Slashdot Mirror
As Big As Net Neutrality? FCC Kills State-Imposed Internet Monopolies
tedlistens writes: On Thursday, before it voted in favor of "net neutrality," the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to override state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that have barred local governments and public utilities from offering broadband outside the areas where they have traditionally sold electricity. Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance said the move was as important for internet competition as net neutrality: "Preventing big Internet Service Providers from unfairly discriminating against content online is a victory, but allowing communities to be the owners and stewards of their own broadband networks is a watershed moment that will serve as a check against the worst abuses of the cable monopoly for decades to come." The laws, like those in over a dozen other states, are often created under pressure from large private Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon, who consequently control monopolies or duopolies over high-speed internet in these places.
Good on you FCC!
Finally!
(actually, one word is impossible due to the lameness filter, and honestly some other words would be good, like: hahaha, die bastards die, suck it, etc. etc.)
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
when we all found out who was taking over the FCC, I was terrified. Former cable lobbyist, now in charge of the group intended to regulate the same people. But it really looks like wheeler may be the right man for the job
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Up with service! Down with monopolies! Up with net neutrality! Down with regulation! Up with Pluto! Down with Kim Dotcom!
Wait a minute - Today's stories leave me feeling edgy and confused.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm still dubious about the end effect of net neutrality regulations being passed (remember that none of us have seen the actual regulations to take effect, and none will until they are finalized).
That said, the real road to true Net Neutrality is and always will be in allowing real competition for your ISP provider, and that's the kind of thing that this allows for. If a community cannot be well served by a "real" networking company it makes no sense to block them from taking matters into their own hands.
So I applaud this action, I just wish they would be open in other regards rather than limiting.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
who the fuck cares?
As far as I know, Systemd has no capacity to think and therefore has no opinion on net neutrality.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Myth: Anyone gives a damn about factually dubious rants.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Why is the FCC suddenly being competent? Does anyone stand to gain from this financially? Is it about doing lots of happy things to the 'net to sway the public sufficiently in favour of regulation that it can then start doing things like making rules about, say... encryption keys?
Or is this one of those weird stopped-clock-right-twice-a-day things that'll be broken down when suddenly Verizon starts sponsoring all Republican candidates only at the next round of elections?
(Anyway, until FCC spends more resources dealing with equipment and people who piss on the ham radio spectrum, any respect I have for them will be limited.)
That is a good question. The last time the courts ruled on this, the ruling was that the FCC had ceded power and couldn't claim it back without the will of god. Or Congress, or something.
Personally, I'm all in favour of Thor turning up to the Supreme Court, but he probably wouldn't be allowed in on account of not having a visa.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Speaking of roads and public schools...
The biggest wastes of money when it comes to roads and public schools is the enrichment of private entities who have found a way to get themselves access to the public purse.
Same with the corrections industry.
I reason thus: The country is based on the premise that you have inalienable rights - to bear arms, marry who you want, say what you want, to privacy, to remain silent, to make a living, etc. Neither the Federal nor a State government can abrogate these rights, except to prevent physical harm to others. A government may enact regulations, which are defined in the classical, correct sense of managing potentially conflicting rights in such a way as to minimize conflict. So if your state infringes your right to marry/bear arms/start an ISP, then it is incumbent on everyone, including the federal government and the courts, to ensure your rights are protected.
So there is no problem with this, except if the community makes any rules that discriminates against other potential competitors, thus infringing their rights. This means that they should not regulate themselves.
Naturally, this philosophy is observed only when it suits the politicians, which results in the problems we observe.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
The net neutrality vote gets a lot more attention, but this is even more important IMHO. Net neutrality wouldn't even need to be enforced by the FCC if there were sufficient competiton.
Not really. I'm from a socialist country, and on of the key aspects to our prosperity and competitiveness is enabling private entities to get to compete for and win profitable infrastructure contracts.
This is because private contractors bring significant amount of expertise and capability that government would have to build from ground up without them, as well as force costs down through competition. Problems only arise when said private contractors become big and powerful enough to corrupt those making decisions behind these projects to favour them in various ways.
It's another one of those "capitalism works really well as long as it is properly managed and doesn't get big enough to corrupt powerful entities" moments.
They have these duopolies everywhere. They have it in New York city and Los Angeles and Miami and Seattle.
I'm reserving judgment until they break the monopolies that are CITY and county imposed as well. They're not any better.
A monopoly is a monopoly. I don't care who imposed it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Does the FCC even have the authority to do that? Under what legal theory does an unelected federal regulatory commission have the authority to overrule state government laws on matters of state government interest? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see such laws go, as they're a major competition inhibitor, but how does the FCC have any authority in this?
Congress has clear authority to regulate interstate commerce, under the Constitution. Unlike some other things Congress has tried to regulate, it is very clear that the Internet is interstate commerce.
Having said that, the question that remains is whether Congress can delegate their lawmaking authority to some government bureaucracy. The correct answer to that question is probably no. But I know there are many people who would argue that point.
The last time the courts ruled on this, the ruling was that the FCC had ceded power and couldn't claim it back without the will of god. Or Congress, or something.
Not even close. The Supreme Court ruled that the FCC could not impose the rules it had tried to impose, BECAUSE it had not classified internet companies as Title II common carrier communications companies. So what the FCC did here, quite properly (if you accept that they have any authority to do it at all), was to re-classify internet providers as Title II common carriers.
There are many implications to this that people haven't been discussing much. It depends on the exact language of the rules when they go into effect. But the OLD rules for Title II common carriers stipulated that your communications can't be legally "intercepted" without a warrant. So deep packet inspection by ISPs is probably out the window.
The government is acting with sense and doing so in a honest way that fair to citizens.
This is not right, so I firmly believe that the world is coming to an end.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Personally, I'm all in favour of Thor turning up to the Supreme Court, but he probably wouldn't be allowed in on account of not having a visa.
You, sir, win the internet today.
Here's Karl Denninger's take on this. I don't agree or disagree. I just want to see what the reaction is: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-...
Personally, I'm all in favour of Thor turning up to the Supreme Court, but he probably wouldn't be allowed in on account of not having a visa.
Citizens of the Nordic countries don't need visas to visit the US. So bring him on.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And I speak as a Republican. Unless there's some outrageous hidden agenda yet to emerge, net neutrality just means that Internet service over cable, because it is in many places a natural monopoly, is henceforth to be treated as a utility, like your electrical service. How you use the watt-hours you buy for your home is your own business, and we are all more free if the same applies to your Internet feed. Regulation of business is something we by instinct would rather not have, but if you live in an area where Comcast is the only game in town, treating it as a utility is more palatable than giving a single company full control of your access to the Internet.
Whether to build municipal broadband is a decision that any locality should be allowed to make for itself. Because wired Internet service so often is a natural monopoly, there are all kinds of situations in which towns or villages or even small neighborhoods find themselves cut off from any service by a company that simply does not feel it worthwhile to extend service to that market. Value decisions like this should be the company's right, but has no business standing in the way of any group of users who wish to band together to organize service of their own.
Disbarring the government from offering Internet service is not a state imposed monopoly. They are onyl baring one single entity from becoming an ISP.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
While it would be great if the government offered Internet and gave many an option other than Comcast, I could see it going pretty Orwellian pretty quickly. The government offering its own service pretty much guarantees that they will subsidize the service more than they already subsidize ISPs. Making it impossible to compete. And the government would not have to pass any data retention laws if they already handled everyone's internet data. There is a point to not allowing the government to compete with businesses, and there are benefits to keeping the lawmakers and enforcers one degree of separation away from citizens.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
But the OLD rules for Title II common carriers stipulated that your communications can't be legally "intercepted" without a warrant. So deep packet inspection by ISPs is probably out the window.
I assume the government has already served any ISP worth mentioning with a secret FISA warrant that says "give us everything."
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
As far as I know, Systemd has no capacity to think and therefore has no opinion on net neutrality.
Three days ago the Systemd-UpdateAgainstYourWillD automatically installed SystemD-AiD, which is a requirement to even boot the kernel because it was deemed no human being ever has or ever could be capable of the overwhelming task of "run some programs", which of course includes programs written by humans.
Two days ago there were promises SystemD-AiD would also gain enough intelligence to read corrupted syslogs, while insulting your petty human intelligence via way of SystemD-FortuneD, and injecting them into all outbound emails sent from your username via SystemD-SpammerD.
It was also rumored to soon be capable of washing your dishes, since no init system wants to start dirty programs or use plastic fork()'s.
Yesterday they canceled the dish washing patch based mainly on a usenet poll where "fuck systemd!!!" was interpreted by a similar AI as voting against the feature, thus canceling the patch due to overwhelming demand.
Well according to the show The Almighty Johnsons (a really good comedy) Thor is living in New Zealand so he might need a visa after all. (Don't know if Kiwis need one or not.)
I can't wait to be able to get an @bigbrother email address.
What's holding you back? GMail stopped requiring an invite years ago!
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
The legal theory is the delegation of powers. Congress delegated the power to write legislation within a certain scope, breadth, and depth, to the executive branch of government, authorizing it to set up an agency to manage same.
Congress has the right to delegate its power to legislate to other branches of government. It is unfortunate, but we are learning now that it has delegated pretty much all of its power.
Do you know why private companies seem to always do things right from an economic sense? because those that don't do things right die off. Government can just do things wrong for a lot longer....that does not mean government WILL or does anything wrong and it certainly does not mean private industry does anything correctly.
The federal government has the authority to regulate interstate commerce, which includes telecommunications. The FCC charter tells it to use that power for the public interest.
As a constitutional matter, municipalities do not have any independent existence; they are organs of the state governments. Municipal governments only have whatever powers states choose to give them, and the federal government may not commandeer a state government. So if a state chooses to deny its municipalities the authority to sell Internet access (or sell it below a certain price), then no declaration from the FCC can give the municipality that power, nor require the state to give a municipality that power.
So, all this vote means is the FCC majority has decided to waste a bunch of taxpayer dollars losing a lawsuit.
The FCC is not making laws. It is authorized (by laws passed by Congress) to make and revise regulations. The nature and extent of the regulations the FCC can make is described in the enabling law that established the FCC. There are a good many agencies that operate the same way, such as the FAA. It would be impractical for Congress to operate at the level of detail overseen by the various commissions and authorities. Moreover, the process of making and revising regulations allows a good deal of input from interested parties. Since the commissioners aren't elected, they may be a little less influenced by money than Congress critters, and they're more likely to go to jail if financial interest can be proved. It certainly isn't perfect, and it doesn't take much cynicism to claim that it's all corrupt. It's also possible to claim that it's a reasonable attempt to bring the implementation of the enabling laws under the control, or at least the influence of we the people.
So ... get the message?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Yeah, he'd be a Thor loser.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Got a reference to that statement anywhere? I haven't seen one.
The question, though, is does that delegation extend beyond the term of the current congress?
It seems it would be unconstitutional to legislate away the law making power of future congresses.
I can't quite reconcile this:
With this:
How does allowing the neighboring municipality or neighboring utility somehow allow "communities to be the owners and stewards of their own broadband networks"?
Think about it, don't react emotionally.
If I live in a community that is served electricity by power company A, and power company B in the neighboring community offers internet access that I want, allowing power company B to sell Internet access in the territory served by Power company A isn't 'self-ownership'... If the county next to me offers Internet access and now they can offer Internet service in my county, does my county now control the Internet backbone in our county or does the neighboring community?
Communities and public utilities can already offer service in thief own areas, this change would allow them to offer service in other communities, exchanging their old provider for another, neither owned or controlled by them.
I guess you have to believe that it will be better when the big power utility companies displace the big cable companies...
Ken
US citizens can get a visa online to visit AUS or NZ, and IIRC that's also true going the other way.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
3. Myth: systemd's fast boot-up is irrelevant for servers.That is just completely not true. Many administrators actually are keen on reduced downtimes during maintenance windows. In High Availability setups it's kinda nice if the failed machine comes back up really fast.
Does systemd speed up BIOS POST? Does systemd speed up RAID array startup? Does systemd speed up IPMI startups? Does systemd speed up filesystem checks on boot? OS boot time for a RAID10 or RAID5/6 server is very low compared to a desktop with one drive. But OS boot time is a minor fraction of the time of a machine's reboot process.
Because Democrats really, really want it (whatever it is - have yet to actually know what's in the 300+pages), no laws can stand in their way.
Obamacare was so good, they had to pass it in the dead of night in a rushed manner because Republicans had a chance to stop it.
The Loans to Solyndra were so important that they ignored repeated warning of the company's flawed business model and right before it finally imploded (exactly when it was predicted to, BTW), the administration had to put private investors ahead of the American taxpayers for recovery after bankruptcy, violating federal law - but they really, really wanted solar panels made in a half-billion dollar factory in Silicon Valkey to succed!
They were so sure that straw gun sales were happening along the southern border that they had to force gun shops to make the sales, so they could record them on video tape and then, inspector Clousseu-like, sit by and watch the guns slip across the border I to Mexico, with no one on the other side of the border knowing what was going on - they just really, really wanted to stop the gun sales!
The President really, really wanted to fill some vacancies I the NLRB with friends of big labor, but darn it, the Congress wouldn't go on recess - so he just decided they were in recess and made his appointments. Then the Supreme Court told him he couldn't do that, but it was too late.
See, a deeply-rooted belief that something is needed trumps all laws.
Ken
How so, deductions are a part of the tax code, put there for a reason. It is the government saying you owe us X% of your income above a certain amount, but if you have a mortgage you don't owe taxes on the money you spent on interest, if you have children we know they can be very expensive, so keep some of that money you were going to pay in taxes to cover the expense of your children, etc.
Deductions is the government telling you what money it is not entitled to, not 'taking money from the government'...
Ken
the question that remains is whether Congress can delegate their lawmaking authority to some government bureaucracy. The correct answer to that question is probably no.
If that were true the Treasury (part of the Executive branch) wouldn't be able to issue debt. Up until WWI Congress decided how much debt to issue. During WWI a lot of expenses started adding up (tanks, planes, etc) and Congress found debating how sell bonds to be boring. So they gave that responsibility over to the Treasury and said "If we've made it part of a law and it requires money, issue as much debt as needed to pay for it". Later, they imposed a "debt limit", but it's odd to impose the debt limit on the Treasury given the fact that the Treasury is only finding ways to fill in the funding gaps laid out by Congresses budget.
Really, because the "company simply does not feel it worthwhile to extend service to that market"?
They decline to extend services to areas that they don't think will be profitable, see they are a profit-driven enterprise in most cases.
Now, what we'll see is taxpayers absorb the losses extending services to areas that were otherwise unprofitable to service - that's a great step forward, I can just see your local taxpayer having no problem running fiber cable for miles down a rural road to offer high-speed internet service to the seven farms over 20 miles of county road...
Ken
A municipal Internet service, funded with tax-payer dollars, what could go wrong?
Gee, there isn't any chance some activist groups would file suits forcing the government to filter out hate speech, pornography, extreme violence, gun sales, etc on their "tax-payer-funded Internet"? No, that would never happen...
Oh wait, we already do that on taxpayer-funded Internet in our schools and libraries!
Ken
Probably the most intelligent, logical, and well-reasoned argument I've seen on Slashdot in years!
Ken
They do, if they want to come work.
once again: you are wrong about independent agencies.
we've been through this at least a dozen times.
Congress absolutely has the power the to delegate, the same as the President does.
Just as no one could ever reasonably the President to personally oversee the enforcement of the entire body of law without delegation, no one could ever expect the Congress, 535 people, to personally be experts at every single topic and perform all necessary oversight. It take an entire agency to keep an eye on Wall Street, the SEC. It takes an entire agency to study the environment we live in and forge compromises between the needs of the public and the needs of industry, the EPA. I could run through the entire list, but there should be no need.
The only people who argue the point are unreasonable people who think a return to the agrarian society run by educated scholarly farmers envisioned by Jefferson is still a real possibility, ignoring all else that has happened in the past 200 years. The Constitution doesn't explicitly state that Congress can delegate, but it doesnt explicitily state a lot of things that we take for granted. The Founders were a lot of things, and varied a lot in ideology and opinion on strong or weak the government should be. But one thing they were not was stupid. And the idea that they expected us to adhere to the document like a holy writ verbatim for eternity was not part of the plan, as evidenced by the many clauses and phrases that are vague generalities and obviously exist solely for the purpose of expanding on the parts that are spelled out.
Parts like (and this is not an exhaustive list) the 9th Amendment, the process for amending the document, and most relevant to this topic, the Necessary and Proper Clause, also known as the "basket clause". Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18:
p>The Congress shall have Power ... To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
IE, whatever it takes to run the country and enact the peoples will, they can do. Case closed.
And there was a case, and it wasn't recent. McCulloch v Maryland, in 1819, a time when many of the Founders were themselves still alive, if not for much longer. And in that case the Courts established quite clearly that:
"First, the Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution's express powers, in order to create a functional national government. Second, state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government."
as indeed it must. Explicit powers are no good if they cannot be implemented due to the technicality that the prerequisites were not also explicitly stated. Again: the Founders were not stupid, but to take the opposite interpretation, an interpretation you seem to believe, is to imply that the Founders were in fact stupid.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Achieving socialism by the capitalist road never works, friend. Give it up, it will just come back ten times worse.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The question, though, is does that delegation extend beyond the term of the current congress?
Yes, unless there's a clause specifically setting a point in time that the delegation of power ends or needs to be renewed.
It seems it would be unconstitutional to legislate away the law making power of future congresses.
No, because they haven't legislated away any power. If an act of Congress grants or delegates a power, then another act of Congress can reverse that - if they really wanted to, Congress could pass new legislation revoking or amending the previous legislation. The only way they could permanently legislate power away is via Constitutional amendment - which, by definition, cannot by unconstitutional.
Ah yes, the old "europe doesn't exist" argument.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What I learned from school was the that capitalism was where you have several bakers in a city and if one has either better bread or better prices that one will flourish and the other one will have to either increase quality or price.
I am not even going on to what would happen if there is only one bakery, because that is obvious.
In school I also sold cigarettes. I was able to buy them cheaper, because I lived in a different country then from where I went to school. (One hour travel, so no worries). This is the basis we learn works.
I had a cheaper product, so I was able to sell and make a profit.
Asume a normal package would cost 5 in the country of my school, I bought for 4 and sold for 4,50. Thus making a profit of 0.50. All great till there (leaving out the part I was smuggling)
There were some brands that were not available in the school country, but were in the home country. I still bought them for 4, but sold them for 5, as that was the 'normal' price. This because I had found a niche market. I jacked up the price to 6.
Now people are paying MORE than standard and I made 2.00 insead of 0.50 for the same investment. Still nothing special, but that amount of profit will atract others. A friend of mine (we rode the train each day to and from country A to country B) started buying the 'high brand' cigarettes and seling them for 5.50 instead of my 6.00.
I could have easily gone into a bidding war for the customer and going as low as 4.01 and still make a pofit, but what I did was something else.
I went to those people buying from him and told them :"You want to smoke brand X, BEACAUSE they are special and everybody knows you pay extra. You smoke them to stand out and show you are willing to pay more. So paying less would counter that image. So if you want to keep your image of somebody who ays 6 for the cigarates, you can't buy them at 5.50. I am willing to sell them at 6 to you.
Long story short, I bough over his cigarets (at 4, he was still my friend)
and kept selling at 6.
That moment I learned the power of marketing. And sure, you would not have bought them. The majority of people did not buy them. They bought the ones for 4.50.
Capitalism works if people were smart. Persons are smart, people are stupid and that is why it doesn't work, unless you put a LOT of efford in it. With teh cigarettes, I was not legally allowed to sell them at those prices (or at all).
However what you need to keep all this in check is an overseeer who has the interest of the public in mind and that of the public as aa whole, not just those who voted for them (or who gave them money)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Having said that, the question that remains is whether Congress can delegate their lawmaking authority to some government bureaucracy.
More importantly, has Congress delegated their authority over this specific issue to the FCC? Of course, as has been demonstrated on the issue of illegal immigration (and several other issues as well), we no longer have a government of laws. The law is now whatever the President (and, in more and more cases, the bureaucrats who theoretically answer to him) says it is. Which means that it can change from day to day and person to person.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
It would be impractical for Congress to operate at the level of detail overseen by the various commissions and authorities.
Which indicates that it was the intention of those who wrote the Constitution that the Federal government not attempt to do so. If you read the various writings of those people you will discover that they thought the federal government should not get into such detail. If anything required close detail, those who wrote the Constitution thought that the laws regulating it should be written by those close to that actual detail.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I am not sure I agree with that legal theory, although it is one that has been accepted by the courts. However, that just brings us to the next question. What law did Congress pass which gives this authority to the FCC?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
So long as localities get to vote on this sort of situation, I see a much smaller problem than if the cable companies are able to lobby a state legislature into getting government to give them a lock on the entire state. That is the situation the FCC just ruled against.
8 != 300, but you already know that.
8 pages of rules, 290+ pages of precedent, forbearance, and other non rules. You can see what the rules are on their website, if you actually cared, and did not just want to attack them...
Obama care was also not rushed. If you think the Republicans did not read it you are dead wrong. The we have to pass it to see whats in it comment was talking about the populace, not congress, but again I am sure you dont care about these facts.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Wilson made a profit last year....
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I live in TN. And our internet sucks in counties that don't provide government sponsored (via community owned utility company that must pay its own way) internet services.
Clarksville, where I know people, has great bandwidth and reliability from the electric utility run ISP. Comcast and AT&T do well in that market, just not well enough to drive out the utility ISP. It has kept prices down too. Chattanooga TN had the nations first Gig to the home ISP service available to all. While AT&T & Comcast (and others) COULD have done it, they are more interested in keeping profits up than serving customers. Not it seems that all ISPs in the area seem to come up to the level of the local utility company. ... In Clarksville the utility ISP does provide phone and TV service if desired, but that is where the others shine (better contracts with content providers). For basic ISP even at high rates, local utilities CAN be a great alternative.
In my county, AT&T and the cable companies don't serve the entire county, but they have ensured (using appropriate gratuities to local officials I am sure, just no hard evidence), that the local utility that wanted to install an ISP was not allowed to do so.
I cannot get any landline or wireless 'broadband service'. AT&T and Comcast and Charter all provide it within 3 miles. Charter wants $14,000 at one time, $24,000 at another just to install the cable service. Even when we had land lines, nice Currier 56K modems could not contact anyone anywhere at more than 20kbit rates due to had copper that AT&T installed but would not maintain. So we use cell phone now. But I do get commercial electricity here, and they read the meters via data over the power lines remotely (once a minute).
It is just politics keeping me from having proper ISP service, and I am not the only one by any means.
I, for one, am concerned over the constant use of the words "legal content"
Exactly, none of us are going to be happy when we find out what that means - because it implies a whole set of other actions for anything deemed "illegal content".
Well except for me; I plan to laugh and laugh when the other thousand shoes drop and the internet lets forth a vast and pitiful wailing. So that will offset the sadness substantially. If I can't be free at least I can be proven right.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With the same authority that they can tell states how to use air waves.
Actually, the FCC's action will have exactly the opposite effect. I own and operate a small, competitive ISP, and am quite willing to (and capable of) going up against any competitor on a level playing field. But I simply wouldn't enter any market where the city was providing service. Why? Because the city would engage in all of the following anticompetitive and predatory practices:
* The city would completely control my access to rights of way and pole attachments, and would be motivated to keep me from getting that access or make it expensive;
* I would be taxed and the taxes would be used to subsidize my competitor;
* The city would engage in horizontal monopoly leverage from its other monopoly businesses (trash, water, sewer, and in many places energy) and would enjoy cross-subsidies from them; for example, it wouldn't have to build a new billing system but could use its existing one;
* The city could also use its ability to tax, and bonding authority, to obtain capital for the buildout at bargain rates;
* The city, with its deep pockets and by expending some of that capital, could engage in predatory pricing, offering its service below cost due to taxpayer subsidies. It could do this at the outset, to take customers away, or possibly permanently;
* The city, because it provided those other services, would GET PAID more easily than I would because users wouldn't want their water, etc. cut off if they didn't pay the bill;
* The city would know when both owner-occupied and rental real estate was turning over (because of changes in the party being billed) and so could always sell to people as they moved into a new home before they would have a chance to consider my service;
* The city ISP would get the lucrative business of the city itself (eliminating one of the largest potential customers), as well as that of other government entities such as the county government and state government offices; and
* The city, under the FCC's new Title II regime, could demand franchise fees from me that it would not have to pay itself.
So, if you put yourself in the shoes of a hard working local ISP (which I am), or of a customer who wants choice, this no longer seems like such a good idea. Any ISP entering the market would have to fight an uphill battle against City Hall. So, new ISPs will not enter the market and existing broadband providers will have a strong incentive to pull out, leaving a monopoly. What is needed is FAIR, PRIVATE competition, not the unfair competition that turning unaccountable city bureaucrats loose would bring.
Like many things, the theory is great, but the execution isn't necessarily so. I agree that the "needs to not be big enough to corrupt the entities that should be overseeing/counterbalancing" part, and would add that it also works best in areas where other competition exists. For instance, the government (or some level thereof) is the only "consumer" for private prison services. There's no outside expertise specific to this area, save to the extent that we create it by privatizing an inherently governmental function. On the other hand, things like construction are commonplace, because everyone uses it, and it makes no sense for the government not to rely on the same private companies that everyone else does when they want to put up a new building.
...working for the government. It basically amounts to creating increased competition for the same pool of workers, causing the cost for those workers to rise, which winds up costing the government far more. To some degree it's good for the workers, since they have more options for more money, but most of the extra money isn't going to them - it's going to the companies, some as wasted duplicative overhead, but mostly as profit.
To toss in a pair of anecdotes from my personal experience:
When I was in the military, I saw what I'd consider a "good" example. Instead of having soldiers run the dining halls during basic training, rotating in a new group of wholly untrained people every 1-2 weeks, and taking that time away from training (at severe cost to the government, who was paying not only salary but food/housing/etc), they contracted it out to a food service company, that brought in regular workers at prevailing wages. This not only cost less than using trainees, but provided a lot more consistency in terms of service (which can be very important in terms of proper food handling).
On the other hand, I later got to see what happened with contracting in the Intelligence community. Now, this was a while ago, but the situation still hasn't changed at all. Essentially, the government was/is paying more to bring in contract workers. The supposed advantage was that they were easier to hire/fire, but in practice this rarely seemed to come into play. What was worse was that the vast majority of these people were former government/military personnel, because pretty much the only place to get training/experience in that field is...
I would just like to add that Chris Mitchell who is quoted in this story has been working to protect local internet access and community ownership for many many years and a hat tip to him!
--hongpong.com
How in the world do you manage to make the jump from: "The Congress shall have Power ... To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers" (emphasis mine) to "whatever it takes to run the country and enact the peoples will, they can do."
The "To establish post offices and post roads" clause lets the Federal government create a post office.
The Necessary and Proper clause let's them purchase the raw materials, land, and labor to actually construct it.
In other words, the Necessary and Proper clause gives the federal government a narrow and limited set of powers to do things in direct connection to one of the previous mentioned powers, if those things would be necessary (can't build a post office without materials) and proper (say, merely renting a post office location might be inferior).
You know why I know this? The Framers themselves said your interpretation was wrong, in response to people worried that it would grant the US government too much power (as if that was a bad thing! And indeed it is!), in Federalist 44.
Let's review: The necessary and proper clause grants Congress the powers to that which matches ALL of the following:
That seems like a far cry from "do whatever the people want"!
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Congress cannot lawfully (constitutionally) delegate their authority to another branch of the government, certainly not for any longer than their two-year term, when a new Congress comes into session.
Congress' own operating rules (on themselves) have to be re-approved every term, but a Congress from a century ago can give the President war-declaring powers today, or the power to censor broadcast (and now private) media, information, and telecommunications? Do I understand this logic right?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
The Federal government has the authority to regulate Interstate commerce: This is the opposite of stopping it or preventing it.
And the Federal government has no power to intervene in the affairs of local, intrastate transactions, even if that would later result in packets being moved across state lines. This case of packets going across state lines would instead fall under interstate peering agreements, that is Federal jurisdiction. But that has nothing to do with local governments setting up taxpayer-funded Internet, and the legality thereof.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Not so. The laws of economics are laws that govern any exchange, usually economists use it for transactions involving money, but they apply just as well to trade-offs that we make every day, "Should I go to the grocery store today or tomorrow?" And so on.
The laws of supply and demand do not change regardless of how many people are in the market, if it's just yourself, if it's a huge monopoly, or if it's a perfect competition with a vary large number of nearly identical sellers; if we have perfect information or if everyone is as dumb as bricks.
The outcomes in each condition will be different, to be sure (very different and sometimes outright bizarre, in the case of perfect information); but there is no statute that can improve on the basic laws of economics, any more than they could pass a law making a round earth flat.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
The Internet is actually becoming less monopolistic. Decades ago, there was usually only one provider you could go to. Today, the majority of households in the US have a selection of two or more Internet providers.
Furthermore, this ruling wasn't about government-granted monopoly (which is wrong, and presumably still legal), this is about government-run Internet, which frequently turns into a monopoly as a municipality has the advantage of "free" taxpayer money.
Who is standing in the way? Link? If you want to do this, well... go do it. Form an LLC, seek investment for shares of ownership, buy capital, sell Internet. Done.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Who's standing in the way? The issue is that in several states, cable companies, after invited state legislatures out for squab and cigars, have had laws passed with expressly forbid exactly the kind of competition you cite. They love being the only game in town.
I have not studied this closely, but I believe that Congress could pass a law, signed by the President, defining certain aspects of their rules which would last until a future Congress passed a law overturning that law. The same is true of the laws delegating their authority.
That, at least is how I understand the legal theory. I do not think the Framers of the Constitution would agree. I am certain they would not approve of Congress delegating so much of their authority.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
We don't know what's buried in their 300+ pages of rules, but have you read Title II? It gives the FCC an enormous amount of power, if the Internet falls under it (it doesn't).
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Yes, and...?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I will never use a competitor to the Post Office unless I have to. They are BY FAR the cheaper (better) alternative to shipping
Exactly. Thank you for making this point. It is what I hinted at above, but I didn't want to get into it at the time.
If that were true the Treasury (part of the Executive branch) wouldn't be able to issue debt. Up until WWI Congress decided how much debt to issue.
You're making my point for me.
Please show where in the Constitution it says that Congress can delegate ANY of its authority to the Executive branch.
The fact that they may have tried to do so has no bearing on whether they are Constitutionally allowed to do so. In fact Libertarians have been pushing that very point for a number of years now, and it is now being pushed by members of the current Congress.
Also -- to forestall a possible argument that hasn't been made yet -- U.S. Supreme Court has ruled very clearly that the duration of a wrong has no affect on whether it is right or wrong. So the fact that they may have been doing it for 90 years has no bearing on whether it is right or proper.
How in the world do you manage to make the jump from: "The Congress shall have Power ... To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers" (emphasis mine) to "whatever it takes to run the country and enact the peoples will, they can do."
As GP said, we've been through this a dozen times. And each of those times, he has made the same flat claims with no supporting evidence.
He doesn't know the history or meaning of the necessary and proper clause, and he thinks the general welfare clause was a permissive one, despite the overwhelming historical proof otherwise. Not to mention the interstate commerce clause. I don't even bother to argue with him about it anymore. It's a waste of time, except when it might be valuable for others to read.
More importantly, has Congress delegated their authority over this specific issue to the FCC?
I'm not sure it's more important. As I mentioned elsewhere, SCOTUS has established clear precedent that the duration of a wrong act does not in turn make it legitimate. So it could be that way for 100 years, and still wrong, and able to be overturned.
By taking this action, the FCC is preventing the state governments from restricting my ability to communicate with the world. That restriction is in the form of picking a winner in the market and so making internet service more expensive and/or preventing me from joining with other local people to build out a network and connect it across the state line.
The FCC is in no way stopping or preventing me from interstate commerce through this intervention.
Except that is an idealistic definition and also coming from real world examples also wrong. If that was the definition was what was used most people would not have a problem.
The problem with net neutraility as it comes from the FCC is that it could possibly outlaw the following items:
My ISP setting up mail filters for SPAM. Most of the SPAM I currently get blocked would on the look of it be legal, using the definition of net neutrality most people are using the methods to determine it is trash would not be allowed.
Can schools and businesses still block various web sites; since based on definition they are ISPs? From what is known from the FCC ruling that could be a problem unless the site is dealing with illegal operations.
Or how about something like ISPs blocking common ports used for various attacks but not for other types of traffic? The ports are most likely legal ports and the traffic is probably legal, I presume ICMP is still legal, even if is not something someone should be doing out side of their own network?
The "Necessary and Proper" doesn't mean Congress can do anything. It means Congress can legally pass laws that support its duties. For example, since interstate commerce is a Congressional responsibility, it can pass laws on interstate commerce, and laws that enable agencies to carry out those laws.
The Federalist Papers were propaganda written by three people on their own initiative. They have no legal standing, and they do not represent any opinions other than the three people behind Publius. The Framers were not a hive mind, but rather a group of rather intelligent and opinionated men.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
When was this time of one provider? Decades ago, and by that I mean 1995 at the very latest, most people were on dial-up. We didn't get off it until later, and we're a technophile family. Dial-up had the advantage of hooking up to any provider, and back then a 56K modem was good enough for most purposes.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Around here, librarians have complained about the porn on the library computers, and have been told they can't legally do anything about it. School internet is different.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Congress doesn't have power over "interstate commerce", they have the power to regulate it, i.e. the opposite of stopping it. It's a fine but important distinction.
And so it follows if Congress can't lawfully legislate an ISP, neither can the FCC.
Even if Congress could, it's doubtful the FCC is the proper way to do it.
And are you trying to tell me the very people who *wrote* the Constitution aren't allowed to explain what it meant? Good grief. Fwiw, the Anti-federalists were ALSO worried about expansion of powers as is being described.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I am saying that the Federalist papers have no official standing, were written by three people out of those working on the Constitution, and were written specifically to get people to want to adopt the Constitution.
Also, what do you mean by "regulate"? And why wouldn't the FCC be the right way of regulating the internet? There's mention, IIRC, of departments in the Federal government, indicating that the executive branch can have subordinate entities dedicated to enforcing the law. The FCC has no power not given to it by Congress, but they have a good deal of leeway in executing their commission.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes