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Republicans Introduce a Bill To Overturn Net Neutrality
New submitter grimmjeeper writes: IDG News reports, "A group of Republican lawmakers has introduced a bill that would invalidate the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's recently passed net neutrality rules. The legislation (PDF), introduced by Representative Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican, is called a resolution of disapproval, a move that allows Congress to review new federal regulations from government agencies, using an expedited legislative process."
This move should come as little surprise to anyone. While the main battle in getting net neutrality has been won, the war is far from over. The legislation was only proposed now because the FCC's net neutrality rules were just published in the Federal Register today. In addition to the legislation, a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by USTelecom, a trade group representing ISPs.
This move should come as little surprise to anyone. While the main battle in getting net neutrality has been won, the war is far from over. The legislation was only proposed now because the FCC's net neutrality rules were just published in the Federal Register today. In addition to the legislation, a new lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by USTelecom, a trade group representing ISPs.
Here is some basic information about the legalized purchase of the relevant legislation:
Lobbying:
https://www.opensecrets.org/in...
Contributions:
https://www.opensecrets.org/in...
If you care to read the actual ruling, you'll see that it is all about routing packets. The rules say, in short, that all traffic is to be routed equally without regard to source, destination, or content. It prevents Comcast, who effectively has monopoly power in most of the markets it serves, from charging Netflix extra simply to route packets from their servers to their subscribers. The ruling also prevents service providers from rerouting web requests to competitors' servers. It also prevents outright denying access to competitors. In fact, the ruling states quite clearly that ISPs are to act as common carriers and no censorship of content is to take place at all. You would know this if you actually read the ruling and stopped reading propaganda coming from right wing "news" sources.
Actually AT&T did apply results from the labs to the phone system. (They would have been stupid not to, they did way to maximize profit, after all.) In particular, they made huge advances in switching technologies. And how do you know they wouldn't have come out with cell phones?
I am not arguing that deregulation was bad. I just don't agree with your facts.
Further, you are being specious. The net neutrality regulations will prevent ISPs from discriminating traffic. Pricing will not be regulated, so innovation will not be depressed.
That's actually not true. There were three significant decisions in the same week, only one of them was about Title II (aka "Net Neutrality"). Another had to do with pre-empting state laws forbidding local communities from setting up their services...laws that were passed on behalf of telecomm lobbyists. I can cite from recent observation that a local Wireless ISP is, in fact, using two 1GB/s Comcast backhauls for servicing all their customers (in rural Northern California, where Comcast and AT&T have only spotty service). The third issue that week was they raised the definition of Broadband to be at least 25 Mb/s; below that is no longer considered "broadband" Internet access. Good decisions all, I assert.
Yes, its called graft or bribery and is illegal in most other developed countries.
It's a private network. The owners don't like to be told how to run their private businesses. Surprise! Imagine that.
You probably have one ISP to choose from. What if they dislike Slashdot and charged you extra for visiting Slashdot?
Comcast is doing that right now to Netflix. You the customer who pays an ISP has to pay three times for the same bandwidth because your ISP doesn't like the content of what you are viewing. That is the only reason.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Netflix. Comcast. Double-charging. That happened.
Randians, like all religious fanatics, just ignore facts that interfere with their storyline....or the entire 19th Century.
Two more words: batshit irrelevant.
The internet is not a broadcast medium. If you had examples of the FCC trying to censor boob shots online, you'd post them. If you had something more than concern trolling and FUD.
You wont because you can't.
> or shut down sex services like they did with phones using Title II
The government has never censored sex related business on phones. You can still call sex chat lines today, although there are not many of them. In fact, there are cases where the phone companies wanted to deny service to DRUG dealers but the government said they had to treat everyone equal, even people committing crimes.
What is with you Republicans that telling the truth or not lying is just impossible?
Linux O Muerte!
In my state Republicans are:
-against net neutrality
-forbids Tesla dealerships
-want to rescind even partial deregulation in the electric and gas industries
http://michiganradio.org/post/...
It's sickening.
Get up!
That's not really what happened here though. Congress long ago gave the FCC the authority to classify communications, establish rules for them, and enforce those rules...which is exactly what the FCC has been doing all along.
Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to (re-)classify cable, DSL, and wireless broadband in 2002, 2005, and 2007, respectively, under Title I of the Telecommunications Act, even though Title II had applied to some of those previously. After all, it was a burgeoning industry, so the lighter touch afforded by Title I made more sense, and there were other laws on the books to prevent the worst of the nasty things those companies might do.
Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to establish policy regarding net neutrality in 2005, establish ancillary regulations piecemeal over the years, or establish stronger protections for net neutrality in 2010. After all, as these companies were getting bigger, it was becoming more and more important to ensure that they acted in ways that were fair, and with the previous rules protecting against nasty things expiring, it was time to establish new ones.
Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to enforce fines against ISPs in response to nasty things they were doing. After all, them's the rules.
But then the Supreme Court slapped down one of the rules over a procedural issue, saying that if the FCC wanted to enforce that rule, they'd first need to reclassify those communications under Title II. The FCC attempted to work with the ISPs to come up with a middle-ground, but the ISPs refused to budge, so the FCC finally went and did exactly what the Supreme Court had suggested: they used their Congressionally-granted authority to reclassify those communications under Title II.
And now, suddenly, Congress is throwing a hissy fit. Why? Because, as it turns out, it isn't a burgeoning industry made up of companies like Prodigy and CompuServe still. Instead, it's made up of massive media and telecommunications conglomerates like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon with hundreds of billions of dollars on the line, and they are not happy with having an appropriate classification applied to them, given that it's a lot more fun to be a misbehaving behemoth.
The text of the rules has been public for months, even though it hadn't been added to the Federal Register yet. This isn't a "we have to pass it to see it" situation at all. And Congress has no good reason for sticking their noses into this situation, unless you consider the millions and millions of dollars they're receiving to be a good reason.
Do you just not understand how history works?
Before regulations you had to RENT your phone. You were only allowed 1 provider for your local phone and could pick a long distance carrier.
Insert Title 2, phone lines became dumb pipes, then all the cool stuff you posted about like internet, answering machines, caller id, modems, DSL etc came in to being. Regulations and breaking up AT&T so there was competition is what got everything going.
I say bring back the government that had a backbone and a set of balls. Break up some of these banks! Break up the cable companies! Fuck em. You will hear all the people scream about how the government shouldn't meddle in private business, but its the only thing they listen to. Start breaking them up and see how all of a sudden they start to play nice, so they don't get broken up as well.
love the taste, hate the texture
The issue is not open and unfettered internet vs. evil corporate control. It is one set of bureaucrats and corporations against another set of bureaucrats and corporations. Just because they use the words "net neutrality" doesn't mean there is anything neutrality related involved. Remember, the same national politicians got together to give us the Republic-led bipartisan "USA PATRIOT Act", which had absolutely nothing to do with patriotism.
False equivalence. Just because the Patriot Act was newspeak doesn't mean Net Neutrality is.
"free and open internet" as we knew it is not an option on the table. The discussion at hand is about how much power Washington will have to pick winners and losers in corporate fights. And who in Washington will wield that power.
Net Neutrality is not about giving Washington the power to pick winners and losers. It's about keeping that power out of the hands of service-providers.
Oh, and a few new fees and tacked-on unrelated regulations "just because".
Citation please?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.