base against it, saying things like "We don't need the government regulating the internet, it worked fine without regulation all this time". They will eat it up because old white people (read, most of fox's viewership) aren't the most tech saavy and it aligns with their ronald regal idolizing worldview.

Re:This is what's wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Poor ISPs, they're being forced to carry all those big videos from Youtube and Netflix, and all that traffic from Facebook and Google. They should cut all access to those freeloaders, that would teach them a good lesson. It will also have the beneficial effect that they won't need to upgrade their networks, since they will have hardly any customers left anyways.

US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORISM

[Anonymous Coward]

This list was compiled before 911, so it does not even include all the destruction and chaos that followed. May this be a good history lesson for you young hipsters brainwashed by your media.

US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORISM

This is a version of an an original page atributed to Robert Elias, a US Professor of Political Science , a list which, like so many others, has otherwise 'disappered'.

US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORISM

US Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction
The indiscriminate use of bombs by the US, usually outside a declared war situation, for wanton destruction, for no military objectives, whose targets and victims are civilian populations, or what we now call "collateral damage":
Japan (1945) China (1945-46) Korea & China (1950-53) Guatemala (1954, 1960, 1967-69) Indonesia (1958) Cuba (1959-61) Congo (1964) Peru (1965) Laos (1964-70) Vietnam (1961-1973) Cambodia (1969-70) Grenada (1983) Lebanon (1983-84) Libya (1986) El Salvador (1980s) Nicaragua (1980s) Iran (1987) Panama (1989) Iraq (1991-2000) Kuwait (1991) Somalia (1993) Bosnia (1994-95) Sudan (1998) Afghanistan (1998) Pakistan (1998) Yugoslavia (1999) Bulgaria (1999) Macedonia (1999)

US Use of Chemical & Biological Weapons
The US has refused to sign Conventions against the development and use of chemical and biological weapons, and has either used or tested (without informing the civilian populations) these weapons in the following locations abroad:
Bahamas (late 1940s-mid-1950s) Canada (1953) China and Korea (1950-53) Korea (1967-69) Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (1961-1970) Panama (1940s-1990s) Cuba (1962, 69, 70, 71, 81, 96)

And the US has tested such weapons on US civilian populations, without their knowledge, in the following locations:
Watertown, NY and US Virgin Islands (1950)
SF Bay Area (1950, 1957-67)
Minneapolis (1953)
St. Louis (1953)
Washington, DC Area (1953, 1967)
Florida (1955)
Savannah GA/Avon Park, FL (1956-58)
New York City (1956, 1966)
Chicago (1960)

And the US has encouraged the use of such weapons, and provided the technology to develop such weapons in various nations abroad, including:
Egypt, South Africa, Iraq

US Political and Military Interventions since 1945
The US has launched a series of military and political interventions since 1945, often to install puppet regimes, or alternatively to engage in political actions such as smear campaigns, sponsoring or targeting opposition political groups (depending on how they served US interests), undermining political parties, sabotage and terror campaigns, and so forth. It has done so in nations such as:
China (1945-51) South Africa (1960s-1980s) France (1947) Bolivia (1964-75) Marshall Islands (1946-58) Australia (1972-75) Italy (1947-1975) Iraq (1972-75) Greece (1947-49) Portugal (1974-76) Philippines (1945-53) East Timor (1975-99) Korea (1945-53) Ecuador (1975) Albania (1949-53) Argentina (1976) Eastern Europe (1948-56) Pakistan (1977) Germany (1950s) Angola (1975-1980s) Iran (1953) Jamaica (1976) Guatemala (1953-1990s) Honduras (1980s) Costa Rica (mid-1950s, 1970-71) Nicaragua (1980s) Middle East (1956-58) Philippines (1970s-90s) Indonesia (1957-58) Seychelles (1979-81) Haiti (1959) South Yemen (1979-84) Western Europe (1950s-1960s) South Korea (1980) Guyana (1953-64) Chad (1981-82) Iraq (1958-63) Grenada (1979-83) Vietnam (1945-53) Suriname (1982-84) Cambodia (1955-73) Libya (1981-89) Laos (1957-73) Fiji (1987) Thailand (1965-73) Panama (1989) Ecuador (1960-63) Afghanistan (1979-92) Congo (1960-65, 1977-78) El Salvador (1980-92) Algeria (1960s) Haiti (1987-94) Brazil (1961-64) Bulgaria (1990-91) Peru (1965) Albania (1991-92) Dominican Republic (1963-65) Somalia (1993) Cuba (1959-present) Iraq (1990s) Indonesia (1965) Peru (1990-present) Ghana (1966) Mexico (1990-present) Uruguay (1969-72) Colombia (1990-present) Ch

Informative?!

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? I'm so happy you shared your opinion. Apparently so are your other profiles, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare.

US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORISM

[Anonymous Coward]

This list was compiled before 911, so it does not even include all the destruction and chaos that followed. May this be a good history lesson for you young hipsters brainwashed by your media.

US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORISM

This is a version of an an original page atributed to Robert Elias, a US Professor of Political Science , a list which, like so many others, has otherwise 'disappered'.

US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORISM

US Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction
The indiscriminate use of bombs by the US, usually outside a declared war situation, for wanton destruction, for no military objectives, whose targets and victims are civilian populations, or what we now call "collateral damage":
Japan (1945) China (1945-46) Korea & China (1950-53) Guatemala (1954, 1960, 1967-69) Indonesia (1958) Cuba (1959-61) Congo (1964) Peru (1965) Laos (1964-70) Vietnam (1961-1973) Cambodia (1969-70) Grenada (1983) Lebanon (1983-84) Libya (1986) El Salvador (1980s) Nicaragua (1980s) Iran (1987) Panama (1989) Iraq (1991-2000) Kuwait (1991) Somalia (1993) Bosnia (1994-95) Sudan (1998) Afghanistan (1998) Pakistan (1998) Yugoslavia (1999) Bulgaria (1999) Macedonia (1999)

US Use of Chemical & Biological Weapons
The US has refused to sign Conventions against the development and use of chemical and biological weapons, and has either used or tested (without informing the civilian populations) these weapons in the following locations abroad:
Bahamas (late 1940s-mid-1950s) Canada (1953) China and Korea (1950-53) Korea (1967-69) Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (1961-1970) Panama (1940s-1990s) Cuba (1962, 69, 70, 71, 81, 96)

And the US has tested such weapons on US civilian populations, without their knowledge, in the following locations:
Watertown, NY and US Virgin Islands (1950)
SF Bay Area (1950, 1957-67)
Minneapolis (1953)
St. Louis (1953)
Washington, DC Area (1953, 1967)
Florida (1955)
Savannah GA/Avon Park, FL (1956-58)
New York City (1956, 1966)
Chicago (1960)

And the US has encouraged the use of such weapons, and provided the technology to develop such weapons in various nations abroad, including:
Egypt, South Africa, Iraq

US Political and Military Interventions since 1945
The US has launched a series of military and political interventions since 1945, often to install puppet regimes, or alternatively to engage in political actions such as smear campaigns, sponsoring or targeting opposition political groups (depending on how they served US interests), undermining political parties, sabotage and terror campaigns, and so forth. It has done so in nations such as:
China (1945-51) South Africa (1960s-1980s) France (1947) Bolivia (1964-75) Marshall Islands (1946-58) Australia (1972-75) Italy (1947-1975) Iraq (1972-75) Greece (1947-49) Portugal (1974-76) Philippines (1945-53) East Timor (1975-99) Korea (1945-53) Ecuador (1975) Albania (1949-53) Argentina (1976) Eastern Europe (1948-56) Pakistan (1977) Germany (1950s) Angola (1975-1980s) Iran (1953) Jamaica (1976) Guatemala (1953-1990s) Honduras (1980s) Costa Rica (mid-1950s, 1970-71) Nicaragua (1980s) Middle East (1956-58) Philippines (1970s-90s) Indonesia (1957-58) Seychelles (1979-81) Haiti (1959) South Yemen (1979-84) Western Europe (1950s-1960s) South Korea (1980) Guyana (1953-64) Chad (1981-82) Iraq (1958-63) Grenada (1979-83) Vietnam (1945-53) Suriname (1982-84) Cambodia (1955-73) Libya (1981-89) Laos (1957-73) Fiji (1987) Thailand (1965-73) Panama (1989) Ecuador (1960-63) Afghanistan (1979-92) Congo (1960-65, 1977-78) El Salvador (1980-92) Algeria (1960s) Haiti (1987-94) Brazil (1961-64) Bulgaria (1990-91) Peru (1965) Albania (1991-92) Dominican Republic (1963-65) Somalia (1993) Cuba (1959-present) Iraq (1990s) Indonesia (1965) Peru (1990-present) Ghana (1966) Mexico (1990-present) Uruguay (1969-72) Colombia (1990-present) Ch

What problem would have this solved?

[diamondmagic]

Can anyone name ONE Net Neutrality issue ever that this would have prevented?

The big one everyone seems to point to was the Cogent/Netflix/Verizon issue, which was not "last mile", and so wouldn't have been solved by this bill (assuming the bill can actually do everything it says it can). That issue wasn't even a Net Neutrality issue, it was a peering dispute over a pipe that just happened to be a heavy carrier of Netflix traffic.

This seems entirely populist, why would they wait until now, after Republicans took control of congress, to bring it up? This is just like the Republican's repeated ACA/Obamacare bills, yes, it's dealing with something bad, but the bill isn't going anywhere, and it wouldn't even be a bill if they were in power. It's grandstanding.

Also, the bill seems to grant the FCC powers over commerce. Um, yikes. Who here wants the FCC examining your purchases and checking your router table configuration over it?

Re:What problem would have this solved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix offered to add hardware to solve the problem, and Verizon said no unless you pay.

So it was not a hardware problem

Comcast then went and did the same thing.

Netflix offered to pay for the hardware to fix it, the carriers said no. Took money without updating any hardware, and the problem was fixed overnight.

Peering my ass.

Re:What problem would have this solved?

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't "over night", it took them nearly a work week up upgrade their nation wide network by hundreds of gigabits. Wait... why do we have congestion issues if this is the case?

None shall pass, except...

[t4eXanadu]

The chance of anything passing that doesn't 1) benefit corporations, or 2) benefit defense contractors and the military are very slim. I have to agree with other posters that the Republicans aren't the only ones to blame. Most politicians seem to be in bed with corporate America (Elizabeth Warren and some others seem to be rare exceptions).

Re:None shall pass, except...

[JDAustin]

Elizabeth Warren is also in bed w/ the corps. Why else would she vote to continue the ExIm Bank (which is basically free money to a few large multinationals)?

Re:None shall pass, except...

[t4eXanadu]

That's why I said "seems to be". I'm not an expert on her voting record, and I figured, like all politicians, she would have a history of siding with corps at some point. Thanks for the info.

Re:None shall pass, except...

[Anonymous Coward]

ExIm is not free money. It's never lost a dime and in facts runs a profit, although as they say in the industry: past performance is no guarantee of future results. But FWIW the ExIm bank has been running a surplus since 1934.

ExIm does subsidize domestic exports, which is in principle a bad thing, but in actuality only if everybody else in the world were to stop subsidizing their exports simultaneously. Finance guarantees, however, are pretty much one of the least market-disruptive ways to subsidize exports. Which is why it doesn't cost the government anything.

By value it is most heavily used by Boeing. However, that's because Boeing's products are crazy expensive, and Boeing also accounts for a disproportionate share of our exports by value as well. The same logic applies to other big corporations that use ExIm. Nothing prevents you from using the ExIm bank. But it's unlikely you care because unless your exports costs millions of dollars, your foreign customers probably have no impediments financing their purchases.

Please don't comment on ExIm unless you know what it is and how it operates. In particular, if you only know about it because it recently became a hot topic, then you probably don't know what the heck you're talking about.

The statistical risk of a future loss relative to the interest rate on the financing or price of the guarantee is how nut-jobs argue that ExIm isn't profitable. They may or may not be right, but their estimates are very presumptuous, and in any event such losses haven't come to pass in over 75 years. Probably because the accountants and managers at ExIm aren't dumb, or at least not as dumb as the pundits. Also, the loans are not normal loans. Typically the buyer of an export product needs to provide the ExIm bank a loan guarantee from a bank in their country. And often ExIm isn't even loaning money, but only providing a guarantee to a U.S. bank making the loan. It's only if the buyer _and_ the guarantor default on their loan can ExIm lose money. So, for example, while the Bank of Ethiopia isn't exactly a creditor's dream, they're not as likely to default as you might think because they have many, varied, long-term interests beyond the immediate purchase, which means they have lots of incentive to be smart about the loans or guarantees they approve, such as for the purchase of an airliner.

Re:None shall pass, except...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I said "seems to be". I'm not an expert on her voting record, and I figured, like all politicians, she would have a history of siding with corps at some point. Thanks for the info.

Ron Paul doesn't have a history of siding with anything other than the constitution, ever.

Re:None shall pass, except...

[t4eXanadu]

Ron Paul doesn't have a history of siding with anything other than the constitution, ever.

Do you know that as a fact? Do you know his entire voting history (it's quite extensive)? For example, what about HR 5851? He voted Nay on that. That sounds like siding with corporations to me, whether that was his intention or not.

Re:None shall pass, except...

[JDAustin]

It's never lost a dime and in facts runs a profit, although as they say in the industry: past performance is no guarantee of future results. But FWIW the ExIm bank has been running a surplus since 1934.

So what about the 3 Billion in long term losses it had to reveal back in '87? Additionally, per the CBO, the ExIm will cost taxpayers about 2 billion over the next decade.

The simple fact is the US taxpayer need to stop subsidizing big business. (ironically, this is something occupiers and tea partiers agree on).

Re:None shall pass, except...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea why he voted Nay on that, but if I had to guess it would be that U.S. Citizens are already protected under free speech rights, that it is up to your state of employment on your right to work, and that this bill does not actually go against the Constitution.

Ron Paul is for less government, he is a classic libertarian.

League of Legends???

[JDAustin]

So the dedicated traffic for LoL wont be allowed?

I guess West Coast players remain fucked.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegen...

Fairness vs. Corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine you have cell service where your access to the nearest tower is determined by how much you pay and you get dropped when higher priority customer wants access to a full cell.

Oh, it's the free market.... Tough Shit, right?

Nothing wrong with libs pulling the curtain back to reveal who on the votes on the opposite side of the moral spectrum. It's good showmanship. Don't worry the Bill will never see a vote.

Slim?

[Anonymous Coward]

s/slim/nil/g

Beware:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

Express Lane?

[bigwheel]

Our state allows wealthy drivers to pay extra for the convenience and speed of the Express Lane. How is paid prioritization of Internet bandwidth any different?

Re:Express Lane?

[Qzukk]

Our state allows wealthy drivers to pay extra for the convenience and speed of the Express Lane.

When your state installed this "Express Lane" did it actually add a new lane, or did they wall off existing lanes, forcing everyone who doesn't pay up into fewer lanes than they had before, making the traffic for everyone else worse?

Re:Express Lane?

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Also, there are arguments to be made that roads are a public good and should be paid for by the public as a whole, not as a premium good for the wealthy. I'm personally opposed to express lanes and toll roads in general; I can (to a limited extent) support tolls on bridges and tunnels that are unusually expensive to build and maintain, but otherwise roads should be funded by gas and car registration taxes and available to all on an equal opportunity basis, no special access for the wealthy.

Re:Express Lane?

[lgw]

Can you not see the difference between the ISP customer paying the ISP for more bandwidth, and the customer of some other ISP being extorted by your ISP to deliver content to you at the speed you paid for?

Forget these bills

[Etherwalk]

Not sure where you were going with that, but the bridge to nowhere was sponsored by Republicans.

In this case, it doesn't matter if they're Republicans or Democrats. AT&T is a major purchaser of votes in Congress. This has no chance of passing. The people sponsoring it know that and are still doing it so they can campaign on it.

In other words, it's a dog-and-pony show.

It is beneath the dignity of the slashdot front page.

No, really.

Re:Forget these bills

[Mr D from 63]

In this case, it doesn't matter if they're Republicans or Democrats.

Exactly. There is a reason the democrats did not push this forward when they had the Senate.

Re:Forget these bills

[CaptainDork]

No, not really.

We are the gatekeepers for our people and we need to be in the loop on all these things.

Re:Forget these bills

[fustakrakich]

You spelled out exactly how it works. And this is why the gullible people who believe there are differences between the two factions are a bunch of idiots. The 'parties' are a team. One plays offense, the other defense, and then they swap.

Re:Forget these bills

[Anonymous Coward]

After the last 15 years, you and Ralph Nader must be the only 2 people to still believe that nonsense.

Re:Forget these bills

[fustakrakich]

I've been watching this crap for over 50 years, it only becomes more obvious with each election. The last 15 have only been a steepening of the curve. But you go ahead, keep working against the truth of this business, it's your job.

Re:Forget these bills

[guises]

Exactly. There is a reason the democrats did not push this forward when they had the Senate.

Nonsense. They did try and have tried multiple times in the past.

Re:Forget these bills

[slashdotwannabe]

It is beneath the dignity of the slashdot front page.

You must be new here. Nothing is beneath the dignity of /.!

Re:Forget these bills

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem now is the teatards which refuse to play by the rules.

No, that's not what conservative means

[Saanvik]

No, conservatives don't believe in any specific political ideology. Conservatives believe in slow to no change, preferring to err on policies that return us to the way things used to work.

In truth, the GOP is composed of right wing politicians, many of them extreme right wing. While they claim to support free enterprise, in reality they push for less government, which, as a side-effect, means fewer regulations for business. Don't be fooled, though, it's only a side-effect.

No the bill be be poisoned

[Stan92057]

No the bill be be poisoned by some paid for congressman/women by adding some stupid addition that has nothing to do with the actual bill. THEN the finger pointing will begin. Its there fault, not its your fault. and so goes another few years of political bullshit.

The Republicans don't like this because ...

[CaptainDork]

... Democrats.

Re:The Republicans don't like this because ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama golfs with the CEO of Comcast. He's got to keep those donations flowing somehow...

Maybe people should try writing their congressman to convince them this is an important issue. One possibility that might gain support is that instead of regulating, the government subsidizes any ISP that functions as a common carrier, with no bandwidth limit for consumers, no traffic interference, or any of that stuff. Any ISP (or cable company that doesn't consider itself one) that doesn't follow these rules won't be eligible for a subsidy. The federal government does this all the time with grants or funding (don't follow the feds rules? then your state/college doesn't get federal funding).

It's a compromise...

Re:The Republicans don't like this because ...

[CaptainDork]

What does Obama playing golf have to do with anything?

It's CONGRESS in TFA.

Doesn't go far enough

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be a similar law covering the postal service. It isn't fair that some businesses can get their parcels delivered faster than others, just because they pay more.

Re:Doesn't go far enough

[Qzukk]

Nice try, but you're doing it wrong. I don't pay to send the internet.

Ending network neutrality would be more like you paying to ship me something overnight express, but unless I pay on top of what you already paid to send me the package, the package gets shipped media mail. No, you don't get your money back. Yes, you're paying for a service you have no hope of receiving.

Re:Doesn't go far enough

[diamondmagic]

If someone says they're going to deliver a package and they're not, that's fraud.

If you pay for a certain level of service and your ISP doesn't deliver, that's also fraud.

No public policy, no Net Neutrality necessary.

Re:Doesn't go far enough

[Qzukk]

So sorry, but you paid for "up to overnight express"

Cleaning thier skirts

[Curunir_wolf]

But the sponsors are all Democrats, and with Republicans now in charge of both house of Congress, the chances of it passing seem slim.

Which is why they're introducing it now instead of in any of the last 11 sessions when it might have actually passed. It's a way for them to appear like heroes to their constituents, without actually accomplishing anything (or pissing off their corporate donors).

because of Title II threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a feeling this may be getting some traction because the bought and paid for may now be receiving instructions to do what it takes to prevent Title II.

No evidence to support this hypothesis, but hey this is slashdot....

So you are saying its ok to do this because

[boligmic]

Boeing?

Nope, the ExIM bank should be dissolved. Most regulations should be ended. Government has no business supporting any private corporation..

Perhaps you should go back to school?

Cogent offered to pay capital costs

[tepples]

And when the "problem" can be described as "network provider asks a commercial data source to help pay for upgrading the network connection that the commercial data source is filling up at a profit for the commercial data source", it's not going to be considered a problem this law would help instead of hinder, by many people.

Cogent was willing to pay for the entire hardware cost to upgrade major last mile ISPs' connections to Cogent. The ISPs refused to take Cogent's money, instead demanding rents on top of that.

They don't eat pork and don't run the country

[tepples]

Funny. Their actions would suggest they believe in pork barrels.

Some conspiracy theorists claim that U.S. policy is controlled by Jewish bankers. Others say Muslims have too much influence over what they call "Dhimmicrats". Whenever I hear about pork barrel spending, it just reminds me of how wrong these conspiracy theorists are.

Re: They don't eat pork and don't run the country

[Anonymous Coward]

This is way more clever than it has any right to be. Mod parent up funny, please.

Moron.

[jebblue]

The occupy wall street hippies didn't have anything better to do during the day other than sober up from the previous night's pot smoking bashes and then stand in line to get free benefits courtesy the tax payers after sitting around "protesting".

Telephone service

[snsh]

And how would this affect landline telephone service offered by Time Warner and Comcast? Would the law force them to prioritize my Vonage traffic?

They walled off existing lanes

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't snark unless you already know the answer.

http://www.dot.gov/policy-initiatives/build-america/i-95-hovhot-lanes-northern-virginia

"The project will convert 20 miles of existing HOV lanes to HOT lanes"

Selling HOV lanes off to a private company that will resell access is pretty popular these days, even if the deals usually require the buyer to extend them for a few extra miles.

The dems don't want it passed either.

[Chas]

Basically this is just a way of flagellating their political opponents.

"Hey! Here's this bill we KNOW won't pass! Because the big telcom/cable providers have you all in their pockets! We know this because we're in the pocket with you!"

*Doesn't pass*

"The REPUBLICANS hate net neutrality! NYAHHHHHH!"

That's basically the long and short of it. Standard bullshit political brinksmanship.

Fuck them.

Fuck them all.

White Elephant "gift"

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the "problem" can be described as "network provider asks a commercial data source to help pay for upgrading the network connection that the commercial data source is filling up at a profit for the commercial data source", it's not going to be considered a problem this law would help instead of hinder, by many people.

Cogent was willing to pay for the entire hardware cost to upgrade major last mile ISPs' connections to Cogent. The ISPs refused to take Cogent's money, instead demanding rents on top of that.

The word you were searching for is "maintenance costs", not "rent".

Do you know the history of white elephant gifting? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant

Re:White Elephant "gift"

[tepples]

Please explain to me the marginal maintenance costs of an upgraded connection compared to the existing connection.

Be careful what you wish for.

[jcr]

Federal regulation of the internet? What could possibly go wrong?

The problem of the Comcasts and the TWCs of the world can be solved by abolishing government-granted cable monopolies. "Net neutrality" is a misguided attempt at trying to make a right out of two wrongs.

-jcr

Should have done this a While ago

[Wild_dog!]

Funny this comes up now when the dems don't have power.
Oh well... likely their sponsors don't really like net neutrality either, but they can toss a bone to the electorate who cares and say... see we did something.

Pipes will always slow with traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the only solution to traffic issues is bigger pipes. Not paid express lanes for certain content or streaming providers. The problem with the Netflix and other streaming services is that they are at the mercy of the ISP for service. Their only control to provide customers with better quality and reduced traffic degrading issues.
Is to do deals with the big providers. Somehow providing that express lane of bandwidth. I believe that nobody should provide any kind of speed control for a certain content provider. Because basically what happens is other traffic suffers. The real problem is that ISP's then become reluctant to increase speeds because they benefit from receiving this compesation from certain content providers. Rather then simply expanding bandwidth and speed. The other question is, weather this special treatment of a streamer like Netflix is even helped by this special treatment. Traffic issues can happen with the main backbone of the internet and not reside with a local ISP issue.

Re:US CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY & GLOBAL TERRORI

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the snake from "Don't tread on me?"

How do you think it acts toward other snakes?