FCC Suspends Net Neutrality Comments, As Chairman Pai Mocks 'Mean Tweets' (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes:Thursday the FCC stopped accepting comments as part of long-standing rules "to provide FCC decision-makers with a period of repose during which they can reflect on the upcoming items" before their May 18th meeting. Techdirt wondered if this time to reflect would mean less lobbying from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, but on Friday Pai recorded a Jimmy Kimmel-style video mocking mean tweets, with responses Gizmodo called "appalling" and implying "that anyone who opposes his cash grab for corporations is a moron."

Meanwhile, Wednesday The Consumerist reported the FCC's sole Democrat "is deploying some scorched-earth Microsoft Word table-making to use FCC Chair Ajit Pai's own words against him." (In 2014 Pai wrote "A dispute this fundamental is not for us five, unelected individuals to decide... We should also engage computer scientists, technologists, and other technical experts to tell us how they see the Internet's infrastructure and consumers' online experience evolving.") But Pai seemed to be mostly sticking to friendlier audiences, appearing with conservative podcasters from the Taxpayer Protection Alliance, the AEI think tank and The Daily Beast.
The Verge reports the flood of fake comments opposing Net Neutrality may have used names and addresses from a breach of 1.4 billion personal information records from marketing company River City Media. Reached on Facebook Messenger, one woman whose named was used "said she hadn't submitted any comments, didn't live at that address anymore and didn't even know what net neutrality is, let alone oppose it."

Techdirt adds "If you do still feel the need to comment, the EFF is doing what the FCC itself should do and has set up its own page at DearFCC.org to hold any comments."

Comments

Deaf

[thegreatbob]

First read that as DeafFCC. I'll leave it that way, because the shoe fits.

STOP BEING MEAN

[PopeRatzo]

As Chairman Pai Mocks 'Mean Tweets'

Chairman Pai knows what's best and you people need to stop being so mean to the Trump regime. He was elected by the largest margin in modern history and he's the CEO of the country, so if he doesn't want Net Neutrality, you shouldn't complain because he's got the best people around him.

You should feel lucky that you're being allowed to comment at all.

Re:STOP BEING MEAN

[Cyberax]

Because he had to. Literally, he had to appoint at least one Republican into this commission by law.

Re:STOP BEING MEAN

[Anonymous Coward]

They say one definition of insanity is appointing republicans over and over but expecting different results.

Re:STOP BEING MEAN

[Holi]

And this is why we can never have a viable third party.

Re: STOP BEING MEAN

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about the OP but I'm long past attempting to converse and reason with conservatives. It shouldn't be my responsibility to always argue from their stance back to a middle ground, so I'll take the modern conservative approach and simply discard their perspectives entirely and push my own.

Unfortunately, as liberals continue to lose battles, they'll increasingly employ the "winning" tactics of conservatives to promote their own agendas. We'll have an ugly America either way, but it may snap conservatives back into sanity and real discussions. I gave up after 2016 when this disgrace was elected.

Re:STOP BEING MEAN

[PopeRatzo]

Has it ever occurred to you that Trump is attempting to negotiate with the plutocracy corruption that's been allowed to fester for the past 30 years? You can't really just stand up to them (U.S. Chamber of Commerce et al) and say "hey, we're taking all the things you've enjoyed since the 70's away and you're going to like it." These are very powerful and influential people in this country and it's hard to tell what they would do in the face of a populist president that did just that without throwing them any kind of bone.

I'm trying to figure out a way to say this without being offensive, but that is the stupidest fucking thing I've heard so far this morning. To be fair, it's only 10:15am, so there's still plenty of time.

If Trump was "attempting to negotiate with the plutocracy", do you think a good first step is to appoint an Exxon CEO to be secretary of state and Wall Street bankers to be all over his cabinet? Is that how a negotiation works - by immediately giving away the store?

I'm not saying Trump is a model president but he's not pro-corporation.

OK, it's now 10:17am and you've already surpassed yourself.

This country is a plutocratic mess.

And you believe a corrupt billionaire is just the person to fix that plutocracy. Maybe you should look up "plutocracy".

Say, I play poker with some friends every Thursday night. Would you like to join us? We'll provide the snacks.

First Comey now this

[rsilvergun]

can we at least _pretend_ we're still a democracy?

Re:First Comey now this

[PopeRatzo]

can we at least _pretend_ we're still a democracy?

It's easier to just pretend I am the Bat-Man.

Re:First Comey now this

[acrimonious howard]

If '#thanksobama' was a thing, can we start saying #thanksrepublicans? 99% of this entire net neutrality issue debacle has been brought to you by republicans, so this isn't even really tongue-in-cheek.

Re:First Comey now this

[h33t l4x0r]

We are still a democracy, the problem is that half of us are idiots.

Re:First Comey now this

[penandpaper]

It's more than half. The majority of humans are idiots. Which ,thinking about it, could be a filter to Fermi's Paradox. As civilization advances it must reconcile higher concentrations of energy and power in larger segments of the population including the underbelly and idiots.

You can be smart in one thing and an absolute dolt in another. Politics in democracy forces us to make decisions even though we are a laymen and a dolt for such topics. Maybe the benevolent dictator is better.

Re:First Comey now this

[Plus1Entropy]

We still are, believe it or not. There have been many checks against Trump's power in the short time he's been President, mostly from the judiciary, but also some from Congress as well. The new FBI director will require Congressional approval, and there are at least a few Republican Senators who are wary enough not to put some toady in... I hope.

The areas where Trump has far more latitude are things like the Department of Justice, immigration enforcement, regulatory agencies, etc. So it's not surprising to see him have the most effect there.

Of course the final check on him is impeachment, potentially. But (I didn't know this because I didn't live through it) apparently Watergate took 2 years to unfold before Nixon resigned... So no matter what, even if the Russia thing turns out to be the worst it could be, we're in for the long haul.

Re:First Comey now this

[monkease]

Right? Who'da thunk it?

Regulation actually preserving freedom??

I guess there are some situations that the universal application of severe quasi-intellectual philosophies like Objectivism don't really work for. Go figure.

Re:First Comey now this

[TheRaven64]

Two Winston Churchill quotes are probably more relevant:

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time

and

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Re:First Comey now this

[silentcoder]

Well since the law requires the president to appoint at least 2 commissioners from the party he does not belong to - Obama didn't have much choice in the matter. Pai was a requirement under the law that created the FCC. Unfortunately when the republicans gave him the list of possible candidates for their seats it was pretty much Pai or "Our dark lord, Lucifer". Obama tried to choose the lesser of two evils (so instead of Lucifer we got the antichrist).
Then Lucifer became president and Pai went "annoying commissioner who keeps saying stupid shit" to "idiot in charge of the agency". Something that makes about as much sense as creating a "Privacy Protection Agency" with the mandate of monitoring inteligence agencies and ensuring they do not exceed their 4th amendment authority in surveillance - and then putting the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover in charge of it.

Re:First Comey now this

[silentcoder]

There are more than a few problems with the benevolent dictators:

1) People do, actually, have a right to govern themselves or at the very least choose who they allow to govern them - a dictator no matter how benevolent - can never be a legitimate government.
2) The succession problem. Plato suggested the philosopher-king (another form of 'benevolent dictator') was a better choice than democracy because of democracy's vulnerability to demagogues, but the problem with both is - what happens when he or she kicks the bucket. There is no good way to ensure the next person in line will not be an evil and authoritarian dictator. In fact the lesson of history is that this seems inevitable, you go from 'one of the great kings who led his people from strengths to strength and raised standards of living for all" to "bastard king who ultimately deserved the beheading he got" in a generation, in fact you then tend to get between 5 and 10 more of the bastards before you get another smart one (usually one who had no expectation of being in the succession at all).
3) Corrupting influence of power - the longer somebody is in charge, the less honest they tend to be come and the more likely to commit gross abuses of power. FDR is about the closest thing to a real exception there is - and even he ended up doing those Japanese Internment Camps near the end. Democracy lets you institute term limits, so the good guys who get in charge can be kicked out before they BECOME bad guys. Failure to have term limits tend to be a grave mistake. In the 1980s a people's leader led his oppressed countrymen to freedom and independence. He became president - praised and cheered the world over as a true bastion of human rights, liberties and justice - and ultimately as a peacemaker and under his rule the country became the largest food exporter on the continent. Today that EXACT SAME PERSON is known as one of the most brutal dictators on the continent, the country is constantly starving and they've been through numerous waves of hyperinflation. Robert Mugabe is the evidence of the problem: good guys become evil if you they stay in power for too long - and what's worse the dirtier their hands get the more desperate they become to cling to power, after all, losing power will likely mean spending the rest of his life in jail.

So no, the benevolent dictator is a bad idea. That said, democracy is not perfect either. Plato was correct in identifying the real risk that a demagogue could replace democracy with tyranny, the US founding fathers knew their Plato and greatly feared that - as they abandoned the monarchism Plato had inspired throughout Europe - they would risk the same in the new country they were founding. Their answer was numerous checks and balances - including one on the electoral process itself. This 'electoral college' served one key purpose: to ensure that, even if a demagogue wins the vote, he would not get to be president.
Unfortunately the E.C. ultimately became so watered down that - when an actual demagogue ran - not only did it fail to prevent him from becoming president, it actually ENABLED him in an election he had absolutely lost. That was the exact opposite of what the founding fathers had in mind. And the ultimate argument for undoing the E.C. is that it didn't do the job it was created for (and in fact didn't just fail but actually ACHIEVED the very thing it exists to prevent). Perhaps reforming it would be better than scrapping it, I am not sold either way - but the key point stands. Checks and balances, a leader subservient to a constitution with numerous institutions empowered to prevent him doing things he isn't empowered to do - those are the things that make democracy viable.

Re: First Comey now this

[silentcoder]

Pre golden-age Bat-man was just a third rate rip-off of the Shadow. Complete with guns. Not the same character.

Much like Silver age dark knight is a much lonelier character than golden age caped crusader.

Re:First Comey now this

[penandpaper]

I agree with you on the benevolent dictator. Who was it that said democracy is bad but it is the best we have come up with? Something like that. I think in times when there are obvious stupid people running the nation/world a benevolent dictator sounds just a little bit better even if it is not.

However on the Electoral College I disagree with you (or at least partially). It was a no win situation this last election. The same argument of demagoguery or corruption could be applied to Clinton if she had won. If the college were to not elect Trump they couldn't elect (or at the very least shouldn't) elect Clinton either as she was a poisoned pill at that point. What is the right choice when given that? Obviously Clinton lost the election regardless of national popular vote (no such thing) and Trump won a majority of states. If you choose the loser over the winner that is asking for bad blood. The E.C. choosing the winner is democracy in action, again 50 different popular elections had a majority going to Trump. If there were a third choice it wasn't obvious to the Electors.

If one president can ruin the nation then the president is too powerful. If the Executive has too much power to do too much damage it is too powerful. That is one of the checks and balances that has been lost. Congress has the power and for too long they ceded that power to the Executive from the States. The Electoral College isn't the issue, we are a union of states not a mob and the E.C. ensures the Executive has the interests of a majority of states in mind. The problem is many of the checks and balances has been the lost like a loss of states rights and Congressional laziness. Ironically, blue states are starting to remember that with Trump so maybe Trump can still do something good even if it isn't him doing it (many of the suits against his executive orders are on the grounds of states rights).

Re:First Comey now this

[MachineShedFred]

There is no clause in the law that says he has to appoint anyone suggested by anyone. He could have done his own candidate search and found a Republican that isn't a fucking shill for the telcos.

"It's always been done that way" is poor justification for putting the wrong guy in a position of this kind of power.

Re:First Comey now this

[silentcoder]

I think the flaw in your thinking is a case of false equivalency - while Clinton was a very flawed candidate ( and a terrible campaigner) she did not represent the threat of a demagogue, she did not spend her time on the campaign trail promising to frankly abolish constitutional rights for huge swaths of Americans (though she was accused of that in one instance "taking your guns" it wasn't true and there has never been any truth to that accusation - personally I wish there was but there wasn't).
The Muslim registry idea on the other hand - that was straight out of the Nuremberg laws (as was a half dozen other things Trump said). He was practically quoting Mein Kampf on the podium over and over.

Now it's also true that Trump has not ceased absolute power - at this stage, I am more inclined to put that down to having his authoritarianism tempered by his own incompetence than to any lack of trying. The only American institution that still seems to be somewhat functional in it's checks-and-ballances duties is the court system.

But even within a fully functional America a bad president can cause incredible harm. It's not a surprise that Trump's professed role-model for the presidency is Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson. When enough people are convinced that some people are subhuman that you can get the people who think that into powerful parts of the governing apparatus - then the checks and balances fail because the people doing the checking don't want to restrain the abuses.

You are half right in one instance - the E.C, has become very democratic - but that's the problem. The check on democracy was never meant to be democratic. Now if it had been FULLY democratic - and the winner of the vote simply won the white house, then perhaps it would be okay (Trump certainly could not muster enough Americans to vote for him to win the popular vote and probably never could - almost certainly every able bodied American who would ever WANT to vote for him DID - while a lot of presumptive Clinton voters stayed home).
So I would be in favour of Larry Lessig's proposal for an E.C. reform - forcing the E.C. electors to follow the popular vote in their STATES - rather than on a county/by-county system as it stands now. Such a system would be far more robust against gerrymandering, would be more democratic than the way it works now - and retain much of the supposed benefits of the current system in keeping low-population rural areas from being overlooked by washington.

I am not much of a fan of the latter, the low-pop areas complain they "shouldn't be told how to live by a bunch of liberals in San Francisco" but fail to see that, that is a two-edged sword -since they now get to tell those San Franciscans how to live, in fact about a third of America's population gets to tell the other two thirds who live in the liberal, coastal cities how to live. This isn't democracy fine but it's not a republic either, it's just a broken system at this point.

The answer to failures of democracy though, is not to do away with democracy - it's to strengthen it, there are better systems than the American one. Every system has it's pros and cons and in many occasions your best outcome is actually a a mix-and-match. Pure party-list representation has the problem that your governing politicians don't feel accountable to the voters. Pure by-region systems like America has the problem that they ONLY care about the place that elected them - and tend to screw up things for everybody else. I think one should mix it - with about half the representatives elected by the local population and the other half appointed by the parties in accordance with their share of the national vote (in the US perhaps one could divide it up so the house is regionally elected like today but the Senate becomes a proportional representation). That would prevent the current situation where one party controls both the entire executive and the entire legislative branches from happening so easily - that's not a good thing. A lot of democrats will scowl at

Re:First Comey now this

[Ol Olsoc]

We still are, believe it or not. There have been many checks against Trump's power in the short time he's been President, mostly from the judiciary, but also some from Congress as well. The new FBI director will require Congressional approval, and there are at least a few Republican Senators who are wary enough not to put some toady in... I hope.

You are correct. From what I have been told, the word is out that there will be no new director until a special prosecutor is appointed.

Which is odd that the party of investigations would even oppose a special prosecutor. The sooner they can get their man declared completely innocent the better for them.

When you are happy to have a special prosecutor extend his investigation so far that it ended up the horrors of a blowjob between two consenting adults, you would think that treason would be something they want their chosen one to be cleared of in short order.

But (I didn't know this because I didn't live through it) apparently Watergate took 2 years to unfold before Nixon resigned... So no matter what, even if the Russia thing turns out to be the worst it could be, we're in for the long haul.

The impeachment process is designed to be slow and deliberate, so yes, it does take a long time.

The wild card in this whole thing is that we are no longer talking about an consenting adult female giving oral sex to an adult male philanderer. We're talking about what amounts to espionage. It's easy to make a stage show about old Slick Willie, one hella lot harder to be shown supporting what may have transpired.

Which in itself makes the firing of Comey very interesting. What happens if these investigations show some clear criminal activity that is a danger to the United States?

Clinton's blowjob wasn't even a crime, Nixon's shenannigans were just a stupid cover-up that could have easily been avoided (think about how Reagan managed to deflect that the Republicans were actually selling weapons to an avowed enemy of the US through an elaborate scheme - Wikipedia has a fascinating outline of that sordid affair.

This long winded BS on my part is just to note that unless the Republican Party is willing to be tarred and feathered with the responsibility of defending what might come out, the 25th amendment might be invoked. That one is a lot quicker to go down.

Re:First Comey now this

[penandpaper]

There is a lot in your comment so I only want to respond a few points and in no particular order.

forcing the E.C. electors to follow the popular vote in their STATES

The States decide how electors vote and how their votes are distributed. Main and Nebraska(?) split their electors on congressional district lines as opposed to winner take all like most States. As it is now, what you and Lessig describe is exactly what we have right now. The Electors are following the popular vote in their States. That is what Trump won a majority of state elections and lost by huge margins in a few. Any issue of Gerrymandering is on the states to change. The whole idea was little experiments in democracy. Which is the best solution? I don't think you, Lessig, I or anyone knows exactly unless we do it for real because that is the nature of politics and governing (as time has marched forward we have more examples of things working or not working). As it stands now, there isn't much difference between the states because the states rights have been lost.

And really, we are only talking about one position in the Executive (albeit most powerful). All the elections should be handled by the states to determine what is best for them. Your solutions and ideas really should be arguments for the states to implement and not the federal. As it stands now the only national executive election is handled by the E.C. and that system by itself is a good system IMO. There is plenty that the states can do to control/divide their electors to represent their people how they want. The distribution of Electors is to ensure the Executive has the interests of smaller states in mind.

she did not represent the threat of a demagogue

I disagree but I also said "or corruption". She demonized half the electorate. She chastised the Bernie supporters. She played into peoples fears and prejudices to get them to support her. She made it clear that she would reward corruption on her behalf. She played into the desire the same way Sanders did by promising everything they wanted. It may have been different desires, fears, and prejudices than what Trump played into but it was still the same text book definition of demagogue: "a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.". That applies to both Trump and Clinton. Different desires and prejudices doesn't change what a demagogue is. You can argue the rational of both and whether that meets your definition of "rational argument" but neither looked rational to me.

she did not spend her time on the campaign trail promising to frankly abolish constitutional rights for huge swaths of Americans (though she was accused of that in one instance "taking your guns" it wasn't true and there has never been any truth to that accusation - personally I wish there was but there wasn't).

Trump did not campaign on the abolishment of constitutional rights for any American citizen. Refugees are not citizens and are granted entry at the governments pleasure. Illegal immigrants are not citizens and do not have the same rights. The Muslim registry was for immigrants/refugees not American citizens. This my problem with the left and the anti-Trump rhetoric. They are very disingenuous and misconstrue the facts to be what they want to see.

Clinton was very anti-gun, did you not see the primaries? Even Sanders had a rational and compromising position for guns. Clinton was very hostile to that right and made it clear that she would appoint judges for the sole purpose of dismantling that right. One of the checks and balances you say still exist was under threat from Clinton by making appointments based on political ends not judicial merit. She had rhetoric on the campaign to take this right away. If anyone was promising to abolish constitutional rights for huge swaths of Americans it was Clinton. If you want to abolish the right of guns then do it the proper way through the amendment process and not bypass it through judicial political appointments that Clinton promised.

Re:First Comey now this

[silentcoder]

> As it is now, what you and Lessig describe is exactly what we have right now
No. What Lessig is proposing is making the Maine and Nebraska systems applicable in all states.

>"or corruption"
Yet the winner now was far more corrupt than she could ever hope to be. She was accused, and no evidence was ever presented, of a pay-for-play scandal in her foundation. Trump used HIS foundation - and we have actual PROOF - to bribe not one but TWO state attorney generals not to prosecute him for fraud ! Lots of whispers do not a case make.
Now I personally don't think Clinton's hands were really clean -few career politicians are, but compared to Trump they are sparkling bloody diamonds of righteousness ! It's really quite amazing just how much grime Trump managed to get on such tiny little hands.

> She demonized half the electorate
No - she didn't. She really didn't. The "basket of deplorables" statement was idiotic- but it was also quoted completely out of context to pretend it meant something entirely different to what she actually said. She NEVER accused Trump voters of being that basket - she said SOME OF THEM were. If anything she grossly underestimated how many.

>She chastised the Bernie supporters
Mostly, actualy, that was one small subset of her supporters, she didn't do that. And frankly a small subset of Bernie's supporters DESERVED that -as evidenced by the fact that Bernie ALSO chastised them. His exact words were: "I neither need nor want your votes".

>She played into peoples fears and prejudices to get them to support her.
No - that would be Trump. Unless you count their fear of an autoritarian demagogue who sucked up to racists - in which case those are actually LEGITIMATE fears which it was the duty of EVERY politicians to warn and guard against. Still is actually.

> She made it clear that she would reward corruption on her behalf
Example please ? You do KNOW that pizzagate never happened right ?

>She played into the desire the same way Sanders did by promising everything they wanted
That's a bullshit misrepresentation of what either of them said, AND she only adopted those liberal policies because HIS success proved that a huge swath of the democrat voters WANT those policies. If anything her fault was NOT really believing in them. And the greatest misrepresentation of those positions is the claim that they would cost too much - which is a flagrant lie based on hoping you don't know how 'cost' is calculated. The cost of something is NOT equal to the price you pay for it. It's equal to the price - value. Costs come in free varieties:
If price = value: then the item costs nothing, and the only loss is the opportunity cost (you lose the opportunity to buy something else instead) - and it's an individual calculation if it's worth it everytime and NO answer is always right.
If price > value: then it's a dumbfuckish purchase and only an idiot would make it. Spending more money on what is already the most overspent military in the world would be a great example of that - Trump and the republicans love that though.
If price Trump did not campaign on the abolishment of constitutional rights for any American citizen
The proposed Muslim registry DEFINITELY would abolish a constitutional right (the 4th amendment) for American citizens based on their religion (so it ALSO violates the 1st). His current immigration proposals ALSO violate the fourth (like the idea that you can use somebody's skintone or language as probable cause to ask for proof of citizenship). That was just one of many proposals of his that did EXACTLY what you just said he didn't do.

>Clinton was very anti-gun, did you not see the primaries?
Nobody said otherwise, I said she was never coming to 'take your guns' - just like Obama didn't in 8 years of republicans promising he would do it next week. In fact, Obama's ONLY gun actions actually REDUCED gun control in the USA. What Clinton DID say she stood for was common sense, intelligent gun regulatio

Re:First Comey now this

[penandpaper]

It's for the States to decide if they are like Maine and Nebraska. I don't think it should be federally mandated because I think the elections are a purely state matter that should be subject to state law.

> She made it clear that she would reward corruption on her behalf
Example please ? You do KNOW that pizzagate never happened right ?

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

she only adopted those liberal policies because HIS success proved that a huge swath of the democrat voters WANT those policies.

What's the difference if voters want stronger immigration enforcement and a politician adopting that platform?

Spending more money on what is already the most overspent military

I can agree but also recognize that between national healthcare and stronger defense, the constitution gives the federal government to do only one. You wouldn't have so much opposition if the way any national initiative be handled is by the proper amendment process. States have the right to implement any healthcare system they want. The argument really is; why should the federal government do it? Just like education. NY is doing free college, good on them because they are not forcing Nevadans to pay for it.

The proposed Muslim registry DEFINITELY would abolish a constitutional right

Are Syrian refugees American citizens? Are Somli immigrants American citizens? Are Yemini refugees American citizens? You are being disingenuous.

What Clinton DID say she stood for was common sense, intelligent gun regulations that NO responsible, legal gun owner could possibly be affected by

Except not. Like punishing gun manufactures for how their products are used. That's like saying a reasonable anti-DUI law is fining the car manufacturer for when you drink, drive, and get into accident. That is not common sense, intelligent or responsible.

And has any president EVER not done that ?

Yes, it has been done before but there is a trend to achieve political goals through the courtroom when you can't win elections. That is bad. The best you can hope for is no political appointment or goal and only judicial merit.

But sorry, the right has lost all right to talk about judicial appointments for all time because they pulled the ultimate piece of political fuckery to give Garldand's seat to Gorsuch

They played the political game on a gambit. They won. Nothing was given nor stolen. They risked a more liberal judge if Clinton had won (or just Garland). That is politics and it was within the rights of the Senate.

for that EVERY republican in the senate deserves the death penalty b

Ok, I see I have wasted my time. You are a deranged and delusional ideologue on par with antifa and BAMN. The ends do not justify the means. Fuck off.

Wait

[Dunbal]

Stopped accepting comments or the server crashed again?

Re: First they ignore you

[Narcocide]

Then you're dead.

Well, it's really more of a moral victory.

Re:Net Neutrality is a pile of crap... and it stin

[Plus1Entropy]

Net neutrality boils down to a set of networking rules and principles that could be laid out in no more than about 8 pages.

While the rules themselves might only require 8 pages, what's missing is procedure, enforcement, oversight, penalties, etc. All of those things are necessary if the rules themselves are to have any meaning.

Consider this simple rule: "People aren't allowed to kill each other." By your logic, these 7 words are the extent to which the laws against murder should be defined. Any additions beyond that must be for nefarious purposes.

Re:Net Neutrality is a pile of crap... and it stin

[silentcoder]

Aah yes, the republican's favorite argument (they made it about their healthcare bill too) "If it's smaller it must be better".

I can only assume they spend a great deal of time practicing this argument while their wives and mistresses try not to laugh.

What I wanted to say

[HeckRuler]

I support keeping telcoms regulated as common carriers under Title II.

A lot of people confuse Network Neutrality with legislation or regulation enforcing Network Neutrality. The Internet has always been, or at least strived to be, neutral. Everyone passing along everyone else's packets without regard of content, destination, owner, religion, nation, or creed. It was more or less neutral, as anyone who wasn't would be laughed out of the industry as customers chose to buy the whole Internet rather than some censored, stumpy, Internet.

And competition assured that. When there were dozens of ISPs in cities and they were all hungry for customers, the thought of breaking the fundamental underpinning of the Internet was unthinkable.

But times have changed. The wild-west frontier markets have consolidated into a handful of companies that have drawn maps dividing up the nation into non-competing territories. Mostly. Google tried competing with them. And wherever Google fiber showed up, the telcoms competed and prices dropped. Yay! But it means Google isn't making money at it and they've stopped expanding. Telcoms have even legally fought municipal wifi multiple times. You know a situation is bad when people think government could do a better job selling a service than a company.

Without competition, there is no free market. Without some alternative choice of which ISP to go to, the company has no incentive to provide good service. And so they can get away with tearing down network neutrality just to squeeze another buck out of the system. And they've been caught doing it before. I'm still royally pissed at being forced to buy access to EPSN360.com against my wishes. This bundling of internet channels is vile. An example of how they want the Internet to be structured like cable TV with the good old Internet being renamed to exclusive platinum access Internet at 500% the cost.

Without the common carrier regulation, the only think keeping them from tearing down a fundamental principle of how the Internet functions is bad PR and political backlash. If the FCC sanctions the death of Network Neutrality, that will disappear.

There are a bunch of ways to screw up regulation. Especially with something like the Internet which a lot of people don't understand. I was hesitant of trusting such a task to the FCC, and really didn't trust a telcom lobbyist like Tom Wheeler, but he did a surprisingly good job. Classifying the Telcoms as common carriers, with the nuance and details of what that means being left to the FCC with the intent of protecting consumers and encouraging innovation and a level playing field for business, seems like the best way forward.

At least that's what I wanted to say. I didn't have any time until the weekend and thought I could push it off till then. Lesson kiddos, strike while the iron is hot. Leonard Nimoy said that. Don't forget it.

Re:Fuck Agit Pai.

[Rob Y.]

Noone's saying Trump wasn't elected. Just that the majority USA voters don't want his bullshit. After all, that's what was being implied by "USA want's this to happen". Sure, Trump is in a position to make this happen - thanks to the Electoral College and any number of other factors. That does not mean USA (i.e. the majority of American citizens) want him to.

And what the hell does 'Running up the score in California' mean. You could just as easily say "Running up the score in a bunch of over-represented low population states". But again, we're talking about what the people want - not what the screwy Electoral system produced.