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Internal FCC Report Shows Republican Net Neutrality Narrative Is False (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A core Republican talking point during the net neutrality battle was that, in 2015, President Obama led a government takeover of the internet, and Obama illegally bullied the independent Federal Communications Commission into adopting the rules. In this version of the story, Ajit Pai's rollback of those rules Thursday is a return to the good old days, before the FCC was forced to adopt rules it never wanted in the first place. But internal FCC documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information Act request show that the independent, nonpartisan FCC Office of Inspector General -- acting on orders from Congressional Republicans -- investigated the claim that Obama interfered with the FCC's net neutrality process and found it was nonsense. This Republican narrative of net neutrality as an Obama-led takeover of the internet, then, was wholly refuted by an independent investigation and its findings were not made public prior to Thursday's vote.
Using a Freedom of Information Act request, Motherboard obtained a summary of the Inspector General's report, which has not been released publicly and is marked "Official Use Only, Law Enforcement Sensitive Information." After reviewing more than 600,000 emails, the independent office found that there was no collusion between the White House and the FCC: "We found no evidence of secret deals, promises, or threats from anyone outside the Commission, nor any evidence of any other improper use of power to influence the FCC decision-making process." [...] Since 2014, Republicans have pointed to net neutrality as an idea primarily promoted by President Obama, and have made it another in a long line of regulations and laws that they have sought to repeal now that Donald Trump is president. Prior to this false narrative, though, net neutrality was a bipartisan issue; the first net neutrality rules were put in place under President George W. Bush, and many Republicans worked on the 2015 rules that were just dismantled. What happened, then, is that Republicans sold the public a narrative that wasn't true, then used that narrative to repeal the regulations that protect the internet.
Using a Freedom of Information Act request, Motherboard obtained a summary of the Inspector General's report, which has not been released publicly and is marked "Official Use Only, Law Enforcement Sensitive Information." After reviewing more than 600,000 emails, the independent office found that there was no collusion between the White House and the FCC: "We found no evidence of secret deals, promises, or threats from anyone outside the Commission, nor any evidence of any other improper use of power to influence the FCC decision-making process." [...] Since 2014, Republicans have pointed to net neutrality as an idea primarily promoted by President Obama, and have made it another in a long line of regulations and laws that they have sought to repeal now that Donald Trump is president. Prior to this false narrative, though, net neutrality was a bipartisan issue; the first net neutrality rules were put in place under President George W. Bush, and many Republicans worked on the 2015 rules that were just dismantled. What happened, then, is that Republicans sold the public a narrative that wasn't true, then used that narrative to repeal the regulations that protect the internet.
You must be joking! That is unpossible!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Repubs playbook in the tl;dr edition.
I am unsure what rattles me more... that a politician would lie or that a republican would lie about the Obama administration...
That's like saying an inspector general looked at the official communications between Nixon and his watergate team and determined that the Watergate team just acted on their own.
A politically motivated move, driven by the political party and hailed by the President at the time by his self-appointed leader of the FCC along with a full on political campaign was NOT politically motivated?! That's bullshit on its face.
But then I'm sure this same inspector general will find the same about repealing it, right?
that wasn't true, then proceeded to do what they wanted anyway despite the majority of the public not buying it.
Let's be honest, they didn't care if we believed it, so long as they believed themselves.
No, you're not going to find evidence of "collusion" between the White House and the FCC, and no, that does not contradict the claim that the Obama administration got the FCC to pass net neutrality. Net neutrality was a huge goal of the Obama administration and a very big political win for them. It IS possible, you know, for like-minded people to work independently towards a common goal. I've heard that happens from time to time.
And, by the way, can we save everyone a huge amount of time and wasted expense and just assume that we won't find any evidence of "collusion" between this White House and the hacking of the DNC email servers or the purchase of Facebook advertisements? And, can we also just admit that like-minded people can be working independently towards a common goal in THIS instance, too?
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Both major US parties use the same siren song. On the right: "That's what Obama wanted!" On the left: That's what Trump is doing!"
The power brokers now have the ability to galvanize a large portion of the population with a few key buzzwords. It's a lot more work to remain undecided.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
A more common point that I see is that we didn't have net neutrality until 2015. Not only was the net effectively neutral (most of the time) prior to that, the dial-up internet of the dotcom era was regulated similarly, and even had leasing requirements that meant multiple options and some real semblance of competition. The change from that regime happened with cable and DSL, which were less regulated, but still neutral, until the actions from ISPs that prompted the 2015 rules out of necessity.
So, the actual timeline was: Neutral internet->Deregulated broadband->Dickish ISP behavior->Fixing dickish ISP behavior by re-regulating->Re-deregulating broadband.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I am just surprised this required some type of reporting. I would imagine that any and all narrative coming from the politicians are lies and exaggerations. Maybe thats just me.
You keep going until you die..."Me".
In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims
Was there really anyone who thought otherwise?
only one everything
The real issue here isn't Republicans versus Democrats, or the political right versus the political left, or really anything at all having to do with politics.
The real issue at hand is that we keep hearing about net neutrality that only applies to the bottom 3 layers of the 7-layer OSI model of modern networking infrastructure, rather than true net neutrality that applies to 100% of the 7 layers.
While I'd expect most Slashdot readers to already be quite familiar with the OSI model of networking, if you aren't familiar with it you can learn about it here. Basically it's a way of dividing up the various physical and virtual aspects of a modern computer network into 7 distinct layers.
The "net neutrality" we've heard so much about recently only applies to the bottom 3 layers. It stops at the Network level, where the main concern is packets.
Now don't get me wrong, it's good that it covers that much of the networking stack. The problem is that these 3 layers account for only 43% of the stack. There are the other 4 layers, which in many ways are far more important, and where neutrality is needed far more.
Neutrality is needed all the way up until the top layer, layer 7, or the Application layer. This is where high-level communication systems like social media web sites and online discussion forums fall.
We need to have 100% net neutrality. This means that communication service providers like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Slashdot, Hacker News, and Stack Overflow have to be neutral when it comes to the comments, topics, users, and other content and participants using their services.
This, in turn, means that such web sites can't go deleting/hiding/censoring or otherwise filtering comments that are otherwise legal based on their content or their sender/recipient. This also means that they can't ban users who are posting legal content.
Anyone who is pushing for this 43% approach to "net neutrality" isn't supporting neutrality at all. They're supporting net partiality.
Frankly, we can do better than this 43% approach. Any policy regarding net neutrality should focus on true net neutrality across all 7 layers of the OSI model. We need 100% neutrality, not this faux 43% partiality.
So I have to support the decision to throw out the existing approach. It didn't go anywhere near far enough toward the 100% goal we should be aiming for.
We need to start again, but this time we need 100% net neutrality across all layers of the network stack. It does us no good to force the physical telecom service providers to be neutral with packets, while at the same time not enforcing neutral handling of the content within those packets by the higher-level communication service providers.
Communication service providers like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Slashdot, Stack Overflow, and Hacker News should be neutral about the submissions, comments and users on their system, just as providers of the physical telecom infrastructure should be neutral about the data they're transmitting.
Don't like it? Show up to vote. Democrats stayed at home they don't get to complain. Republicans voted for Trump, they don't get to complain.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale
In the comments section of his FCC blog post about giving thanks.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
The corporations that run these major companies that are busy buying out the government are run largely by Democrats. There are no good guys
So I've read the gp's comment, which presents some interesting ideas in a civilized and intelligent manner. I've also read your comment, which is nothing more than a petty, childish insult that's completely void of any real substance. The gp's argument is far more convincing than yours is. The pure hostility you show toward a very reasonable set of ideas additionally makes me think that the gp is correct.
please correct
It's done and over with. Net neutrality is dead. You won't make it come back, ever. You lost. Does it hurt? I bet it does. Is your life over now?
but of course the vermin like you will WILLINGLY dash madly to allow your identity to be stolen and used against you
(To be read in deadpan)
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that Ajit Pai would present a false narrative to achieve a political goal!
We should Hate Obama for fighting against Net Neutrality rather than Thank Obama since he didn't force it down the governments throat. Thanks Trump!
So you do acknowledge that government regulation and meddling caused the limited ISP choice in much of America to begin with. Yet somehow you think that yet more government-imposed net neutrality regulation and meddling will improve the situation?! You're basically suggesting that a man smash his scrotum with a hammer, and then when he feels immense pain he should smash it once again with that same hammer to supposedly stop the pain! It's nonsensical!
First, this is not Republican vs Democrat. Neither side work for the people, and many in both of those parties are working for a global cabal to take control out of our hands.
Second, of course the official documents aren't going to show anything, ever since Nixon any politician with half a brain knows to destroy or not have such documents.
Third, The FCC DECLARED their authority over the Internet, they declared it a public utility. Congress did no such thing.
Fourth, Obama said he wanted Congress to act, but of course he contacted the FCC an bypassed Congress and encouraged the FCC to do this. Here is a video of him actually saying it back in 2014 (PRIOR to it being implemented).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKcjQPVwfDk
Congress could have made a 1 or two page law restricting companies from throttling traffic or censoring people, but under Obama's direction (as he indicated in the above video) the FCC came up with a 300 page document.
Finally, we didn't have censorship prior to that date. Today, comments are censored out, web pages are shut down, or completely removed from DNS, and big corporations such as AT&T have immunity from civil actions. These things all happened AFTER. Remember, they called their own twisted plan "Net Neutrality" in order to confuse the public and any investigations, and in that they were successful.
Anonymous was right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7WHoqsRuxU
Or perhaps to someone who knows what the fuck they are talking about, the gp is a fucking moron that is disguising his stupidity behind clear, proper English to make it more believable, and the parent is calling it like he sees it - dumb. I also posit that YOU are the gp.
So I've read the gp's comment, which presents some interesting ideas in a civilized and intelligent manner. I've also read your comment, which is nothing more than a petty, childish insult that's completely void of any real substance. The gp's argument is far more convincing than yours is. The pure hostility you show toward a very reasonable set of ideas additionally makes me think that the gp is correct.
I would advise you to not to base your opinion of an idea on the attitude and tone of its detractors. It is possible for two sides of an argument to both be wrong.
That said, the problem with the GP's reasoning is that he is conflating the transmission of content from one node to another with the display of that content on a node. It's like saying that if we allow all trucks to drive on a road, we must require all businesses to sell whatever the trucks deliver. They are separate issues, but the GP does not seem to get that.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I thought the entire reason for Trump to repeal NN was Obamadiddit. If Obama didn't do it, then there isn't any motivation for undoing it.
We definitely know the main reason Pai did this, was for his own personal profit. Everyone knew that, even before today. It's an open not-even-secret that the guy's main master is the telecom industry and that America is relatively unimportant to him. That guy has a dream job: make rules changes to personally profit at the public's expense.
But that's just Pai and his personal situation. He merely happens to be a corrupt scumbag. Not everyone is.
Without the Obamadidit thing, why do Republicans in general want NN gone?
Why is NN a partisan issue? Can any Democrats explain why Republicans want NN gone? Can any Republicans explain why Democrats want NN?
If it ain't about just stupidly undoing every decision the former president was involved in, then what? Is there an actual political issue here, where conservative and progressive ideals differ?
So you do acknowledge that government regulation and meddling caused the limited ISP choice in much of America to begin with. Yet somehow you think that yet more government-imposed net neutrality regulation and meddling will improve the situation?! You're basically suggesting that a man smash his scrotum with a hammer, and then when he feels immense pain he should smash it once again with that same hammer to supposedly stop the pain! It's nonsensical!
It's not actually a contradiction. We can say that regulation fucked us up while at the same time saying the only way to fix this is through regulation since the first set of regulation made it so hard to remove. Think of it as misapplied magic. The only way to correct it is through magic.
In the case of NN, the only way to correct it is either Title II or through some other form of regulation that destroys the single provider contracts and the like that munis made years ago. You'd have to do it in some special way to protect munis from having to repay funds since they mostly limp along year to to year.
SMH
I've mentioned this earlier. the Net Neutrality situation is only affecting the physical connection aspect by design. since the physical connection is something that is a natural monopoly and should be regulated like a public utility (water, electricity). the rest of it is content.
That's a lot of words for saying "scientists want to have truth, everyone else just wants to be right".
You forgot the air quotes around "right".
Moore was not convicted of anything
That is true but then neither was Hillary Clinton but that has not stopped conservative pundits from dragging her into every conversation about the incompetence, hypocrisy and corruption of their leaders and confidently asserting that she is guilty of a long list of crimes as established fact. So you can think of Roy Moore as the liberal's Hillary Clinton, except while Hillary is merely corrupt Roy Moore is also way, way, way more creepy than she could ever hope to be.
No! What he is suggesting is that the ISP's are smashing his scrotum with a hammer very hard, and because of the laws of the land he can't choose an ISP that smashes with less force, so the FCC needs to put rules into place to make them use less force.
These women did not produce evidence.
You have perhaps heard of the innocent until proven guilty idea. Eight accusations are not proof of guilt, regardless of the gender of the accusers.
This has nothing to do with whether women are more believable than men. This does not explain about our culture what you are implying it explains. What it does explain is that our culture is full of people like you, who think that justice is served when accusations alone lead to conviction, without evidence.
What I acknowledge is what I can see, that is every time someone tries to create competition for the entrenched ISPs you can see them go to their government hos and buy some new laws to ensure that competition does not see the light of day.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But absence of proof is not proof of absence.
The OIG report didn't debunk the suspicion that Obama had undue influence on the FCC's processes. They simply didn't come across any proof of it in the email records kept by the FCC. They did, though, restate that Wheeler and the president had had conversations about topics like this.
So it still leaves unexplained the FCC's decision to make such a sudden break with longstanding, bipartisan, and legal consensus that the Internet shouldn't be regulated like this.
Al Franken is STILL in the Senate. they didn't drum him out of anything.
The big problem was actual crap insurance -- maybe yours was ok but maybe you are not a lawyer and even so, you can't fully grasp what your plan was! They had a lot of plans that were forced... well, technically not forced but they were pushed into changing the crap insurance plans (and if they sounded like shit after being fixed-- it's simply because regulation made them more honest.)
I know people who had supposedly great insurance but when it came down to that MAX out of pocket disaster their great insurance had a lot of vague loop holes the insurance company used to create a CAP on expenses that was not literally there in the small print.
You might think you have a MAX cap but in reality the insurance company has a secret functional cap that is impossible to nail them down on (they have an army of lawyers.) When you hit THEIR cap then you are left with more than your maximum out-of-pocket costs and you must involve expensive lawyers after that point to get further... in such situations you probably DIE before winning the legal battle. They know it. All it takes is some actuary to write off your life--- also, I have TWO relatives who kill people for a living so I know what I'm talking about. They even admit they kill people--- it's just math and accounting type problems for them -- they can't know how bad it is because it's all abstracted and cleaned up at every level ... very few employees know the details that would create moral problems.
The Milgram Experiment has been advanced and applied so far it's hard to recognize the corporate implementations of it. It doesn't just happen in government and competition is no cure for it either you libtards! totally off base. We base economics, polices, beliefs upon assumptions about human nature that are incredibly ignorant old ideas from before psychology or even before science.
What happened, then, is that Republicans sold the public a narrative that wasn't true... Uhm, no. The majority of American's didn't buy their bullshit and wanted to keep Net Neutrality.
You can take just about everything anybody says and turn it into a lie or factually in error. Anybody with some philosophy courses under their belt can grasp that reality.
Obama wasn't lying in any reasonable sense. People who had SCAM insurance didn't actually have their plan and their doctor they thought they did. When the regulations kicked in, it made companies adapt their scams -- technically, the company took away your plan or your doctor.
Directly, Obama didn't do it, the ACA law didn't do it as far as I know. But INDIRECTLY it did shake things up so the corporations may have decided to take it away.
The MISLEADING thing Obama did which at that moment he might not been thinking of (but overall he was aware of) is that "your" healthcare plan and "your" doctor never existed! It was never YOURS, it all belongs to the insurance company who merely allows you to purchase access almost at their whim. In the context of how people think about it, he wasn't even misleading-- you can't say something technically correct in a sound bite... hell, you can't say it in a way that the below average half the population could understand with a page of text.
This is why oversimplification is always a huge problem for mass communication. It can be exploited or it can be required/forced -- that is where motives become important... something that is hard to impossible to know. That is when smart people and stupid people are on level ground and deciding upon pre-existing biases about obama or whatever politician.
To put this in perspective, I'm libertarian leaning conservative. The Republicans are full of carp on this issue. Very specifically, "taking over the internet" and "net neutrality" really don't belong in the same sentence. That's like saying, "taking over the the marketplace" and "free trade" in the same sentence. It doesn't scan.
I strongly suspect that most congress critters don't understand what the term "net neutrality" means, they just know, dimly, which side their party is on. Ron Wyden does understand the real issue. I think Chuck Schumer is engaged only because prominent Republicans are on the other side of the issue.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Poor racist pedophile creeper with crazy out of touch beliefs he wants to IMPOSE upon everybody else (similar to religious terrorists; oh, he's not against abortion terrorism.) A vast left wing jew conspiracy attacked the poor helpless Moore...
The 1 crime that is so bad that the mere accusation ruins lives: pedophile.
No conspiracy needed. outraged mobs of people happen when pedophiles are rewarded.
No faggot you lose. Instantly. Internet rule.
Now since you're not a paid shill of some sort prove it and post under your slashdot nick. Just as I have with no expectation that this would be a popular post.
If you're not a shill please prove it with a slashdot account not from last week. I have requested this from 10 shills now and not a single one has complied. I guess you must really value your temporary karma rating. Look at dns-and-bind. Insane right winger with positive karma. Who would have thought!
But you don't have a slashdot account because someone paid you to come here and shit the place up.
The start of net neutrality was to take over the Internet for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Which is more about Intellectual property (trademarks, copyright, and patents) than trade.
Thank God Trump withdrew the US from this.
#freedumbs
#usafrica
Meanwhile Brits, Canucks, and even THE FRENCH just go see a Doctor without having to be raeped by "insurance".
Ahahaha!
TFA confuses the concepts of "absence of proof" and "proof of absence". The claim the "Republican narrative is refuted", while their citations show merely absence of proof (emphasis mine): "We found no evidence of secret deals, promises, or threats from anyone outside the Commission".
These people aren't dumb — which means, their mixing up the two concepts is deliberate. In other words, they are lying.
Now, as to the original claim — by the evil RethugliKKKans — what evidence could they present to back up their accusation? The President doesn't need to explicitly instruct his appointees to the FCC (or any other Executive-branch agency) to adopt this or that regulation. It is enough for him to simply appoint the people who already sincerely agree with him in the first place.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Really, I must have missed that trial...
What you are saying is that the Republicans were spreading "Fake News"?? NO way that is what they swear up and down that the Democrats are doing! How is this possible? Is this fake news? I am so dumb (Because I am not rich or republican) I don't know what to believe unless I get it from Alex Jones!
Irony:
Conplaining about messing with lives, and citing right to life as an example
Who demand crony privileges enforced by the government. Pai is laughing them off and trolling them into the ground, and they are flipping out. It is hilarious to watch.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/
"Someone on the internet didn't do what I requested! Even though it was only literally impossible!"
Not to say those 10 shills weren't shills, but even if they aren't, expecting them to give a crap what you request.. never mind expecting them to somehow go back in time to create an older account that suits your desires.. is kind of a pointless endeavor.
Yep. That's what they call "deregulation" these days. "Remove things we don't like, and add things that stifle competition." Of course "we" referring to "companies with lots of money to buy off politicians."
Not really the definition most of us have in mind when we hear Trump stumbling through his rhetoric yet again.
And he was convicted of that act.
Those laws sunset, though, and the NN laws were a reinstatement of that in legilsation rather than in the charter set up of the telecoms system for the great backbone rollout. It is a lie to claim you did not have NN, you did. It was the expiration of those regulations that required new legilsation to re-enact, since by then it was patently clear that the ISPs would not police themselves, and it would take legilsation to get them to remain open.
That's what the 2015 FCC ruling of Net Neutrality was.
Protecting the interests of the major donors and activist organizations... namely GoogleFacebook.
All the new ruling does is roll back the REGULATIONS to where they were before 2015. I don't remember anyone screaming before 2015?
Competition spurns creativity and price reductions.... Let's build new infrastructure so we can have more choice! I would gladly pay additional charges to have a connection that's not bogged down by porn streaming. :)
Look, it does sound like a lie, in that Obama might not have been messing with the FCC to get there. However, you can't ignore articles like this One about an internet kill switch that showed there is a desire within government to have some level of control of the internet. (the justification was 'for emergencies', but I say this is ridiculous where is the first people will go in an emergency if they need important information: hint: google, although radio in some areas might still be the go to place.)
So did Republicans lie? No, but it certainly might be a mischaracterization of the how, if not the motives. The Right has long seen attempts to silence them by people on the left. That's not tin foil hattery, (btw, liberals were worried about trump doing the same thing recently also.)
The point is that right now the board is infested with shills who don't normally post here and don't have accounts. They'll argue that soros is a lizard for 5 hours and dismiss the russian shill story as nonsense, if thats who they are then they would jump on a chance to blow up my liberal conspiracy theories.