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Net Neutrality Rollback Faces New Criticism From US Congress -- And 16 Million Comments (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes TechCrunch's newest update on the FCC's attempt to gut net neutrality protections:
10 Representatives who helped craft the law governing the FCC itself have submitted an official comment on the proposal ruthlessly dismantling it... The FCC is well within its rights to interpret the law, and it doesn't have to listen to contrary comments from the likes of you and me. It does, however, have to listen to Congress -- "congressional intent" is a huge factor in determining whether an interpretation of the law is reasonable. And in the comment they've just filed, Representatives Pallon, Doyle et al. make it very clear that their intent was and remains very different from how the FCC has chosen to represent it.
"The law directs the FCC to look at ISP services as distinct from those services that ride over the networks. The FCC's proposal contravenes our intent... While some may argue that this distinction should be abandoned because of changes in today's market, that choice is not the FCC's to make. The decision remains squarely with those of us in Congress -- and we have repeatedly chosen to leave the law as it is."
In another letter Thursday, 15 Congressmen asked FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to extend the time period for comments. They note the proposed changes have received more than 16 million comments, more than four times the number of comments on any previous FCC item. The Hill reports that the previous record was 4 million comments -- during the FCC's last net neutrality proceeding in 2014 -- and "the lawmakers also noted that the comment period for approving net neutrality in 2014 was 60 days. Pai has only allowed a 30-day comment period for his plan to rollback the rules."
"The law directs the FCC to look at ISP services as distinct from those services that ride over the networks. The FCC's proposal contravenes our intent... While some may argue that this distinction should be abandoned because of changes in today's market, that choice is not the FCC's to make. The decision remains squarely with those of us in Congress -- and we have repeatedly chosen to leave the law as it is."
In another letter Thursday, 15 Congressmen asked FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to extend the time period for comments. They note the proposed changes have received more than 16 million comments, more than four times the number of comments on any previous FCC item. The Hill reports that the previous record was 4 million comments -- during the FCC's last net neutrality proceeding in 2014 -- and "the lawmakers also noted that the comment period for approving net neutrality in 2014 was 60 days. Pai has only allowed a 30-day comment period for his plan to rollback the rules."
It seems that Ajit Pai is the most openly corrupt government official that I've seen in United States politics. Am I missing something?
Keep in mind, I'm not saying he's the most 'corrupt,' but rather the most open about it. And when I say 'corrupt' I just mean pandering to special interest groups.
The instant he was appointed he basically said, "We're going to hand the Internet over to big corporations, and smile while we do it." Then just laughed whenever anybody said that it's contrary to what everyone wants. For example, the comments thing, "We nominally have a comment period, but we've decided to just ignore them."
I just don't get it. I'd expect speeches trying to justify what he's been doing, or trying to convince people to come around to his way of thinking...but really it seems like he just doesn't care. On one hand, that's kind of refreshing in a 'no bullshit' kind of way, but on the other hand, I don't agree at all with how he's handling the situation.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
The way to get net neutrality is to convince Republicans that it is important, not cater to the 0.01% of the population who might actually change their votes over this.
then the story is worthless.
The way to get net neutrality is to convince Republicans that it is important, not cater to the 0.01% of the population who might actually change their votes over this.
A very insightful post.
One of the problems with the current implementation is that a) it isn't what most people think of, and b) it was an FCC overreach of jurisdiction that should have been done by a different department.
This whole thing could be solved instantly by a law passed by congress. That way there would be no arguing, and the administration would be required to implement it.
If the law isn't passed because you don't have the majority, then you can base the upcoming elections on the merits of that law (among other meritorious issues). You could use it as a policy plank to help drive your party's elections.
I'm astonished that no one is trying anything *constructive* to fix this.
...it just seems pretty strange that FCC is repealing a law it has no authority to repeal.
FCC doesn't make the law, it is not up to them to decide if they want to follow it or not, which is exactly the congress guys point?
why bother with congress making any laws if fcc doesn't follow them anyways?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I mean, you've got Dick Cheney for raw, open corruption. And the stuff that gets done on the local level would make even him blush. I remember reading a story of a land owner that wanted some land that had some endangered goats. Couldn't have the land because of the goats. So he bought some nearby land, but up some broken, rickety fences and stuck sheep with syphilis on the land. The goats jumped the fence and the sheep, died of syphilis and blammo, he got the land. City turned a complete blind eye to the entire scheme.
There's still a small chance Pai's drinking his own Kool-aid. Those city reps and the goats? No chance whatsoever.
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"Fake news" referred to something which happened during the election. There were sites which generated names similar to the legitimate new sites, had short-lived domains which looked vaguely respectable. They would fabricate headlines, with clear political motives, and their links would be shared through political echo-chambers like Facebook endlessly.
The term was quickly co-opted by certain political groups to dilute the meaning and de-legitimize criticism by the mainstream media. It's not the "fake news" people were talking about.
As for alternative news, beware the sites which produces news with shock DJ-like banter, expanding fabrications into sensational rants which go on for hours. Their headlines are engineered to echo the worst fears of their supporters and drive them into a tizzy of rage (and ad impressions, subscription increases). The fake news sites were modeled to pander to these bases and draw their immediate attention.
Yer wrong. Just about every law can be gamed. Human, and lawyer, ingenuity will find holes you couldn't possibly have predicted.
You and your fellows believe you have written the perfect law, covered all the loopholes. Except that it must now reside in the tessellation structure of the rest of the laws, and there are a lot of those. Now the interaction between your perfect law and the rest opens wounds you never expected.
A more concrete example of this is systems and security. You write the perfect module, it has been proven secure. However, now you plunk it down in the rest of the system and the interactions with other parts show your perfect module opens up unwelcome interactions.
Prisons should only be used for violent people that must be separated from civilized society.
How do you propose to deal with guys like Bernie Madoff then? He robbed people of a lifetime of hard work - made it all mean nothing. Just because he didn't use violence to achieve his ends makes him no less worthy of separation from society. In a way I fear guys like him more than a thug who tries to beat me up.
For everyone else, there are more constructive punishments. For instance, Ajit could wear an ankle tracker will cleaning bedpans in nursing homes everyday for the next 10 years.
How is tracking his whereabouts going to matter? We already know where he is and it's not stopping him from being an asshat. Plus I've cleaned bedpans. While not fun work it isn't nearly awful enough. If you want to do creative punishments you need to get a lot more creative.
What about Senate seats? Governorships? State legislatures? Even if you leave out the fact that Democrat-controlled states gerrymander Congressional districts just as much as Republican-controlled ones (as you have conveniently done), that doesn't explain why the Ds have been getting their asses kicked over and over in all the races I mention above.
Pizzagate was not (originally) fake news, it was a conspiracy theory. As far as anyone can tell, it was thought up by a genuine nutbar conspiracy theorist type, and then other conspiracy theorists expanded upon it. Fake news is written by people who know they are making things up (or made by bots written by people with the intent of generating fiction). Fake news did pick up on it a bit. And some people did things like faking social media screenshots or taking them unbelievably out of context for the sake of trolling or fanning the flames, but not for the sake of ad revenue.
Let's think about this. Is there any other possible reason that the coverage of Trump is overwhelmingly negative? Can you possibly imagine that it might not all have to do with "media bias"? Is there a scenario where negative coverage of Trump doesn't have to do only with bias?
Use your imagination.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You were just unable to name a single one. Well done. You've proven my point.
Don't worry, the coverage on Trump TV is 100% positive, so you now have a safe space where you can get all of your news.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I am more concerned with companies like google inhibiting my ability to vent my frustration on the internet. They are the #1 visited site and have proven they are not afraid of shadow banning or manipulating search results to disenfranchise wrong speak and double ungood ideas. Two sides to the same coin, but at least right now the arguments to keep the censorship abilities of the ISPs to a minimum have some traction and have precedent to open up the markets.
I think what they were getting at is Net neutrality classifies ISPs as a neutral 3rd-party that acts as a communications medium, which makes protects the ISP from whatever data traverses their network on behalf of the customer. If they roll back Net neutrality, technically these protections go away. ISPs were arguing that Net neutrality violates their free speech. The ISPs were telling the government to treat the data the same as speech. If this is the case, then illegal content is also the speech of the ISP and the ISP should be held liable. Can't have your cake and eat it to.
Either you give up your "free speech" and get protection or you get your free speech, but you are now liable for what you say.