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FCC Abides By GOP Request To Stop What It's Doing, Deletes Everything From Meeting Agenda (arstechnica.com)
One day after republicans from the house and senate sent letters to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, urging him to avoid passing regulations before Donald Trump's inauguration as president, Wheeler appears to have complied with the request. The FCC today "announced the deletion of all items that were originally scheduled to be presented and voted on at tomorrow's meeting." Ars Technica reports: Before the change, the agenda included votes on price caps for "special access" business data services; Universal Service funding to expand mobile broadband networks; wireless roaming obligations; and requirements for audio description of TV programming for blind and visually impaired people. The only item not deleted from tomorrow's meeting is part of the "consent agenda," which means it is routine and wasn't going to be presented individually. Of the major items, the business data services proposal had received the most attention. These are dedicated wireline circuits provided by traditional phone companies like AT&T and Verizon; the services supply bandwidth for cellular data networks, indirectly affecting the price consumers pay for wireless service. The business data services are also used by banks and retailers to connect ATM machines and credit card readers, by government and corporate users to connect branch offices and data centers, and to support public safety operations and health care facilities. The now-deleted agenda item would have phased in price cap decreases of 11 percent over three years to account for "over a decade of efficiency gains" since the last price cap adjustment.
Trump should appoint Howard Stern as the FCC Chairman.
Should you,
do you do what you boss says (obama)
or wait till your soon to be boss shows up. (trump)
I think you always work for the current President.
The next guy can wait till he shows up.
Not a nice job, but it is the job you signed up to do.
Not quite what happened.
Perhaps there was some discussion with the incomming administration to head us this way?
(A congress critter is not the same.)
"Sit here and do absolutely nothing for the next couple of months while still getting paid for it? Sure thing, boss!"
Modern commenters, where commenters feel the need to write stupid comments instead of reading the story
I'm suspicious of every article I see posted by BeauHD these days regardless of content, almost to the point of avoiding reading anything he posts - simply because of his tailored anti-Trump agenda, including his legendary twitter account posts that would have him twitter banned for hate speech if twitter uniformly applied their anti-hate rhetoric across political lines.
I only posted this because I just realized that I've been avoiding a good chunk of slashdot to avoid this garbage.
And now I'm sad.
...Hillary's cloth
Table-ized A.I.
1.) Pre-approval of the merger of any and all cable television/broadband companies immediately with tax breaks based on the size and speed of the mergers
2.) MPAA/RIAA given keys to lockout any website, URL, or IP address that is deemed to by violating copyright
3.) Walt Disney given permanent copyright status in perpetuity
Did I miss anything?
All the good things were just about to be passed!
Bummer! Looking for the price decreases because of operational efficiencies!!!!!
That might lower my internet-only plan fro $79/month to $78.99 + $45 surcharge, I'll bet!
What the hell is this? Yes the future FCC may be different from the current one, but we still have a current FCC. The government can't just shut down for two months after an election.
This is the same logic they used to block the supreme court nomination, and is wrong for the same reason.
Seems like we're pushing back inaugurations every election cycle. Before long, we'll be saying "hold everything, we might vote someone else in 2 years..." or 4 years...
The FCC could pass regulations that will be invalidated upon Trump's inauguration, or they could avoid wasting everyone's time and do this. They took the cost-cutting choice.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Half of Trump's transition team has been fired. Chris Christie was fired because he was Governor when Trump's son-in-law's Jared's, father was prosecuted on fraud charges and didn't pardon the fraudster.
Mike Rogers left after getting a briefing on the Trump Russian links from the CIA.
Trump then assigned son-in-law, Jared and his children, to his transition team, but US code 5 USC 3110, Trump may not "appoint, employ, advance, or advocate for" relatives in "the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control".
Nepotism is illegal. They're also not security cleared.
Trump may be a sad joke, but Putin is not.
The title says everything was dropped. The summary lists one item that wasn't dropped and restricts what was cut to only vote-able items. The headline is clearly false, unless you redefine what 'everything' means.
What unreleased recordings? These Trump conversations are not some hidden bomb shells. They were broadcast on a nationally syndicated radio show. I listened to Trump call in plenty of times and talk about women and sex.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
We still want business to happen between the election, and the beginning of the new session. Now we're just paying the bureaucrats to sit around and nothing for two months.
I'm a Republican, but that's completely stupid.
The FCC is part of the executive branch and last time I checked, Mr Obama is still very much president. Essentially, they just quit working because "some guys over there" said they should.
-Styopa
You would think the ACLU would be all over getting rid of a federal communication commission. Sounds like a joke, something from the old Soviet Union. If they want to regulate the use of the electromagnetic spectrum and not things protected in the 1st amendment then they need a new name and a new mission.
Is there anything we can do as the public to keep the FCC going in the same direction? Preferably with Tom Wheeler still around? I was just telling my wife that the last few years of the FCC has been a rare example of excellently functioning government that benifits citizens. And now there's all this talk of Trump killing it. Are there seriously any public actions that could even possibly support Wheeler's FCC enough to not die?
And Ron Paul as the chair of the Federal Reserve. That'd actually be a pretty badass move IMO. He will oversee its audit and subsequent shutdown.
Howard Stern has dealt with the FCC from the censorship side, he's dealt with show business, he's dealt with satelite radio, and he's presumably talked about the cable phone duopolies around the country. He can learn the spectrum stuff quickly. Put Howard Stern in
I think every government agency should stop everything it's doing in the next four years, because in four years time, Trump will be replaced by another president.
Current government decides what happens, this whole "lame duck" bullshit isn't legal in any way or supported by any constitution or amendment.
FCC stopping plans now due to Trump not yet being in government is the same as failing to serve the current government.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
On the agenda. I guess this means that the internet, ISPs, and cell phone companies will not have their classifications
switched to "UTILITY". As non-utilities, they are gouging, practicing cons, and being as sleazy as they can
get away with.
As utilities, they would be subject to very specific regulatons. They would have to give up all the contracts that
they have negotiated with municipalities giving a localized monopoly ( which is still a monopoly ).
The practice of upgrading and providing service only where it profits them the most will be very verboten.
Their use of lobbyists to push ( bribe ) legislation would be restricted, maybe....
After stone-walling the elected officials for 8 years; essentially a breach of oath of office for Republican politicians, the Republican party will soon give kickbacks to their loyal donors. Remember the last Republican president de-funded a large number of power-to-the-people agencies and laws, ensuring corporations had more rights than citizens.
I thought they were also going to talk about the right to communicate for Ham radio operators basically telling HOA's to go fuck themselves in regards to ham radio antennas. and how most HOA's try and ban them.
Hams save your ass during disasters, The local government is utterly inept at communications during disasters. and in some states like Florida, it's nearly impossible to buy a home that is not in a HOA.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
OK, a lot of people are missing what is going on here because they do not know the law. The FCC did this in response to a letter from members of both the House and the Senate. There is a law, passed when Bill Clinton was President (which Clinton signed) which states that if an Administrative Agency creates a new regulation Congress has so many months to pass a bill overturning that regulation (basically, the new Congress will be able to undo any regulation created since the beginning of 2016). If that bill gets into law (either signed by the President or Congress overturns his veto), that Agency cannot create another regulation in that area. I am unsure of the exact wording of that portion, so I do not know how closely something like that would tie the Agency's hands.
Because of that law, if the FCC were to create a new regulation without the buy-in of the Trump Administration, it would likely be overturned by Congress. Which would limit their ability to create a new regulation with the Trump Administration's approval.
One other point worth mentioning. The FCC's primary job is NOT creating new regulations. Its primary job is ENFORCING existing regulations. So, this is not a statement by the FCC that they are not going to do any work for the next few months.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
As it appears that is days are numbered now, I propose a toast to the best damn Dingo we ever had. We're going to be spending four years wishing Wheeler was back.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
The GOP, my party is starting on the wrong Foot.
Why does a party ask the Feds to stop working? It's a waste of Tax Payers monies.
I would behove the GOP, my party, to step back and allow the Government to function.
It is critical that every part of the government keep on task, doing their job for the American people.
The FCC, IRS, etc needs to keep on performing && continue to do their job. This transition is not a vaction && our party starts in 2017.
RIP Net Neutrality
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Because we all know price caps never lead to reduced quantity or quality.
I've got a feeling that it's going to get harder to tell what's fake news for the next while. I thought that this was a joke at first. Earlier today there was an article on CNN about women who have babies from sexual attacks have to share custody of the child with the attacker. If the attacker doesn't get convicted with a serious enough crime (for example, convicted of sexual assault 3 instead of sexual assault 1) then they can sue for visitation rights. I didn't check it out but when you articles like this then it makes one think that the other could be true because the laws are so screwed up.