Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
In 298 days, President Trump has made 1,628 false and misleading claims
This feels like the lead up to the financial collapse too...
dickish behavior by banks->economic collapse because of it-> regulation of banks to prevent dickish behavior-> de-regulation of banks -> dickish behavior by banks -> economic collapse.... wash rinse repeat...
Though our next economic collapse is because of dickship behavior on the part of congress.... (I'd blame the president for signing the bill into law, but we all know he can't be expected to read or understand a bill put on his desk to sign, congress should know that doubly well.)
While I would actually agree with you, this would probably just drive these companies out of the US. With nothing accomplished aside of jobs in the US being lost.
The main difference is that I cannot choose to use an ISP in, say, Norway, where there are rather cheap and fast internet connections available. On the other hand, it's trivial for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to shut down their US business and move to any country offering them to do business as they please because on the internet it simply does not matter where your server is located.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
While that has been true to some extent, it has never been so ridiculous as it has been now. Basically from the moment Obama got elected, the republican party went nuts. The first sign of problems was the Tea Party and now we have a Trump presidency. Even ignoring Trump, the republican primaries had quite a few crazies overshadowing reasonable candidates.
George W. Bush had one huge screw up and very likely corruption at the heart of why (Iraq) and I would argue a bit weak and mostly had shots called by others in his administration, but the party in general was a bit more reasonable. McCain was a very good candidate and I wouldn't have minded the least if he won. Romney was out of touch and a weak candidate, but even then I wouldn't have been *too* concerned.
I don't know if it was racism reaction to a not quite fully white president or an inevitable reaction to the economy collapsing or some combination of both, but something started stirring in the republican party in 2009 that was just nasty. Combine that with a weak candidate that also triggers the frothing anti-clinton and anti-woman factions, while also pissing off democrats by doing unfair things to Sanders and we got Trump.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If you are called an ISP then you should only be responsible for the level 1-3. The hire levels 4-7 are outside of the domain, and in general do not require the same level of infrastructure support. Slashdot can moderate down or even delete my comment so it isn't read, even if my comment was legal. Because I am able to post my view in an other forum, or in general being able make my own site relatively inexpensively.
Today for the ISP we are limited in choices, hence why Net Neutrality is important. In my area I have 3 options, Cable (Spectrum) and Cell Wireless (AT&T and Verizon). In my home Cell coverage is spotty so I only have one real option. All three of these ISP sources have interests in additional services that compete against other services which do not own the infrastructure to be an ISP, and many of the ones who can may not be able to get past the local monopolies to implement.
If I don't like Facebook, Google or Slashdot. I can use an other service. If I don't like my ISP well I am kinda stuck, if my ISP says I shouldn't use a service then I may not be able to do so.
That is the real danger. At the moment the ISP are saying they are not planning on blocking anything, or throttling down anything. But they put in a lot of political capital to get this removed... Which make me wonder why the effort if they are not planning to do something.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Oh yes, let's - you first. Which post is modded insightful?
The one that hews more closely to objective reality, frankly.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
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.
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.
No, it doesn't. First, there was no longstanding consensus that the internet shouldn't be regulated like this.
But, if you've been following this from the time before the FCC decision, you'll see that there is no mystery here at all. Here's the synopsis for you, but I encourage you to actually research the history of all of this.
1) ISPs began to abuse their position by unfairly interfering with internet traffic.
2) The FCC stepped in to try to stop it.
3) ISPs took it to court.
4) The court said the FCC didn't have the authority to stop the abuse because ISPs weren't categorized as common carriers by the FCC.
5) The FCC changed how they categorized ISPs so that they could put a stop to future abuse.
There's zero mystery here.
While that has been true to some extent, it has never been so ridiculous as it has been now. Basically from the moment Obama got elected, the republican party went nuts. The first sign of problems was the Tea Party and now we have a Trump presidency. Even ignoring Trump, the republican primaries had quite a few crazies overshadowing reasonable candidates.
George W. Bush had one huge screw up and very likely corruption at the heart of why (Iraq) and I would argue a bit weak and mostly had shots called by others in his administration, but the party in general was a bit more reasonable. McCain was a very good candidate and I wouldn't have minded the least if he won. Romney was out of touch and a weak candidate, but even then I wouldn't have been *too* concerned.
I don't know if it was racism reaction to a not quite fully white president or an inevitable reaction to the economy collapsing or some combination of both, but something started stirring in the republican party in 2009 that was just nasty. Combine that with a weak candidate that also triggers the frothing anti-clinton and anti-woman factions, while also pissing off democrats by doing unfair things to Sanders and we got Trump.
It is impossible to ignore that racism played a significant role in whatever happened to the GOP. Full disclosure. I voted for McCain in 2008. A lot of Republicans did, and had nothing to do with Obama being black.
But right after the election, I could not believe my eyes, my ears, to see so much nasty racism coming out the closets all of the sudden. That was my turning point when I started to move away from the GOP.
The reality is this, for a good segment of the population, say 20%, it is racial resentment (I don't know about fucking what, though.) It is a resentment that goes like this: "I have nothing because some blacks and homosexual illegal mexican muslims from China are living in welfare." Do not laugh at it. You know there is a lot of people that think like that.
They bitch about not having jobs, but don't move to where the jobs are. As Mike Rove from "Dirty Jobs" put it, they want the perfect job right in their towns (when the solution is to be like a Mexican and move to where the jobs are, abandoning everything if they must.) And they cannot tolerate the notion that somewhere a poor household where both parents are working multiple part-time jobs might need some help to stay afloat.
THAT'S WELFARE. IT BELONGS TO ME.
So, in essence, this incredibly virulent minority voted in 2016 hoping for what it is, in essence, a Herrenvolk Welfare State. Sure, some minorities jumped into this idiotic choo choo train (or some people who aren't racists looked the other way because they hated HRC's guts.) But it doesn't change the fact that what these people want, and what Trump has implicitly promised, is that: a Herrenvolk Welfare State.
They ain't gonna get that shit, and in fact, they will be hurt the most with these new policies. I for one will not shed a tear. Let people reap what they sow.