Senate Republicans Introduce Anti-Net Neutrality Legislation (thehill.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill Monday to nullify the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules. "Few areas of our economy have been as dynamic and innovative as the internet," Lee said in a statement. "But now this engine of growth is threatened by the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which would put federal bureaucrats in charge of engineering the Internet's infrastructure." Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) co-sponsored Lee's bill. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai introduced his own plan last week to curb significant portions of the 2015 net neutrality rules that Lee's bill aims to abolish. Pai's more specific tack is focused on moving the regulatory jurisdiction of broadband providers back to the Federal Trade Commission, instead of the FCC, which currently regulates them.

Comments

Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Opportunist]

I have no idea what party the one belongs to that issued this letter here. But it was the first time I saw a senator actually write something sensible about "this computer stuff".

Clean up your own act before you try to mess with the rest of the internet, will ya?

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Fire_Wraith]

That would be Ron Wyden, a Democratic Senator from Oregon. He's been consistently very good when it comes to issues regarding the internet, privacy, and putting the needs and rights of users ahead of corporate (or government) ones, or at minimum on an equal footing (which feels like 'ahead' these days).

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Joce640k]

"this engine of growth is threatened by the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which would put federal bureaucrats in charge of engineering the Internet's infrastructure."

What a load of doublespeak bollocks.

Either the person who wrote that is lying or they have no idea what the Internet is.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net...

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Oswald McWeany]

huh, with the exception of Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), none of these jugheads are from what I would consider in any way a tech state, .

I don't think there is a state in the union where every member is well versed in tech, nor a state where no member is. I don't think you can judge a senator's tech-savviness based on his home state. I'd bet 95% of politicians are not tech-savvy. They tend to be older individuals, and also come from backgrounds not dependent in tech. There are exceptions, but most of them aren't tech savvy.

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Gr8Apes]

I'd say that every single one of those sponsors, and Ajit Pai specifically, should be recused from anything touching technology and the internet. They are either so woefully ignorant of all aspects related to technology that they are similar to an orangutang performing brain surgery, or they are attempting to criminally line their pockets. There does not seem to be a middle ground that explains their stance.

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Creedo]

It is interesting that you start with this statement against the government designing networks:

Net Neutrality is anything but. It is government designed networking. Last thing we need is more government interference.

And end with the solution of.....governments designing networks:

This is easily solved, by allowing municipalities to build out common infrastructure that can be used by anyone to any provider.

It seems to me that the easiest way out is to simply declare that anyone who is running a line to an end user is a common carrier and required to lease that line to anyone the end user wishes to connect to without preference. We call that concept...."net neutrality."

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Creedo]

Oh, cool. I wasn't aware that local governments were incapable of being completely corrupted with crony capitalism. Good to know!

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Creedo]

Net Neutrality is like saying I have to use a Prius to haul 2 tons of bricks, or I have to us USPS instead of Fed/Ex or UPS.

In a world where net neutrality means something completely different, then maybe? In this world, it's complete bullshit. You keep describing your ideal system, and it sounds suspiciously like this:

the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites

Which is the definition of net neutrality. Literally. You know, not favoring the Prius, in your tortured example, or the truck that would make sense, but rather treating bits as bits, regardless of source or destination. Like our transportation system does today.

It's the opposite land gang!

[H3lldr0p]

Up is down! Left is Right! Freedom is servitude!

Again, this is another case where these people are being paid to misunderstand the situation because it profits someone else much more if they do. The sad part is that they've been put in a position of power. Hopefully this bill never makes it out of committee, let alone gets scheduled for a vote.

Isn't Ajit evil enough?

[TimothyHollins]

Sounds like Ajit wasn't invited to the latest meeting at Mt. Doom.

Witness the DoubleSpeak

[WheezyJoe]

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) [says] "...now this engine of growth is threatened by the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which would put federal bureaucrats in charge of engineering the Internet's infrastructure."

What a heaping pile of horseshit, afloat in a vat of raw sewage. Did the good senator's staff come up with this on their own... or did they perform a ritual sacrifice to enlist assistance from the Demon? Show me their hands... this statement was written in blood and one of Lee's staffers is missing a finger.

Let's try and fix this, shall we? Now this engine of growth is threatened by would-be monopolists and their crony politicians who would put marketers and profiteers in charge of monetizing the Internet's infrastructure to squeeze the highest prices from users of the Internet in return least possible investment .

An us versus them mentality.

[Gravis Zero]

The bill is unlikely to receive support from Democrats in the Senate.

[...]

A full repeal of the rules would be a worst case scenario for Democrats.

The whole point is that a full repeal would be the worst case scenario for everyone except extortionist ISPs.

I find it disappointing that the actually matter at hand isn't being addressed in anything but vague quotes.

Re:Which they should. The FTC has a good track rec

[WheezyJoe]

Not so fast. AFAIK, jurisdiction over the Internet has been removed from the FTC, and it would take an act of Congress to put it back... and that sure as shit don't look likely. Any talk of the FTC, for now, is a head-fake excuse for gutting the FCC and letting Comcast and its ilk get drunk and party at your expense.

Face it, ladies. The Internet is the new telephone system - the FCC should regulate it as a common-carrier. Period. That makes it boring to the carriers, gutting a lot of "opportunities" to squeeze extra money out (like selling your browsing histories), but too fucking bad. The Internet ain't no luxury anymore - shit, your grandma needs it just to get her goddamn meds.

Besides, the FTC is not invulnerable to politics. Maybe they don't have a politically ambitious loud-mouth tool as Chairman who wants nothing more than to see himself on TV, but a GOP-controlled everything can muzzle the FTC, and they will, if the price is right.

What does "conservative" mean?

[hey!]

For centuries the intellectual basis for conservatism has been set, not by Jesus, or Adam Smith, but by Edmund Burke, whose philosophy could be summed up this way: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Burke was the kind of man who could defend the monarchy while despising monarchists: he thought the notion that monarchy was an ideal form of government was fatuous twaddle. But he thought all grand, all-encompassing theories were foolish, so he wasn't any more enthusiastic about pure democracy. Burke preferred a monarchy restrained by a democratically elected parliament not because it was the best system, but because it worked, experience showed that men could be tolerably free and prosperous under such a system.

So the notion that we need to "fix" an innovative segment of the economy to be more like what our theory of what an innovative industry should look like is about as un-conservative as you can get. It is, in fact, radicalism of the sort Burke detested.

Re:Internet was a failure until 2015?

[Shotgun]

I think the difference is that local cable companies began acquiring monopolies across wide areas, and then began trying to leverage those monopolies to extort money from large content providers.

Either the issue of regional consolidation must be addressed, or net neutrality. If I can switch to a different ISP, I'll switch to one that doesn't put a choke on my choice to access Netflix. But, if my only choice is between the latest iteration of Time-Warner or that 28k modem....well, the regional monopoly has me across a barrel, doesn't it?

I do agree, though. If the FTC is keeping the monopolies in check, there is no need for the FCC.

Re:Internet was a failure until 2015?

[eheldreth]

There is an additional issue. Not only are cable companies operating as state sponsored monopolies but since the deregulation of the late 90's they also tend to own both the means of production and the means of distribution. This gives them an increasingly powerful incentive to use internet services as a weapon against their competitors. That is what's driving the relatively new need for something like NN. I'm not sure if NN is the answer but I would whole heartedly support another Ma Bell'esq forced breakup of cabled companies from their ISP's and possibly from the media creation portions of the companies. You should be paying to lease a line from your cable company (or phone company, or fiber company, or local service district) and getting ISP service from a separate unaffiliated company of your choice.