Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Opposes Net Neutrality (arstechnica.com)

Beardydog writes: An article currently on Ars Technica examines comments about net neutrality issues by recent Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh not only rejects the FCC's reclassification of ISPs under Title II, but seems to also support a broad First Amendment right to "editorial control," allowing ISPs to selectively block, filter, or modify transmitted data.

Kavanaugh compares ISPs to cable TV operators, rather than phone companies. "Deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN and deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN.com are not meaningfully different for First Amendment purposes." Here's what Ars Technica had to say about Kavanaugh's argument, which did not address the business differences between cable TV and internet service: "Cable TV providers generally have to pay programmers for the right to carry their channels, and cable TV providers have to fit all the channels they carry into a limited amount of bandwidth. At least for now, major internet providers don't offer a set package of websites -- they just route users to whichever sites the users are requesting. ISPs also don't have to pay those websites for the right to 'transmit' them, but ISPs have argued that they should be able to demand fees from websites."

The report also mentions Kavanaugh's support of NSA surveillance: "In November 2015, Kavanaugh was part of a unanimous decision when the DC Circuit denied a petition to rehear a challenge to the NSA's bulk collection of telephone metadata. Kavanaugh was the only judge to issue a written statement, which said that '[t]he Government's collection of telephony metadata from a third party such as a telecommunications service provider is not considered a search under the Fourth Amendment.' Even if this form of surveillance constituted a search, it wouldn't be an 'unreasonable' search and therefore it would be legal, Kavanaugh also wrote."

Comments

Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to understand - judges don't (and shouldn't) make the laws. They only attempt to interpret them as cases are brought before them where a violation is claimed.

Want different laws? Elect different legislators.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 naive

Re: Judges, not legislators

[saloomy]

How is dragnet record requests from ISPs and telecom carriers not unreasonable?? Sorry, but I disagree with you. Stupid interpretation can be bad for the freedoms and laws we have enshrined. Because of our stupid two party system, we may not always have the right political climate to fix what was once done. The 4th would never fly if it were being proposed today. Too many blue lives / law and order types who don't see the value of privacy, and can't imagine their freedoms being taken away because "governments never persecute good Christians".

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Pinky's Brain]

Nah man, all the law you'd ever need is in the constitution if you're smart enough. Like it says that intervention in one trimester of pregnancy can be regulated by the state, but another can not. You just need high IQ to see it.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Pinky's Brain]

It might be an unreasonable search of the carrier's property, if that carrier doesn't simply cooperate when asked nicely.

If the carrier cooperates you really need the constitutional right to privacy to have much of a point of declaring even that unreasonable, the legal reasoning behind that has always been shaky to say the least.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[lhunath]

This is exactly what you are seeing here. A judge interpreting what the law (constitution) tries to say about a distributor (ISP). In this case, the judge appears to see the distributor of Internet content to be the one who chooses how that Internet content should appear if consumed through their network. That is a perfectly valid if not disastrously incompatible interpretation of "Internet" as is currently understood by Internet users. We tend to think of the Internet as a thing in and of itself, where this judge appears to think of it as a pool of possible things that an ISP can cherry-pick content from to serve up for you.

Note that supreme court judges are different from regular judges in how their interpretations are made and how they are applied. For one, AFAIK, they do not hear experts, they are the experts.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Bert64]

Because you as the user have chosen to give away that data to the carrier...
They are not searching data you hold, they are searching data the carrier holds which you have given to them.
So it's not placing an unreasonable burden on you, as the end user.

Wether it's unreasonable for the carrier is another matter.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[prisoner-of-enigma]

We tend to think of the Internet as a thing in and of itself, where this judge appears to think of it as a pool of possible things that an ISP can cherry-pick content from to serve up for you.

Please find the exact clause and wording in the Constitution where it grants the government the right to tell a private company what it can and cannot distribute to customers voluntarily consuming its services. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

You see, this is one of the problems of wanting an "activist judiciary." Just because you want your ISP to work a certain way doesn't give you the right to force them to do so. The proper course of action is to vote with your wallet and take your business elsewhere. Don't act like you can't; it's a rare case these days where you have no choice of ISP's. You'd be outraged if the government ordered an ISP to not carry some specific content. The reciprocal of that is the government has no right to stop them from not carrying it. You cannot have one without the other. The alternative is government control of content, something any liberal or conservative should rightly oppose.

This is what freedom looks like. It is not perfect, never will be, and any attempt to make it so will eventually backfire when you hand the government too much control. The best control will always be in the hands of the people making economic choices of their own free will. No company can long withstand a situation where customers are dissatisfied with their product or service. Either their competition will drive them to bend or new competitors will spring up to serve market demand.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[whoever57]

They are not searching data you hold, they are searching data the carrier holds which you have given to them. So it's not placing an unreasonable burden on you, as the end user.

"unreasonable burden" isn't the issue here. The question is whether you have an expectation of privacy, having given that data to a company. Personally, I expect my phone company to keep my phone records private.

Since phones are effectively required for life in the USA, you don't have a choice about giving that data, only a choice of which company you give the data to.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Want different laws? Elect different legislators.

Nah, that makes far too much sense to try. Much better to have judges "make" law even though they have no Constitutional prerogative to do so. That pesky Constitution is GREAT except for all the places WE don't like, so it should be selectively enforced or ignored on a whim. That'll work out GREAT! What could possibly go wrong? It's not like giving government arbitrarily vast powers has EVER been bad people, right?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Plus1Entropy]

How about you go read the Federalist Papers (and even the Anti-Federalist Papers) about what the people who actually wrote the Constitution had to say about the power of the Judiciary?

The Founders absolutely intended for Judges to have the power to say whether laws themselves are legal.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[lhunath]

Certainly the constitution doesn't care about granting the government the right of telling a company what to do, that would be serious overreach. It's really just an interpretation of what it means that the constitution *doesn't* tell us how to think of the Internet.

Does that mean that the Internet is something that only exists as whatever comes out of your end of the cable when you buy a service with a local Internet provider? If so, it makes sense to think of the Internet as a product that is generated by your local ISP, and therefore, they have the full right to decide what it looks like.

But this is not how people today think of the Internet. If you ask people today what the Internet is, they imagine it as a unitary thing that is available to people world-wide, and it looks the same to all people everywhere. The Internet is a space of freedom of access, freedom of information and freedom of expression. It's extremely important to understand that this Internet of freedoms is completely incompatible with the Internet as a service idea. You cannot have a free Internet and at the same time an Internet that is a commercially-selected subset of Internet that works best in the business context of your local cable company.

An Internet-as-a-service is an Internet where the ISP is the socialist government, dictating for you, what the cyber world gets to look like. This is the consequential Kavanaugh Internet: you may think of it as an Internet born from constitutional freedoms, but an Internet born from freedoms is decidedly un-free.

Once we realize that, it's up to us to decide what we want to do. Do we want to throw our hands in the air and see what kind of Internet market forces will create for us (note: it will be different depending on what state you live in)? Or do we want an Internet that mirrors our current perception of an Internet of freedoms? If we want the latter, the only way to get an Internet of freedoms is by writing it into law. Regulation that states exactly what those freedoms are, and tells the gatekeepers that they need to provide us with at-minimum a version of Internet where those freedoms are respected.

A lot of people think it makes no sense that regulation creates freedom, and a lack of regulation creates oppression. But this is precisely how things work in the real world. You cannot be free without legislation that tells you what your freedoms are. What do you think the constitution is? It is the supreme regulation of your personal freedoms. What you need is a constitution of the Internet. This is net neutrality.

Net neutrality is the constitution of the free Internet. And it doesn't exist (and neither do your freedoms) unless we create it.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Noamin]

The proper course of action is to vote with your wallet and take your business elsewhere. Don't act like you can't; it's a rare case these days where you have no choice of ISP's.

While most of your post is just deranged gibbering, this is actually an outright lie. The vast majority of US homes do not have a choice of ISPs. Of course, it's no surprise that someone whose sig contains whining about "offended feelings" has no interest in facts or reality.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

So guess what the fix is? Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo. Which boxes, then, would you say have failed and which are you PERSONALLY willing to use next?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

We tend to think of the Internet as a thing in and of itself, where this judge appears to think of it as a pool of possible things that an ISP can cherry-pick content from to serve up for you.

Please find the exact clause and wording in the Constitution where it grants the government the right to tell a private company what it can and cannot distribute to customers voluntarily consuming its services.

If ISPs are common carriers then Title II applies and network neutrality is valid based on existing law. The internet, at its heart is take a packet from arbitrary source to arbitrary definition. That sounds like a common carrier to me. Title II has been around since 1964.

Ultimately it would be nice if the congress people would do their fucking jobs and officially classify it as title II so there is no room for interpretation, but they have not, since they foolishly believe that trusting corporations to do the right thing if we just give them unfettered power works. It doesn't.

Also ISPs have a ton of benefit from public easements and infrastructure to build their crap. That changes the game considerably. You can't blatantly use a public resource purely for enrichment with no consideration for the public good. This also isn't a chance where free market fairy dust fixes everything. A lot of places only have one hard line isp, and many still have none. Here is a link showing it. link.

An estimated 34.4 million people don't have access to broadband in America.

The interesting thing is conservatives tend to have flexible ethics. He says he is a strict follower of the law, but it takes a tortured interpretation to have our packet delivery network to not be a common carrier.

Now you could argue that if they ban net neutrality and such and ISPs run amuck making the internet their private toll roads, well maybe it will no longer be a common carrier, but that would be no different than saying only Walmart can use semi trucks on the highway. The original intent of the internet was as a common carrier. Interpretation of statutes should be based on that original intent, and not the intent of people wanting to make even more money by setting up more toll booths.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[PopeRatzo]

So guess what the fix is? Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo. Which boxes, then, would you say have failed and which are you PERSONALLY willing to use next?

You forgot the most important box for you: Shine.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to say squeeze box. Daddy never sleeps at night. -PCP

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

That's basically the "on a computer"/"on the internet" argument for ignoring the 4th amendment (and other laws). In practice, thirds parties holding on to private information isn't something brand new as of the internet coming into existence. Storage lockers and bank safety deposit boxes aren't all that different from S3 or DropBox; the former need a warrant. A PO Box isn't all that different from a hosted email service, but somehow the law protects the former and not the latter.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[chispito]

The proper course of action is to vote with your wallet and take your business elsewhere. Don't act like you can't; it's a rare case these days where you have no choice of ISP's.

While most of your post is just deranged gibbering, this is actually an outright lie. The vast majority of US homes do not have a choice of ISPs. Of course, it's no surprise that someone whose sig contains whining about "offended feelings" has no interest in facts or reality.

Here is a study (skip to page 11) that estimates that over 50% of US households have 2 or more choices for 25mbps+ landline service.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[fafalone]

Please find the exact clause and wording in the Constitution where it grants the government the right to tell a private company what it can and cannot distribute to customers voluntarily consuming its services. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

It's right after the line that says corporate entities are people and have the same rights. And that great clause about money being speech.
ISPs have near monopoly status and receive taxpayer subsidies for a service considered as essential as electric and telephone. You, and this judge, have some psychotic view of corporate personhood where they can still remain exempt from additional regulations that other companies don't have to abide by, and that's bullshit. This has nothing to do with the Constitution.
And take your business elsewhere to who ffs? You think the local cable/DSL duopoly is competition? That LTE counts? That a 3rd provider is actually widespread? There is effectively no competition and you're either shockingly ignorant for a Slashdot poster, or more likely as is typically the case among conservatives who aren't otherwise fools, flagrantly intellectually dishonest.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

I really dislike that whole argument of "find that in the Constitution", as if a document written over 200 years ago has every future technology, invention, social change, etc written in it. I've heard the same argument about the EPA, Department of Education, the IRS, etc. By that logic, we should disband the Air Force and the Marines, since the Constitution only mentions the Army and Navy. It doesn't mention electricity at all, or have any comprehension of ideas like nuclear weapons, so therefor the government shouldn't regulate those either, right? We should just return to an 18th century agrarian society, abandon any law having anything to do with anything not specifically listed in the Constitution. If one State doesn't like another State dumping toxic waste into a river right on their border, I suppose they should just call up their State militia and fight it out. States should be able to enact tariffs and embargoes between each other, succeed from the Union without federal interference, determine their own voting laws for any political positions inside their own State, etc. If it's not specifically in the Constitution, it's good to go!

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Pinky's Brain]

Granted.

Any records of your visits to the deposit/PO boxes however are almost certainly not covered, aka metadata, given United States v Miller 1976.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in rural america. I have 4 broadband providers I can choose from now. This was not the case 5-10 years ago. Technology is changing the game real fast for people to choose internet providers. Net neutrality is already an outdated concept since 80% or more is from mobile connections.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, the Supreme Court absolutely hears from experts. They hear arguments from both sides of the case and any experts either side wants to bring forward. They also glady hear from experts that have no standing in the case whatsoever in the form of an Amicus Curiae. Not sure where you got your information, but it's wrong.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Disputes between states are settled in Federal courts; that's actually in the Constitution. The Constitution also states that the federal government is responsible for Common Defense. From the hyperbole you justed spewed, it's clear that not only have you never actually read the Constitution, but your entire scope of knowledge regarding the documents is flat-out wrong.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[DarkMagician07]

Funny, I live in a fairly populated county. I have 2 choices and one of those is >5 Mbps.

Until there is a choice in who I get to use as my provider, then the company providing service has no right determining what I can and cannot see. If they can, then they are most definitely no longer a provider of the internet and are no better than AOL was back in the early 1990's.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

The last thing you want is every idiot with box of cat-5 or spool of single mode fiber running amok nailing wires to anything that will hold a nail.

Telecom is a critical infrastructure and is managed by the gov't for the public good.

Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg and Musk could run gigabit to every house and shanty in the country if they wanted to, like google tried to do.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[gravewax]

I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to understand - judges don't (and shouldn't) make the laws. They only attempt to interpret them as cases are brought before them where a violation is claimed.

Want different laws? Elect different legislators.

but a judges political, ideological and religious leanings directly affect their interpretations of those laws. These are also lifelong positions which may have huge ramifications for years if not decades to come. it is pure ignorance to think the laws start and end with the legislators.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Powercntrl]

The proper course of action is to vote with your wallet and take your business elsewhere. Don't act like you can't; it's a rare case these days where you have no choice of ISP's.

This may work for search engines, social media sites, and gay wedding cake bakers, but some of us legitimately have no choice of broadband providers.

I don't live out in BFE, either. I'm in central Florida (the 3rd most populated state in the USA). The choice in my neighborhood is Spectrum broadband, or nothing. AT&T used to offer DSL, but it is not available to new customers and they have no plans to ever offer any form of broadband services for new customers in my neighborhood.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

Note that supreme court judges are different from regular judges in how their interpretations are made and how they are applied. For one, AFAIK, they do not hear experts, they are the experts.

You are more correct than you realize.

When SCOTUS is sitting in appellate jurisdiction--as is nearly always the case--it's not there to hear the facts of the case. Facts are developed and judged at the trial level. Appellate courts don't judge facts, they judge law: was the evidence properly admitted/suppressed under the Rules of Evidence and relevant caselaw? Were there procedural errors in the handling of the case? Is there a constitutional issue making a statute invalid, or making an interpretation invalid? Was a statute used in a manner contrary to previous use without a good reason for the divergence from established jurisprudence?

The appellate court judges are experts on the law; it's not up to them to decide the accuracy and weight of the facts, just to decide whether the trial court followed the established law in getting to the result it reached. If you read most appellate court decisions, they rarely change the outcome of the trial court outright, but rather remand the case to the lower court with instructions to hold further proceedings "consistent with this ruling." That is, "y'all messed up on these points, go try again and get those bits right this time." It's not unheard of for the trial court to have new proceedings, make the procedural changes required by the higher court, and still reach the same result.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Powercntrl]

Here is a study (skip to page 11) that estimates that over 50% of US households have 2 or more choices for 25mbps+ landline service.

Typical Republican mindset: "I've got mine, too damn bad if you didn't get yours."

Selfish people with no empathy are ruining this country. Nobody should have to move just to have a choice of broadband provider. Certainly not half of the country.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

sure and in that vain, why buy security apps and firewalls etc, just hire developers that write perfect code from the start. Much like writing perfect coding it is IMPOSSIBLE to predict every current and future interpretation of a law and hence you are partially at the mercy of the judges that interpret it. Having the best legislators in the world does not lesson the need for ensuring you don't have a bias bunch of arseholes luddites for judges.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Once we realize Internet is like a road network, we come to a different conclusion. The road may be built and maintained by private individuals/corporations or public entities. Then it appears that owners may put restrictions on the speed and type of vehicles, but should not restrict by content in the vehiches/packets.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

We do, no flammable cargo in tunnel. 3+ persons per car in this lane/road.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[meglon]

Section 8

3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[LynnwoodRooster]

Deciding if a given law is legal or not is radically different than creating a new law out of the ether. Judicial activism is literally the latter - inventing new "rights" and "regulations" where none exist.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[diamondmagic]

From US Code Title 1 Chapter 1 Section 1:

words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things;
words importing the plural include the singular; ...
the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;

It's literally spelled out for you at the very first paragraph of the entire US Code. You don't even have to flip past the first page.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I not sure why this is so hard for people to understand - judges don't write legislation but they do in fact "make law" and always have and always will. It is part of the common law tradition we inherited from England.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[mcl630]

I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to understand - judges don't (and shouldn't) make the laws. They only attempt to interpret them as cases are brought before them where a violation is claimed.

Want different laws? Elect different legislators.

You miss the point entirely... his intepretations of the law in these two cases are completely ridiculous and unrealistic, no sane person would come to those conclusions... the problem is his interpretations, not the laws themselves.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I literally can't take my business elsewhere. I have a single provider of high speed internet in my area.

Your position is myopic of the actual physical infrastructure in most of America since it is actually mostly rural still.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Including wireless*

It's a bullshit estimate. Wireless will have the capacity or wired infrastructure and the reach can be spotty for people in more more areas.

This is because high speed wireless uses higher frequency (more bandwidth). Higher frequency means more towers with shorter ranges (because they are power limit legally, and for safety).

So no, wireless providers don't count.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in SW VA, we have one provider for our side of town, and a different but only one provider on the other side of town.

This is the lack of choice that exists for most people.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[shanen]

Why was that AC tripe moderated into visibility. And "insightful", too? In a flying pig's eye. Or rather in the eyes of a herd of flying sock puppets with mod points to burn. There is a substantive reply, but NOT for AC.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[dywolf]

Translation:
when judges agree with me: good decision
when they don't: ACTIVIST JUDGES MAKING LAWS!

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

50%?!? You are telling me it is too difficult and not enough to go around to provide more than 1 out of every 2 individuals a second ISP... in the US?!?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[dywolf]

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

Re:Judges, not legislators

[dywolf]

Not flame bait.
Mod up, +1 Fact.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[fafalone]

I wasn't aware the US Code was part of the US Constitution.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that he brought the 1st amendment into the matter is a clear signal that if legislators attempt to pass net neutrality protections as law, a cable company need only to sue the government claiming their 1st amendment rights have been violated. By deciding how a law is interpreted, you essentially are writing laws.

It's sad that this needs to be spelled out for you. Critical thinking my friend, learn it.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbish. If legislators didn't write such shitty laws that need to be interpreted, the judges wouldn't be able to 'create laws' anyway. Have the legislators write better laws, and have the legislators change the judges laws if they dont like them. Both things are the fault of legislators not judges.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignore him. Must be another european jerking off to copies of the Maastricht treaty.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Wrath0fb0b]

Please find the exact clause and wording in the Constitution where it grants the government the right to tell a private company what it can and cannot distribute to customers voluntarily consuming its services. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

This is quite silly. The Constitution undoubtedly gives Congress the right to regulate ISPs that are engaging in interstate commerce. Congress could pass a law mandating Net Neutrality and directing an appropriate agency (likely the FCC) to draft rules to enforce it. Congress could also pass a law specifically saying that no agency has the authority to create such a rule.

Guess what. Congress did fucking neither. That's all we needed, a simple up or down from the one body that has final goddamned authority. Instead, they remained silent and so we have to parse the content of laws from previous decades instead of having a clear and concise national policy from a legislative body that's suppose to make policy.

The anger at judges and lawyers and agencies is valid but misplaced. The one body that could resolve the issue has gone out to lunch.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[AmiMoJo]

Judicial activism is literally the latter - inventing new "rights" and "regulations" where none exist.

Can you give us an example of that?

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Another Anonymous Coward incredulously demanded:

50%?!? You are telling me it is too difficult and not enough to go around to provide more than 1 out of every 2 individuals a second ISP... in the US?!?

Actually, that's pretty much exactly the case. There are still a fair number of U.S. residents who live out in the boonies, where the cost-per-mile for pole space is high and the customer density is low.

At some point, it doesn't pencil out, so you stop building out your network, and folks who live beyond the edge are reduced to crap like satellite internet or cellular data for broadband. (Soonish, though, maybe, one of the current batch of low-latency, high-bit-rate NEO satellite ISP startups should have enough coverage to permit a real alternative. My bet is on Elon Musk, since he starts with the advantage of owning his own, considerable launch capacity.)

Anyway, yeah. In urban areas, it's really expensive and difficult to find new pole space or underground your cables. In rural areas, there's just too sparse a population to support two or more multi-megabit-to-customer-premises ISPs simultaneously. So, effectively, broadband competition in much of the USA is economically infeasible ...

(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)

--

Check out my novel ...

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Bing Tsher E]

Is it not odd that like, over ninety percent of Americans agree that at the very deepest level, the most fundamental problem in this country is the supposed two party system

Are you going to back that up with more than an assertion?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

They wrote a method to update the Constitution into the Constitution for that reason, not so that a few justices could invent whatever they want on their own from whole cloth and give it the same force as the founding document of our nation ratified by the people of the nation.

They never expected it to stand for all time, but they also clearly didn't expect that justices would simply invent whatever they wanted and say it had the same force of law.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Actually, I do RTFA]

judges don't (and shouldn't) make the laws

Judges do enforce people's (and company's) constitutional rights. And if a judge (say, this one) believes all net neutrality regulations are unconstitutional, then the legislature will have trouble passing such laws.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a rare case these days where you have no choice of ISP's

That depends what you mean by "choice".

Re:Judges, not legislators

[LynnwoodRooster]

Right to privacy. Does not exist in the Constitution, made of whole cloth by the judiciary.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

You bring up a good point. Now combine your recorded visits to the safe deposit box, with every toll you hit on the tollway, every location you swipe your credit card, the list of purchased goods from all the stores you visit who keep data on you, and every surveillance camera you pass by, every time your phone records your location, and you can start to see a silhouette of yourself that turns more and more into a painting, then a photograph, then at some point indistinguishable from an FBI van spying on you from down the block.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[LynnwoodRooster]

The justices could simply rule the law unconstitutional because it lacks clarity or specificity. If you cannot understand what the law is to do, then by default it is unconstitutional. So toss the law and force Congress to try again.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

You Sir, are a troglodyte. I shoosh in your general direction.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[swillden]

The justices could simply rule the law unconstitutional because it lacks clarity or specificity. If you cannot understand what the law is to do, then by default it is unconstitutional. So toss the law and force Congress to try again.

In this case, you could write the clearest and most specific law possible to ensure net neutrality -- and Kavanaugh would rule it an unconstitutional infringement of the free speech of ISPs.

Of course, the ideal solution is competition. Given a choice between an ISP that restricts your choices and one that doesn't, you'll take the latter -- unless the restricted ISP costs a lot less or offers some other compelling advantage. This question only arises because so many consumers have no real choice of ISP.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[AmiMoJo]

Privacy seems to be covered by the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th amendments.

What specific privacy protections do you believe were created by judicial activism without constitutional support?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[LynnwoodRooster]

No problem there - a clearly written law that is also unconstitutional should be tossed. But I would argue that a law that cannot be reasonably interpreted without extensive judicial review is implicitly unconstitutional, as its constitutionality cannot be easily divined.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[DaFallus]

Another Anonymous Coward incredulously demanded:

50%?!? You are telling me it is too difficult and not enough to go around to provide more than 1 out of every 2 individuals a second ISP... in the US?!?

Actually, that's pretty much exactly the case. There are still a fair number of U.S. residents who live out in the boonies, where the cost-per-mile for pole space is high and the customer density is low.

At some point, it doesn't pencil out, so you take advantage of government handouts and subsidies to expand your network and then pocket the money and stop building out your network, and folks who live beyond the edge are reduced to crap like satellite internet or cellular data for broadband.

FTFY

Re: Judges, not legislators

[kenh]

'[t]he Government's collection of telephony metadata from a third party such as a telecommunications service provider is not considered a search under the Fourth Amendment.' Even if this form of surveillance constituted a search, it wouldn't be an 'unreasonable' search and therefore it would be legal, Kavanaugh also wrote."

This isn't your data, it's the carrier's.

The question is whether you have an expectation of privacy, having given that data to a company.

You are using the public phone network, tell me again about your expectation of privacy...

Since phones are effectively required for life in the USA

No, they are not.

you don't have a choice about giving that data, only a choice of which company you give the data to.

So you DO have a choice, choose a provider that doesn't share their customers metadata with the government.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I expect my phone company to keep my phone records private.

Why would you assume that this is the default behavior? Was there something in the contract that said they wouldn't sell it? Have you missed the last 20 years and the rise of big data?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it tough going through life with a 3rd grade understanding of government had how courts have always affected the interpretation of the laws? I know it is painful for the rest of us to watch people like you struggle with reality.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[fortfive]

Except this guy is claiming isp's have a constitutional right to limit traffic, thus making any law that might get enacted to be void on constitutional grounds.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Kavanaugh's description make sense if you take into consideration he's still using AOL.

Holy hell captcha "imbecile"

Re:Judges, not legislators

[LynnwoodRooster]

There is no right to privacy in those amendments. Please point to where they are.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[kenh]

Note that supreme court judges are different from regular judges in how their interpretations are made and how they are applied. For one, AFAIK, they do not hear experts, they are the experts.

Who do you think writes all those amicus briefs for the Supreme Court, and who do you think reads them?

Also, SCOTUS reviews the prior decisions in the case under review, including so-called "expert testimony" submitted in every lower-court case that led to the case arriving at SCOTUS.

Just because attorneys don't call "expert witnesses" when making oral arguments doesn't mean SCOTUS doesn't get input from experts.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, we should disband the Air Force and the Marines, since the Constitution only mentions the Army and Navy.

The Marines are part of the Navy so they can stay.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

So you want me to subsidize another carrier or upgrades to your existing? I don't think so.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Please find the exact clause and wording in the Constitution where it grants the government the right to tell a private company what it can and cannot distribute to customers voluntarily consuming its services. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

This is quite silly. The Constitution undoubtedly gives Congress the right to regulate ISPs that are engaging in interstate commerce. Congress could pass a law mandating Net Neutrality and directing an appropriate agency (likely the FCC) to draft rules to enforce it. Congress could also pass a law specifically saying that no agency has the authority to create such a rule.

It sounds to me like Kavanaugh would be open to an argument that such net neutrality legislation, while authorized under the commerce clause, would infringe on the first amendment speech rights of the ISP and could be stuck down on that basis.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[blindseer]

I really dislike that whole argument of "find that in the Constitution", as if a document written over 200 years ago has every future technology, invention, social change, etc written in it.

I really dislike people calling the Constitution a "living document" and forget what makes the document "alive". The Constitution lives in that it can be amended. Saying it "lives" in that it can be reinterpreted to fit the norms of today only says that the words mean nothing. It means what it meant when it was written, that's true. It still means what it meant today, if that means it doesn't fit the norms and needs of today then it should be amended.

I've heard the same argument about the EPA, Department of Education, the IRS, etc. By that logic, we should disband the Air Force and the Marines, since the Constitution only mentions the Army and Navy.

The IRS was a construct of an amendment that allowed for direct taxation of the citizens by the federal government. The EPA should not exist, and neither should the Department of Education, if we interpreted the Constitution as written. A lack of a federal agency to oversee pollution and education does not mean people dump toxins into the water without punishment or that children go uneducated. What it means is that the states manage such things. If the lack of such federal agencies bother you then lobby to amend the Constitution.

When it comes to the US Air Force I can on one hand agree with you that it is outside the Constitution. On the other hand I can see it as merely an extension of the land forces. The US Marine Corps is legally a part of the US Navy and so is constitutionally sound for it to exist. Over time it has evolved into a "separate but equal" (to use the words from POTUS describing a future space force) military force but it's still in many ways an extension of the Navy. Again, if it bothered people enough then I suspect we'd have enough support to amend the constitution to allow the USAF and USMC to exist as is.

It doesn't mention electricity at all, or have any comprehension of ideas like nuclear weapons, so therefor the government shouldn't regulate those either, right?

Correct. The federal government is a construct of the states and therefore only has the authority granted to it. I'd prefer it if the states stood up for its rights and told the federal government to go back to doing only what it was created to do. When it comes to electricity though there is the provision that the federal government is to regulate interstate commerce. When electricity crosses state borders the federal government is involved in making this "regular". When electricity crosses international borders, such as with the wires that cross into Mexico and Canada, the federal government is charged with regulating international trade and treaties with other nations that make that happen. We don't need an amendment for this because the constitution already covers this.

With nuclear weapons the Constitution was quite clear, the federal government was explicitly barred from regulating weapons. Does that mean that uranium can be bought and sold at the corner drug store? Not necessarily, because again the states are empowered to do many things that the federal government is barred from doing. If this is a problem then amend the constitution.

We should just return to an 18th century agrarian society, abandon any law having anything to do with anything not specifically listed in the Constitution.

Right, because unless the government permits it then people are barred from doing it. Except that's not how the federal government works. The federal government was explicitly defined to be very small from the start and to leave many things to the control of the states and to leave people to be free to do as they wish. Let's go back to the USAF. If the people wanted an air force to defend the skies then the people were

Re:Judges, not legislators

[blindseer]

I hate the term "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" as that more often than not can simply mean "I don't agree with the opinion".

Just because a right was not spelled out in the Bill of Rights does not mean it does not exist. Do I have the right to hop on one foot? It's not in the Bill of Rights so I guess not. But wait, I believe it is there...

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Where is my right to hop on one foot? It's there because the federal government was never empowered to prevent me from doing so. Where's my right to privacy? I have the right to privacy because if the government follows the Bill of Rights my right to privacy is preserved. Nearly every sentence in the Bill of Rights preserves some aspect or another of my right to privacy. The Constitution assumes I have some right to privacy, it's there from the government being prevented from quartering troops in my home, to not disarming me, to needing a warrant to look through my pockets.

What rights did the courts "invent"? People seem to forget that the federal government is a construct of the states, and therefore is subordinate to the states. Somehow and at some time we lost "These United States" and became "The United States". The states used to be sovereign nations under a mutually beneficial federation to administrative regions of a national government. What I've been seeing is not the courts creating rights for the people but instead the courts creating powers for the federal government.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

True. Like making up some twisted nonsense that has resulted in millions of the unborn being killed since 1973.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[AmiMoJo]

For example, the 4th guarantees the right to privacy of one's papers and domain. The 1st has freedom of assembly, which requires a certain amount of privacy to exist.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[orgelspieler]

Yeah. If we wanted Net Neutrality, we shouldn't have elected Ajit Pai. Oh wait, we didn't.

When it comes to just about anything that has regulations issued by the executive branch, there is some broad and vague law behind it. If the regulated groups squeal, it is up to the courts to decide whether the rule fits within the governing CFR. That's not the same as judges making the law. They're interpreting the law to determine whether the executive branch acted within the authority granted by the legislative branch. That's how checks and balances are supposed to work.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[shaitand]

Yes but the Constitution is the HIGHEST law... nothing congress passes can preempt it. He is a supereme court justice, these opinions aren't consistent with that law.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[tbannist]

Worse than that, he's claimed that ISPs have a constitutional right to limit and censor their customer's access to the Internet because he thinks the Internet is exactly the same thing as TV.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

but a judges political, ideological and religious leanings directly affect their interpretations of those laws. These are also lifelong positions which may have huge ramifications for years if not decades to come. it is pure ignorance to think the laws start and end with the legislators.

You are spot on.
On one hand you have Progressives judges that interpret the Constitution based on how they feel it should be vs. Conservative judges that interpret based on its written text. I know I'm generalizing a lot here, but on average that's how I see it. My preference is the latter over the former because there's less wiggle room to legislate from the bench.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[tbannist]

You are using the public phone network, tell me again about your expectation of privacy...

In what sense is the privately owned phone network a public phone network? Especially since you doubly-emphasized that point.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Green Mountain Bot]

+1 Fucking Gets It. Not a mod today, but I would up-mod the hell out of this post, AC and all.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a choice of TWO ISPS. Both are tattletales.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you think the constitution is? It is the supreme regulation of your personal freedoms.

The Constitution is a document that defines the structure and operation of the core elements of the government and the attached Bill of Rights is a RESTRICTION on what the government is allowed to do. The Constitution/Bill of Rights does not grant rights to anyone.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure how having polished shoes is going to help me, you, or anyone defend their ideals. Try again, Billy Batts?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Dragonslicer]

Please find the exact clause and wording in the Constitution where it grants the government the right to tell a private company what it can and cannot distribute to customers voluntarily consuming its services.

The Internet is just the modern equivalent of post roads.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[luis_a_espinal]

You are using the public phone network, tell me again about your expectation of privacy...

In what sense is the privately owned phone network a public phone network? Especially since you doubly-emphasized that point.

Exactly. We are obviously entitled to privacy (via anti-tapping laws) when conducting a conversation over a public phone network, so I fail to see why we shouldn't expect privacy in other contexts.

This is why I sometimes wish I lived in the EU. For all its structural failings, at least the EU got its shit right when it comes to privacy laws.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Wrath0fb0b]

What do you mean by "open to an argument"? This is a deeply ambiguous phrase.

I'm sure he would be open to an argument, because it's a judge's job to listen to each party's claims before deciding the case. But that's trivial to the point of meaninglessness.

If you mean, however, that he's been sympathetic to the argument, that's entirely nonsense because no litigant has ever taken that position and so he had no opportunity to even hear that claim. That doesn't make it right or wrong, it just means the issue never came up.

[ And the reason it never came up is that, up till now, the main argument has been about the scope of delegated powers to the FCC and whether their actions comply the APA. ]

Re: Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

How is this any different than Facebook deciding what sort of comments they are going to allow? They claim the right to decide that 90% of religious groups are 'hate speech' and ban them constantly while managing to do very little about FBLive live streams of gang rapes and beheadings. Or Youtube's decision to de-monitize every single gun-related channel, even if that content is merely about target shooting, safety, or even proper care and cleaning; despite it being completely legal and constitutionally protected. If Facebook is legally allowed to decide, for themselves, what sort of 'dialog' they want to allow in their GroupThink project, or Youtube decides who they want to punish for not fitting into their views; What right do you have telling another company (ie ATT) what they can or cannot restrict? Maybe we need to expand the 14th amendment, that guarantees equal treatment, to more than just race and gender.

This is the paramount problem with 'Net Neutrality'. They used the word Neutrality but its total bullshit. The net result is they forced carriers to absorb the cost of companies like Netflix. It is literally another example of government setting up a billion dollar empire. They use far-fetched examples of ATT blocking access to Netflix because it competes with HBO. But all they did was allow Netflix to exploit this and reduce their operating costs and saddle that burden on the carriers. There is nothing Neutral about it. If you want real neutrality then everyone gets a bandwidth meter and they pay by the byte, just like electricity. Nobody said it had to be prohibitively expensive, just uniformly metered to every occupant. Any world where ATT is told they cannot restrict the flow of data, or block the flow of data, should apply EQUALLY to content providers of Social Media. Instead of congress telling FB they need to do a better job policing they users, maybe FB needs to say 'you tell ME which users to sanction based on a system of Due Process' to congress and claim Neutrality otherwise. After all, should it not be the courts the decide when and if someone's 1st amendment rights can and should be censored? You can't have a bias'd and untrained bunch of tech flunkies like FB deciding for themselves, without true system of legal court system appeals, who is and who is not entitled to their constitutionally protected rights. Not so long as you believe your right to bandwidth and accessing the internet is beyond the rights of those paying to maintain and provide it to you.

If you want Neutrality then you best be ready to fuck over the content providers equally as much as you fuck over those just delivering said content.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[luis_a_espinal]

The last thing you want is every idiot with box of cat-5 or spool of single mode fiber running amok nailing wires to anything that will hold a nail.

Telecom is a critical infrastructure and is managed by the gov't for the public good.

Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg and Musk could run gigabit to every house and shanty in the country if they wanted to, like google tried to do.

Appeal to extremes.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Wrath0fb0b]

Exactly. We are obviously entitled to privacy (via anti-tapping laws) when conducting a conversation over a public phone network, so I fail to see why we shouldn't expect privacy in other contexts.

Except that most of those anti-tapping laws come from Congress as opposed to being mandated by the Fourth Amendment.

In fact, the entire premise of the Stored Communications Act is that Congress passed a law granting more protection[1] to third-party-stored data like emails than the courts had afforded it under the Constitution.

Which is actually supposed to be how shit works. The Constitution is a floor, not a ceiling. It's supposed to represent the absolute bare minimum of rights that can never be taken away, not the maximum extent of protection.

[1] At the same time as enabling those protections, however, the SCA did mandate that third parties turn over the data once the procedural protects kicked in. In effect, it took a system where third parties could voluntarily turn your emails over to the government with no court supervision into a system where it is illegal for the third party to turn your emails over without a court order and mandatory for them to turn it over when the government does have a court order.

That was sort of the 'grand compromise' of the SCA -- increased requirement for the government to go to court combined with increased powers of the court's orders. Not a bad deal, all in all.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[luis_a_espinal]

What do you think the constitution is? It is the supreme regulation of your personal freedoms.

The Constitution is a document that defines the structure and operation of the core elements of the government and the attached Bill of Rights is a RESTRICTION on what the government is allowed to do. The Constitution/Bill of Rights does not grant rights to anyone.

Ugh, it grants rights by virtue of what it enumerates the things the government is forbidden to do when it comes to imposing limits on people.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[strikethree]

A judge interpreting what the law (constitution) tries to say about a distributor (ISP).

Except an ISP is NOT a distributor. Sure, you could say an ISP "distributes" packets, but that is a reductio ad absurdum thing. I counter that the ISP can NOT be classified as a distributor because the ISP does not actually make the initial decision for whether or not packets flow, they merely facilitate the flowing of packets.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

what the phone company may or may not disclose about your phone records is defined under CPNI legislatively under the 1996 Telecom Act and FCC policy.

https://searchnetworking.techt...

the thing is this MetaData, while I haven't seen the exact info stored, is more obscure. I remember some layman examples of how Project Carnivore worked. Its successor, Project Prism, puts carnivore to shame. From what I recall, even with records that do not specifically say anything at all about you, they can datamine to such a degree that its almost 'Minority Report' level of probability to figure out what actions you will partake in. How likely you are to have an affair based on a brief encounter, what hotel you are most likely to use for your affair even before you know yourself, etc. Using records without your identity tied to it, they can still figure out who you are, after pairing it with other records they sift through in real-time such as the stream of email and social media posts. They track your movements, your daily texts, everything, even without having to look at the content of the traffic itself. Its the real-time, AI, version of a nosy neighbor with a line directly to the cops the second you do something different than your usual routine.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure vote with your wallet when there is only one choice /s

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately the carriers kind of did the NSA's job for them by making selling your data a prerequisite for phone service many decades ago. The government argued (and SCOTUS agreed) that if your phone service sells your data, then there's no expectation of privacy and thus they should be able to hoover up whatever data was sold to marketers. In fact, this is why there's a legal distinction between content and metadata in the first place. And the resulting law built around these rulings (e.g. CALEA) are such that carriers can't suddenly refuse to sell metadata at all anymore. The precedent is already well established that you aren't allowed to hide who you're talking to. (In fact, from a technical perspective, it's extremely difficult to obfuscate that metadata from carriers. Encryption does not protect your metadata from the NSA.)

Re:Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

SCOTUS judges take cases and in doing so, only apply them to the constitution as written. They cannot consider other federal laws in the process. Only whether this issue violates the constitution. To do so, they not only read the constitution and its amendments, but all articles written by them men who created them. This means extensive historical reads from papers like The Federalist, etc. Because it is important to understand not just the exact wording of the constitution but the author's reasoning behind putting it there in the first place. A perfect example is how people misunderstand the word 'regulated' in the 2nd amendment. It has nothing to do with government 'regulations'. Well Regulated meant kept in proper working order in 1787 and was used throughout the land as such. Today nobody uses the phrase 'well regulated' to mean maintained in proper working order. In order to understand this wording, research into writings by the framers is needed to understand the use of these words, as they have clearly changed in their implied definition over time.

In what way is what a carrier wanting to do with his network that he sells access to unconstitutional in any manner that also does not make the practices of late by FaceBook and Youtube in their fake war on 'fake news' any different? Its the same thing. One restricts sites, one restricts content, two sides of the same fucking coin.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no economic free will. It's a rare case these days where you have any choice of ISPs. Your options for wireline service are one company; usually the incumbent cable provider for your area. Cellular service is slightly better, but also vastly inferior to a wireline provider. And fixed-wireless services basically don't exist outside of rural areas. But the key point is that all of those markets are government run. The barriers to entry are set by various levels of government and we can't act like we're regulating independent companies in a free market, because we're not. We're regulating government granted monopolies.

If you want to establish a new wireline provider, you need access to utility poles from your local government. And a large number of those are franchised out to an incumbent cable provider, which prohibits other services from entering their market area. If you want to establish a new wireless provider, you need access to licensed spectrum from the federal government. And a large amount of that spectrum is already owned by incumbent cellular providers.

You seem to be arguing that just because Comcast is nominally private, we shouldn't regulate it. The fact is that Comcast is as much of a private company as USPS is. That is, they have a government monopoly and we should regulate them as if they were the government. Because they are, just like AT&T was back in the 80s.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[shaitand]

It enumerates EXAMPLES of things the government is forbidden to do when it comes to imposing limits on people. It specifically states that all other powers are reserved for the people.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[shaitand]

The marines are part of the navy. If you follow the way in which power was distributed by the founders then yes there is obvious guidance. The greater the scope of any empowered entity the more power had to be distributed. That is why a jury of peers has the power to prevent the enforcement of any act of any federal or state government one case at a time, collectively it was intended that the people could override what they felt was an unjust law within their community.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Pinky's Brain]

But should it be the domain of some unelected and neigh unaccountable bunch of judges to pull law out of the penumbra of the emanations of the constitution to fix flaws exposed by the march of progress? Once you go down that rabbithole, you allow for abuse which will be very hard to fix. Creating law should be the domain of congress in my opinion.

The line between interpreting the constitution and judicial activism isn't solid, but with the invention of a right of privacy I'd still say they have leapfrogged it. You need more judges willing to take a step back.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[shaitand]

The problem with the air force is the Constitution did not empower the federal government to keep a standing land force, to assemble one in time of war yes, but not in time of peace.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

net neutrality is nothing of the fucking sort. You seem to be OK with Facebook and everyone else using another bullshit, partizan, bias'd organization, The Southern Poverty Law Center, to restrict access and content under the false flag of 'fighting fake news' or 'fighting against hate speech'. NONE of that was ever ONCE considered a violation of NET NEUTRALITY. Is it fucking Neutrality or isn't it? Don't pretend like its OK to restrict SOME kinds of things you happen to disagree with and then cry because ATT *might* keep you from getting to your internet porn sites. Thats EXACTLY how 'Net Neutrality' was fucking implemented. IT means its Neutrality - AS LONG AS WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE AGREES WITH OUR STANDARDS OF HOW YOU SHOULD THINK. If it doesn't, well these rules don't apply so restrict it all you want.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't elect legislators outside our district.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[shaitand]

And juries to have the power to negate them in their communities one case at a time.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

What rights did the courts "invent"?

Many. One example is abortion. Another more recent example is expanding the definition of protected classes to include gender expression.

The Constitution has never taken away the States right to ban abortion if it so chooses. It should be a democratic decision of the state to decide by what standards they will apply for the unborn. The right of privacy was a farce in judicial fiat in Roe.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[shaitand]

The ISPs are carriers of speech across state lines, as such they are solidly within the scope of the commerce clause. The right to free press, free assembly, free speech, and the freedom to travel between states are ALL negated by what this justice is suggesting, that these carriers can block and even alter speech, press, and commerce in flight across state lines.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[shaitand]

Bingo.

The ISPs are carriers of speech across state lines, as such they are solidly within the scope of the commerce clause. The right to free press, free assembly, free speech, and the freedom to travel between states are ALL negated by what this justice is suggesting, that these carriers can block and even alter speech, press, and commerce in flight across state lines.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Green Mountain Bot]

Congress DID pass a law allowing the FCC to regulate interstate and international communications (as which ISPs undoubtedly qualify). More than one, in fact.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

you mean like Facebook and Youtube, deciding for themselves, what content to delete, what accounts to suspend, and what speech to censure with no legal recourse, no oversight, no transparency? That sort of restriction by content? Never once was that in breech of Net Neutrality. How is it conent on the servers I provide considered MY Property to decide what is and what is not acceptable, but the same data as it flows through my switches, routers, and fiber connections NOT considered the same property with the same discretion? This is why Net Neutrality had to go, as written. It was the furthest thing from Neutral, it was a rule, imposed without a law, restricting someone from doing something and yet allowing another company to do the exact same thing, they just happen to be your buddies. Its cronyism. There is a reason why Google logged more whitehouse visits during the Obummer administration than EVERY SINGLE OTHER LOBBYIST combined. They werent fucking talking about golfing all those times. Thats for sure.

http://googletransparencyproje...

So what did we get? We got Google drafting the language of Net Neutrality that makes ATT and other carriers subsidize their costs of running Youtube, while holding Facebook and Youtube EXEMPT from the same principles that the word Neutrality implies.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[lhunath]

Hey you, you seem frustrated. You also seem to be railing against something you clearly take issue with but wasn't in the comment you replied to.

I think you're frustrated with people hijacking the term "net neutrality" as whatever regulation is necessary to protect their own world-view. Did I get that right?

Net neutrality is not about leftist or rightist values. It is not about feminism, porn, fake news, or hate speech.

Net neutrality is nothing more than "my internet is the same internet as your internet".
The idea that the Internet is a domain of its own, and any gatekeeper that provides access to the Internet should treat it as-it-is, and not try to change what the Internet looks like to fit their personal beliefs or commercial interests. Whether that Internet has things on it that I like or dislike does not matter. What matters is that it's the same and stays the same. The ISP should be neutral, not biased. The ISP should show the picture as-is, not color it blue or red, censor it or favor it.

And here's the crux: for an ISP to treat the internet as neutral, you need regulation. If there is no regulation, every ISP will treat the Internet as biassed. Leftist ISPs will treat it leftist, rightist ISPs will treat it rightist and all ISPs will treat it in whatever way makes them more money. If you want your Internet to be the same as my Internet, your Internet speech to be unadulterated and free, you need to tell ISPs everywhere that they are not allowed to censor your speech, they are not allowed to change your Internet to look or act different.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Green Mountain Bot]

You know what IS in the constitution? This:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

In other words, it doesn't have to be in the constitution to exist. It's pretty fucking clear, based on the writings of the founders and the other amendments, that this was a right that was assumed to exist at a level so fundamental that the founders didn't even bother to write it in.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

thats easily fixed by legislating away the ownership of last-mine from the service providers. Right now, excluding less than 0.5% of the markets, you can only get service to your house in 1 of 3 ways.

Through copper phone lines which require access via poles and interconnects owned by the phone company

Through coaxial, which is even more restrictive in access to poles and interconnects owned by the cable company

Through the Air. The only last-mile medium that is 'owned' by the FCC and has more than one player providing some form of service.

As long as the phone companies and cable companies retain the Monopoly on the last-mile, you will almost always be restricted to one or two choices. If those two collude to the same restrictions, pricing models, or any other bullshit, your choices are effectively no different.

Legislate the last-mine interconnects be completely non-affiliated 3rd parties who operate with public service commission oversight and transparency to give all providers equal access to all customers. In this situation capitolism WOULD fix it because you _could_ just switch carriers. Net Neutrality is a fix for a problem only because congress, after the Patriot Act, went out of their way to reduce the number of ISPs in order to make wire taps and warrants easier to manage. They created monopolies who collude with each other to become a Cartel. Take the last-mile away and competition will flourish.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

so i take it you do not live in the US? Or perhaps live in a dense population? Even in suburbia there are neighborhoods where cable has not yet built infrastructure or the phone company only offers 6Mpbs x 384k DSL. There are even areas where DSL isnt an option because the nearest DSLAM is more than 6000ft of copper from the premises. If your suburb is more than 6000ft from the CO, and the number of units is under 500 in that neighborhood, they will not even bother to install a remote DSLAM and trunk fiber to it. In those cases, they have to wait until Cable rolls out service in their area, their choices are Cable, or pay for a cellular-internet plan and buy a router that does LTE/4G. And we all know what those speeds are really like. Just install the SpeedTest.net app on your mobile device and see how you are lucky to get 2Mbps at times, depending on distance from the tower, etc.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bill of Rights is a RESTRICTION on what the government is allowed to do. The Constitution/Bill of Rights does not grant rights to anyone."

And that, amazingly, is called a regulation. Who'd a thunk it !

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Rob Y.]

Facebook is not an ISP. Sure, they can control what's on Facebook. But Verizon should not be allowed to control whether you can access Facebook. Is it really so hard to understand that distinction?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

again you still are not lumping Facebook and Google into the same pool and requiring THEM to be Neutral and so therefore your argument is shit. You cannot pick and choose WHICH corporations have to follow the rules and which ones don't. The minute you do, the whole policy is shit and nothing more than cronyism. Unless you make a law that says NO corporation can decide, for themselves, what content to allow and what content to disallow.

If facebook were discovered to be lumping anything pro LBGT into their censorship of 'hate speech' or 'fake news' the demands for regulation would reach EPIC proportions. But every day they wage war against anything even _remotely_ affiliated with guns or the NRA and I dont hear even a fucking squeek from the hypocrites about neutrality. You could have a page or site that does nothing but talk about how to find old ww2 M1 Garands to restore to good condition, it doesnt matter, you will be flagged, you will get takedown notices, you will get banned for violation of terms.

Until you stop being a hypocrite and decide that Neutrality means Neutral PERIOD, not just sometimes, your going to deal with this shit forever.

In regards to your statement of "This has nothing to do with the Constitution", I think you need to go back to school and pay attention in civics class. The ONLY issues that appear before SCOTUS are ones DIRECTLY about constitutionality. The SCOTUS doesn't decide whats right OR fair, ONLY what is and is NOT a direct violation, or indirectly through principle, a violation of the constitution. With regards to this judge, it has EVERYTHING to do with the constitution. The lower courts are the ones who handle scope OUTSIDE of the constitution. Everything you say is wrong about his stance would make him a poor judge of a lesser court when presiding over net neutrality, but a great judge, should the CONSTITUTIONALITY of a policy or law come into question.

  To be fair, Net Neutrality isnt even a fucking law. It was a wanna-be, side-step congress, rule; implemented by the FCC and the discretion of the LAST Administration. The same latitude the CURRENT administration had to once again change. The likelihood of Net Neutrality _EVER_ appearing before SCOTUS is unlikely. ATT or some other carrier would have to bring a case against the US Gov. The same government that practically handed them a monopoly in exchange for unfettered access to your personal email, internet communication, phone records, etc. Even if they were to strike it down, similar to the way a Travel Ban got stricken down, would not stop an administration from re-wording it to comply with what ever single facet was found in violation. Hence the 3 versions of a travel ban executive order.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

thats SCOTUS's literal only job. When debating discussion of what a SCOTUS judge would and would not do, 'find that in the constitution' is the ONLY argument. A SCOTUS judge cannot decide that some state law in Hawaii allows it, so lets just keep rolling as it is. Thats not his job.

and we really should disband the Army, the way the constitution SAID we should. The constitution allows for a Navy. An army can only be authorized for 2 years at a time. It was never intended to stand forever. To get around that, we have an Omnibus spending bill every other year that re-authorizes the Army.

The marines are still part of the Navy, says so right on the top of their paycheck.

Perhaps in other discussions 'find that in the constitution' makes less sense. But when discussing a judge and what he may or may not decide in his ruling on a case that will probably NEVER reach his court while service in SCOTUS, its the only argument that really matters. Did what he previously express correctly outline the actual constitutionality of the policy? If so then you cannot say it makes him ineligible. There are many laws on our books that are, in fact, unconstitutional. Until such time they get legally challenged, AND the SCOTUS agrees to hear the case, they will remain on the books, enforced, despite their unconstitutionality.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[bondsbw]

If you want real neutrality then everyone gets a bandwidth meter and they pay by the byte, just like electricity.

ISPs have always been free to offer this kind of system. Predictable billing is just more popular. (Most electric companies provide budget billing for the same purpose.)

just like electricity

So regulated like a utility? Because infrastructural companies tend to have little or no competition in an area due to physical restrictions or other regulations?

Yes, yes, yes... I totally agree with this.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[blindseer]

I agree that is a problem. I'd prefer the Constitution be followed and the Army and Air Force be under the control of the states except in times that Congress has declared war. Alternatively the Constitution could be amended to allow for a standing air defense force and/or land defense force.

In my mind this can only be resolved by the states standing up to the federal government and forcing the federal government to abide by the limits set by the Constitution. I'd like to know how to get the states to grow a backbone.

I'd also like to know how we got this far off the rails. I suspect finding where this went off the rails would reveal how to get back on.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, that makes far too much sense to try.

We did try. Then they rigged the system to keep us out.

Much better to have judges "make" law even though they have no Constitutional prerogative to do so.

Such a nice strawman, except nobody wants that, what we want the judges to provide justice, not refuse based on specious tortured reasoning.

We would like to vote for our own laws though I suspect you hate that idea.

That pesky Constitution is GREAT except for all the places WE don't like, so it should be selectively enforced or ignored on a whim. That'll work out GREAT! What could possibly go wrong?

Less than what goes wrong from slavishly adhering to the Constitution as some sort of sacred text that is in any way Great. It isn't. It is terrible and flawed.

Contrary to your ideas, the Constitution is not all that, it is not special, and we aren't acting on whims, but rather making considered arguments that if you even understood history would be more similar to the origins of the Constitution than your approach.

Which goes wrong every time some oppressor wraps themselves in the Constitution to justify their malignancy.

Hmm.

It's not like giving government arbitrarily vast powers has EVER been bad people, right?

More often, in the history of this country, the refusal to exercise power righteously has been the problem, and nobody ever admits to arbitrariness, they come up with excuses and reasons for their actions.

Just like you. All you have is sound bites and pithy phrases, not real argumentation based on the substance of what people want.

Go away. You are the problem here.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

blocking content is blocking content. the word Net Neutrality, and its support by the populace is that no provider (not limited to just isp) should have the right to censor or restrict access to what you want to access.

How is saying we are going to censor content on our hard drives any different than saying we are going to censor content on our switches? If Verizon decided to restrict all content related to gay rights, its a violation. But Facebook wouldn't be in violation if they did the exact same thing? The word is NET NEUTRALITY, not ISP Neutrality. Facebook is on the fucking internet isnt it? They provide content don't they? This is why the policy was thrown out in the first place. It was never applied equally and uniformly.

Such policies are always troublesome and eventually always fail. Come up with a policy that applies to every single person and corporation across the board. The same fucking law that some states passed that says a cake baker cannot refuse to make a cake for a gay couple should apply the same way to Facebook, regardless if Facebook is censoring content based on LGBT or gun rights, it shouldn't fucking matter. I have yet to see any state take FB to court for refusing to let people talk about gun rights btw, despite the exact wording of the laws requiring store owners to sell cakes to gay couples being worded in such a way that actual puts FB in violation of the same law. No pun intended but these half-baked laws are bullshit. The reason there is so much polarization in this country right now is exactly for reasons JUST LIKE THIS. We pass laws to punish those we disagree with and do nothing about those we do agree with violating the same spirit of the law. Make laws that will apply to everyone in such a way that NOBODY gets a free pass. 2 things will happen. We will make less damn laws, and people will make sure the laws they DO pass are not unjust as they will have to live by them too.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate the term "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench" as that more often than not can simply mean "I don't agree with the opinion".

Good luck getting those particular dogmatic phrases to be abandoned, they are tenets of faith that are recited continuously.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[iMadeGhostzilla]

Best argument I've heard on the topic. If ISPs are not allowed to control information flow as they see fit to stay in business, neither should be Facebook, Google et al. Google is (in)arguably a greater utility than Netflix.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to understand - judges don't (and shouldn't) make the laws.

The reason you're unsure, is because you've totally misidentified the topic. If someone is explaining a problem they're having with their car's splash guards and you're unsure why they don't understand bird law, it's because nothing they're telling you about their car relates to whatever your point about bird law is. Every time you clarify an aspect of bird law and they reply with "but it takes special plastic pins to get the splash guard attached, and there's several different sizes here and I went to Autozone and.." you don't learn a thing about their understanding of bird law and whatever it was that they missed, just as they don't learn a thing about your understanding of how the splash guard is attached.

And yet both sides start to form an opinion that the other side is very, very stupid.

Anyway, onto the ISP filtering topic. One of the reasons people think judges should be nearly irrelevant here, is that most people are under the impression that it would already be illegal -- PER CONGRESS -- for the telephone company to listen to your phone call and change certain words.

You call your wife and say "I love you" and the telephone company changes it so that she thinks you said "I'm fucking your sister" and not only do people want to fire the phone company, but they also want them criminally prosecuted and the person who made the decision to get raped to death and then raped a few more times afterwords too, just to make sure.

So you'd think the way to resolve the problem would be to go read what Congress wrote. Clever. You've near nearly WO--

LOST.

Shit. I was so sure you had the right answer. How the fuck was that wrong?

Oh, judges disagree about the meaning of what Congress wrote. And they also disagree about the latitude that someone who might be subject to the law, can decide to interpret it to make it not apply to them. If someone at the FCC says ISPs are information services rather than telecommunications services, apparently their opinion causes their opinion to become true in some kind of magic bootstraps regulatory trick. This causes everything Congress wrote to regulate telecommunications services, to not apply. Or maybe apply, depending on the judge, almost as though some of the judges disagree that the magic bootstrap regulatory trick really worked.

The magic bootstrap regulatory trick is pretty neat. You should try it on the next speeding ticket. "Oh, I wasn't driving my car, I was flying a plane."

"No, your Subaru isn't a plane."

"I have chosen to designate it a plane." <--- And there's the FCC's trick to completely let America down and abstain from doing their job, also defying Congress.

So while judges don't and shouldn't make the laws, what's happening is that some people are starting to expect them to enforce and uphold the law, instead of letting the FCC declare that the law doesn't exist and therefore Congress should go fuck themselves.

That this SCOTUS nominee thinks judges shouldn't enforce and uphold the law, is troubling. His "laws are irrelevant because both of the other branches can just ignore Congress and do whatever they want" position is popular right now, on average, but not as popular as you might think.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice, it also doesn't consider the cost. I have one provider that can give me 25mbs at a reasonable cost, my other options require me going to a business style connection that start at 20x the price of that other provider.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

the difference between budget billing and ISP billing is that my Budget plan is based on an average of the last 12 months. If my consumption goes up then next year my budget bill would also go up. At no point am I paying less per month than my lowest consumed month of power. All I am effectively doing is paying more during low consumption months to pre-pay the difference during high consumption months. At no point would my neighbor get my $200/mo electric pricing while continuing to consume $400/mo, every month, worth of electricity. His budget price would have no relationship at all based on MY consumption and MY bill shouldnt go up to subsidize his massive amount of grow lamps or whatever is drinking all that electricity.

Essentially, neutrality, as it once was implemented, did effectively do that to the end consumer. There was tremendous pressure for lower cost but things like 4K content was driving up the cost with no way to individualize this. Per-byte billing would solve this in a way that no carrier would give a shit what content flowed on their network. You want to use 10x the average in usage and stream 4k video all day long, even while nobody is at home, because your dumb ass left the tv running? Here's your bill.

Per-byte billing, even on a budget plan, is unpopular, but it has the strongest chances of neutrality. Yes it should be run similarly to utilities. The last-mile carrier should be independent and provide NOTHING outside of last-mile connectivity, Nor should they have any investments or affiliation with a service provider. This will give you the freedom of picking between several service providers and open the market to more competition. ISPs would then be free to connect to you via said last-mile company and provide you layer3 access to the internet, at which time you pay for the data you consume. Even if an ISP decided it was going to block Netflix (lets say they decided to boycot netflix because the CEO made private donations to a pro-life group, not directly through netflix or its subsidiaries, but just a personal check out of his personal account) you could just pick up the phone and use a different carrier that fast, because of the vast equal access that the independent last-mile carrier allows for.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[whoever57]

So you DO have a choice, choose a provider that doesn't share their customers metadata with the government.

You are living in an alternate USA.

In the real USA, the government insists that all telecom companies provide that metadata on demand, without a warrant. You cannot choose a company that will not "share" that data with the government.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Sloppy]

How is this any different than Facebook deciding what sort of comments they are going to allow?

People think of websites as expressive media; you don't visit a website just to talk with the other users, but to communicate with the website itself (which happens to include some inputs from some other people). And Facebook does express itself. You'll see their logo, their ads, etc all over that shit. It's formatted however they want it formatted, not however your Usenet newsreader happens to format it.

People think of ISPs and phones as networks where the service is nearly invisible and non-expressive. From this point of view, only the users express themselves; the network is not expressing anything and therefore doesn't have the kinds of rights the 1st Amendment tries to protect. (Additionally, the phone network was uneconomical to build without government help, and has always been connected to government and regulated.)

People might be wrong, about one or both of these things. Or more likely "wrong," in that this is more something the decide/define, rather than discover. It's an ok thing to disagree about and debate, but I hope we all get back onto the same page before too much damage is done. (And everyone used to be on the same page, so this shouldn't be too hard.)

Some of it is historical. Websites, even "web 2.0" with its comments, are seen as their own expressive entities because they always acted like that. Similarly, phones and IP networks are seen as non-expressive carriers because people always experienced them that way. Not only do you expect your phone call to not be edited, but your great grandfather did too, and so did everyone in between! For whatever reason, putting ads in the middle of your phone call wasn't something people thought of in the 1920s. If someone had, we might have a different view of communications networks these days.

But it didn't happen, so it's very rare to hear the opinion that networks could have the right to free expression -- that network traffic is somehow speech for the person delivering it. It hasn't ever been true, has it? A message in a bottle is something the ocean is saying? The US Post is saying the things in your letters or has the right to edit them? Nobody has that interpretation of free speech. Indeed, the public even knows the words "common carrier" without having to understand everything that means. The idea is that mainstream.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[No Longer an AC]

FB is more like a newspaper which exercises editorial content and refuses to publish my letter to the editor.

ISPs are more like letter carriers who would refuse to deliver the paper.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[e3m4n]

Close to right. In theory 'net neutrality' was sold that way. In fact many people believe that is exactly what they got, simply because they never experienced selective traffic shaping or blocking content all together. In reality what we got was a executive _policy_ that forced the carriers to subsidize the cost of content providers, whom themselves were not subject to the _exact_ same policy of neutrality. In _theory_ I am all for the idea of an AGNOSTIC internet. One that will say 'show me a court order to block this shit, otherwise shut the fuck up because I have a business to run'. Instead the government talks out of both sides of their mouth. How does the concept of Net Neutrality (true neutrality) mesh with the same government that expects private industry to be the ones to be responsible for censoring 'terrorist propaganda'. If your job is to be Neutral, then it needs to be someone else's damn job to determine what gets blocked, You cannot expect the same entity to be both neutral and responsible for censorship and filtering. As much as I hate FB, I cannot see anything wrong with them selling ad space to Internet Research Group during the 2016 campaign. Its not their job to interpret what IS or IS NOT, ok. If there isnt already a specific law banning a certain activity, their answer should be 'fuck off.. I sell ad space, they paid for an ad. There was nothing illegal about their ad. Don't like it, change the fucking law to make it illegal. Until then, shut the fuck up and let me get back to my job'. Instead what we get is them being anything BUT neutral now.

See some of my other posts that illustrate that neutrality rules wouldnt even be damn necessary if we didnt turn these companies into monopolies in the first place. Take back the last-mile portion from the providers. Create a network where any company can lease a space, buy a huge pipe to the internet, then pay this last-mile company for a cross-connect to your residence. Every town would have 5 or 6 options where they only have 1 or 2 now.

Net Neutrality became needed because Congress and the FCC legislated monopolies after the patriot act went into effect. It was easier to spy on the whole country via 10 access points than via thousands. So your choices went to shit. The problem with Net Neutrality is it still keeps these assholes in power, still taking your money, still going unpunished financially for how they treat you as a customer. In my scenario there wouldn't need to be a neutrality rule, you simply fire their ass and hire someone else the same way you fire your landscaper when he starts doing a shitty job. How would you feel about having to pay the same SOB to cut your grass regardless of how rude he was, and your only caveat was that a new rule required him to at least cut your grass within a certain parameter of acceptable. I would prefer firing his ass and hiring a new landscaper. Current last-mile circumstances (ie getting from the service provider to your house) would be the same as only 2 landscape companies in your town with thousands wanting to be landscapers, but only these 2 hold a license to even buy lawn mowing equipment.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

The EPA should not exist, and neither should the Department of Education, if we interpreted the Constitution as written.

Just wanted to point out that existence of similar government ministries in other countries is often based on rights that are explicitly enumerated in their constitutions. These countries also expand or entirely rewrite their constitutions as needed, sometimes more even a few times in a century.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[TomGreenhaw]

Want different legislators, appoint different judges.

In our imperfect world, judges can and commonly do legislate from the bench through interpreting laws as they see fit.

The world might be a much different place if one different vote on the supreme court forced a statewide recount in Florida - remember the hanging chads? Al Gore would have been president - not George W. Bush. We probably would not have invaded Iraq. We probably would have reigned in the mortgage backed securities that caused the crash in 2008. So much would be different

I'm sure we would have had different problems, but to say that judges don't interpret the law to wield political power is naive. I wish it weren't so, but there it is.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Courts are weird in how lawsuits can be raised and who is impacted by them.

Kavanaugh was the only judge to issue a written statement, which said that '[t]he Government's collection of telephony metadata from a third party such as a telecommunications service provider is not considered a search under the Fourth Amendment.' Even if this form of surveillance constituted a search, it wouldn't be an 'unreasonable' search and therefore it would be legal, Kavanaugh also wrote.

Kavanaugh is not arguing that the mass collection may or may not be unreasonable. He was pointing out that the NSA can easily sidestep the Fourth Amendment by grabbing the data that is readily available from a third party.

That is true of everything. If my phone has a video that you recorded, then the police will not be violating your Fourth Amendment rights by getting it from me (with or without a warrant).

And those lawsuits can only impact the NSA as the party being sued, so it has nothing to do with the original collection of the data, which may or may not be unreasonable, and thus the ISPs are not impacted. To get that impact, you have to show that you are effected, which is confusingly and stupidly hard to do with secret collections, and then sue that party (e.g., your ISP).

This is called having "standing" in court, and it's really confusing in this specific case -- and I agree with you that it seems to break a lot of the Fourth Amendment to automatically collect that type of information. In the case of cell phone providers, they have our location information by nature of having to have it so that our phones can communicate with the right towers. That shouldn't automatically mean that we give up our location to the government or, frankly, even the company at large beyond what they explicitly need it to make things work.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[lhunath]

We largely agree on the bigger picture. Though I personally have a little less faith in the power of market forces to keep the Internet neutral. Even if you break up the monopolies and give people choices, "firing" your ISP simply isn't all that powerful a statement as you would like it to be.

I'm all for sending my ISP a message if I hate what he's doing, and if taking my money elsewhere hurts him as much as you say it would, that would be awesome, but I simply don't think that it does. And that's mainly because 90% of people are sheep, and companies have gotten incredibly good at feeding the sheep pacification drugs. Most people will take almost any abuse you throw at them and still fake a smile if it'll get them more happy drugs (read: tv, sports, porn, whatever).

That's why I'm in the camp of, "you can't rely on market forces to keep these bastards honest, you need to write down what honesty means and then hold them to it".

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me crazy, but When the founding fathers wrote that document I don't think they were thinking of email and phone calls.

 

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

For safety reasons you twit.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Reserved for the states.

FTFY

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad
Both of you got modded down. Fucking liars.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

What don't you understand? Facebook is not an internet service provider. They only provide us with the content. An ISP provides us a way to get that content.

If Facebook wants to ban hate speech, fuck it let them. You can then use your ISP connection to connect to any other website. You have millions of options.

Now, if your ISP blocks hate speech, what options do you have? NONE!

I have one ISP in my area that will service me. So if they start blocking hate speech I'm fuckdd. I can't view it. As I stated before, if Facebook blocks it...who the fuck cares, I'll go somewhere else.

So until we have healthy competition in the ISP market, we can't compare the two.

I just don't understand how you don't see this. It's clear as day.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Air Force comes from the army's airborne division.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

because of my landlord my choice is 1.5mb/sec DSL with no monthly limit or 30/sec with a limit of 15GB/month via mobile hotspot.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, in areas that are predominantly black, they should be able to enslave white people and their children! States Rights, amirite?

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, they took care of the 'carrier cooperation' issue by further holding that companies have no privacy interest in your records either, so have no grounds to oppose the request.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

What? We already subsidized it. Including you. Tax payers paid them millions. And they then stopped building...because it's too expensive. But we already paid them the money to do it.

Also, why should we have to subsidize it anymore? The internet has been around long enough. It doesn't need subsidies.

Also, where in his post did he say he wants someone else to subsidize his internet? He said he has one choice for an ISP. Meaning no competition. Subsidies ain't gonna hemp bunk. We need more competition. We need last mile access. Things you have no clue about because you live in a bubble where you got yours already, so fuck the rest of us right?

Typical republican attitude we see over and
Over again. "Fuck you, I got mine".

It is fucking sickening.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily, when it comes to what gets subsidized and what doesn't, you have NO say in the matter. Your opinion means shit. Plus you already subsidized the internet with your tax dollars. Thanks for playing.

Thank god you selfish prick.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

For right wingers, yes it is. They've been rapidly evaporating from STEM jobs because right wingers tend to believe that science, technology, engineering, and math are all liberal conspiracies.

Hell I had a coworker leave last month complaining that the computer wouldn't do what he intended because it was "created by liberals". I can't even make this stuff up. He's still the butt of every joke at work.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

What? He's trolling 100%.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. Typical republican. Fuck everybody but themselves and the fetuses.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 Angry because when you lose legal ground, you want someone to blame other than the old legislature, which you've become bored of criticizing.
Legislature can overrule making your naive comment ignorant, but maybe the whole Constitutional system just wasn't ideal because you want something that moves faster and with more concern for your personal opinions. Good on you comrade.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Wrath0fb0b]

Well, a lot of judges that have looked into the issue for many hours have disagreed with that. The question went back and forth to the DC Circuit 3 or 4 times and was about to go en banc when the Trump FCC started backtracking on it.

But in any event, what harm could it do to for Congress to reiterate it in plain and unambiguous language so clear than that even the most diehard supporter/opponent of NN would have to concede controls.

That is to say, taking notice of the fact that there is a non-frivolous lawsuit on the question of "does the FCC have authority to do X" (esp: if the lawsuit has been bouncing around a while), Congress might jump in and say "Yes definitely X" or "No, definitely !X" if for no other reason than being assured of having their intent control the outcome.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

No law can be reasonably interpreted without judicial review as any law not subjected to such review would violate the Constitution itself which requires such judicial review.

So you try to create the literally impossible as such a paradox would advance your own agenda.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Talderas]

The specific grant of power to Congress with regard to armies is

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

The primary reason for the grant of power is to provide for defense of the country and the justification for limiting the appropriations is to prevent a power buildup in the army to avoid the army curtailing individual liberty.

Federalist No. 26 provides some potential insight into this grant of power.

The legislature of the United States will be OBLIGED, by this provision, once at least in every two years, to deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force on foot; to come to a new resolution on the point; and to declare their sense of the matter, by a formal vote in the face of their constituents. They are not AT LIBERTY to vest in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence.

This line alone shows that Hamilton was suggesting that a permanent standing army was acceptable primarily because Congress would have the opportunity to curtail its power ever two years by voting on the military.

Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community REQUIRE TIME to mature them for execution. An army, so large as seriously to menace those liberties, could only be formed by progressive augmentations; which would suppose, not merely a temporary combination between the legislature and executive, but a continued conspiracy for a series of time. Is it probable that such a combination would exist at all? Is it probable that it would be persevered in, and transmitted along through all the successive variations in a representative body, which biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses? Is it presumable, that every man, the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives, would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country? Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man, discerning enough to detect so atrocious a conspiracy, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger? If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought at once to be an end of all delegated authority. The people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands, and to divide themselves into as many States as there are counties, in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person.

Here we see that Hamilton is writing that the standing army becoming a threat to individual liberty can only occur if successive generations of members elected to the House of Representatives (by the people) agree to continually increase the funding of the military to the point of oppression and he argues that because of this the justification is thus present that the representatives, having acting unfaithfully with regard to the electorate, have given the people justification to dissolve the United States and to form each county as its own independent nation (I believe States in this regard is referring to nations and not states of the United States).

https://www.congress.gov/resou...

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Talderas]

I suggest you read Federalist No. 26. It provides insight regarding the intent of the 2 year spending authorization for armies.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this modded insightful in the age old tradition of mocking the writer, or are people actually buying this bullshit?

It's a wonderful strawman argument, but it has nothing to do with what we are talking about.

And AT&T blocking things is far from a far-fetched example.

https://www.freepress.net/our-...

They literally did this twice (from that article):

AT&T: From 2007â"2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such âoeover-the-topâ voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customersâ(TM) iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&Tâ(TM)s own products.

These aren't "the sky is falling" magical fantasy allegations. When companies are given the ability to act shitty and benefit, they will (and this will shock you) act shitty.

Hilariously "Net Neutrality" isn't even a new thing. The entire point of the telecommunications laws were to ensure that telecommunications systems remain neutral.

Go read the descriptions of "telecommunications" and "information service", if you still think ISPs count as "information service" then I don't know what to tell you. I guess you think that the magical transformative properties of routing packets is somehow not just a basic function of the telecommunications systems we use today and that somehow that same function acts differently now that it travels over glass instead of copper.

The internet has, was, and always will be a telecommunications service (just like it was when it ran on copper wires). But rich lobbyists bought out the FCC to claim that the magic of putting that same system on fiber and cable has transformed it into a totally different thing. I'm waiting for the explanation, but it never comes.

Just bullshit about "youtube does the same thing durr durr durr" or something about ISPs being businesses, as though that has some meaning to me that should allow them to circumvent laws intended to create a fair and open market. You say this stuff as though it has ANYTHING to do with the topic.

It's doesn't. it's meaningless.

So stop comparing a Title II style utility to youtube since you obviously don't understand the first god damn thing about the internet.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[luis_a_espinal]

Reserved for the states.

FTFY

None of those powers can implement restrictions on people that the Federal government is forbidden to do. That is, the "shall not pass any laws, etc, etc" is transitive from the federal all the way to the local.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[bondsbw]

Ah, I see. You like net neutrality. You just think it should be charged by usage.

I'm failing to see your real argument since ISPs can charge by usage, and nothing about net neutrality changed that.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[fafalone]

You really can't understand the distinction between an ISP and a website? Yes you absolutely can pick and choose which regulations apply to which services. If Facebook started rolling fiber and became an ISP, then yes they should have to follow regulations on ISPs. Facebook doesn't have even remotely the level of monopoly ISPs do. Under your asinine theory, we couldn't even regulate telephone monopolies.
For what it's worth, I am actually upset about Facebook censoring posts about guns, but since I'm not a dishonest weasel, I'm not calling them an ISP or saying there's no difference between ISPs and websites or claiming their have equivalent market dominance.
And again, this judge thinks it's a constitutional issue, but it's simply not, unless you're dishonest or don't understand things; you've manged to span both.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Rob Y.]

Censorship and 'transmission neutrality' are still different things. Yes, theoretically, without net neutrality, your ISP could censor content (assuming the connection was not encrypted so the ISP could actually see it). But that's not what net neutrality is about. Net neutrality requires that you are free to access whatever content you want and that is available on the web. That doesn't mean you're free to post whatever you want wherever you want - or that websites are required to post any particular information. And it also means that Facebook is free to determine whether they think an article is true before allowing you to link to it on their platform. There's good and bad to that - but just because you don't like some aspect of it doesn't mean that it falls under the category of net neutrality.

Actually, I kind of hope Kavinaugh is stupid or ignorant enough not to get that distinction. Then maybe he's willing to be educated about what net neutrality actually means before he ultimately rules on it. Doubtful, of course, since he's obviously of the phony 'originalist' bent - which essentially means "decide which side of an issue business is on and tie yourself in knots to justify voting that way". The only thing 'originalist' about that is that it's a handy justification that covers a lot of cases without too much knot-tying.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[jittles]

This isn't your data, it's the carrier's.

The carrier does not need my lat/long stored to provide service. They need it only at the time of use. The recording of my position is not required for them to bill. However, I have no choice but to have a cell phone in order to function in society. They should not have the right to store my location data to being with.

You are using the public phone network, tell me again about your expectation of privacy...

Oh it’s a public phone network now? So anyone can start a cellular phone service on this network? No. It is PUBLIC spectrum, but the network itself is private. As a condition of using the public spectrum for a PRIVATE network, the government ought to protect the rights of its citizens to privacy.

Since phones are effectively required for life in the USA

No, they are not.

Unless you’re Ted Kazinski living entirely off the grid on land you do not own, how exactly do you function in modern society without a phone? Your employer is 100% okay with having no way to reach you in an emergency? Your children are allowed to be enrolled in school without providing an emergency contact number? The DMV will issue you a drivers license without having a phone number to contact you with? Sure you could lie about all of these things, but that would cause nothing but trouble if any of those organizations ever tried to use your contact info.

you don't have a choice about giving that data, only a choice of which company you give the data to.

So you DO have a choice, choose a provider that doesn't share their customers metadata with the government.

If cellular phone networks were actually PUBLIC like you claim, such a company would exist. But they’re private companies with such a high barrier to entry that it is almost impossible for anyone to compete with them. There are only 4 nationwide networks in the US.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

strange, it's only "judicial activism" or "legislating from the bench" when it's against the conservatives

Re:Judges, not legislators

[datavirtue]

I came here to say that I was glad he will not have a say.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[datavirtue]

They shouldn't but I see the point others are trying to make. Unless it is legislated to be a right of the people then ISPs can do what they want.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Areyoukiddingme]

This is the paramount problem with 'Net Neutrality'. They used the word Neutrality but its total bullshit. The net result is they forced carriers to absorb the cost of companies like Netflix.

Nobody "forced" the carriers to do anything. It's called "meeting customer demand", also called "running a successful business." Customers wanted more bandwidth. They were willing to pay for more bandwidth. The carriers offered more bandwidth. Customers paid the carriers for more bandwidth. This happened repeatedly, until there was enough bandwidth being paid for by customers that Netflix became a viable business.

And now, suddenly, ISPs think that isn't enough. That they should have the right to fuck with everybody, including you, to demand fees on top of fees on top of fees for a service they're already being paid for, because quarterly profits must continue to rise, no matter what, and not because the service will be better or, in fact, meet customer needs.

If you want real neutrality then everyone gets a bandwidth meter and they pay by the byte, just like electricity.

Bullshit. And no. Bandwidth is not "just like electricity." Bandwidth is nothing like electricity. Bandwidth is nothing like water. Bandwidth is the availability of some maximum data rate, and it costs the same to provide it empty as it does to provide it full. The number of bytes transmitted is totally irrelevant to the cost of providing the service. Therefore metering by the byte is nothing but a money-grab, and an incredibly greedy one at that.

If you want Neutrality then you best be ready to fuck over the content providers equally as much as you fuck over those just delivering said content.

Being neutral is not "fucking over" ISPs you asshole. It's forcing them to continue to behave the way they used to behave since the inception of the public Internet, before they decided they somehow deserved more money for doing the same fucking thing they've been doing this entire time, which is and always has been fabulously profitable. Forcing them, by the way, because if they get to do whatever the fuck they, want, they break the Internet. And fuck that, fuck them, and fuck you. The Internet is the most powerful, most useful, most effective communication mechanism ever devised, but only if it continues to be neutral.

And those pieces of shit at AT&T owe me and every other American $200 billion in back taxes for failing to meet their build-out commitments, which were and are enshrined in LAW.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[datavirtue]

Rome was making tons of laws as it was falling. We are doing the same thing. In several hundred years someone will use hate and whataboutisms to take power in an attempt to establish the 2nd Riech of America. It will be glorious.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[datavirtue]

If I was appointed a justice I would just recuse myself from every case. No controversy, plenty of profit.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[datavirtue]

It will never work. Consumers have a massive amount of power when their outrage is focused, especially when dealing in regulated industries. We expect to have unlimited super high speed internet for $50 a month and by fuck we WILL have it. We are in the age of voting yourself property and wealth. The average person who is going to matter in the next twenty years views internet as a fundamental human right.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[datavirtue]

I doubt that these metaphors are helping people understand this issue. They are good for getting people to think they understand after they hear your argument though.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[datavirtue]

I tried not having a phone before. It was wonderful. My boss gave me a harsh look and said "Get a phone."

You must have a phone to live in the US and participate in society. Will I live in the woods without a phone one day? Yes. At that point I will not give one fuck who the government is (Chinese, American, Canadian), what is on TV, who is running for office. Checked the fuck out.

Society can not and will not function in that state. The expectations of a citizen demand they all have access to communications. It is clear that includes the internet as was once (and still is) true of a phone. Access to the internet is a fundamental human right required to promote self-determination on a large scale.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[LynnwoodRooster]

Does the 4th guarantee privacy of action? And the freedom of assembly is inherently a public thing - you cannot assemble a few hundred people "in secret". You do not have the right to not be observed as you move about on public ways.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[LynnwoodRooster]

Those rights are reserved to the States and the People, respectively. Any Federal action on those rights is simply unconstitutional. The powers of the Federal Government are extremely limited and clear; it is Judicial fiat that has egregiously expanded the scope of Federal interference.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Telephony providers were also common carriers. That didn't prevent them from charging you more money to make longer distance calls, or calling during certain hours, or within a plan that had a lower fixed monthly cost etc. They were not at all bound to a single service level for all customers.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[LynnwoodRooster]

The right to "human dignity" is another invention, in this case by Justice Kennedy. Tell me - what actions do you consider undignified? If you believe lack of access to bacon tramples on your dignity, then does the halal restaurant down the street violate your rights?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Qzukk]

Net Neutrality became needed because Congress and the FCC legislated monopolies after the patriot act went into effect. It was easier to spy on the whole country via 10 access points than via thousands. So your choices went to shit.

Except that they didn't "legislate" monopolies, they repealed the regulation that was previously forcing phone companies to wholesale connections to competitors. By removing that regulation in 2005, the FCC allowed the phone companies to shut down every competitor that did not have the billions (Google Fiber spent one billion dollars in Kansas City alone) of dollars required to install their own networks. Did they do it for the NSA? Did they do it because they're Republicans and deregulation is always good? Did they do it to play fair since cable companies didn't have to resell their networks? Did they do it because AT&T promised to hire them all as consultants? I don't have an answer to that, but the government did not create this problem anymore than the government is responsible for you hitting yourself in the face with a hammer since they didn't pass a law to stop you.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

For those complaining about privacy, how many of you actually bother to encrypt your personal communications, like e-mail, in any way that the ISP can't recover the plaintext and read the content (for example, by watching the key exchange process)?

Yes, a burglar who breaks into an unlocked house and steals things is still a burglar, but that doesn't mean you don't have to expect to live with more risk if you fail to lock your doors.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

> sure and in that vain

Do you think that song is about you?

Re: Judges, not legislators

[jd]

You can choose not to use Facebook. Most areas have a no-compete agreement between ISPs that mean you get a choice of one. To switch ISP, you must sell your house, resign from your place of work and disrupt your children's education. And the new ISP can then do the same.

Facebook is liable for content, ISPs are not.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Please show me an example of a beheading vid that was allowed to stay up after a Facebook mod caught wind of it. Conservative speech is not censored. I have many conservative views and they're not censored. However, there becomes a point where the topic begins to slide into a blurry area involving race, gender, or sexual orientation and Facebook certainly has the right to remove that content if they wish. If you don't like Facebook blocking your hatespeech memes, then go use another service that does. There are many out there. If your ISP blocks you from seeing content, you may not have any other competing services in your area to choose from, so your argument doesn't hold water.

A free and open internet has become an inconvenience to all the governments of the world, and YOU are doing their job in helping to destroy it. Right now, just by telling yourself that you're right and I'm wrong, you are helping ensure it's destruction.

As someone who loves the idea of free market and the spirit of *actual* capitalism, it's so saddening to be watching the free internet die and turn into another cable TV walled garden.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a study (skip to page 11) that estimates that over 50% of US households have 2 or more choices for 25mbps+ landline service.

Typical Republican mindset: "I've got mine, too damn bad if you didn't get yours."

Selfish people with no empathy are ruining this country. Nobody should have to move just to have a choice of broadband provider. Certainly not half of the country.

Typical Democrat, telling half the truth to conceal the lie. It's true that 50% of America has only one provider of a wireline broadband provider but that does not mean the wireline providers lack competition. A quick Google search tells me that 100.24% of the population in North America have access to cellular internet. How can it be greater than 100%? I don't know, a rounding error I guess. Add in satellite internet and no one in the USA is lacking access to multiple broadband internet providers.

I know this first hand as I have only one wireline broadband provider in my area. They had terrible service until they had to straighten up when the local cellular service providers started offering home base stations for internet and satellite internet providers lowered their prices. My brother moved out of town to an acreage and he switched from a terrible wireline provider to wireless internet and from that worthless VOIP to a traditional phone line. (He used to just use cellular phones until a couple incidents of not being able to call the babysitter at his home, he got a phone line after that and loves it.)

I've seen satellite internet providers do bundling deals with cellular and wired phone companies, that's so both services show on one bill and everyone saves money.

Oh, another thing, the definition of "broadband" keeps creeping up so that the statistic for people lacking "broadband" can be "half truthed" into not growing as fast. I see that they defined "broadband" as 25 Mbps in order to claim that people lack competition. A quick Google search tells me that there are two satellite internet providers that offer 25 Mbps service so already everyone in the USA has a choice of three people to get fast internet, cellular, and those two satellite companies. Add in the 50% of places with just one wireline service provider and then it's four. Then add in the 50% of the USA that have access to more than 1 wireline provider and I suspect 3/4 of the USA have access to at least 5 different providers to choose from. Lower the threshold to what is considered "broadband" to what it was a year ago, such as 5 Mbps or even 15 Mbps and 100.24% of the USA have access to a half dozen broadband internet providers.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's supposed to be within the domain of the Bill of Rights/4th amendment - the highest laws in the land. When we have a lifetime appointee who can completely ignore or change the meaning of the very foundation of our laws based on his/her bias, its a very dangerous thing.

I understand the validity of you saying judges should not be engaged in biased activism, and I agree, but you're excluding a slightly more subtle, but equally damaging strategy of activism.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Pinky's Brain]

Maybe it's supposed to, but it clearly isn't. The only concept of metadata they had when it was written was what was written on the outside of a letter, recording and search of which has historically also not been a 4th amendment violation.

Metadata searches weren't on their minds when it was written, they worried about search of physical property. Not the invasion of privacy from total surveillance, nor how mass communication would make organizing internal attacks on the nation so much easier. How they would have ruled is anyone's guess ... well except the SC justices which pulled the right to privacy out of their asses, guess they got out their Ouija boards.

If you want privacy rights, get congress to create law.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Green Mountain Bot]

No, the ninth amendment says nothing about the states. It says exactly what I posted - which is to say that the rights need not be enumerated in the constitution to exist.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

thats SCOTUS's literal only job. When debating discussion of what a SCOTUS judge would and would not do, 'find that in the constitution' is the ONLY argument.

Nope. Not only does the Constitution specify additional jobs for the Federal Courts, it explicitly says it is not the sole or only source of law.

Sorry.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[kkoning]

> How is saying we are going to censor content on our hard drives any different than saying we are going to censor content on our switches?

Because there's generally only one party that controls the packet switches that serve households, whereas there are many different companies providing information services, even if there is some concentration there, too.

If you don't like censorship on Reddit, you can use 4chan instead, or Voat, or etc... In most of the country, you have one choice for high-speed broadband--maybe two if you live close enough for DSL to be competitive with cable modems. Replacing or adding to these competitors is EXTREMELY difficult in most places, because of the way that costs scale when putting wires on poles or in the ground. We put more restrictions on ISPs because they have control of "bottleneck" facilities.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[diamondmagic]

Does that make it less of a law?

Should the government prohibit you from making a movie? Should the government be allowed to block a movie from showing in theaters? Because that's what the government was trying to do, block a movie critical of Hillary Clinton, and that's what Citizens United helped overturn.

The First Amendment is pretty clear: There shall be "no law abridging the freedom of speech."

When the US code defines the term "person" and "whoever", they're saying the laws apply to corporations too. Do you want corporations to be unaccountable to the law?

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

Please find the exact clause and wording in the Constitution where it grants the government the right to tell a private company what it can and cannot distribute to customers voluntarily consuming its services. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

Wrong. Nothing in the Bill of Rights limits the application of some items to private entities. Certain items, such as the 1st Amendment, are specifically written to apply only to Congress (though the 14th Amendment modifies this specific example). Others can be applied to any entity in society, whether private or public.

This is both true of the written text, and also well established in case law.

If you think about it, the same reasoning applies as governs the treaty power: if the government could not infringe fundamental rights in general by authorizing private entities to do so, it could infringe any right designed just by setting up appropriate arrangements. That is clearly not in the public interest.

The US Bill of Rights is open-ended, the public can assert any rights desired as being "retained by" or "reserved to" them, whether against government or private entities.

So, yes, the government can tell private businesses what to do when they are infringing fundamental rights, and that is the essence of the net neutrality debate..

That's the highest law in the land. If you don't like that, move to another country.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[dfghjk]

what complete horse*t.

The "Constitution" is not the only source of law. This isn't a problem with "wanting an "activist judiciary." No one is claiming they personally "have the right" to face an ISP to "work a certain way". A free market isn't the solution to every problem nor is the ISP market a free one. It is not remotely rare that people don't have a choice in ISPs, and when they do it's absurd to think that they will have choices that "work a certain way". Yes, it would be outrageous for the government to censor, but that doesn't mean they can't enforce the opposite, and yes, we can have one without the other and none of this remotely suggests that the government control content as an alternative.

I would suggest that freedom looks like dumb@sses like you posting tripe like this.

Re:Judges, not legislators

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to be sure, when a judge reaches an anti-net-neutrality conclusion, whether they are actually saying "this is what the law says; the internet as implemented is not what the law as written defends" or whether they are jumping through hoops to find against net neutrality.

It's worth passing some net neutrality laws to at least see if these judges change their ruling, but like, if that couldn't happen under Democrats (beholden as they are to content aggregators like Disney, and ostensibly pro-NN), it seems less likely to happen under Republicans (beholden as they are to network owners like Verizon, and ostensibly anti-NN).

Re:Judges, not legislators

[chispito]

Here is a study (skip to page 11) that estimates that over 50% of US households have 2 or more choices for 25mbps+ landline service.

Typical Republican mindset: "I've got mine, too damn bad if you didn't get yours."

Selfish people with no empathy are ruining this country. Nobody should have to move just to have a choice of broadband provider. Certainly not half of the country.

You really tore into that straw man with a gusto.

Re: Judges, not legislators

[Bert64]

They know your location when you use a fixed line too...

Most organisations will settle for having a physical address to contact you...

Re: Judges, not legislators

[tbannist]

How is this any different than Facebook deciding what sort of comments they are going to allow?

Well that's a big question to answer, and there are multiple reasons why it's different. It is different both in amount and kind. Let's play the analogy game. In this analogy, I'm going to pretend the Internet is a big city and that I am a visitor to the city.

With Net Neutrality, I am allowed to go anywhere I want in the city, I can talk to anyone I want (assuming they want to talk to me), I can go into the Amazon building and buy books, I can got the Facebook building a post stuff on my personal bulletin board, I can go the Netflix building and watch movies.

Without Net Neutrality, I can in theory go anywhere I want in the city, but as soon as leave my gateway into the city, there's a pair of security guards following me around all the time. If those guards decide they don't want me to talk to someone, then I'm not allowed to talk to them. If they decide I can't go to a building, then I'm not allowed to go there. If they decide that HBO is better than Netflix then I may not be allowed into the Netflix building, or they might charge me additional money to go there, or they might simply keep telling me I'm going the wrong way and prevent my from ever finding the building. Furthermore, if I pick up anything in the city, they reserve the right to search my bags and confiscate anything they think that I should not be allowed to have, no matter whether it was free or something I paid for. If they don't want me to have it, I don't get to keep it.

Which of these scenarios sounds more free to you? I think the first scenario is far better for me, because by restricting the right of the gateway to force me to take their nosy, busybody, meddling guards, I seem to have a lot more freedom. I'm not dependent on the good behaviour of guards who have repeatedly proven themselves to be completely untrustworthy. Now, maybe the guards do nothing at all or maybe they shake me down for money at every opportunity. It doesn't matter, I don't want them following me around if they're good and I really don't want them following me around if they're bad. They can potentially interfering with everything I do and really what I do in the city in none of their god damn business. I paid them for access to the city, I don't care if they think they can make more money selling limitations on what I'm allowed to do in the city.

{Petty complaints about Youtube and Facebook deleted}

In the city, if I don't like the rules at the Facebook building, I can go to the MySpace building or to the LiveJournal building or to the Reddit building or to the Slashdot building, or to any other building that I think will suit me. There are lots of alternatives. However, if I don't like the guards that the gateway is forcing on me, I have 4 choices. However, 3 of those choices are essentially the same gateway. The actual gateway owner can dictate the guards behaviour for all 3 companies. So I really only have 2 choices, and in my area both of those choices own TV networks and streaming services. They have really good reasons to not wanting me to go to the Netflix building because Netflix is undercutting their TV prices by around 90%. So I have no reason to believe that any of my options will be good.

This is the paramount problem with 'Net Neutrality'. They used the word Neutrality but its total bullshit.

No, I think you don't understand what Net Neutrality is. It's a common complaint of people who don't understand networks and routing that they don't understand why it's "neutral". I've helped manage an ISP (finance, support software tools, network configuration, data center design and construction, I had my hand in pretty much every aspect of the business), so I have a bit of knowledge about how ISP connections, finance, and networking work.

The net result is they forced carriers to absorb the co

He likes the color blue, too

[Jhon]

I hate the color blue! If he can't prefer the color green over blue he shouldn't be be a justice!

Because it really doesn't MATTER on topics which don't really APPLY the the supreme court. Get your congress-critters two write law well and it'll survive any decision from SCOTUS.

Re:He likes the color blue, too

[rtb61]

Most definitely not true in the case of the US supreme court, which is wildly corrupt, making interpretation of law based upon what they believed, the people who wrote the law, intended, rather than a strictly legal interpretation of what was actually written based upon the accepted legal language.

That corrupt interpretation ie their belief of other beliefs, means they can corruptly make anything legal and anything illegal. Properly done, they should only literally interpret the wording of the law and absolutely nothing else. If this creates a problem for government, then they should rewrite the law to correct the issue.

This turns those judges into politicians and they are most definitely no longer high court judges who rule on the legal literal interpretation of the law, just corrupt ideologues and political appointees, designed as the last hold out of the corrupt, when the law comes for them ie no matter how illegal, the corrupt high court will rule it legal, look no further that dollars trump votes ruling.

The US high court is straight up politically tainted corrupt shite, just accept that reality and fucking fix it.

Re:He likes the color blue, too

[William Baric]

People tend to believe what they want to believe. So by creating laws which are subject to interpretation, people interpret those laws according to what they want to believe, which makes them believe it's a good law, and they'll end up supporting (voting for) politicians creating those laws.

Re:He likes the color blue, too

[Known Nutter]

Because it really doesn't MATTER on topics which don't really APPLY the the supreme court. Get your congress-critters two write law well and it'll survive any decision from SCOTUS.

Well, it sort of does matter. Here you have a SCOTUS Justice nominee who arguably has an established agenda. He believes that POTUS (any) should be immune from criminal investigation, yet he was on the team investigating Clinton during the Lewinsky affair. He spent five years working for the directly for the Bush administration And now, with RvW back, you have now a justice who, along with the rest of the Court, will effectively make the law of the land by overturning a previous SCOTUS ruling.

Which isn't surprising. That's how our government works these days. Flip flop, back and forth, party to party. Wait 2 - 4 years and do something else. And if you can't do that, just be a party of oppositionists and obstructionists until the other side is beaten into submission. Rinse, repeat. This is both sides of the aisle.

No matter your political slant, this guy doesn't represent well the impartiality one would hope for from a sitting judge.

Re:He likes the color blue, too

[Anonymous Coward]

What really doesn't MATTER is your OPINION when compared to a SCOTUS judge. Sounds like you're either cool with his given the lameness of your argument or 12 yo. #MAGA

Re:He likes the color blue, too

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Well, since he believes Net Neutrality legislation is unconstitutional, he'll vote to overturn it.

Re:He likes the color blue, too

[shaitand]

The constitution wasn't written in accepted legal language, it was written in common english. It is, and always was, intended to be possible to read and understand by every literate man.

Re: He likes the color blue, too

[Anonymous Coward]

The Constitution is replete with legalistic terms of phrase, ill-defined terms, and is now even archaic in some of its phrasing.

It is also vague and non-specific, or even non-specific in parts.

the real problem

[phantomfive]

The real problem is that there are only one or two internet providers in many places, and network neutrality is only one symptom of that problem. You also have price gouging, slow speeds, etc. The solution is to allow competition, and there are places in America where internet is perfectly fine, but not in Silicon Valley.

Re:the real problem

[sit1963nz]

Well in New Zealand I have access to 26 different ISPs, Fibre goes in next week and I can have 900/400 unlimited, no traffic shaping, no port blocking, ie true net neutrality for US$68 / month.

This is what happens when you keep big business out of government and you have a government by the people for the people.

You guys should try democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:the real problem

[WindowsStar]

In states like Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, out side a big city there are typically only one ISP that is it. They charge whatever they want and block everything they feel people should not see. These places have the worst internet and the highest prices. One place I went (to be unnamed) the person was paying $300 a month for 2Mb and sites like Starbucks, Amazon and Walmart were blocked because the ISP board has a issues with these sites so the end-user suffers. Completely out of control. We need to force the ISPs to NOT block anything and provide pricing that is an average nation-wide for same speeds and medium.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I call BS.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

S stands for Service. Internet service provider.
Now if your phone company put a delay on your voice, and beeped out any swearword, or bad mouth insults - I'm sorry Dave, I cant send that SMS, it contains a profanity.
I dont think phone plans would last 5 minutes if they did this. But its ok for internet is it? I do not need a judge telling me phone call censoring would be a reasonable thing. Someone decided phone services should be like a written letter with a stamp : protected.

ISP should equal BitBroker. I give you a packet of bits, you deliver them. Screw with that and people will set up private wireless meshes, and the govt will only get to tap long haul and nothing else.
CSP. Community service provider?

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

What is ironic is, Net neutrality would reduce competition.

Re:the real problem

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

I'm familiar with at least two satellite providers, so unless you're in some very rugged terrain, your "only one ISP" claim is false on its face.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in New Zealand I have access to 26 different ISPs, Fibre goes in next week and I can have 900/400 unlimited, no traffic shaping, no port blocking, ie true net neutrality for US$68 / month. This is what happens when you keep big business out of government and you have a government by the people for the people. You guys should try democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

you left out the fact that NZ has a tiny population consolidated mainly in a few centres making this sort of option very viable and cheap whereas the same is incredibly expensive to provide in Australia or the US or many countries with exponentially more people are area to cover.

Re:the real problem

[h33t l4x0r]

You don't have to rub it in.

Re:the real problem

[Powercntrl]

The solution is to allow competition

The problem is that it's expensive beyond belief to start an ISP, and you pretty much only get customers by luring them away from a competitor. From the perspective of an investor looking to turn his huge wad of cash into an even bigger wad of cash, starting an ISP is an exceedingly bad investment.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, area does not grow exponentially (hint: square meter). Secondly, even in high density population area, the US providers are not delivering fast and cheap services.

Thirdly, Australia have got not a so high percentage of rural population. Population is concentrated on the coasts.

If you are not able to see there is a problem, you won't solve it.

Re:the real problem

[houghi]

eresting list. Especially when I see that Belgium has "low levels of participation in politics" even though there is a law that you MUST vote, not that you CAN vote. So all people who ellegible to vote will vote (unless they are able to get out of it. e.g. be on a holiday or work on that Sunday). The huge majority of adults is ellegible to vote. Exceptions will be declared by a court order.

To be correct: you are not obliged to vote, you are obliged to show up. If you vote or not is not known if the ballot is in paper and you can vote 'no vote' if it is electronic. Voting is as anonymous as the computers allow it to be.)

Re:the real problem

[AmiMoJo]

You guys should try democracy.

To be fair they consider the United Kingdom, rank 14, to be a "full democracy". That's despite the utterly broken electoral system (first past the post) and low participation rates.

Not to mention the recent utterly flawed referendum where illegal activity by the winning side was not detected until years later and so far little action has been taken over it.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but free market and no government interference!

People get the government they deserve, well most of them anyway (although not by a large margin).

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

One or two *high speed* internet providers is what you mean, right? Even dial-up is still an option, just not for doing Netflix.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm familiar with at least two satellite providers, so unless you're in some very rugged terrain, your "only one ISP" claim is false on its face.

Satellite internet is garbage for all but a few use cases and shouldn't be counted as an ISP.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

(hint: square meter)

Don't think so two-dimensionally.

Re:the real problem

[ichthus]

One place I went (to be unnamed) the person was paying $300 a month for 2Mb and sites like Starbucks, Amazon and Walmart were blocked

Please. Name the place, or you're full of crap.

Re:the real problem

[ichthus]

Oh, no wait. I guessed it! You were on a Chinese space station, right?

Re:the real problem

[tsstahl]

I'm not sure how to take that comment--even shills don't believe satellite internet is viable.

Re:the real problem

[e3m4n]

not blocking content is one thing.... asking for standardized pricing is not even remotely realistic. The cost of equipment is considerable. When you're dealing with a technology(or more than one) that has distance limitations, your pricing model changes due to the density of population within that radius. In a major metropolis like Dallas or Manhattan you could easily create a PoP (Point of Presence) and reach 100% capacity, easily, within the 1000m distance that copper-based technologies strive to fall within. Take, for example, VDSL2. Once you reach 1000m your max bandwidth is ~40mb. Lets say you have a 2u shelf that will mux 96 copper pairs. On top of this equipment you'll need to invest into an A and B leg -48V DC power, fuse panel, a fiber uplink for the long haul, and a switch to bridge your concentrators with your uplink. This expense plus the lease/upkeep of the space this equipment resides in factor into your monthly operating costs of the equipment.

In a major metropolitan area, simply installing a rack in the utility space of a high-rise apartment building and a fiber run to the building to easily gain 96 customers, all whom would easily fall within the ideal 500m service range. To recover the initial $20k investment in creating the PoP over a 3year period you would only have to eat $6 per customer toward repayment on top of the operating cost of providing service to the building (bandwidth, fiber loop cost, power, lease). Lets say your wholesale cost of bandwidth is $2000/mo per gigabit to a carrier like Cogent. Lets say all 96 customers were watching 1 4K video stream at peak evening hours. at 15Mbps per 4K stream thats roughly 1.5Gbps of peak bandwidth you'd need to this location. So lets just say the operating expense of this location is around $2k in bandwidth and another $500/mo for the power and lease of the space. Assume another $1000/mo for your fiber loop back to your main location within the city. That's $37/mo plus the $6 recover of investment. So any amount over $43 is considered profit. This is an over simplified economic scale but it suffices for the illustration.

Now take the same build-out in a rural area. Some properties are more than 500m between buildings. In these rural situations, or even remote suburbs with a few options like cable, phone co, etc, you are lucky to get even 10 customers within the range of your concentrator, Additionally your loop costs and infrastructure costs increase as well. But simply using the exact same numbers above, as if it was possible to get these rates, Each customer has to pay $350/mo before the first profit is realized, assuming you actually closed the deal on 10 customers. In a more rural area its more cost effective to just run fiber directly to the building that is sitting on 10+ acres of land than to fool with any sort of build-out. That will cost, at a minimum, $3000/mo plus the cost of directional boring to get the fiber to you (I often see quotes north of $100k).

So you want a policy/law that says they cant charge joe schmo more than metropolitan rates for this service that will cost a provider $100k in buildout cost and another $3500/mo in operating costs??? Here is what is going to happen. They will create another sort of Universal Services group whose job it is to roll out the modern equivalent of the Rural Electrification Project. Metropolitan residents will start seeing new fees and services on their bill along with increase expenses in order to subsidize the buildout and cost of connecting Rural America. The average bill for a Metropolitan dweller will now pay $200+/mo for his services so that Rural America can get some resemblance of broadband at $150/mo. But hey, it complies with the law because the rural dweller is paying something close to what the Metropolitans are paying, even if its not quite as good.

As long as distance and attenuation are as severely limiting as they currently are, the ratio of expense and density severely impact the footprint and availability of broadband in the USA. Pla

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you keep big business out of government and you have a government by the people for the people.

Then what happened to Kim Dotcom?

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't you name the place or ISP you're talking about? They aren't going to come after you or anything. I'd like to read more about it, but if you're not going to say who it is it seems that you might just be lying to us.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

current satellite Internet is a joke

Re:the real problem

[luis_a_espinal]

Well in New Zealand I have access to 26 different ISPs, Fibre goes in next week and I can have 900/400 unlimited, no traffic shaping, no port blocking, ie true net neutrality for US$68 / month. This is what happens when you keep big business out of government and you have a government by the people for the people. You guys should try democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

you left out the fact that NZ has a tiny population consolidated mainly in a few centres making this sort of option very viable and cheap whereas the same is incredibly expensive to provide in Australia or the US or many countries with exponentially more people are area to cover.

You left out the fact that 80% of Americans live in densely packed metropolitan areas with densities comparable with metropolitan areas in NZ. The argument about lacking the same variety of internet options only apply to rural America.

For 80% of the US population, the lack of alternatives have little to do with absolute population numbers (and more with big bizness/gubment red tape orgies.)

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome. On your island country with a very unified culture and people you can do things like this. In the US cultural fragmentation has bred extreme suspicion and competition. Working together is simply not an option when the other guy is just waiting for his turn with the stick.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"satellite providers", this is the same bullshit as "everyone's mobile has internet!". Latency and caps make satellite as pointless as mobile for broadband. You might as well claim, "since radio waves reach their area, they don't need broadband."

Re:the real problem

[argStyopa]

I rather think it's more a factor of a very remote country having fewer people than even the 10th-largest metro area in the US, and the 200th in population density.

If you took one of those US metro areas, isolated it 1000 miles from everyone else, and then spread it over 25x the space...yeah, I think even Chicago or Detroit could manage to run themselves without the constant murders, corruption, and venality.

But I don't disagree with you in principle, TBH.

Re:the real problem

[mesterha]

Everyone should move to Alaska; they must have great Internet.

Re:the real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm familiar with at least two satellite providers, so unless you're in some very rugged terrain, your "only one ISP" claim is false on its face.

Satellite ISPs also have like 30GB per month quotas(1/30th the amount of real internet providers, at best), only have 20mbps at best, and have latency in the hundreds of milliseconds to seconds.

Doesn't really count, neither does LTE, which is better than satellite but still not like a real broadband service.

Don't be so obtuse.

Re:the real problem

[HeckRuler]

The real problem is that there are only one or two internet providers in many places, and network neutrality is only one symptom of that problem.

Huh? it's a symptom? ...Did you mean "and the threat to network neutrality is only one symptom"? Because that would make more sense.

Network Neutrality a fundemental principle upon which the Internet was created and currently operates. When it became commercial, the userbase expected it to operate on NN principles and generally threw a fit whenever an ISP did something that violates it. Like blocking VoIP, throttling protocols, and bundling website fees. Most of which the ISPs recanted under pressure. They only tried to do these things once the market consolidated and monopolies grew. ie, one or two providers refusing to compete with each other leads is a threat to network neurality.

The FCC's title ii classification and California's legislation are efforts to regulate and enforce a neutral network since the customers are unable to enforce it due to the monopolies in place.

The solution is to allow competition, and there are places in America where internet is perfectly fine, but not in Silicon Valley.

Nor.... god-damned near anywhere. Certainly not Colordao, Iowa, or Nebraska, that's for sure.

Competition would absolutely let the customers enforce network neutrality, as they've done for the majority of the past. But market consolidation (and exclusivity deals with local municipalities) removed all competition. Well, Google tried laying down fiber. But the Telecoms selectively dropped prices in those towns and left and right in an effort to block and undercut potential new competition. YAY Competition lowering prices! But it means Google can't make money at it and they've stopped all expansion. If Mr. Moneybags Google can't overcome the artificial barrier to entry then there is no free market. It's time to either regulate the ISPs into a pseudo government agencies or to whip out Uncle Sherman's hammer and bust up the telecoms again into small regional businesses barred from colluding with their old co-workers.

Re:the real problem

[sit1963nz]

In New Zealand our elections are held on a weekend to ensure the greatest number of people are able to vote. We also have the ability to vote for something like 1-2 weeks prior via a "special vote" We ensure the greatest opportunity to vote, we don't force people to vote, abstaining is a valid choice.

Re:the real problem

[sit1963nz]

1/3rd of NZs population lives in Auckland, that skews a lot of things here.

Re:the real problem

[AmiMoJo]

GCHQ you got mod points today? Or was this just my regular stalker?

Re:the real problem

[phantomfive]

My personally preferred solution is to divide the ISPs from the infrastructure owners. Just like was done in the dialup days.

Re:the real problem

[WindowsStar]

@Maxwell'sSilverLART HugeNet and ViaSAT both state they do not service most of these areas. When I asked why it is because they do not have installers or support techs in those areas. If you know of another Satellite company please post it here I will pass that info on and have these people that are desperate for better Internet call them.

"Selectively modify"

[Anonymous Coward]

So they can insert a bunch of tracking markers in the websites you access, and track every request you make? And they can sell that data to anyone they like, too, right?

It seems every day there's another reason to be glad that I don't live in Trump's USA.

Re:"Selectively modify"

[Bert64]

They don't need to modify the websites to track you, all requests and responses to these websites are already traversing their infrastructure and can easily be tracked passively.

Re:"Selectively modify"

[i286NiNJA]

That's a naive view of how the internet works. Also you misspelled whether earlier.
If they can inject content into the websites you visit they could conceivably view every single form you post and record the content of the sites you view. If they monitor the connections you make they often can only see that you visited popular sites, hosting providers. and downloaded content from popular CDNs. Not to mention if they did this they would ruin your browsing security, they never had much desire to do it before but maybe if someone makes an official decree that it's ok we can hope that it will become business as usual.

Re:"Selectively modify"

[DarkMagician07]

How is it naive to think that? Comcast punches into people's browsing all the time when they get close to their data cap. You get warning after warning, and then you're told that you've been charged. They already interfere with your HTTP or HTTPS streams to put that info there.

You make requests against their DNS servers, your header information still goes across their network, so they can see the entirety of the URL. How else do you think the whole 3-strikes copyright rule was supposed to work. They can see the necessary unencrypted data that requests the encrypted data to know what's going on.

"Information service"

[Anonymous Coward]

The moment legislation is passed classifying ISPs as communications providers this argument goes away.

Re:"Information service"

[DarkMagician07]

The problem is, there's too much money going directly to the FCC and several congress people to make sure that doesn't happen.

Until corps aren't allowed to make the necessary donations that allow them to be treated like people, it won't change.

Re:"Information service"

[Green Mountain Bot]

I'm not at all convinced that any such definition is necessary. After all, what exactly is an ISP if NOT a communication provider?

Trumpism made easy

[yanestra]

Have an opinion towards everything, oppose what you don't understand, stun everybody with provoking thoughts.

They're not retarded or clueless

[rsilvergun]

saying so let's them off the hook. They know exactly what they're doing. I just wish the voters would stop calling them names and start calling them out on their pro-corporate, anti-consumer and anti-worker agenda. There just comes a time to call a spade a spade...

Re:Well, DOH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on! It's not like they're using things that don't matter, like religion and breastfeeding to screw you on things that do matter, like money and power. Definitely not.

Ok, Brett Kavanaugh What if Your Sites Are Blocked

[WindowsStar]

Someone please find out what sites Brett Kavanaugh likes and block them. Then call him and say sorry your ISP doesn't like those sites so you cannot view them. Oh and your rates are going up. Brett Kavanaugh you are a dumbass!!!

So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[rsilvergun]

/. has a lot of older folks on it, many of them have done quite well for themselves and many are right wing. Many voted for Trump (few seem to want to admit it).

Trump opposed Net Neutrality, supports TPP, has rolled back none of Obama's executive orders on H1-B visas (he could have stopped spouses from working in this country with the stroke of a pen on day 1). He let Carrier and Harley Davidson get away with sending jobs overseas after they both got fat checks from the government for keeping them here. He's cut back the VA and is attacking pre-existing condition coverage (again, /. has lots of older folks who depend on both those things). His tax cut is causing the treasure to raise interest rates to keep inflation in check driving up prices for things like houses, cars and schools. This supreme court nominee is probably going to overturn Roe v Wade, and let's not forget why we legalized abortion in America. And let's not forget the whole separating kids of asylum seekers thing or the fact that the money trail for all those detention centers leads back to him and his friends. I could go on, and on...

His administration did just allow 3D printed guns. I'll give you that.

I guess what I'm saying is, I get it, he's not Hilary. But Hilary's gone, and Trump's poll numbers don't budge. I know Trump supporters are out there on this forum. I also know they mostly keep to themselves on political issue. But if any are out there willing to raise their voices I want to ask: what, if anything, will make you stop supporting him?

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[aardvarkjoe]

/. has a lot of older folks on it, many of them have done quite well for themselves and many are right wing. Many voted for Trump (few seem to want to admit it).

Then how do you know that many voted for Trump? ESP?

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[markdavis]

>"But if any are out there willing to raise their voices I want to ask: what, if anything, will make you stop supporting him?"

I think you are asking the wrong question. A better question might be "At what point will the nation seriously consider a new voting system, like ranked choice, that will make it possible for better candidates to gain traction and other parties to actually compete fairly?" Otherwise, we will continue to pretend that the current D and the current R are the only valid and rational choices. Most voting now is near meaningless because of where one geographically lives, and/or single-issue polarization, and/or voting for the "least worst", and/or horrible candidates on the only two tickets than can win because of the "first past the post" system we still use. The political spectrum is not, and should not, be a two point location on a single line that attempts to describe everything.

Since voting methods are controlled by the States (and hasn't yet been unconstitutionally taken over by the Fed, like so much already), meaningful voting method change actually COULD happen (which is the major reason for the 10th Amendment). It is making inroads in local governments all over the country and starting to pick up interest at State levels. It would have a huge positive impact in party primaries, too (regardless of which party). It doesn't matter what party you support or what your political positions are, IRV/AV/RC is good for EVERYONE.

http://fairvote.org/

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess what I'm saying is, I get it, he's not Hilary. But Hilary's gone, and Trump's poll numbers don't budge. I know Trump supporters are out there on this forum. I also know they mostly keep to themselves on political issue. But if any are out there willing to raise their voices I want to ask: what, if anything, will make you stop supporting him?

You want an honest answer? The Democrat party has become so toxic that I will never support them. They could be running against Usama Bin Laden's zombie corpse and I would still vote against them.

If you want people to stop supporting Trump, you need viable third parties. As long as the only choice is between Trump and a party that has lost its mind and has gone so far off the deep end, the choice is pretty simple: Trump all the way. It's not like there's another option.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

>supports TPP

Trump renews attack on TPP: 'I don't like the deal'

Trump pulled the United States out of TPP in one of his first acts after becoming president in January last year. The 11 remaining countries in the trade agreement have since forged ahead with a new deal without the United States.

You lie in the very first sentence about Trump's positions. Why should anyone believe anything you say?

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[dbrueck]

I guess it depends on what you mean by 'support' him. I didn't vote for him, I don't own any Trump hats or anything, I wish somebody would close his Twitter account. But I'm also not in the camp of instantly opposing everything he does solely because he did it. For better or for worse, he's our (I'm an American) president, so I "support" him just like I supported all prior presidents. I thought the Republicans acted like idiot children towards Obama and the Democrats so far have shown they are no better with Trump.

Trump's polling numbers are consistent with other presidents at this point in time in their tenure. You've mentioned some things he's done you don't like, but to any of those issues there is almost always considerable nuance (anyone who thinks net neutrality, TPP, etc. are easy-to-decide black and white issues have almost certainly not studied them very closely) so for me that's not exactly a damning list. Further, there's a number of decent things he's done (both his SCOTUS nominees are pretty good, for example).

As a person, I think Trump is a bit of a buffoon (or the best ever troll in the history of the world, but I struggle to give him that much credit) but if I try to look at his presidency so far objectively, then he's not actually that much of an outlier (which is both positive and kinda depressing).

As a moderate who doesn't consistently vote for either party, I will say this though: the bizarre hysteria on the far-left has actually made me dislike Trump a little less than I did originally. I hate extremes on either side and I don't for a minute believe a majority of Democrats are like the "liberals" that get on the news these days, but man those people are completely unhinged lately.

So it's not so much that Trump has gotten any better, it's just that the alternative continues to look pretty bad, so it casts him in a better light. I think that's a big part of how he got elected in the first place.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess what I'm saying is, I get it, he's not Hilary. But Hilary's gone, and Trump's poll numbers don't budge. I know Trump supporters are out there on this forum. I also know they mostly keep to themselves on political issue. But if any are out there willing to raise their voices I want to ask: what, if anything, will make you stop supporting him?

The question really is, stop supporting him in favor of what other politician?
Clinton, who is reportedly thinking of running again?
Bernie, or the new socialist darling in New York?
Elizabeth Warren?

If I get the same choice as last time, I will vote the same next time. Like him or hate him, you have to admit he's a disruptor and he has balls.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[oldgraybeard]

Everyone may get a second bite of cake.

"I get it, he's not Hilary. But Hilary's gone, and Trump's poll numbers don't budge."

Is Hillary Clinton secretly planning to run in 2020?

So in 2020 everyone may get a do over. Only time will tell for sure.

Just my 2 cents ;)

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Nkwe]

My vote will be dependent on who the candidates are in the next election. Since I have no idea who is going to run against Trump next cycle, I really can't say at this point if I would vote for them or not (and if not, if I would vote for Trump or just abstain.) It also isn't guaranteed that Trump will run again; who knows what might happen prior to the next election.

Re: So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you believe anything Trump says?

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Powercntrl]

His administration did just allow 3D printed guns. I'll give you that.

Ghost guns for everyone, whoop-de-fucking-do. And when their 3D printed "2nd amendment toy" goes horribly wrong, that's why we have Darwin Awards. Meanwhile, the Trump administration reinstated drone registration, thus requiring me to register my tiny flying camera with the FAA. It's rather disturbing when your country is more quick to scrutinize flying toys than assault rifles.

what, if anything, will make you stop supporting him?

Trump has a bit of a cult-like following, with that whole unquestioning devotion thing going on. Trump could literally set the whole country ablaze, and some of them would still be happy knowing a bunch of liberals are burning too.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's fulfilling is campaign promises, against a massive negative propaganda campaign. That earns a tonne of respect.

He is the only one putting in a tonne of work to make America BETTER for all citizens. The alternative seem to be left hysterical or backstabbers who are fine the with US failing.

So, if anything, he'll keep getting more support.

EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trumps poll numbers are higher than Obama's. 90% of the news coverage on Trump has been negative. Compare that to the glowing reporting on Obama The Great. But results tell a much different tale. Net Neutrality is a legal change. In a Representative Democracy that happens by elected representatives in Congress passing a bill and an elected President signing it into law. That is how our system is designed to work and it keeps us safe from oppression. And you love it and support it and cheer for it and demand it, unless it doesn't go your way. Then you want to flush it. You don't imagine that if you set that precedence and you can seriously regret it when someone else gets their way around the system and you are on the losing end. Trump got out out of the TPP, not supports it, (thank God). Neither Carrier or Harley got paid by the Federal Government to keep jobs in the USA. That's fiction. The VA is finally running like a responsible agency. Ask the Veterans that depend on it and look how it was run under Obama. Real wages are up, real people are working again, we ran a budget surplus for months and the booming economy is projected to continue to help control our National Debt. Democrats, keep on lamenting the horrors of working Americans getting to keep more of their hard earned money. Keep trying to spin that as a terrible thing and Democrats will get a real shellacking in November. The LGBTQ and Democratic Socialists won't carry the election for you... Many Democrats are just going to #walkaway. Their party left them for a prettier illegal immigrant and a younger Transgender Socialist.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[tbannist]

He let Carrier and Harley Davidson get away with sending jobs overseas after they both got fat checks from the government for keeping them here.

Actually, Trump's actions actually drove Harley Davidson to send jobs overseas. If Trump had done nothing at all, they wouldn't be opening a new factory overseas to avoid the new tariffs on motorcycles exported from the United States.

I know Trump supporters are out there on this forum.... But if any are out there willing to raise their voices I want to ask: what, if anything, will make you stop supporting him?

I can tell you two things that will cause Trump supporters to stop supporting him: He loses the election in 2020 (or is impeached before then) or he admits to raising taxes. There are few conceivable other things that would cause wide spread abandonment of Trump because in general the new Republicans only care about two things: taxes and winning. And to flip the Twain quote, we're not sure about the taxes.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Goldsmith]

The /. crowd is not the people you're looking for. Sure, there may be a few Trump supporters here, but this is not the demographic that is his base.

There are a few leaders in the Democratic party who seem to understand this, but negatives regarding Trump will not move his base. Positive alternatives will. As long as Trump continues to successfully bait most of the Democratic leadership into complaining about him more often than offering positive alternatives, his base will remain. There is a LOT of marketing theory wrapped up into that. Word choice is very, very important. "Abolish ICE" is a great example. That's a negative phrase that energizes the Democratic base and hardens Trump's base. It's an amazing gift to Trump that solved his political problem of immoral immigration policies potentially fracturing the evangelical portion of his base. That could easily have been pitched using positive language such as "Simplify Immigration" or maybe more bluntly "Let Good Immigrants In." Obviously, I'm not a slogan writer.

The core problem is not Trump's base, it's actually people like me. I look at the Democratic party leadership (I gave up on the Republicans when they let Trump's ugly populism grow) and am flabbergasted at how bad they are at understanding the current political landscape and effectively countering Trump. I'm left thinking that there has to be some group of politicians left that doesn't have their heads up their ass! This is paving the way for either a significant 3rd party spoiler or (more likely) a populist challenge to Democratic leadership from the left. You can already see the excitement in the media over that second possibility. Neither situation results in Trump and the (corrupted) Republican leadership losing in the short term, and I'm pretty certain replacing one group of inexperienced populists with another is not going to result in demonstrably good government. What a disaster.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you completely blind to the toxicity of the GOP, especially under Trump? How can you support THAT brand of toxicity while decrying the Democratic brand?

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

What toxicity? How are they toxic? Because you disagree with them?

The amount of incivility and utter disrespect coming from the Democrats has completely soured them to me. Democrats are no longer willing to debate, discuss ideas, or even act with the merest hint of civility. They are a party of lunatics and mean people, and I refuse to support them in any way whatsoever. They are the definition of toxicity.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you completely blind to the toxicity of the GOP, especially under Trump?

Let's be honest here, the GOP is incredibly fucking racist and toxic... to blacks and Mexicans who they don't expect will vote for them, nor do they need their vote to win. I haven't voted GOP since 2000 and I regret even that single vote to this day.

The Democrats, on the other hand, have allowed their Progressive branch to run amok in the last few years. They run articles on CNN like "all whites are white supremacists by default" and tell men how they need to have their hours and paychecks cut so they can be paid the same as women. Then they have the balls to insult said men for "voting against their interests" and cry and sob when the people they needed to vote for them, don't. But wait! There's more! It's not just the "Nazis", the Victim Stack is destroying the traditional Democrats from within. Whether it's sex negative feminism, TERFs, BLM shutting down gay pride events, white women are the enemies of feminism, "straight black men are the white men of minorities", "rape allegations are disproportionally hurting black students", and on and on, the Progressives are expelling more and more liberals from the party and making it clear that they are Not Wanted. Some Progressives have even made it clear they don't even want "allies". All of that toxicity sprays out like a firehose onto anyone and everyone who comes close. -- but what do I know? I'm a "fucking white male" who isn't allowed to question anything.

In short, you are a fucking retarded shithead that is barely one step up from slime. If you aren't a total hypocrite then you should now be considering me one of your best friends and thanking me for showing you how you truly are. Most likely, though, you're a total hypocrite who doesn't understand why people consider your party to be toxic.

I'm voting Democrat this year despite all of this because, by God, I hope this blue wave actually happens and can do something to rein in or expel Trump. But I'm not getting my hopes up. We're already seeing people like Beto O'Rourke, just another "fucking white guy" having a tough time running as "not the Hispanic" against Ted Cruz.

Re:So, is anyone going to change how they vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

I voted for Trump, because of all the people yelling that 2016 was too important to vote third party and we were to vote for the lesser evil, so I did. Trump was not the one saying we should nuke Russia for alleged hacking.

Not saying I support everything he's done, or the ways in which he has done some things I like. Roe v Wade, cannot be overturned just like that, because of different Judges being on SCOTUS. You first have to have a case that makes it to a district court and has a finding in conflict with another district court, then have the SCOTUS actually take the case to resolve the conflict.

Personally I find abortion as birth control offensive, get your tubes tied or on the pill and use Plan B. That said I do think overturning Roe v Wade and going back to the era of unskilled people performing back alley abortions would be a huge mistake. And as a non-woman (biologically or otherwise) it isn't my body and I am not the one that has to deal with psychological impacts of the what could have been. So I am firmly in the pro-choice/abortions should be legal and rare camp.

Just as another FYI: I do not consider myself a member or follower of any Abrahamic theology.

A real pro

[bursch-X]

From all his arguments and analogies, he seems to think that the internet is just like cable TV. Good to know that the Internet is in proficient hands...

Re:A real pro

[prisoner-of-enigma]

In the sense that the Internet and cable TV are both mechanisms for content delivery, they are just alike. Try thinking outside your narrow interpretation of things.

Re:A real pro

[i286NiNJA]

It's your naive interpretation of things. That's how the cable company wants us to think of the internet but it's a 2 way communication medium and that's the major difference.
They could have had the information revolution a decade earlier along with all the massive profits that came with it but instead they chased short term profits at the expense of themselves and consumers.

Total non argument if that's really how you feel I hear they'll give you a few more channels if you drop the internet. So do it now so we don't have to see you here anymore.

Re:A real pro

[Anonymous Coward]

>but it's a 2 way communication medium and that's the major difference.

A content delivery system supported by ad revenue. What medium am I describing?

Re:A real pro

[Q-Hack!]

Kavanaugh compares ISPs to cable TV operators, rather than phone companies.

Does anybody remember the argument against the Comcast/Time-Warner merger back in 2014? The idea that combining the ISP with the content creators was going to lead to bad things. Welcome to that reality.

Re:A real pro

[serviscope_minor]

In the sense that the Internet and cable TV are both mechanisms for content delivery, they are just alike.

So are the roads.

Try thinking outside your narrow interpretation

Yeah I mean give the guy a break. It's not like he actually needs to know shit in order to interpret laws about it.

Re:A real pro

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the shill!

Re:A real pro

[Areyoukiddingme]

A content delivery system supported by ad revenue. What medium am I describing?

Radio. But not the telegraph.

Re:A real pro

[Anonymous Coward]

A content delivery system supported by ad revenue. What medium am I describing?

One that doesn't have amazon.com on it?

Oh good grief

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we go...
This is getting old. Everyone has opinions with the facts as they see them but his position is to uphold law. Hyperventing and scare tactics is the order of the day...

Gun Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

If he supports it, I support him.

Headline could read...

[prisoner-of-enigma]

The headline could instead read "Supreme Court nominee supports broad interpretation of First Amendment rights, non-interference in the private sector" and nobody would be upset about it and it would be an equally true headline. It's all in the phrasing. So a conservative-leaning judge supports free markets and broad application of the First Amendment. This surprises people...why, exactly?

Re:Headline could read...

[Anonymous Coward]

Information doesn't need to be surprising to be newsworthy.

Re:Headline could read...

[RhettLivingston]

A broad interpretation of first amendment rights would not support the allowance of individuals or corporations to block free speech which is what this does. It is as if someone has allowed the activation of a device in the public square to selectively block the transmission of sound from whoever hasn't paid the price to talk or whose agendas are not favored by those in control of the medium.

For the right of free speech to remain effective, it must be carried forward into the new medium that carries the majority of that speech. If it is relegated to the antiquity of the public square, it is dead.

Kavanaugh's interpretation is a twisting of words to match an agenda that is opposite of what the surface view of the words indicate. It allows complete and arbitrary regulation of speech by business and government, which is exactly what they want.

Re:Headline could read...

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...

The first amendment only mentions congress, not individuals or corporations. A broad interpretation of free speech would likely imply what you say, but the first amendment only dictates what Congress may and may not do.

Re:Headline could read...

[RhettLivingston]

Note that with religion it prohibited congress from both respecting an establishment of religion and prohibiting the free exercise of it. With speech, it breaks that pattern and only stops congress from abridging the freedom of speech. It does not stop congress from supporting the freedom of speech. Why prohibit support of religion and not prohibit support of freedom of speech? Perhaps because they knew that freedom of speech would need the support of law? And who do laws target if not individuals and corporations?

Re:Headline could read...

[Anonymous Coward]

It could read that way to obscure the severity of the consequences of his beliefs on the future of 340 million people, but that seems disingenuous, don't you think?

Re: Ok, Brett Kavanaugh What if Your Sites Are Blo

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything you said is illegal. The left proposes nothing but illegal activity. It must come down to tit for tat right? It must come down wrong for wrong and violence for violence right?

Re:Simple trade offs

[Waffle Iron]

+ firm supporter of the 2nd amendment, without which all other amendments become moot

-1: Naive idiot.

Information is power.

Small arms are *not* power.

NSA en banc judges

[Anonymous Coward]

Judge - Appointing President
Merrick Garland - George W. Bush
Brett Kavanaugh - George W. Bush
Thomas Griffith - George W. Bush
Janice Brown - George W. Bush
Karen Henderson - George W. Bush
Patricia Millet - Barack Obama
Cornelia Pillard - Barack Obama
Sri Srinivasan - Barack Obama
Dave Tatel - Bill Clinton
Judith Rogers - Bill Clinton

Half appointed by R. and half appointed by D. United on NSA metadata collection.

Re:NSA en banc judges

[Anonymous Coward]

correction Garland was appointed by Bill Clinton.

Re:NSA en banc judges

[Anonymous Coward]

forgot Robert Wilkins appointed by Barack Obama.

Another turd in a suit...

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on greed and nothing else....

Says it all really...

Anti-First Amendment

[Rick Schumann]

but seems to also support a broad First Amendment right to "editorial control," allowing ISPs to selectively block, filter, or modify transmitted data.

ISPs should NEVER have the right to censor traffic. This guy is a non-starter right from the get-go.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

>ISPs should NEVER have the right to censor traffic.

Only the government can censor information. Private companies can do whatever they like on their own platforms. At least, that's what liberals tell me.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

Wait, what??

If I wanted to start an ISP that blocked any website that starts with the letter S, why should anyone have the right to tell me I can't do that? (this is not a rhetorical question - I'd really like to hear your answer)

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dwywit]

I don't have a deep understanding about this, but doesn't it come down to the protections afforded to carriers that they aren't held responsible for the traffic they carry?

IOW, if you want the privilege of protection from carrying illegal content, e.g. child pron, you have to have a "hands off" approach to the traffic. Once you start examining that traffic to decide whether to carry it or not, you assume some of the responsibility for that content.

Don't the big ISPs want that protection but *still* be able to examine traffic (for shaping/throttling/billing purposes)?

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

Great question, but I think that is actually a slightly different point (see below). The post I replied to suggested that ISP's should never be allowed to censor (which is false) and then from there extrapolated that the SCOTUS nominee is completely unsuitable (which is silly).

As far as protections afforded to carriers, ISPs don't have to be the police and do much, if anything, proactively (they have to respond to DMCA requests, help the cops bust child porn distributors, etc. - but it's almost always reactive), and that protection isn't dependent upon them inspecting the traffic. Further, tons of ISPs specifically market the fact that they do censor content - so not only is it something they are allowed to do (contrary to what that other poster said), it's something they sell as a feature (typically in the form of 'family friendly' or parental browsing controls).

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

You hould be able to do that. A an I P I don't think you would have cu tomer for long and the problem would take care of it elf.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

If your ISP cables are buried on my property, why should anyone have the right to tell me I can't cut them?

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship is censorship. Stop with the double-speak.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Most ISP's already block incoming ports that keep you from serving say http traffic.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Rick Schumann]

So your ISP has the right to decide that you can't read news from some sources, only from ones they approve of? Do they also have the right to sift through your email when you send it and reject any items that they don't like, like for instance anything derogatory about their company (Hi Joe, John here Comcast really sucks!)? Or you're trying to access political websites and they block you? You're saying all that would be okay?

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

So your ISP has the right to decide that you can't read news from some sources, only from ones they approve of?

If they are a private company and are up front about what they are doing to the traffic, then yes, absolutely (and yes to all of the other things you listed). Would I be their customer? Of course not not. But the point is whether or not the *government* can or should try to prohibit that company from operating that way, and the answer is 'no'.

I'm giving that private company money and they are providing a service to me, a private consumer - both sides are willingly choosing to do business together. It's really that simple.

Two questions for you:

(a) On what specific legal grounds could the government say that an ISP can *not* censor traffic? (hint: you can't use the 1st Amendment, since it's a restriction on the government, not on a private business)

(b) Let's say I decide to start an email provider company called NoSandwhichEmail. where the #1 feature I advertise is that out of all the emails that land in your inbox, we will delete any of them that contain the word "sandwich". It's a terrible business idea, and is sure to fail, but does the government have the right to *prohibit* me from starting that company and trying to get customers? Why?

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Rick Schumann]

Oh yeah? What if you have NO CHOICE in what ISP you have? That's more people than you're comfortable to admit, I'm sure; let's say you're someone who has no choice except to have NO Internet or have Internet that has things excluded for it for no good reason other than it suits them. You still okay with that?

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

Oh yeah? What if you have NO CHOICE in what ISP you have? That's more people than you're comfortable to admit, I'm sure; let's say you're someone who has no choice except to have NO Internet or have Internet that has things excluded for it for no good reason other than it suits them. You still okay with that?

I'm assuming that, like me, you're interested in real dialog here, so please do me the courtesy of answering the questions I asked.

Once we've discussed those then I'll be happy to answer this question - and even, gasp!, admit to lots of people having poor choices when it comes to internet providers. :)

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Rick Schumann]

(a) I'm not a lawyer let alone an expert in Constitutional Law so how do you expect me to answer this other than "It's just wrong of them"?
(b) See above.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

Well, the reason I asked is because you've been asserting very strongly that it's wrong (so wrong, in fact, that a SCOTUS nominee is automatically disqualified). But I think you are conflating something you personally dislike with things the government should force on others, and they really are two different things.

Here are the answers to my questions:

(a) Truth be told, the government doesn't really have legal justification it can use to tell a private company that it can't censor traffic on its own network. Put another way, it's completely legal for a private ISP to provide e.g. content filters. The Constitution provides citizens protection from the *government* censoring; it does not provide any protection between two private parties (indeed, censoring is itself a form of freedom of speech).

I can't stress this point enough, so lemme repeat it: censorship (generally speaking) is not illegal, it's not prohibited, it's not even necessarily wrong. So when you hear of censorship occurring, it's improper to automatically assume it's some evil thing. You have to wrap your mind around that fact.

What the Constitution does is say the *government* can't censor people's speech. And even then, there are many cases where the freedom of speech is still curtailed (bleeped naughty words on TV, internet filters in some libraries, outlawing of child porn, you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, etc.).

(b) No, the government has no right whatsoever to prevent me from starting that stupid company because I'm censoring. That's not the government's job or role. Just because something is a terrible idea, it doesn't mean that we need the government to step in and police it. This is an example where the market will fix the problem and simple run my business into the ground. But it's 100% legal and allowed for me to start such a business.

To recap: private businesses are completely free to censor stuff - an ISP can block certain sites, a TV station can choose to not show certain programs, a newspaper is not obligated to print every story or every letter to the editor, I can hang up on telemarketers, Yelp can erase reviews if it wants, if you run a message board you can indiscriminately erase posts and threads on a whim, and on and on and on. You may not like it, but that's the way it is (and I assure you that on the whole it is a very good thing).

The point is that your original statement of "ISPs should NEVER have the right to censor traffic" is - no offense - wrong.

I'm willing to continue the discussion, but do you dispute the above at all? Because if we're not on the same page at this point, my answer to your question is not going to make any sense to you. To be clear, I'm not asking if you like how things are, I'm asking if you assert that the current reality is different than what I've explained above.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Rick Schumann]

'Censorship' can be done by anyone regardless of whether it's a company or a government it's only illegal if it's a government and it's against it's constitution -- but censorship in ANY form is a slippery slope and should NOT be encouraged. You can disagree with that philosophy if you like but you will not change my mind about it so don't even try.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Mainly because the ISPs that actually exist in the United states are more along the lines of:

I own all the telephone poles in the city and will sue anyone who tries to raise their own poles at any even remotely plausible opportunity to keep them from being able to run competing lines, and I own a service who'd strongest commentator's is 'stunnungservice.com', I'm now announcing my new policy to block sites who's URL starts with an "S" because I was "shocked juts shocked" that "sex-murder.com" was a thing and feel that the children must be protected from that horror.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Areyoukiddingme]

the government doesn't really have legal justification it can use to tell a private company that it can't censor traffic on its own network.

The government has the legal justification to tell a private company that it can't censor traffic on its network because its network is not private. It is utterly dependent on public rights of way, it is at least nominally available to each and every member of the general public (unless they don't feel like servicing your area, despite getting massive tax breaks for 27 years to do so), and it is fundamentally a public utility because of the physical and financial realities of how it is deployed.

Your original statement that "ISPs should ALWAYS have the right to censor traffic" is wrong.

Until AT&T pays the $400 billion in back taxes they owe for failing to live up to their part of the National Infrastructure Initiative bargain, until I can charge AT&T for every inch of their lines that cross my property for every month they're there, AT&T's network is not private enough to claim exemption from regulation that would prevent them from breaking the fucking Internet.

The Internet as it existed, with de facto neutrality, because ISPs had not yet had the nerve to try to break it for profit, is so valuable, to the tune of $500 billion annually to the US economy, that it must be protected as a public good. If you really believe their nominal status as private entities makes them immune from regulation, then I will advocate for seizing their assets and nationalizing every last one of them, forcibly removing every ISP from the media conglomerate into which it has been sucked. It's that important that they not be allowed to break it. For more money.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

I think we're on the same page as to what the problem is and just disagree on the solution.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

It is utterly dependent on public rights of way, it is at least nominally available to each and every member of the general public (unless they don't feel like servicing your area, despite getting massive tax breaks for 27 years to do so), and it is fundamentally a public utility because of the physical and financial realities of how it is deployed.

This is true for some types of networks but isn't universally true (just in the past year in my area - which is far from being a big metro area - added 2 different wireless providers. And this is before the widespread deployment of 5G and is in addition to copper and fiber).

Until AT&T pays the $400 billion in back taxes they owe for failing ...[snip] ...

On the part about how screwed things up are we are very much in agreement. But look at it this way: some of these companies got in bed with the government and now we're trying to figure out how to untangle the mess. If for no other reason than this do I have trouble with the idea that even more government entanglement (dictating how they are run, more regulation, even nationalizing them) is the solution.

Public utilities can sometimes be a good solution, but it is so tricky to get right that it's probably a last resort option. A lot of the problem seems rooted in the fact that they become a monopoly, but one that is government sanctioned, so you have this weird situation where you're dealing with the anti-competitive downsides of a monopoly and the bureaucratic downsides of the government - it's a mess that resists fixing.

The government could instead work to roll back anti-competitive legislation that has prevented municipal ISPs to form. Or it could force AT&T (and others) to pay what they owe and use that money on incentives for providing better access to under-served areas. There are many things the government could try before getting further intertwined with running companies - a solution that pretty much always leads to sub-optimal results.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

'Censorship' can be done by anyone regardless of whether it's a company or a government it's only illegal if it's a government and it's against it's constitution

Ok, so we agree that ISPs do in fact have the right to censor. Cool.

but censorship in ANY form is a slippery slope and should NOT be encouraged

I take it you don't have any children. :)

You can disagree with that philosophy if you like but you will not change my mind about it so don't even try.

You have your right to your opinion and I'm not threatened by that, but I *am* curious about this philosophy. Say a company came into your town and build video billboards all along the road to your work, and then used them to play videos of graphic beastiality. It's safe to say that a large segment of the population of your town would object to this. But from what you've written, it sounds like you'd be on the side of this company, correct?

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Just fuck off, you're giving everyone a headache you pedantic too-literal autistic fuck.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Rick Schumann]

I'm not answering any more of your silly questions, but you WILL answer this one: Why are you for big corporations controlling the content that millions of people will or will not see? I don't give a shit how you raise your kids, mister, but you WILL explain to me why it is you think corporations should have control over what people do and don't get to access on the Internet. If you won't give a straight answer to that then you can get fucked.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't answer any of your questions, remember, evasion, misdirection and denial are their mantra.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think I just did an end-run around all that bullshit and got direct again? Proving your point.

Re:Anti-First Amendment

[dbrueck]

(sorry, Slashdot notification email went to my spam folder and I just now saw it)

you WILL answer this one: Why are you for big corporations controlling the content that millions of people will or will not see? I don't give a shit how you raise your kids, mister, but you WILL explain to me why it is you think corporations should have control over what people do and don't get to access on the Internet. If you won't give a straight answer to that then you can get fucked.

It's simple, really: I use my money to buy some computers and some radio equipment and to get the computers hooked up to the internet backbone. I give my neighbor one of the radios and he pays me $10/month to access the internet via my equipment. What have I done? Well, I've created my own ISP.

It's mine. I can do whatever I want with it. The government has no business telling me what I do with the network packets coming into my computers. If I want to drop all the packets, these are my computers, so why should the government be able to say otherwise? If I want to drop some of them - based on whatever criteria I set - it's none of the government's business. It has nothing to do with being for or against "big corporations" controlling anything.

Again, if you disagree, then justify it - make a case for how the government has a right to tell me what to do with the network packets coming into my computers that I bought and maintain with my own money. If all you can do is evade this question, resort to insults, or rant about how you don't like it, then it looks like your point is invalid.

Also, I've already listed a number of other ways in which corporations (of various sizes) control the content that people see. Why do you not have a problem with them, but you do have a problem with an owner of a private ISP controlling their own equipment?

Re:Simple trade offs

[whoever57]

+ understands that the people who wrote the constitution should be deferred to when legal questions arise about the document that they wrote.

He didn't say that. He said something about respecting the original text, and history. Just about every other judge has issued decisions that are not supported by the literal text of the Constitution -- some the most glaring examples being the addition of the word "affects" into the Interstate Commerce Clause, or the "National Security exception", or the "Good Faith exception" to the 4th.

You are not being honest. You just think he will issue decisions that are in line with your dogma.

Bad Argument

[SuperKendall]

Most definitely not true in the case of the US supreme court, which is wildly corrupt, making interpretation of law based upon what they believed,

That was partly true with Kennedy as a swing vote.

Your argument falls apart completely with Kavanaugh who is a real stickler when it comes to judging based on what the law says. He has sided for and against the government in many cases where each time he was making a ruling based on law, now on what he might "believe".

Between Gorsuch and Kavanaugh it really is the case that the laws that are written will matter and not just be tossed aside at the drop of a hat because an SC justice has the feels.

Re:Bad Argument

[thegarbz]

where each time he was making a ruling based on law

If this was as clear cut as you imply there would be no purpose in having a supreme court in the first place. The very nature of the way the laws are written leave them well and truly open to interpretation and that is precisely where personal belief does come into it.

Re:Bad Argument

[shaitand]

The ISPs are carriers of speech across state lines, as such they are solidly within the scope of the commerce clause. The right to free press, free assembly, free speech, and the freedom to travel between states are ALL negated by what this justice is suggesting, that these carriers can block and even alter speech, press, and commerce in flight across state lines.

Kavanaugh is proposing to ignore the Constitution.

Re:Bad Argument

[XxtraLarGe]

The ISPs are carriers of speech across state lines, as such they are solidly within the scope of the commerce clause. The right to free press, free assembly, free speech, and the freedom to travel between states are ALL negated by what this justice is suggesting, that these carriers can block and even alter speech, press, and commerce in flight across state lines.

Replace ISPs with Trains. Does it still work?

Re:Bad Argument

[Qzukk]

Replace ISPs with Trains. Does it still work?

What, the original Common Carriers? Did you think through whatever argument you were trying to make before you started typing or did you just pick some random thing?

Re:Bad Argument

[XxtraLarGe]

What, the original Common Carriers? Did you think through whatever argument you were trying to make before you started typing or did you just pick some random thing?

If I hadn't thought it through, and picked something random, I might have said starfish or jack-o-lantern. I picked trains for a specific reason.

Does the 1st amendment cut both ways?

[whoever57]

If the reason for saying net neutrality is unconstitutional is the ISPs' first amendment right to make editorial decisions on what they carry, does that mean that they can also be sued or prosecuted over illegal content that they carry?

Re:Does the 1st amendment cut both ways?

[Anonymous Coward]

>does that mean that they can also be sued or prosecuted over illegal content that they carry?

Yeah, but that's always been true. If you're a bad guy doing illegal things on your ISP network and they knowingly let you get away with it, they could be held responsible. It would be evidentiary high bar to overcome by the prosecution, but it would be possible.

Re:Does the 1st amendment cut both ways?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but that's always been true. If you're a bad guy doing illegal things on your ISP network and they knowingly let you get away with it, they could be held responsible. It would be evidentiary high bar to overcome by the prosecution, but it would be possible.

Except his point is "Deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN and deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN.com are not meaningfully different for First Amendment purposes." implies that ISPs who transmit illegal content are making an editorial decision. Cable TV companies don't accidentally transmit ESPN. Allow ISPs to selectively engage in editorial control on the internet is inherently making them complicit in all conduct they should have known about. It's precisely Title II protections that spell out their non-interference that provides any sort of legal protection.

If you want to go against this, you basically allow a lot more free reign in newspapers and magazines to just look the other way and print whatever. This would also run counter to FOSTA which precisely seems geared toward treating websites more like newspapers with presumed editorial control.

If you only go half-assed in your beliefs, though, and try to act like an evidentiary high bar must be reached, then you're making the absurd argument that 3 out of every 4 bank robbers can get away with their crimes* because they just thought they were going skiing and they took turns being the driver.

* This might seem like hyperbole, but it follows along the same parallels. It is nominally sufficient that a person who is party to a crime after not exercise due diligence is an accomplice. That a company chooses to not hire enough people to engage in sufficient censorship to detect, block, and report illegal content inherently makes them negligent which on discovering illegal conduct on their network would make them the "driver" of activities that would likely be impossible without their assistance. You start to throw that idea away and brothels, drug dens, and really all sorts of things are suddenly effectively legal.

But I guess if you're a strict Constitutionalist, you'll ignore all sorts of common sense and pretend the First Amendment is special and the applicability of law around the First Amendment should be treated radically different to all other potential crimes because "magic".

Re:Does the 1st amendment cut both ways?

[Anonymous Coward]

You and your +1 moderator aren't very familiar with the concept he's pointing out.

If the carrier isn't a "common carrier," then the carrier can be prosecuted for "illegal" content even if they *unknowingly* help distribute it.

One of the main complaints about the current legislation around ISPs is that they got a "have the cake and eat it too" sweet deal with the 1996 telecom act. The cable, wireless, and non-telephony ISPs got to have all the privileges of being as common carrier with none of the responsibilities and duties that were supposed to come with those legal privileges.

IF the ISPs are not common carriers and become "editors" of their content, then we're back to Cable-TV days where the cable company is resposible for the content they distribute. That's why Cable Co.'s would flip their shit back in the day if bad words or sex were shown on public television, because *they* would get in trouble, not just the channel that provided the content.

Of course, that's not gonna happen. More special rights and legal exceptions will be carved for the big data distributors so that they can do whatever they want, even though actual, real people won't have those kinds of legal exceptions, because "fuck yeah, freedom".

Re:Does the 1st amendment cut both ways?

[Anonymous Coward]

No Mature rated-games before 9pm, or the Concerned Parents Association will sue them to baby bells! When this line of argumentation continues, the ISPs will eventually become equivalent to over-the-air broadcasters instead of telecommunication operators and companies. This shows the confusion that the convergence of media and communication services causes to the law makers and interpreters.

Re:Does the 1st amendment cut both ways?

[Anonymous Coward]

>does that mean that they can also be sued or prosecuted over illegal content that they carry?

Yeah, but that's always been true. If you're a bad guy doing illegal things on your ISP network and they knowingly let you get away with it, they could be held responsible. It would be evidentiary high bar to overcome by the prosecution, but it would be possible.

So if an ISP transmits a computer virus, the ISP can be held responsible for the virus' actions?

Re:Does the 1st amendment cut both ways?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if they aren't a common carrier or are modifying the content they are legally responsible for it

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, the 2nd amendment won't help much when the armed forces are replaced with killbots which experience no moral quandary when commanded to apply lethal force to civilians.

Um... Net Neutrality is a matter of law

[rsilvergun]

so it most certainly does apply. There are still plenty of us that are of the mind that the existing law gives the FCC the right to enforce it. At some point there are going to be challenges made to both the Net Neutrality repeal and local Net Neutrality laws and they are both going to go before this man (if he's appointed).

But even if it wasn't a matter of law if shows his character and belief system; specifically that he sides with corporations over people.

Re:Um... Net Neutrality is a matter of law

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

There are still plenty of us that are of the mind that the existing law gives the FCC the right to enforce it.

His argument was grounded in the First Amendment. No mere statute can override the Constitution.

Re:Um... Net Neutrality is a matter of law

[Areyoukiddingme]

His argument was grounded in the First Amendment.

His argument was not "grounded" in the First Amendment. It was pathetically, desperately, incorrectly dragging in the First Amendment, then proceeding to misinterpret it to suit his own agenda.

On the whole second amendment thing

[rsilvergun]

you oppose standing armies, right? Because that was a large part of why the 2nd amendment exists ya know?

Sorry, I know it's off topic, but it seems a silly thing to hang everything on. Even a well armed citizenry is no match for a modern military. Hell, it's been like that for centuries. The only reason America won it's revolution is the British were too busy with the French and the French were actively helping us to oppose Britain. Heck, we got beat by the Canadian army for Pete's sake...

Also, are you really sure he's going to defer to the authors of the Constitution and not his corporate buddies? Don't forget the media feeding you all this information is owned lock stock and barrel by mega corps who would very much like you to think that.

Re:On the whole second amendment thing

[burningcpu]

Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq?

Re:On the whole second amendment thing

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Indeed, that's why when the British did finally recover enough to "come back" they burned the White House down in 1812.

Re:On the whole second amendment thing

[Anonymous Coward]

are you trying to point out he is right? Vietnam was an organised military that the US lost too, as was Iraq, afghans were more civilian and were well and truly beaten just they resorted to gorilla tactics to make it too expensive for the US to root them out completely, from a military perspective they were well and truly defeated and could have been obliterated had the US actually had the balls to go all out for them.

Re:On the whole second amendment thing

[orgenegro]

A modern military is not good at keeping people conquered. For that you need a police state and an unarmed populace. The United States cannot even handle a place like Iraq with our army, one of the biggest in the world. What would they do in the United States, where bombing wedding parties would have even worse public relations? Where the citizens you are at war with might be teaching at St. Andrew's Episcopal School where Barron Trump goes to school? You don't even need to truly "win" you just need to make the government give up, or preferably, be too afraid to ever start a war in the first place.

Re:On the whole second amendment thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The Federalist Papers and the US Supreme Court (Who may have better legal credentials than you) disagree with your interpretation.

Re: On the whole second amendment thing

[Anonymous Coward]

US military undefeated in all three. US military subjected to political concerns at home? Absolutely. Open question as to the political benefits of war in Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq, but not one of who still runs the US.

It isn't the government of any of those states. And 2 out of 3 are US puppets.

Not running for Congress.

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be a big problem if he was running for Congress. But a judge's job is to say what the law IS, not what it SHOULD BE. There is currently nothing on the books against what he is saying is allowed. He's not wrong.

CAPTCHA: prostate

Re: Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's true, then why are the leftists worldwide so intent on disarming their populace?

Re: Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's true, then why are the leftists worldwide so intent on disarming their populace?

They're not. They're intent on stopping shootings. If you think your AR-15 is going to stop a tank or an F-23 when the "statists" or whatever scary political word you've made up come for you, you're... special.

1787

[Minupla]

As a non-American I find it odd to observe from a distance the esteem that a document written in 1787 is held.

Few other concepts from that era are held in unquestioning reverence by as many people. Horses and buggies? Leeches for tonsillitis? Nope we've moved on.

But suggest that a document in 1787 might require a bit of interpretation as society has moved on a bit since then? Somehow this is an unthinkable affront to the framers of said document.

My own country holds our founders in a bit less regard. John A McDonald? Any decent highschooler will tell you he was an alcoholic, racist, womanizer and all around asshole. Why highschooler? Because we learn it in school. Canadians tend not to place our leaders in amber and preserve them forever more. We don't dietize them. We recognize their faults and virtues in equal measure.

Sometimes we do it to excess, but it might be worth thinking about. I'm reasonably sure the framers when they held it as self-evident that all men were created equal, they didn't intend to be placed on a pedestal for all time, nor I think would a person who truly believes that sentiment expect their words to be enshrined in amber, never to be looked at with a critical gaze?

Might it be time for a V2 rewrite as opposed to another patch release? Just a thought.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

But suggest that a document in 1787 might require a bit of interpretation as society has moved on a bit since then? Somehow this is an unthinkable affront to the framers of said document.

Nope.

What you're seeing is respect for the rule of law. The founding fathers knew they were not perfect. They knew that there would be flaws in the Constitution. They knew that it would need to adapt.

So they provided a mechanism to do just that: a process to amend the Constitution.

What people object to are judges ignoring the law because it's inconvenient and making up new laws based on "the present day."

NO! That is WRONG. The Constitution provides a mechanism to be altered. If people really want to change the Constitution from the way the founder's intended it to be, they can. They just have to follow the rule of law to do so.

To use a computer analogy, trying to "interpret" the Constitution to match society as it has "moved on" to would be like modifying the way the CPU handles instructions to fix bugs rather than modifying the code. You're supposed to update the code, not change the underlying rules it runs in. Do it right (respect the original intention of the framers), or don't do it at all. It's that simple.

Re:1787

[Kobun]

We have an exact mechanism for re-writes and revisions. It has been used 27 times so far, with the most recent amendment completing ratification in 1992 (after 202 years).

Which piece, exactly, do you feel is in need of a re-write? What general form would you like to see the modification take? No cop outs here - the 27th amendment was finally pushed through by a 19-year old sophmore college student (who was pissed that he got a C for saying that the amendment could be passed). If you think you've got something that will pass the process, let's hear it.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything less that our constitution outlines is an act against human expression and security.
The framers of said document were correct, regardless of who the framers were.
It's not the people we hold dear too, it's the principals of these matter when it effects everyone that we all can clearly see.
This is shared at our core by those reasonable folk on the left and the right.
We are not hypocrites.
Only the fringed edges of any ideaology past or present would dare question such things.
You want to know why? Because what is in the extremists hearts is totalitarianism. Let them try.
Those folks can piss and moan all they want, they have every right too, yet at the end of the day, what they want will not take hold.
Simple because it would be less than what we have today and in our past.
Eventually, reality seeps in and they look in the mirror.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't hold your founders in such high regard, why do you hold the Queen of England in such high regard?

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

If it didn't need interpretation, why devote a whole branch of government to doing so?

Kavanaugh's viewpoint is clearly that free speech only exists in person. That is a ridiculous interpretation that effectively eliminates free speech because little communication is done in person anymore.

As science expands us, the interpretation must expand to carry forth the constitution's spirit into the expansions. Otherwise, all expansions will lead to new pockets where the constitution doesn't apply. If we had to amend the constitution to cover these expansions, it would be a useless million page document by now.

The internet has been designed as a platform to allow 24/7 connection of everything on it to everything on it. As a fully bidirectional peer-to-peer medium, it is not remotely comparable to unidirectional broadcast, cable TV, or newsprint mediums. It is an expansion of air. Nobody should be allowed to regulate speech over the internet except where that speech could be stopped in the public square.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really a very vocal minority that is obsessed over it. Since our electorate system is messed up, however, that vocal minority has votes that count for more than everyone else.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

If it didn't need interpretation, why devote a whole branch of government to doing so?

The issue isn't interpretation. The issue is intentional reinterpretation to bypass the system designed precisely so government wouldn't just go around do whatever was expedient without long-term consideration of the consequences. The result is the current mess that is the US government warping interstate commerce to clearly not mean what was originally intended.

Kavanaugh's viewpoint is clearly that free speech only exists in person. That is a ridiculous interpretation that effectively eliminates free speech because little communication is done in person anymore.

The mail is also sacrosanct. I definitely agree that Kavanaugh's interpretation of what Free Speech means is wrong, but I also can understand not associating all internet traffic as equivalent to the postal service. Mail is very different functionally because it's not merely best effort nor does it rely upon substantial duplication to actual function, but that's fundamental how most internet traffic functions. Speech is also very different as it requires people to be in earshot and at least in the past the degree of being able to outshout to drown out a person was limited.

As science expands us, the interpretation must expand to carry forth the constitution's spirit into the expansions. Otherwise, all expansions will lead to new pockets where the constitution doesn't apply. If we had to amend the constitution to cover these expansions, it would be a useless million page document by now.

I think there's fundamental a difference between understanding that "Speech" is not always literal and "money" == "Speech" or "Speech" == "bribery". Yes, there are times when I wrongly feel that an interpretation is more of a reinterpretation more focused on an agenda than a real effort to interpret the Constitution outside the bounds of the writers of it. Plenty of times, though, I am correct and the focus really is more an agenda looking for an excuse in a selective interpretation of the Constitution, and in the long term I don't think that advantages everyone.

You invoking science (oddly enough) seems very selective, but if I do the same I'd state to me the situation is no different than religion. Plenty of people selectively reinterpret religion to meet their agenda much more than they try to genuinely interpret their religion and live by the agenda it implies. At this point, the contrast between what is written and what is done are so striking, it almost makes more sense to just throw away your book and start over. In the context of the Constitution, it seems fitting given the whole Deists Bible.

The internet has been designed as a platform to allow 24/7 connection of everything on it to everything on it. As a fully bidirectional peer-to-peer medium, it is not remotely comparable to unidirectional broadcast, cable TV, or newsprint mediums. It is an expansion of air. Nobody should be allowed to regulate speech over the internet except where that speech could be stopped in the public square.

Regulation happens all the time. If 100 packets want to get through but there's only room for 10 in a second and more packets are on the way, to just keep piling up the buffer will result in all messages timing out and nothing effectively being sent. DDoS is a thing. Spam bots are a thing. There's no real world public square analogy (yet) for a worm hacking peoples accounts based upon easy passwords and semi-flooding legal but offensive content. Yet at some level, we do want ISPs some power to stop computers from continuing the spread of such content even if it hasn't been found illegal yet because a lack of ability to contain "speech" of the worm writer can have pretty devastating results on a 24/7 international network.

The point is, it's not as easy or simple as absolutes, which is where the whole discussion seems to have started from.

Re:1787

[Voyager529]

As a non-American I find it odd to observe from a distance the esteem that a document written in 1787 is held.

Few other concepts from that era are held in unquestioning reverence by as many people. Horses and buggies? Leeches for tonsillitis? Nope we've moved on.

This statement ignores most major world religions, whose sacred texts predate 1787 by thousands of years. But, this is Slashdot, so let's sidestep the Bible, the Koran, the To'rah, and the Bhagavad Gita. The Kama Sutra goes back a cool millenium and a half, while admittedly not a single volume, Newtonian physics is still actively taught in high schools and colleges, as is Pythagorean theorem and all kinds of mathematical principles which long predate the US Constitution.

But suggest that a document in 1787 might require a bit of interpretation as society has moved on a bit since then? Somehow this is an unthinkable affront to the framers of said document.

The framers wrote *in the Constitution* Article 5, which states:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

I'm very hard pressed to see alterations to the Consitution as an "unthinkable affront", though they did make it clear that amendments need to be about things a whole lot of people agree on, not just the wealthy or the coastline counties or the north or the south.

My own country holds our founders in a bit less regard. John A McDonald? Any decent highschooler will tell you he was an alcoholic, racist, womanizer and all around asshole. Why highschooler? Because we learn it in school. Canadians tend not to place our leaders in amber and preserve them forever more. We don't dietize them. We recognize their faults and virtues in equal measure.

Sometimes we do it to excess, but it might be worth thinking about. I'm reasonably sure the framers when they held it as self-evident that all men were created equal, they didn't intend to be placed on a pedestal for all time, nor I think would a person who truly believes that sentiment expect their words to be enshrined in amber, never to be looked at with a critical gaze?

This seems tangentially relevant. The founding fathers are not generally considered to be inerrant men without fault, but men who managed to have enough foresight to set up a government that didn't rely on a monarch like every major world power of the time, and gave more power to citizens (admittedly lacking on the 'women' and 'non-white' front for far longer than should have been) than most any other government in existence at the time. Their faults are known, but an esteem for the document itself does not inherently mandate putting the founding fathers on a pedestal.

Might it be time for a V2 rewrite as opposed to another patch release? Just a thought.

Well, the majority of the actual-Constitution involves the existence and operation of the Congressional houses, Executive branch, and Judicial branch. If we're doing a rewrite, I'm open to suggestions of government systems which aren't either pure democracy (Twitter and Reddit have proved that to be a generally-bad idea), a Monarchy (so much nope...),

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

being a head of state doesn't mean they hold her in high regard. it is purely a ceremonial/historical position with no real authority, the only country that really holds the Queen in high regard nowadays is the UK even though she is still head of state for quite a few countries. Why spend 10's if not 100's of millions changing laws and government structures just to get rid of a figurehead position? I don't think anything of her, but I would be pissed if my country wasted millions just to remove the position.

Re:1787

[LynnwoodRooster]

The Constitution does not need interpretation; LAWS established need interpretation and to be checked that they are Constitutional.

Re:1787

[Minupla]

That was my comment of patch vs rewrite. In all the countries in the world the US has the oldest governing document.

Not because it's the oldest country obviously, but because the rest of the world has gone through multiple rewrites of their governing documents (when Canada's supreme court has a question, they can call up Berry who's 85 and living in Saskatchewan, and ask him what the heck he was thinking when they wrote that bit :))

Doing a rewrite allows you to learn from mistakes (yours and others) and frame a governing document that's consistent with your countries' views and beliefs now as opposed to 231 years ago.

Re:1787

[Minupla]

This statement ignores most major world religions, whose sacred texts predate 1787 by thousands of years. But, this is Slashdot, so let's sidestep the Bible,

Actually let's not :), because it proves my point well.

The Constitution has a strong faction who believes it should be read as the framers intended. While I will grant that there are people who would argue the same about the Bible, the Pope for example has not gotten up recently and ranted against the use of fabric blends in clothing (Leviticus 19:19 reads, âoeYou are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.â), round haircuts, (Leviticus 19:27 reads âoeYou shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.â) footballs, (Leviticus 11:8, which is discussing pigs, reads âoeYou shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.â) tattoos ("Leviticus 19:28 reads, âoeYou shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord")

Somehow I suspect that were these items found in the Constitution, we'd be hearing all sorts of interesting cases!. So I'd argue that my point stands.

The rest of your points fall into the 'reasonable people disagree' category and if it wasn't my original point, I could devil's advocate your position too, but I will point out that generally speaking (probably with the exceptions of the 1st and 3rd, 4th and 5th - and the 5th
  largely because of its place in popular culture due to police procedurals) are held in less regard with may of them having been repealed, and most Americans being largely unaware of most of them

I will point out that my wife, who has been out of the US for a bit, but was born the daughter of a Navy crewman commented (paraphrasing) It'll be difficult for people living in the US to see some of these points. I've lived outside of the US for more then a decade so I won't divorce you for maligning the Constitution, but you might get voted off the Internet!

Well argued and I thank you sir/madam for getting my morning off to a good start.

Re:1787

[phantomfive]

Might it be time for a V2 rewrite as opposed to another patch release? Just a thought.

That possibility is on the table, but the people who wrote the original constitution spent way more time thinking about the issues than our current crop of politicians. It's easy to read the declaration of independence and respect it's author. It's hard to find any writing of any politician today and respect it.

If there were another constitution written today, it almost certainly would be a worse constitution, with all kinds of weird compromises based on the issues that will only matter for a few more weeks.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that there is a process to amend it. People like to forget that.

Re:1787

[mjwx]

As a non-American I find it odd to observe from a distance the esteem that a document written in 1787 is held.

Few other concepts from that era are held in unquestioning reverence by as many people. Horses and buggies? Leeches for tonsillitis? Nope we've moved on.

But suggest that a document in 1787 might require a bit of interpretation as society has moved on a bit since then? Somehow this is an unthinkable affront to the framers of said document.

My own country holds our founders in a bit less regard. John A McDonald? Any decent highschooler will tell you he was an alcoholic, racist, womanizer and all around asshole. Why highschooler? Because we learn it in school. Canadians tend not to place our leaders in amber and preserve them forever more. We don't dietize them. We recognize their faults and virtues in equal measure.

Sometimes we do it to excess, but it might be worth thinking about. I'm reasonably sure the framers when they held it as self-evident that all men were created equal, they didn't intend to be placed on a pedestal for all time, nor I think would a person who truly believes that sentiment expect their words to be enshrined in amber, never to be looked at with a critical gaze?

Might it be time for a V2 rewrite as opposed to another patch release? Just a thought.

A lot of countries hold their founding documents in high esteem, however most do not trust them to safe guard their rights as when it gets down to it, a constitution or bill of right is just ink on a page. Rights are protected by people, if the population supports people who restrict rights, even rights for minorities and unpopular people then those rights are no longer protected for everyone and any document is rendered powerless.

This is why I've never worried about Australia not having a bill of rights. The defence of rights occurs in the court and the Australian courts have done a very good job over the years striking down laws that are unconstitutional or even simply against the public good... Then again, Australian judges are generally selected on merit, rather than being political appointees.

The American reverence for their document is nothing for them to be ashamed of, however the do need to lose the belief in it's magically protective properties.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

This statement ignores most major world religions, whose sacred texts predate 1787 by thousands of years. But, this is Slashdot, so let's sidestep the Bible,

Actually let's not :), because it proves my point well.

The Constitution has a strong faction who believes it should be read as the framers intended. While I will grant that there are people who would argue the same about the Bible, the Pope for example has not gotten up recently and ranted against the use of fabric blends in clothing (Leviticus 19:19 reads, âoeYou are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.â), round haircuts, (Leviticus 19:27 reads âoeYou shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.â) footballs, (Leviticus 11:8, which is discussing pigs, reads âoeYou shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.â) tattoos ("Leviticus 19:28 reads, âoeYou shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord")

Somehow I suspect that were these items found in the Constitution, we'd be hearing all sorts of interesting cases!. So I'd argue that my point stands.

Except that in Catholicism the old testament(including Leviticus) has been superseded by the new testament, just as the 21st amendment(repealing prohibition) supersedes the 18th amendment(instating prohibition). While both the old testament and the 18th amendment are still important historically, most of the rules in the old testament (and all of the 18th amendment) have been superseded by new rules in the new testament and the 21st amendment respectively.

Your argument could be seen as very similar to an argument that anyone who drinks alcohol must not respect the constitution because of the 18th amendment.

Re:1787

[crimson tsunami]

Of course the Constitution needs interpretation. Otherwise I can claim it means anything I want it to mean, and so can everyone else. Someone needs to be able to decide who is right.

Re:1787

[Kobun]

https://www.joelonsoftware.com...

That's software, these are laws. Turns out we use ridiculously old laws in an ongoing fashion - pretty much for the same reason that Joel specifies in that article.

I'm going to assume that pressing you for specifics is just going to result in more evasion. If you would like to identify a particular piece of the constitution that you feel is outdated so that we can discuss it, I'll be happy to pick this back up.

Re:1787

[strikethree]

As a non-American I find it odd to observe from a distance the esteem that a document written in 1787 is held.

Then you are likely unaware of the fight that has been going on for thousands of years concerning the freedoms and liberties of the individual versus the necessity of handing lots of power to a centralized authority.

There is a reason the Magna Carta is a deeply revered document today. There is an even better reason that some documents written for the founding of the United States of America are deeply esteemed: They give the individual a basis to fight for their freedom.

I am unsure about you, but for me, without individual freedom, this universe is not worth living in. That makes those documents important.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

If age of an idea is a valid disqualifier in your mind then you must hate the 1215 document. Meh, 800 years old, lets discard it and let queens and kings prance on our rights.

Re:1787

[HeckRuler]

Might it be time for a V2 rewrite as opposed to another patch release? Just a thought.

That's advocating open revolution. Likely leading to civil war and sectarian violence in the USA.

Do we trust whoever is in power to be MORE keen on checks and balances and LESS self-serving than the founding fathers? Nope, not a chance.

Re:1787

[fatwilbur]

This is nonsense - John A McDonald is definitely held in high regard in Canada as the founder of the country. No decent highschooler will tell you what you've written. That is simply the product of the ultra-liberal movement overtaking universities in Canada and abroad. Due to the way aboriginals were treated (commonplace by anyone at the time), there is a concerted effort to rewrite history and eliminate historical figures that were because they were products of their time.

Nobody in Canada supports that hippy garbage. Yes their faults and strengths as humans are generally well known if you read any history, but only the most militant SJWs would use those four adjectives to primarily describe him.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

im guessing your not religious?
because those texts are FAR FAR older than 1787ad. yet people are still willing to kill over them...

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

nor does it rely upon substantial duplication to actual function

The internet does not rely on substantial duplication. Servers and Clients might, especially with regards to mail, but claiming the internet requires duplication is like claiming that if I hand you an apple, there is a split second where the apple is in both your hand and my hand at the same time, and therefore since I have an apple in my hand and you have an apple in your hand, there must be two apples.

Re:1787

[Anonymous Coward]

The method by which that 1787 document is altered is through the amendment procedure outlined in it. Nine unelected people should not have the authority to override the will of 3/4 of state legislatures (amendment) or all of them (initial document).

You need to eat yourself

[raymorris]

Certainly SCOTUS needs to look at the words on the page, not what they think SHOULD have been in Constitution.

That said, the following exchange just happened at my house:

Person1: You need to eat.
Person2: You need to yourself.

What would an appropriate response be? "You need to eat yourself" could have two meanings, but we know what the person meant when they said it. The intended meaning guides our interpretation.

When we read the newspaper headline "Children make nutritious snacks", we know the author means children are cooking, not that they are snacks. We interpret it bases on what the writer meant.

Unfortunately, the authors of the Constitution occasionally uses words that mean something different today than they did 200 years ago, words that aren't 100 crystal clear, and in at least one case, words that seem to contradict each other. What meaning should be ascribed to those words? Fortunately, the founders also wrote hundreds of pages telling us exactly what they meant by those words, and why they said what they said. It seems clear to me that is something to consider to selecting which meaning to use - the meaning the writer intended.

Re:You need to eat yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

words that aren't 100 crystal clear

Bullshit. The Constitution is a masterpiece of simplistic language.

Unless, of course, you're a numpty cunt whose pulling on jackboots.

It's not esteem

[rsilvergun]

not much anyway. Patriotism is waning here quite a bit. But Americans are very, very conservative. Not right wing (which is what most people think of when they hear the word) but actually conservative. We're terrified of change. Wages have been falling for 40 years we've got multiple wars going on and if you're under 50 odds are you're worse off than your parents (I know I am). Change has been bad for most of us. So the last thing we want is anyone mucking about with the document that defines our basic government.

And we've got good reason to be afraid. I know the Koch brothers were trying to take over the state legislatures so they could call a Constitutional convention. They fell just short of the votes to do it too (they lost a few special elections due to some really, really bad candidates. Like literal Nazi grade bad). I can't imagine they had anything good in store if they had been able to call a convention.

Keep in mind that as a country we can't even get everybody to agree that everyone deserves healthcare. We're kind of at each other's throats over here....

Re:It's not esteem

[Anonymous Coward]

Our problem is that our memory is too short. We need to remember back to the roots of the good times.

We were in deep trouble and then the new deal and WWII brought about one of the biggest booms in our history for the middle class lasting from WWII into the 70s. The portion of our country in the lowest levels was steadily shrinking throughout those times. Opportunity abounded mostly because of the social reforms that occurred - powered by the massive gains in productivity amongst women and minorities that had previously been nearly idle in our society.

The old, big money finally started regaining control in the 70s and stifling the policies that had fueled the rise of the lower class into middle class. The result has been an ever growing income gap since 1980 restoring the corrupt powers of old on top of a nearly insurmountable cliff of income separation and the power that implies.

The middle class has now been tricked into giving those powers even more power as they have used misdirection to blame those that have been opposing them for the ills they've caused. The very people who have caused the reallocation of wealth since the 80s, that have caused the pain felt by the people, are the ones who have regained power now. We are revisiting the fiscal mistakes of the roaring 20s and it will end up where that ended up.

Re:It's not esteem

[Anonymous Coward]

we can't even get everybody to agree that everyone deserves healthcare

This is a dishonest way to present the healthcare debate.

The fundamental question is: "To what extent is it right to force someone to pay for the healthcare of another?". Here are two possible answers:

  * "Never": even if it would only take a nickel from person A to save person B from a drawn-out, agonising death, it's not right to force person A to pay.

  * "Always": even if it takes a lifetime of slavery for person A to save person B from an inconvenient three-day cold, it's right to force person A to pay.

Our debate is on where, between these two extremes, our policy should lie.

Re:It's not esteem

[Anonymous Coward]

not much anyway. Patriotism is waning here quite a bit. But Americans are very, very conservative. Not right wing (which is what most people think of when they hear the word) but actually conservative. We're terrified of change. Wages have been falling for 40 years we've got multiple wars going on and if you're under 50 odds are you're worse off than your parents (I know I am). Change has been bad for most of us. So the last thing we want is anyone mucking about with the document that defines our basic government.

And we've got good reason to be afraid. I know the Koch brothers were trying to take over the state legislatures so they could call a Constitutional convention. They fell just short of the votes to do it too (they lost a few special elections due to some really, really bad candidates. Like literal Nazi grade bad). I can't imagine they had anything good in store if they had been able to call a convention.

Keep in mind that as a country we can't even get everybody to agree that everyone deserves healthcare. We're kind of at each other's throats over here....

America's unwillingness to change is the entire problem. The country refuses to adapt to a multiplural modernity and clings to a fading nationalist twilight.

The future is here and Americans are now probably irrelevant.

Re:It's not esteem

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hill-Burton act requires healthcare facilities to provide care and has since 1954. There is no disagreement that everyone deserves healthcare. Health Insurance isn't health care. And what we disagree on is who pays the bill. Someone has to pay the bill. Everyone that want's to be a forever child and have someone else responsible for them pay the bill like Mommy and Daddy did is all for Socialist medicine. Working Americans who's insurance rates went up thousands of dollars a year and who's taxes are subsidizing the rest aren't so keen on it. And then there is you... making statements like that deceptive, divisive, and completely ridiculous attack on our country. We are the most generous country in the world and millions are breaking in illegally just to sponge up all the free stuff we give the needy. Or haven't you noticed? You will find many of them come here from countries with socialist medicine.

Because there's a lot of right wing people on /.

[rsilvergun]

just judging by the comments on any gun control thread here, and you won't convince me that very many of them voted for Hilary.

Re:You misspelled "politicians"

[Anonymous Coward]

>Cocaine Mitch is not too far behind him.

Goes from being compared to a turtle a few years ago, to being troll master Cocaine Mitch with a bad-ass wife that scares off protesters. amazing.

Actually the Dems vote with Trump quite a bit

[rsilvergun]

538's tracking it. See here. There are plenty of right wing Democrats who support what he's doing. They helped him repeal Dodd Frank in piece meal, so you can thank those right wing Dems like Pelosi & Schumer for the next election.

Re:Actually the Dems vote with Trump quite a bit

[dbrueck]

Sure. But again, though, issues like Dodd-Frank legislation have considerable nuance (it had over 2000 pages, haha), so it's a bit of a stretch to judge someone good or bad on their high level reaction to it (e.g. person X is in favor of it, therefore person X is good, person Y is against it, so Y is bad, and so on).

I mean, speaking of that law specifically, it had some pretty onerous stuff but it seemed like a good idea since it would fix the "too big to fail" institutions, which at best it has only partially done (and that's being fairly generous). And in the process it's been rough on lots of smaller banks. So I'm not sure that the congressfolk (regardless of party) that have worked to fix it or remove the bad parts are necessarily in the wrong.

That's what Judge Kavanaugh said

[raymorris]

That's along the lines of what Judge Kavanaugh said in his dissent. He wrote that the rules would have been okay if the applied to ISPs with significant market share in a particular area. The government has a legitimate interest in regulating a monopoly or duopoly or monopoly, sufficient to override the rights of businesses and customers to decide they want a "kid friendly" Internet service or whatever. As written, the rules applied to ALL ISPs, no matter what market power they had, so it was illegal to operate a kid friendly service. Fixing that would have saved the Net Neutrality rules from a 1st amendment challenge, he thought.

The other issue he pointed out is that Congress, who has the sole power to write laws, gave the FCC authority to implement a specific law covering the phone company. The FCC was to handle the details of enforcing the law that Congress wrote. Nowhere did Congress give the FCC authority to unilaterally create net neutrality.

According to Kavanaugh, here's how the Constitution provides for laws, including those related to net neutrality, to be passed:

Congress passes a law saying which principles of net neutrality should be legally required.

Congress identifies which agency they are empowering to enforce that law (FTC? FCC?).

Laws and regulations balance your rights with government interests. More burdensome regulations can be applied to ISPs with over 25% of given market or whatever.
This balances your first amendment right to provide a low-cost service designed for text rather than video, or a kid-safe service, or whatever with the government's interest in regulating businesses that aren't effectively regulated by the free market.

Re: That's what Judge Kavanaugh said

[phantomfive]

Sounds reasonable. Thanks for going to read it.

Re:That's what Judge Kavanaugh said

[HeckRuler]

That sounds better but ignores the reality that god damned near ALL of the USA is under the thumb of a small number of telecoms who refuse to compete with each other and have openly stated they will not encroach on the others territory. If the regulation is applicable to 99% of the cases... then that sort of verbiage is expected. If you DO add some loopholes and exceptions, get read to have 56kps modems count as technically competition against the cable giants. If your kneejerk reaction is "That's not what I meant by competition" then get ready to have the dumbass bumblefuck congressmen start defining technical terms and legislating technical solutions. Which of course never happens. They ask their good friends down in the lobby to hand them some "reasonable rules". Now you've got classic regulatory capture.

Title ii classification was nice and broad and established and neither the congresscritters nor the telcom execs could get their weedly little fingers into it. ...But the president could appoint someone to the FCC that could revert it. Fuck.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a problem with that - what would such a government rule over? Once they've killed off the citizenry, I guess it's just one big circle-jerk at the Capitol for the rest of all time?

Conservatives and Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Face reality. In the United States:

Conservatives believe in non-interference with businesses yet want to regulate individual behaviors.

Liberals believe in non-interference with individual behaviors yet want to regulate businesses.

Neither really gives a shit about the constitution.

Re:Conservatives and Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Face reality. In the United States:

Conservatives believe in non-interference with businesses yet want to regulate individual behaviors.

Liberals want to regulate both businesses and individual behaviors.

Neither really gives a shit about the constitution.

FTFY

I should add

[rsilvergun]

I'm freaking out over Trump because he's attacking Obamacare. I have a type-I diabetic friend (born with it, symptom's started in his pre-teens) who is alive today because the Medicare expansion covered his insulin. Until then he was fighting with our local state government to get enough meds to live. The affect of the disease means he can't work, he spends 2-3 months out of the year just down and out. He's smart enough (smarter than me) but nobody's going to hire you if you randomly disappear 3 months out of the year and good luck starting your on business. He almost died of a heart attack once... in his 30s.

I've got other family members with medical conditions that will be screwed in the pre-existing coverage protections go away. Trump's allowing a lawsuit against those protections to go unchallenged. And I'm 40, so I've got my own problems too....

I'm not anti-Trump because he says mean things. We could do with less civility in this country. I'm so fucking tired of people stabbing me in the gut, twisting the knife and people telling me it's OK because the guy with the knife is _smilling_ while he kills me and mine...

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you should be thrilled Obamacare is going to be repealed. Obamacare is responsible for skyrocketing costs and a massive shrinking of services. Hospitals have been forced to close under Obamacare and prices have increased something like 10,000% since it went into effect.

Repealing Obamacare will bring prices back into control, greatly reduce drug costs, and improve the quality of care all around. It's a good thing. You should be for it.

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

How? By what miracle is the market going to suddenly solve problems that the market hasn't solved in any country, ever?

An axiom: there is no such thing as free-market health insurance for sick people.

Re:I should add

[DogDude]

We could do with less civility in this country.

I hope you and your friend and your family die from your and their pre-existing conditions when they lose their health care. Fuck off and die.

See how "less civility" works? Is that really what you think you want?

Re:I should add

[Powercntrl]

I'm freaking out over Trump because he's attacking Obamacare.

The ACA was a boondoggle from the start, and several states (my home of Florida included) sabotaged it by refusing the subsidies. The only good to come of it was the provision regarding pre-existing conditions.

Until America wises up to the concept of healthcare as a basic human right, I don't see this ever getting properly fixed. The problem is, a good portion of voters don't want to be paying for medical care for "deadbeats"; not realizing that doing so improves society as a whole (if others are healthier, they can be more productive, and the economy will thrive).

Re:I should add

[meglon]

You are truly a fucking idiot.

Prices go up, and always have, on insurance... BUT, they went up slower with the ACA than before. https://www.factcheck.org/2015...

The average employer-sponsored family premium has gone up by $4,154 under Obama, from 2008, before he took office, to 2014, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual employer survey conducted with the Health Research & Educational Trust. The catch? That’s relatively slow growth for premiums. The RNC may cast it as bad news, but it’s an improvement compared with the growth in premiums before Obama took office.

The ACA also required some basic diagnostics to be done without cost to the consumer. That would be an expansion of service, not a shrinking.

Hospitals weren;t forced to close under the ACA, nor did it cause them to close. What did cause some to close was Republican lead states refusing to adopt the ACA, thereby shorting hospitals (and doctors) in the state those funds.... causing them to have to close. https://health.usnews.com/heal...

Hospitals in the 32 states that expanded Medicaid were about 84 percent less likely to close than hospitals in states that did not expand the government-funded insurance program for the poor or disabled, the study found.

Repealing the ACA will toss 20+ million people off of insurance, and put us right back to where we were with medical/insurance costs ACTUALLY growing fast like they did pre-ACA. I swear, it takes a complete fucking idiot to be as fucking wrong about things as dipshits like you. Tell me, did your mother have any children that weren't born braindead?

Re:I should add

[LynnwoodRooster]

Until America wises up to the concept of healthcare as a basic human right, I don't see this ever getting properly fixed.

I don't think ANYONE is debating whether or not healthcare is a basic human right; what is being debated is how much that healthcare should cost. If you have no insurance, then break your leg, should you be able to buy insurance after the fact to cover at 100% all costs of your broken leg? Or do you bear any responsibility to at least carry some insurance up-front - and if you choose not to carry, should you bear the burden of financial harm because you chose to forgo insurance?

Re:I should add

[AmiMoJo]

Countries that consider healthcare to be a human right pay for it from taxation. It's exactly the same with other human rights like food and shelter.

The moment that you start demanding people pay for their healthcare it ceases to be a human right, because even if they can afford it there is a disincentive, often a strong disincentive, to exercise that right. The humane thing to do is treat them, and if they recover they can pay their taxes like everyone else.

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

And I have friends who can no longer afford health insurance because their premiums tripled due to Obamacare. I also have plenty of friends who can't see the doctor they've been seeing for 20 years unless they pay out of pocket, even though they were told "you can keep your doctor".

You let your guy slide with the lies and such, and only use these issues to bludgeon the other side. It's the same as when Obama finally caught up to Dick Cheney on the gay marriage issue and suddenly any Republican who was against gay marriage (like Obama was 10 seconds ago) was the worst person on earth.

Re:I should add

[blind biker]

First of all let me preface that I am from Europe and I know little about the details of Obamacare. That said, Zach Weinersmith of SMBC fame was discussing the grave financial position in which obamacare has put both him and his wife, sometimes at the beginning of last year. If what he was saying is true, it may be that obamacare was not universally good and that middle income people were, perhaps, penalized substantially?

Re:I should add

[LynnwoodRooster]

We also pay from taxes; fully 40% of all health spending is by the Federal Government. And the Federal Government spends more than just about any other nation on the face of the Earth (in absolute and per capita dollars). That FICA stuff you pay each month? Yeah - that's Federal health insurance for everyone...

The problem is that the Federal Government has screwed up the system so that it penalizes individuals who pay their own premiums. Health insurance spending is deductible by businesses, but unless you spend more than 10% of your income on health insurance, it is NOT deductible by an individual. So the system is financially rigged to ensure that the consumer does NOT pay for insurance premiums (even into Medicare). We have party A (employer) paying party B (insurance company) to pay party C (doctor) solve an issue for party D (consumer). And we're surprised it's screwed up?

Re:I should add

[Ogive17]

How much does Trump's health care cost (or any member of Congress). Who foots the bill for that?

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

Middle class people now pay on average a $6,000 deductible before insurance even begins to pay a percentage of their costs.
This is in addition to the premiums, which also have increased well over 100% in many states.

So those who are making claims that premiums haven't gone up, are cherry picking data points, and completely ignoring deductible issues. They are making the claim that coverage is cheaper, while ignoring that getting care is much more expensive.

Plans for families typically are $12,000 to $15,000 a year deductible (in addition to premiums). Before ACA it would have been $1,000 - $3,000.
ACA has destroyed middle class families, but done so in a way that talking points can be made explaining how great it is because people are covered, but not getting actual healthcare. If your family makes over $40k, you get no subsidies but still are on the hook for $15k deductibles.

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

Another Progressive spouting high and mighty bullshit.

Before Obamacare, my private insurance premiums were $350/mo with $1500/yr deductible for me and my wife. Now they are $1300/mo and $15000/yr. So I'm on the hook for $30000 each year before insurance covers anything other than a free checkup, free birth control pills, and other shit I'd rather just pay out of pocket for or would never use anyway. This is precisely the sort of financial hardship I wanted to avoid by purchasing health insurance to fucking begin with.

Get rid of this horrible law and create more robust high-risk pools for people with existing conditions. I'll gladly pay into that with my tax dollars.

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but I see a dog that needs to be put down.

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

We could do with less civility in this country.

I hope you and your friend and your family die from your and their pre-existing conditions when they lose their health care. Fuck off and die.

See how "less civility" works? Is that really what you think you want?

That's literally what conservatives have been saying for years now. Conservatives have been calling me an agent of Satan Himself since I first picked up an (Advanced) Dungeons and Dragons book. They spent my teenage years telling me how they'd blow my face of if I dared to date their daughters, my classmates. Liberal hunting permits. "Fake American". "TRAITOR". But now that you've put Trump behind the Resolute Desk on an explicit platform of political incorrectness, you DARE to demand civility from liberals!? You shot civility in the head, so you get to drive it to the hospital and hope it isn't too late.

Re:I should add

[Green Mountain Bot]

The Trump Administration's intentional acts to undermine Obamacare are responsible for skyrocketing costs and a massive shrinking of services.

Fixed it for you.

Re: I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they screwed up the system by not providing healthcare, instead the existence of public health systems is severely limited. They can't even provide adequate healthcare to military service members and veterans, largely because they don't want to do so.

Why? Because Congress has their own healthcare providers and doesn't care what happens to the rest of us as long as they get theirs.

Besides, your numbers are wrong. You're counting individual payments for their own healthcare (aka Medicare) as taxes. It isn't the same thing as what AmiMoJo means.

Re:I should add

[Mab_Mass]

Repealing Obamacare will bring prices back into control, greatly reduce drug costs, and improve the quality of care all around. It's a good thing. You should be for it.

Bullshit. Health care costs were skyrocketing before this law passed, with widespread denial of care to anyone with a pre-existing condition. A full-on repeal will just return us to the even worse system that we had before the Obama and the Dems gave us the current horrible system.

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel bad that meglon's post has been modded Flamebait, because it is provably true. ACA made costs not skyrocket as quickly, which was the trend. Most medical professionals estimate that the cost for a tablet of aspirin in an ER would've went up to near $25k if price checks hadn't been put in place with the ACA. It's still outrageous that a tablet of aspirin in an ER costs $1k, but imagine if EVERY medical service had increased 25 fold?

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, hurt feelings much, snowflake? Sorry you're upset that we call you names behind your back.

But civility is not kicking people out of restaurants because your feelings are hurt. Civility is not stalking people and harassing their employers until they get fired. Civility is not holding massive riots and literally beating people because you disagree with them. All of these are now standard tactics of the left.

I'm sorry that you think being called a bad name thinks that entitles you to ruins people's lives and wreck property, but you're completely wrong. The left has entirely lost it and has become a plague on civilization.

Re:I should add

[Atomic Fro]

This is just ridiculous.
I could be off base in your friends case. If I am ,I apologize, but I will give you my perspective from the point of view of the pharmacy.

If your friend is not working due to medical reasons, he more than qualifies for medicaid. Since we are talking about medicaid coverage, this is a glimpse of what single payer would look like in the US. The state has determined what a sufficient amount of insulin use should be, therefore how much insulin they are going to pay for over a given period. It sounds like he is running afoul of this either in terms of blood testing supplies or the insulin itsself.

In the state of Washington, Medicare's guidelines are much more strict than the state's medicaid guidelines. Getting placed in medicare can be very disastrous short term for patients as now they are limited in brand of supplies and amount. They may have had dosing working in one brand, but the switch in brand is off enough where there has to be more experimentation, thus testing, to get it right. Then you find you can't get any more testing supplies for 2 more weeks unless you pay out of pocket.

As far as fighting with the state to get more supplies/insulin:
The only time the state's guidelines has been insufficient is in two cases:

1.The patient's diet does not meet the restrictions of their disease. I am talking about patients who buy 10 pounds of candy with their $3,000 worth of insulin every 2 weeks.

2. Older people. They aren't quite as sharp and technical as they used to be and have to retest more often due to mistakes or lapse in memory.

The real problem is the cost of the supplies and insulin itself. Mandated insurance / insurance coverage is detrimental to fixing this problem. As college tuition has skyrocketed due ease of access to student loans and government involvement, so has the cost of medication. The only medication that has decreased in price in my time in pharmacy are medications that are not usually covered by insurance. IE Viagra.

Many medications that were in the $5 - $10 range skyrocketed over $100 after Obamacare came into effect. This is mostly hidden from view because all people pay are copays, or nothing at all at pick up. The economics behind the counter are shielded from the general public. When insurance companies raise premiums or copays to cover this cost increase, everyone gets mad at the insurance companies and not at the drug manufacturers fleecing the entire system.

I will say that medicaid is paying the pharmacy $10 for insulin that costs us $80 to get from the wholesaler. We don't get paid to help your friend fight to get this stuff covered, which we do anyway. We lose money dispensing his medication to him. And when he is out and its not covered, chances are a pharmacist gave him a vial under the table. Keep this in mind when you see long lines at the pharmacy counter or it takes a bit longer than expected to get pick up your meds.

Re:I should add

[LynnwoodRooster]

Not a clue about how much it costs (remember, President Obama and the Pelosi/Reid Congress specifically exempted all of themselves from Obamacare), but we definitely pay for it.

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

The hilarious thing is how you completely fail to understand that you blew your own point to hell. You couldn't even be civil in one post moaning about how uncivil the horrible monster liberals are. I mean, it works in DogDude's post, his whole point of course is "doesn't incivility hurt?" You, by contrast, can't even respond to my "we've been taking incivility shots for decades, so why don't you try civility" counterpoint without going straight through "snowflake" to "plague on civilization".

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

he more than qualifies for medicaid

ONLY if he was in a state that expanded Medicaid thanks to Obamacare.

If Obamacare had not been passed, or he is in a state that refused to expand Medicaid, then with the exception of a few more-progressive states that had more generous healthcare services prior to Obamacare...

[In addition to being poor] You must also be either pregnant, a parent or relative caretaker of a dependent child(ren) under age 19, blind, have a disability or a family member in your household with a disability, or be 65 years of age or older.

That's Florida's rule. Texas's rule is the same. (Those are the two states I've had experience with.) If you want in on disability you have to actually be disabled (in which case you get Medicare). Being unable to work due to not having insulin is not permanent disability until you go blind and/or get your legs amputated (and at that point Texas will still ask what's wrong with your arms).

Re:I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

Repealing Obamacare will bring prices back into control, greatly reduce drug costs, and improve the quality of care all around. It's a good thing. You should be for it.

Bullshit. Health care costs were skyrocketing before this law passed, with widespread denial of care to anyone with a pre-existing condition. A full-on repeal will just return us to the even worse system that we had before the Obama and the Dems gave us the current horrible system.

What we're going to end up with is a addendum to the Hippocratic Oath. There will be a per-patient analysis at hospitals and doctors offices nationwide - "Can this person feasibly pay for this healthcare?" If they can pay (through family circumstance or future earnings), treat them. If they cannot, offer euthanasia choices. In this way, wasting money on frivolous healthcare will stop, the weak will be culled, and the nation will be stronger.

However, what makes us stronger could possibly make us (as a nation) less human in the process. I hope we don't go this route, but it does seem we are headed that way.

Re: I should add

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking with a friend from California about expensive health care, he complained about how much Obamacare raised prices. We asked how much he paid before for his family of 4: $16k/year. What does he pay now? $8k/yr with lower deduction and more coverage. He found out how shitty his old plan was later.
I'm a single guy in Canada, I pay about $500/yr.

Re:I should add

[blind biker]

Middle class people now pay on average a $6,000 deductible before insurance even begins to pay a percentage of their costs.
This is in addition to the premiums, which also have increased well over 100% in many states.

So those who are making claims that premiums haven't gone up, are cherry picking data points, and completely ignoring deductible issues. They are making the claim that coverage is cheaper, while ignoring that getting care is much more expensive.

Plans for families typically are $12,000 to $15,000 a year deductible (in addition to premiums). Before ACA it would have been $1,000 - $3,000.
ACA has destroyed middle class families, but done so in a way that talking points can be made explaining how great it is because people are covered, but not getting actual healthcare. If your family makes over $40k, you get no subsidies but still are on the hook for $15k deductibles.

Thanks, that's really detailed/precise info.

Re:Because there's a lot of right wing people on /

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody on /. voted for Hillary. We all just BernieBros and Trumpers here, nigga.

Fake Post

[SuperKendall]

He believes that POTUS (any) should be immune from criminal investigation

Wrong, Kavanaugh was calling for Congress to pass a statute granting presidents temporary immunity. Key word TEMPORARY as in they would no longer be immune after they were done being president - and also note he didn't say they HAD such immunity, he said that Congress would have to act to grant such a thing.

No matter your political slant, this guy doesn't represent well the impartiality

That is batshit insane given what all reasonable people (including many Democrats) are saying about him.

Re:Fake Post

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

He also specifically said the proper road was impeachment, removal from office, and then criminal investigations. There is no "must be a criminal" requirement for impeachment.

Re:Fake Post

[GrimSavant]

The overwhelming problem was with the advocacy for protection from criminal investigations. If a president is impeachable for criminal activity, then how would a reasonable assessment as to whether those crimes occurred unless an investigation took place? If Nixon was held to that low standard, then he likely wouldn't have been impeached, because he could have refused the subpoena for the tapes that incriminated him.

I can see a reasonable argument to be made that a president can't be indicted by federal prosecutors prior to impeachment (on different grounds however), but to make him immune from processes to determine whether he committed wrongdoing is to put him above the law. And the founders were quite clear on their opinions on chief executives who were above the law (spoiler: they were not fans).

Re:Fake Post

[LynnwoodRooster]

Nixon wasn't impeached.

Re:Fake Post

[GrimSavant]

Please don't be obtuse. Nixon resigned because he was about to be impeached and convicted, and he knew it. The articles of impeachment passed out of the judiciary committee with clear majorities, in a couple of weeks he was gone.

If Nixon was protected from criminal investigation, and if United States v. Nixon wasn't a unanimous ruling against Nixon's demands for unrestricted Presidential immunity from the judicial process but instead went the other way as Kavanaugh would prefer, then Nixon would have been in a far safer position to defend against his removal.

If a president is immune from investigation and scrutiny, then it is far more difficult for anyone to contain a criminal president, impeachment is an impotent check if must be carried out in the dark. And well, if what you really want is an unconstrained criminal president (such as Nixon was at his very worst), then I have no patience for you.

Re:Fake Post

[LynnwoodRooster]

Not being obtuse, simply being correct. Nixon wasn't impeached. Fact. He had the decency to resign rather than be impeached - that was at least one noble thing the man did.

Re:Fake Post

[Anonymous Coward]

simply being correct

The word you're looking for is "pedantic".

Re:Fake Post

[Talderas]

If a president is impeachable for criminal activity, then how would a reasonable assessment as to whether those crimes occurred unless an investigation took place?

A President may be impeached over a conviction treason, bribery, or committing high crimes and misdemeanors. High crimes and misdemeanors is a classical term which references crimes made only because of the office. To proceed through an impeachment the House of Representatives should convene a committee to perform a congressional investigation, not criminal investigation, into the allegations. If that committee finds sufficient evidence to believe that the President acted in a manner that warrants impeachment then they can refer Articles of Impeachment to the floor of the House.

This is the only proper course for impeachment of a President. Criminal investigations by the DoJ is idiotic at best and unconstitutional at worst as it would necessarily setup a fourth branch of the government that has virtually no checks and balances since the DoJ only reports up to the President.

As for the subpoenaed tapes. Congress can subpoena the executive branch for evidence related to investigations they are conducting. This is well established precedent and it is different from issuing a subpoena for the President to testify. Additionally, there's a 8-0 SCOTUS ruling that executive privilege isn't broad and all encompassing and that the courts can be involved to determine if a President rejecting a subpoena by exerting executive privilege is valid or not.

Re:Fake Post

[shaitand]

The President can simply pardon himself, becoming president makes you immune to criminal punishment for anything done prior to and up to the end of your term. Impeachment however, does not require criminal punishment. If people think he is so bad, impeach him, is getting the pound of flesh from punishing him beyond that really so important?

Re:Fake Post

[shaitand]

Bingo.

Re:Fake Post

[Green Mountain Bot]

I was going to go with "presenting a non-sequitur to distract from the point being made too well for me to argue against".

Re:Fake Post

[GrimSavant]

You are making pretty much the same arguments Nixon's lawyer made in United States v. Nixon, that the only thing that the president had to answer to is impeachment proceedings and that the courts should not interfere with internal matters of the executive branch:

The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment.

That didn't work. It was ruled 8-0 that he had to turn over the tapes to the special prosecutor (who was within the executive branch) and the federal district court. And the ruling granted limited executive privilege, but not as protection against criminal inquiry.

There's a reason why Kavanaugh was primarily arguing for presidential immunity in 2009 as policy matter to be taken up congress: because it didn't exist in the law as it was. Your position is not novel, it has been tried and failed, and Nixon quite clearly showed that impeachment was a more effective and proper check on Presidential criminality when aided by more than just Article I powers. Even Trey Gowdy, a fairly strong loyalist to Trump and the Republicans in the House of Representatives, said as roughly as much in April:

"I can't say what's in the universe of witnesses we have not talked to," he continued. "And I have always maintained I am awaiting the Mueller investigation. They get to use a grand jury. They have investigative tools that we don't have."

"Executive branch investigations are just better than congressional ones. So we found no evidence of collusion. Whether or not it exists or not, I can't speak to, because I haven't interviewed the full panoply of witnesses."

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

2nd Amendment nutters: your paranoia is outrageously absurd. You know how hard it is to strike a Constitutional amendment? Very hard. We don't need every civil servant a supporter of the 2nd at the expense of them also supporting shit ideas. You: "sure, this guy is a nut, has bad ideas, maybe he even wants to castrate all male gun-owners, but at least he supports the 2nd, so he gets my vote!" Forget the crusty fucking 2nd. It doesn't even say what you think it says, nor are you actually a supporter of it unless you are indeed a member of a well-regulated militia. In that the 2nd is never going anywhere, it is politically irrellivant, and is only ever mentioned to manipulate the weak-minded, emotional, and paranoid.

Support those that support your personal economic interests, ignore everything else, and all will be well.

0 (but I only needed 1 char for my subject)

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the same confusion about religious texts. Those are far older and held in far more esteem. They are mainly unquestioned by their followers and often no interpretation is allowed. Their concepts are so ingrained in society world wide that they affect nearly the entire population regardless of if they've read or understood the texts.

What percentage of the world doesn't use a 7 day week?

Re: Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually, the number of modern combat aircraft shout down by small arms fire will surprise you, and a couple of motion cocktails is more effective against a tank. But, I'm obviously a bigot because I disagree with you. For the record, I've flown in combat and you're still an ignorant leftist.

We pounded Afghanistan & Iraq into submission

[rsilvergun]

the only reason we lost 'Nam was the press was paying attention and they wouldn't let us kill civilians indiscriminately. Take a look at the civilian casualties we admitted to for Iraq. It's over 200k. That's just what we admit to. By the time Iraq/Afghanistan came along the military industrial complex and mega corps had control of the media. Problem solved.

See, all it takes is a willingness to use brutality. If you're at the point where you're taking up arms against your own country then I guarantee you that your country is ready, willing and able to use that same brutality against you. Remember, we managed to make torture^XEnhanced Interrogation OK again. If we can do that we can do anything to you and your ragtag band of rebels. This isn't Star Wars, this is reality. And reality is not nice.

Re: Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

He has a +15 AR-15 of piercing and a #MAGA hat which gives everyone a -20 to hit him. Protip: you can never convenience him otherwise.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Information has little value when a boot is crushing your skull..........

Venezuela bans private gun ownership, June 2012 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18288430

‘Hope Is Gone’ as Venezuelan Protesters Vanish From Streets, August 2017 - https://www.wsj.com/articles/hope-is-gone-for-venezuelan-opposition-1504171802

How Venezuela's crisis developed and worsened, May 2018 - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-36319877

Good news

[AHuxley]

Finally some ability to get paper insulated wireline replaced at the community and local level all over the USA.
No waiting for federal NN rules to give everyone a new federal network.

Re:Good news

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the ISP's have passed laws in every single state forbidding exactly this. This was shortly after Chattanooga created a municipal fiber network at half the cost of the existing ISPs, and charge half the price for 5x the bandwidth, with open WiFI hotspots all over the city. I've used it, it is truly amazing, and has long been considered the best internet you can get in the entire US.

Naturally, the ISPs passed laws in TN forbidding any other cities from sidestepping them, and even tried to get the state to shut down Chattanoogas. Luckily they haven't succeeded on that, but you have 50 more battles to fight all over the country before community and local levels of government can provide service. And now that ISPs have power at the federal level, that is MUCH less likely to happen.

Re:Good news

[AHuxley]

Without past federal NN rules to enforce such state granted NN monopolies? That only a monopoly telco in that state could provide the needed legal NN networks.

Minnesota law review

[GrimSavant]

This has been making the rounds almost immediately after the announcement, though I haven't seen it here, is a Minnesota Law Review article written by Kavanaugh in 2009. In it he argues that the President should be protected from criminal investigations and prosecutions in addition to civil litigation. Here are some of the key exerts:

Congress should consider doing the same, moreover, with respect to criminal investigations and prosecutions of the President. In particular, Congress might consider a law exempting a President—while in office—from criminal prosecution and investigation, including from questioning by criminal prosecutors or defense counsel. Criminal investigations targeted at or revolving around a President are inevitably politicized by both their supporters and critics. As I have written before, “no Attorney General or special counsel will have the necessary credibility to avoid the inevitable charges that he is politically motivated—whether in favor of the President or against him, depending on the individual leading the investigation and its results.” 31 The indictment and trial of a sitting President, moreover, would cripple the federal government, rendering it unable to function with credibility in either the international or domestic arenas. Such an outcome would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis.
Even the lesser burdens of a criminal investigation— including preparing for questioning by criminal investigators— are time-consuming and distracting. Like civil suits, criminal investigations take the President’s focus away from his or her responsibilities to the people. And a President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President.

This seems like it is at the central concern for why Trump chose Kavanaugh in particular, and they haven't denied that they considered Kavanaugh's opinion that the President should be protected from legal inquiry of various kinds. The policy issues around him, including net neutrality, may serve to polarize opinion and political support and opposition, but this seems to be a major overriding issue beyond those given the reality that Trump is the subject of a federal criminal investigation by the special prosecutor, and the questions as to his powers to resist or even eliminate the probe are ripening.

For example, the question as to whether Trump can refuse to answer a subpoena have been regularly raised, including by his own lawyers, which seemed like they would be settled law given that Nixon was forced to relinquish his incriminating tapes under a subpoena. However, a different SCOTUS could overturn such precedent if they so fancy, they have done so before (including recently) despite the invocation of principles such as stare decisis. This is also why the reply that this law review article is advocating congressional action to protect the president is not as convincing as it may seem, since it taking the standpoint of what should be done in response to the law as it existed. When in the position of a justice of the supreme court with a little bit of the so called "judicial activism", the law could be revised if Kavanaugh could find enough like minded fellows to go along with him.

Or more likely, they could make precedent in the unexplored and unsettled areas of law that have a maximalist view of presidential powers, which seems likely given Kavanaugh's background. Ironic given Kavanaugh's role in the Starr investigation and report that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Re:Minnesota law review

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress made itself completely immune to both civil AND criminal actions while in office. Why shouldn't the President have the same privilege?

Re:Minnesota law review

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironic? Nah. It just means Mr. Kavanaugh is full of sh*t.

"Presidents should be exempt... Unless they're Democrats. Then it's open-season..."

"The Constitution must be read closely as a limit of power... unless it offends the Republicans, in which case it must be wildly interpreted to grant any power the (Republican!) government wants."

Look to the writings of "originalist" Justice Scalia - he was an 'originalist' - except when he wasn't. Kavanaugh is very much for one thing - unless it's a Democratic thing, then he's against it.

As an impartial jurist, he's about as true to legal convictions as a weathervane, and it's a Republican wind that's blowing.

Of course, that's why they* chose him - That, and he's young and healthy, hopefully to sh*t on the court for another thirty years.

AC

* Yes, 'they'. Trump himself would have nominated Michael Cohen a couple months ago, but there's enough Republican staffers lying around that they made a list of Justice candidates a long time ago and told him "pick one of these".

Re:Minnesota law review

[swillden]

This seems like it is at the central concern for why Trump chose Kavanaugh in particular, and they haven't denied that they considered Kavanaugh's opinion that the President should be protected from legal inquiry of various kinds.

I'm not sure that Kavanaugh's opinion helps Trump as much as he might think it does. All it would take is for Mueller to agree that he cannot indict Trump, and all of Kavanaugh's concerns are addressed. As long as Trump can't be targeted for prosecution, there's no reason he shouldn't be compelled to answer Mueller's questions, much less be able to shut down the investigation. I don't see anything in Kavanaugh's opinion that indicates he believes the president should be above the law.

But if Mueller finds evidence of criminal behavior by Trump and turns it over to Congress, and if the House chooses to impeach Trump and if the Senate convicts him, then he'll be removed from office -- and can be indicted and prosecuted. This allows the investigation to be as non-political as possible, by placing the political decision of what to do about whatever the investigation finds in the hands of Congress.

Re:Minnesota law review

[Anonymous Coward]

this is exactly why trump chose this guy... and also why trump should not be allowed to seat another justice: he'd be personally nominating judge(s) that will likely hear his own case

Re:Minnesota law review

[Talderas]

For example, the question as to whether Trump can refuse to answer a subpoena have been regularly raised, including by his own lawyers, which seemed like they would be settled law given that Nixon was forced to relinquish his incriminating tapes under a subpoena.

The case regarding Nixon was in reference to subpoena duces tecum and not a subpoena ad testificandum which Trump's lawyers are alleging he can refuse.

Re:Minnesota law review

[poached]

But if Mueller finds evidence of criminal behavior by Trump and turns it over to Congress, and if the House chooses to impeach Trump and if the Senate convicts him, then he'll be removed from office -- and can be indicted and prosecuted. This allows the investigation to be as non-political as possible, by placing the political decision of what to do about whatever the investigation finds in the hands of Congress.

W.T. actual F? Congress is apolitical? Bwhahahaha. It's the definition of a political body. Chances of the house actually doing something with Mueller's evidence, is slim to none. A special prosecutor was appointed for the reason to find the truth regardless of political climate, but GOP don't want the truth.

Re:Minnesota law review

[swillden]

But if Mueller finds evidence of criminal behavior by Trump and turns it over to Congress, and if the House chooses to impeach Trump and if the Senate convicts him, then he'll be removed from office -- and can be indicted and prosecuted. This allows the investigation to be as non-political as possible, by placing the political decision of what to do about whatever the investigation finds in the hands of Congress.

W.T. actual F? Congress is apolitical? Bwhahahaha. It's the definition of a political body. Chances of the house actually doing something with Mueller's evidence, is slim to none. A special prosecutor was appointed for the reason to find the truth regardless of political climate, but GOP don't want the truth.

I said this way the investigation is non-political, and that the political decision is places in the hands of Congress -- the political body.

Re:Minnesota law review

[GrimSavant]

That distinction is why Clinton's history with the Starr investigation and the Jones case is important on top of the background with Nixon. Starr subpoenaed Clinton over testimony, and the big pitfalls that Clinton ran into that led to his impeachment were over his testimony. The Jones case was civil as opposed to criminal, sure, and Clinton made a deal for voluntary testimony, but you add those pieces together and it paints a pretty unconvincing picture that Trump could refuse a subpoena for testimony. Of course he still has the Fifth Amendment, despite how politically perilous invoking that might be.

This is also what I was getting at a bit with why Kavanaugh being on SCOTUS and him being a supporter of presidential immunity is important in areas of the law that aren't completely settled. If the previous cases didn't specifically cover subpoenas for testimony in federal criminal cases, but ruled against the president in slightly different contexts, then he could craft a ruling justifying Trump's position that he doesn't have to testify without explicitly overruling the precedent in those cases. He could refuse the spirit of rulings like United States v. Nixon and Clinton v. Jones without overturning them outright, which is a lower bar to clear.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Waffle Iron]

Information has little value when a boot is crushing your skull..........

I'm not talking about you using information. I'm talking about the information the government has on you. That's the real power in this world, and that's what this judge seems to think should be almost unlimited.

With today's environment of mass surveillance, no rag-tag band of rifle-toting "patriots" is even going to get near critical mass before their communications are intercepted, and they're rounded up one-by-one and neutralized. In the mean time, certain leaders manipulate these people and keep them mollified by telling them that their retail firearms are somehow relevant in today's world.

BTW, if you're worried about Venezuela, you should really be thinking about how they got into that pickle: By electing an autocratic leader who had built up a big personality cult with a segment of their population. Who does that remind you of in this country?

Update yourselves...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get rid of all that Queen bullshit, and purge biometrics and all the kowtowing to american IP interests you guys have passed and I will personally move up there.

Until then, Canada is just diet America with slightly different liberties but swirling its way down the same giant drain, just at 0.8x-1.6x the exchange rate :)

Re:Update yourselves...

[Minupla]

Get rid of all that Queen bullshit, and purge biometrics and all the kowtowing to american IP interests you guys have passed and I will personally move up there.

Get rid of the queen? That would mean spending millions of dollars setting up our own head of state to replace a person who is solely a figurehead. And it risks giving an oversized ego to our head of state. Looking at other countries which have gone this route (US, Russia, France, etc) the track record has been spotty. Our current model allows us to essentially dispense with executive power (The PM can be ousted at any time by a simple non-confidence vote of Parliament, which sends us back to the polls, a perfectly normal and relatively common exercise, as opposed to impeachment or guillotines. Not seeing the upside, sorry :).

Until then, Canada is just diet America with slightly different liberties but swirling its way down the same giant drain, just at 0.8x-1.6x the exchange rate :)

So when the exchange rate was in Canada's favor a few years ago did that mean the US was swirling its way down the drain? Checked out the Euro lately? (.8 EU to the USD when I checked just now). I'd expect your leadership to not agree with that metric of greatness. ;).

In seriousness, I will grant you that the wiliness to bow to the US has been a historical issue. We may be breaking that habit now, given the current leadership. Consider that for a moment. A country that has historically been mocked as the US'd younger sibling is standing up and (politely) telling you that you've gone too far. Worth thinking about.

Re:We pounded Afghanistan & Iraq into submissi

[whoever57]

the only reason we lost 'Nam was the press was paying attention and they wouldn't let us kill civilians indiscriminately

Watch the Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam war. It doesn't support your contention that the USA lost because it was restrained in its action. By the time the press started reporting on what was really taking place, the war was already lost. It's just that it was politically impossible to acknowledge the loss until later.

Lame duck?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it. Trump only has 2 and a half years left in office, doesn't that make him a socalled "lame duck president" according to republican doctrine, and doesn't that make him ineligible for appointing a supreme court nominee?

Re:You misspelled "politicians"

[serviscope_minor]

case in point

PigHogger said:

We all know that Republicans are totally retarded and clueless when it comes to technology

SuperKendall replied:

If you want to look at mastery of using Technology anyone would have to admit Trump comes out vastly on top

That pretty much proves the OP's point. You, an avowed republican, seem to believe that number of likes/followers on twitter somehow equates to understanding tech.

Make

[Anonymous Coward]

America
Great
Again
!!

He's right.

[Barny]

This will be great. So if ISPs are akin to cable providers, I get to charge the ISP every time one of their customers uses my internet service, right? That's how cable works: the cable provider pays for the content they are offering.

"Dear user of Comcast Internet. Your provider has not made Youtube available in your area."

Opposing government intervention in business

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a conservative principle. Why make it a bug story?

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of Obama of course.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, that's what I thought too.

USA Costitution vs UK Anarchy

[aberglas]

The USA reverence for the constitution is interesting, as is its ineffectiveness. It sounds like a great idea, to deliberately constrain governments to ensure freedom from future despots. And maybe it has made the USA a much better place than it would be otherwise.

But the comparison with the UK is stark. The UK abolished slavery 60 years before the USA. There is nothing like Civil Forfeiture in the UK (or any other civilized place). No need for a civil rights movement. UK police are embarrassed when they shoot someone.

Australia, in all things, is halfway between the USA and UK. We have a constitution but it says that the Governor General (Queen's representative) is an absolute despot, which nobody believes. Nothing at all about civil liberties. But lots about State's rights vs Federal. That is because by the time it was written (1901) democracy was well established here and a given, and we wanted to stay friends with Britannia, which ruled the seas. And those Kiwis were reluctant to hand power to Canberra.

Re:USA Costitution vs UK Anarchy

[bluegutang]

Half of the US would have liked to abolish slavery before Britain. The other half had an economy which depended on it, unlike Britain's.

The UK has always had (until the last few decades) a very homogeneous population, unlike the US. There was no racial minority for the majority to be afraid of. So there were no racially discriminatory laws which needed a civil rights movement to overturn.

The UK had and has mass surveillance to a greater extent than the US.

Re:USA Costitution vs UK Anarchy

[Anonymous Coward]

They sure did love southern cotton, though. To their credit, they did refuse to help the Confederacy to prevent world-wide cotton shortages. But to their anti-credit, they joined the French in terribly exploiting South America to open new cotton sources to replace it.

Also, it now occurs to me that this comment is off-topic. Carry on!

Re:USA Costitution vs UK Anarchy

[Anonymous Coward]

No need for a civil rights movement you say, as Twitter users in the UK are policed and hauled off to jail for wrongthink, and when a journalist are snatched off the street and the press is gagged from even talking about it. Question authority and the unequal application of the law, get arrested in your home and dragged off for 'breach of peace'.

You might have room for North Korea on that same pedestal you're putting the UK on.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Obey, foolish simple deplorables, OBEY!

Perhaps some understand now...

[Karmashock]

Every time a party is in power, there is a tendency for those in that power to think it will never end. That they hold the whip hand forever.

They exceed their authority... they press beyond the normal bounds of what their office, the law, and their mandate warrants... and people... typically their opposition says "think to the future when you're not in power and I have this power."

This is rarely heeded... and then power changes hands and those that were wielding the power suddenly cry fowl when the same excesses are practiced by their opposition.

It seems to never end much to the shame of the Republic.

Those that cry fowl now... take a moment in humility to remember when you scoffed at those that said you exceeded your own power.

And those that are in power now... take a moment to appreciate that the power will change hands eventually... and everything shall be repeated by your opposition.

Everything else is hypocrisy. There is no moral high ground amoungst the parties in the United States. Both are liars, cheats, pigs feeding at troughs full of hookers and cocaine. Nearly all decisions are no more deeper or profound than the desire of the existing politicians to hold on to power. Both parties sell out their constituents... not even to save their stupid jobs... often just to get a check from a donor... and the sums of these checks... the absurd cheapness with which they are bought would make a whore blush.

I did an analysis involving campaign donations vs government contracts... the ratio of value was about 1:100. That is... a 1 dollar donation roughly netted 100 dollars in contracts... 1 million = 100 million... etc. Estimation is rough but its in that ballpark.

The point of which is this.. be careful that in all your moral outrage that you don't forget which ever side you choose... you have no purity. Both sides are invested with corruption... to their very core.

Perhaps you hold out some belief that one leader or another will save it. Perhaps... the future is tea leaves and pigeon entrails... can't be predicted. But if history is any guide, then any reform will be ephemeral. A flash of purity in an ocean of shit.

And the point of that is this... humility. It is the first and most important step to addressing corruption and error. Humility. A willingness to admit one's faults. An honest reflection. An ability to drop to your knees before something greater... if you value more than merely the power than you must sacrifice for that thing as the EXPENSE of your power. If nothing is worth sacrificing for your power... then what you worship is that power.

The best of science, law, programming, philosophy, etc all has this quality in common. Humility before our fallibility as humans.

And all that gets thrown out the window if we go full radical holy war with our stupid simplistic politics.

there are hundreds of millions of people in this country. Half of them voted one way and half the other.

Any way you count it the nation has been divided for a long long time. Rather than one faction or another attempting to dominate the other by jamming its desires down the other's throat... perhaps we should see what we agree upon. On that which we agree upon... we have law. That which is not agreed upon... perhaps don't try to impose that until we have "actual" agreement. Not some procedural trick. Not I won an election by 2 percent so I'm god emperor... BOTH parties are doing this... and it is ripping us apart.

You want things half the country opposes? Willing to rip the country apart for it? I don't think there is any wise person that actually expects to live here that would take that deal.

Restraint and humility. It is time and past time that real honest genuine compromises be made... pacts be set down that will be honored in good faith.

Because all the agreements of the last 30 or 40 years have been betrayed. It can't go on.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Anonymous Coward]

You want things half the country opposes? Willing to rip the country apart for it? I don't think there is any wise person that actually expects to live here that would take that deal.

Actually, it tends to be fools who refuse to do the painful things that are necessary for a real solution. Far too many of them would compromise and accommodate, even as it destroyed themselves and put them at risk over what? Avoiding the conflict? Breaking the chains that bind them?

Your philosophy is wrong, Karmashock, it is actually a noxious poison that seduces you with the idea of peace, but fails to recognize the way the world really works.

It's ok, you know you're just advocating it because you know it lets you tale advantage of others.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Karmashock]

Sure, Comrade. After the great revolution there will finally be social justice.

You people keep making the same mistakes and not learning.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Karmashock, I know it is a mistake to reply to you, or engage with you at all, but I just wanted to let you fairly know how little regard I continue to have for your morally fraudulent posturing.

That said, people do make the mistake of dealing with crooks with insufficient scorn and contempt. That's why they keep getting away with their crimes, too many think restraint in the face of villainy accomplishes a worthwhile goal.

God, however, knows better, and will ruthlessly sentence sinful abominations such as yourself to eternal punishment.

And so do the zealous believers who have seen the light.

Re:Perhaps some understand now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Those that cry fowl now... take a moment in humility to remember when you scoffed at those that said you exceeded your own power.

And just when did the democrats succeed in abusing their power to this extent? Certainly not while Obama was in office. Clinton didn't have a democratic majority for much of his presidency either. Don't pretend that Carter accomplished anything grand.

The only party with the stones to do this is the GOP. While the GOP is drunk on power the democrats are at the urinal lamenting over the strength of the coffee they drank.

Re:Perhaps some understand now...

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Karmashock, Democrat's mere existence is an abusive act as they should just kill themselves and die, he's really quite blatantly partisan.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Karmashock]

You wanted me to know that "you" an AC has no regard for me?

Do you not see the irony in your statement? And the fact that you didn't then and probably even after it has pointed out to you still don't... says all I need to know about you.

The comic hypocrisy of your statements which goes completely over your head renders you a laughable source of judgement.

I know I know... You're mad. But your lack of emotional control doesn't give weight to your opinions but rather detracts from them.

Try harder to be an adult and maybe the other adults will treat you like one.

Re:Perhaps some understand now...

[Karmashock]

Point out the exact incidence of abuse of power you wish to reference and I'll find an analog in other house.

Both parties have been exceeding authority in many spheres. Which excess bothers you specifically.

Cite it specifically so I can respond.

I believe I've been sufficiently clear. A clear and direct response would be appreciated.

Re:Perhaps some understand now...

[Karmashock]

To a foaming radical like yourself, anyone that cautions restraint, reflection, and humility must seem like the enemy.

If you read my post you'll find I laid criticism at both parties and said that to heal the divide it would require humility on both sides to come to common ground.

Now if THAT statement offends you, then I'm pretty comfortable labling YOU as a radical that is actually part of the problem.

The guy asking for reflection and humility before our common mistakes and passions can hardly be cited as the radical.

Your position can't even be a difference of opinion. You're just patiently wrong.

You're also following me from thread to thread, posting under AC, not contributing to discussions, and JUST throwing out a bunch of stupid insults.

What you probably haven't grasped because you're clearly a pretty simple creature... is that you're actually making me look better by making such a giant ass of yourself.

Here you'll jump on a couple sock accounts and down vote me. None of that means anything to me and the fact that you're going to do that further validates my position.

You're garbage. Be better.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Karmashock, you're just demonstrating why your ethical destitution is so transparently obvious.

Keep on emphasizing your lack in the area of ethical fortitude.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, sorry Karmashock, but if you notice your own posting history, your demonstrated bias is quite evident.

You aren't even capable of admitting that you're unable to challenge or criticize any Republicans in any significant way whatsoever. Really, who counts your declarations that they just aren't relentless enough in crushing Democrats as real criticism?

Your impassioned and unabashed support for the right-wing agenda no matter how cruel, petty, vicious, dishonest, foolish or hypocritical it is, well, of course you want to disguise it, but it is just too obvious.

But hey, go ahead and praise yourself some more. The levels of humility you display are beyond perception.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Anonymous Coward]

And just when did the democrats succeed in abusing their power to this extent?

Go ahead and answer. Let's see if you can manage to respond with a specific example.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Karmashock]

You're just responding with word salad now.

I point out an obvious illogical argument you're making and you respond that I'm being unethical.

That's moronic.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Karmashock]

Give an example.

Also, because you're AC how can I or anyone else question YOUR posting history to see YOUR bias?

Do you see the hypocrisy in an AC criticizing a NON-AC's posting history?

Of course you don't, because you're an idiot.

Seriously, why don't you tell me your non-AC name on this server and then I can quickly go through your posting history to see if YOU are free of bias.

Rather doubt you'd pass your own stupid test. Which is probably why you'll refuse my challenge. You know you'd fail. And that makes things even easier for me because you can just fail by default. So easy.

Re: Perhaps some understand now...

[Karmashock]

Can't provide counter examples unless you provide a specific abuse of the trump administration you want to talk about.

I'll probably easily find something in the Obama admin that matches it and you probably know that... which is why you're afraid to play the game.

You know you're wrong... and you have to know I know you're wrong as well. So why struggle, baby? Its already over.

Re: Simple trade offs

[meglon]

Why are fucking morons like you intent on strawman arguments? Or is it you're just to stupid to understand reality?

Re:Simple trade offs

[meglon]

Yeh, but we've already established you're a fucking idiot.

Brett Kavanough...

[Anonymous Coward]

...sounds like a Pro Wrestlers name. *announcers voice*(Brettttt Kavanoughhhhh!!!!!!)

Re:Because there's a lot of right wing people on /

[andydread]

I'm a gun enthusiast and a tech enthusiast among other things. I am a liberal. I'm pro separation of church and state, pro government regulation, pro choice, pro birth control, pro-union, etc, When I hear my fellow liberals say they want to put me in prison because I own a specific rifle and attachments for it that they do not like and have know real knowledge of it makes me want to vote Republican.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that impartial exactly? You contradict yourself.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, if you're worried about Venezuela, you should really be thinking about how they got into that pickle: By electing an autocratic leader who had built up a big personality cult with a segment of their population. Who does that remind you of in this country?

Obama, he was practically a superhero when he was elected.

Re:Because there's a lot of right wing people on /

[Anonymous Coward]

When I hear my fellow liberals say they want to put me in prison because I own a specific rifle and attachments for it that they do not like and have know real knowledge of it makes me want to vote Republican.

Sort of "choose your enemy", eh?

It's too bad we don't have institution of ostracism today. It served ancient Athenian democracy so well.

Re:Because there's a lot of right wing people on /

[Anonymous Coward]

Replying to myself, I apologize, but It just occurred to me: today we actually substitute voting for ostracism, which is not its meant purpose! That's why we get this much dissatisfaction and disappointment from politics - it became its own inversion. Nowadays we vote to prevent, react, and not to act. Therefore our genuine proactive will is suppressed and we are easily manipulated into submission and helpless, while all the power is wielded by those who can isolate themselves from the consequences of popular choice.

Sounds good

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good a conservative lock on the court. Goodbye lefties.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

+ firm supporter of the 2nd amendment, without which all other amendments become moot

-1: Naive idiot.

Information is power.

Small arms are *not* power.

Information is power only in the sense that it lets you expend your power much more effectively, but without an initial form of power information is useless. For example, if I know that a massive drug deal is going to go down near the dumpsters in an alley behind my house tomorrow, I can't do much to stop it without a number of armed men at my back, be they the police or a rival gang.

With today's environment of mass surveillance, no rag-tag band of rifle-toting "patriots" is even going to get near critical mass before their communications are intercepted, and they're rounded up one-by-one and neutralized. In the mean time, certain leaders manipulate these people and keep them mollified by telling them that their retail firearms are somehow relevant in today's world.

Gun sales are through the roof ever since all this talk started about repealing the second amendment, and the more people get picked off in your scenario, the more people will get involved to stop it. Such weapons might be at a severe disadvantage when pitted against military weapons and tech, but if it gets to the point that the military is being called upon to subdue civilians you can bet that there will be plenty of defectors. Why do you think we're arming autonomous drones? Another interesting point is that many of those "rifle-toting patriots" are veterans preparing themselves for the worst-case scenario, and you can bet that they're well aware of what the military is capable of, and what sheer numbers are capable of.

No man

[MoarSauce123]

Kavanaugh opposes everything a modern society is built on...and given his life expectancy he will ruin the US for the next 30 years or more. I know that the Senate has to approve, but with Senate Republicans folding like cheap tents it is clear how the vote will go. Thanks to everyone who voted for Trump for ruining all our lives! I hope you enjoy your unemployment due to the job cuts caused by Trump's trade war.

Re:No man

[Anonymous Coward]

Folding like cheap tents? Or disagree with you and your premise that "Kavanaugh opposes everything a modern society is built on"?

Thanks to everyone who voted for Trump

You're welcome. Here's to hoping for a 6-3 majority before Trump is out in 2024.

but ISP ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, ISP should pay for the content that they carry and transmit, just like cable companies. If not, they are infringing on others copy right?

Want free and open internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Convince AT&T and Comcast that IRS.gov should pay 1,000 USD per user to be available.

Overnight the FCC will issue a ruling about preferential treatment and selective programming.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded flamebait? I thought that /. hated single issue voters and considered them to be stupid....

Re: Kendall faggot is a bootlicking nazi

[Anonymous Coward]

Homophobe

Against road neutrality

[iTrawl]

Let's take this one step further: end road neutrality.

Deciding whether and how to transmit nytimes.com and deciding whether and how to transmit "The New York Times" dead tree bundle are not meaningfully different for First Amendment purposes.

I can see a problem with my argument, but it can be solved: privatise all roads and take the government out of them. Let the free market handle it. /sarcasm

Citation needed

[i286NiNJA]

Comcast proxies your SSL traffic? I've never heard of that. I had them once and my ex did 1.5x the cap every month and the only reason I knew was because there was a warning on our bill. I really need a citation on that.

Republicans == Fascists ...

[Anonymous Coward]

'[t]he Government's collection of telephony metadata from a third party such as a telecommunications service provider is not considered a search under the Fourth Amendment.' Even if this form of surveillance constituted a search, it wouldn't be an 'unreasonable' search and therefore it would be legal, Kavanaugh also wrote."

It always amazes me that the part who claims to want small government and protection of personal freedoms are always the first in line to support the surveillance state.

They seem to want every aspect of your life to be accessible by the government.

The hypocrisy is staggering.

I'll bet he also does not like

[p51d007]

Marsh mellows, butterflies, ice cream, baby animals, and on and on. so called net neutrality, is just another way for government, to CENSOR the web, by restricting what content can be put on the web. There isn't anything "neutral" about it. Let the ISP's control it, it's there network in the first place. If they get stupid, and probably will at some point, people will move to a different ISP. If the government controls it, it will be a mess, like 99.9% of everything government does.

Re:We pounded Afghanistan & Iraq into submissi

[Anonymous Coward]

The Iraq and Afghanistan "governments" were pounded into submission. The conflicts and insurrection are still ongoing, despite any "mission accomplished" proclamations.

In transit?

[shaitand]

Seriously, that is the great firewall of China, that means altering what a news reporter is saying, in flight. This would give the ISPs not only the right to control speed and quality of access but to literally rewrite fake news into the content on the fly!

Re:Simple trade offs

[blindseer]

Small arms are *not* power.

That is demonstrably false. If small arms granted no power then police officers would not carry them. If small arms granted no power then governments would not take them from their subjects.

Let's assume what you say is true, that small arms in the hands of citizens do not prevent a tyranny from abusing the population. What that means is a free people would have access to "large arms" (or whatever the term is for things that are bigger than small arms). I hear this all the time, the government could wipe out anyone it wants from 5 miles up by dropping precision guided bombs therefore your puny little pistol is worthless and you don't need it. It's true that a government with access to aerial bombardment can level large numbers of people with little risk to itself. If they have access to precision weapons then they could conceivably kill an individual from afar. What this does though is leave the government with the option of kill or not kill, there's no in between. It also leaves the government with a very expensive option of kill or not kill, because a guided munition is not cheap.

People are worthless to the government if they do not produce. Dead people don't produce. Only slaves produce. To enslave a people means getting more out than is put in to enslave them. To conquer a people means not to kill them but to achieve an agreement to have peace. Neither can be done from 5 miles up and a payload of bombs. This means boots on the ground. When it comes to enslaving a people or conquering them that means getting up close and personal. Maybe not to where you can see the whites of their eyes or smelling their breath but it does mean getting close enough that there is an option other than kill or not kill, an option of speaking to them, an option of where they can shoot back with a rifle.

It's because of small arms that Afghanistan is the "land where empires go to die". Many governments tried to conquer or enslave Afghanistan but failed because the people there figured out how to fashion small arms from forges built in caves.

If small arms granted no power then the petty little tyrants in the US Congress would not be making up excuses to disarm the people. They claim by disarming people they'd reduce crime but this is also demonstrably false. There are states with very little controls on what small arms people may carry, and how they carry them, and crime is not a problem. Where crime is a problem in the USA is where gun laws are most restrictive. Did crime create the gun laws or did the gun laws create the crime? That's irrelevant since there is little evidence that gun laws have any correlation to crime. Gun control is not crime control, gun control is people control. If the politicians want to stop crime then they go after criminals. If politicians want to control the people then they go after the guns.

Unless they are big ISPs, he wrote

[raymorris]

He wrote that you have a right to buy or sell a kid-safe internet service, or whatever kind of service you want, UNLESS the ISP in question is a major player in a particular market.

If there are one or two or three big ISPs in a city, the government has sufficient interest in regulating those more strictly than a start-up alternative. He wrote that the rules would have passed first amendment muster if they had applied to ISPs with significant market share, say 25%. "Market power", he wrote, the ability to make decisions that customers don't like, but there isn't much that customers can do about it. If customers can't easily choose a different service, then government can step in, he thought.

Under the NN rules, if you live in a city with Comcast and CenturyLink, it would be illegal for you to offer a kid-safe internet service. Kavanaugh said that went to far. The NN requirements are only justified for ISPs with market power , the monopolies and duopolies, unless the government shows some reason it should be illegal for a small company to offer a $5 educational internet plan that doesn't stream HD video.

Re:Unless they are big ISPs, he wrote

[q_e_t]

Many ISPs in the UK offer tools to make (or attempt to make) things safe for kids that parents can turn on and off. That seems to be more useful than a 'kid-safe ISP' as often kids live with adults who like to look at things not meant for kids.

Re: Unless they are big ISPs, he wrote

[Anonymous Coward]

What kid pays for their own ISP? And why would we do it at this layer?

Why would a purchase two ISP plans just to project their kid. When they could easily install software..or you know, be a parent.

The whole "kid safe ISP" plan is stupid as fuck and makes 0 sense.

Re:Unless they are big ISPs, he wrote

[Qzukk]

it would be illegal for you to offer a kid-safe internet service

Actually, it would be trivial to eliminate this problem. Simply put, you sell "Kids On Line" and make no claims about it being "the internet" and everyone is happy. Be sure to mail out plenty of floppies and cds with 12 free hours of service, it's a proven winner!

Re:We pounded Afghanistan & Iraq into submissi

[orgenegro]

I feel quite certain that the public opinion would be even more problematic in a civil war than in the Vietnam War, even if there is military industrial complex control of the media.

Re:You misspelled "politicians"

[tbannist]

That pretty much proves the OP's point. You, an avowed republican, seem to believe that number of likes/followers on twitter somehow equates to understanding tech.

I would just like to take this time to point out that, Obama has twice as many followers on Twitter as Trump does.

The difference is Trump uses Twitter a lot, and Obama not so much. The thing is this does not represent any particular mastery of technology, Trump is a loud mouth blow hard and he basically uses Twitter as a megaphone. For the way he uses it, the technology is being put to the same use as shouting in a crowded room.

Internet not the same everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on the country. The internet in China and Syria is vastly different from the internet that countries in the west have access to.

Tunnel into China and Syria, go to google.com and do a search. The results will differ from what you get from your local pipe.

Why are you looking at meaningless metrics?

[SuperKendall]

I would just like to take this time to point out that, Obama has twice as many followers on Twitter as Trump does.

Neither of you seem to understand. It's not the size of your follower count, it's how you use it.

It's easy to see how Obama got way more followers, since basically he's the head of a cult of personality - not any different than any big Hollywood star.

But Trump - it doesn't matter how many followers Trump has, because lots of stuff Trump tweets is widely repeated (including the press) and way more actually READ than anything Obama ever tweeted. So he's much more of a true Influencer (in the Twitter sense of the word) than just about anyone on Twitter, certainly vastly more than Obama.

Trump has also accomplished a LOT more via Twitter than I would say anyone on the planet, can you seriously say with a straight face that Trump did not basically tweet his way to being president? Obama used many channels for that, including the same sophisticated leverage of Facebook that Trump used, but not Twitter, not in any real sense. It would be madness to claim otherwise. Not to mention Trump goading North Korea into nuclear negotiations via Twitter.

You can ignore Trumps leverage of Twitter all you like, but it is to your detriment as you will continue to fail to understand events as they unfold.

I think your basic problem is you have either way too much hate for Trump or love for Obama (or both) to understand anything. I feel about the same about Obama as Trump, so I am just looking at this all from a sheer tactical level, not basing analysis on emotion as others seem to be doing...

Re:Why are you looking at meaningless metrics?

[serviscope_minor]

Neither of you seem to understand. It's not the size of your follower count, it's how you use it.

If you think that's mastery of technology (your words) then you should be supporting Kim Kardashian for president.

Re:Why are you looking at meaningless metrics?

[SuperKendall]

If you think that's mastery of technology (your words) then you should be supporting Kim Kardashian for president.

Holy shit, if you do NOT think Kim K of all people has a mastery of technology, you should just hang up you tech badge right now because you understand NOTHING.

We were just talking politicians but Kim K has a vastly better mastery of technology than you or I mere programmers. We UNDERSTAND it better. But mastery? Come On.

I wasn't even talking about WHO should be president, I was simply pointing out who is actually a master of technology and who is not. It's you political losers who want to make it about something it is not.

Re:Why are you looking at meaningless metrics?

[serviscope_minor]

Oh yes, my mistake I forgot you're one of those rabid trumpanzees so you don't seem to use the same meanings for words as regular people. Either that or you play stupid word games to try to "prove" that Trump is indeed your god-emperor.

Imagine it's a different topic. Here's what the conversation would sound like.

Subject: FAA regulating drones
You: Of course Trump knows best, the god-emperor has mastered the ability of flight.
Me: WTF Trump can't fly! No human can.
You: He goes in aeroplanes, that's flying.
Me: That's not "trump mastering the ability of flight". Even by that definition he can't fly he has no pilots license.
You: So? You don't need a pilots license to master flight. He has a private jet and can pay for someone to fly him anywhere at any time. That's more mastering of flight than any pilot.
Me: you're a moron.

So basically I'm saying your definitions which no one else seems to follow are deeply stupid. The fact he's a world-expert at spreading lies on twitter does not mean he has "mastered technology" and therefore be supremely suited to rule on Network Neutrality.

You know, network neutrality? The entire topic of the story.

You're either very stupid if you think being good on twitter in any way reflects on hos knowledge of NN or you are actively trying to deceive. My bet is on the former but I won't rule out the latter because pointless word games where you rapidly flip between different meanings isn't beneath you.

Re:Why are you looking at meaningless metrics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, SuperKendall is in fact, very stupid regardless.

Remember, he's the one that denied criticizing Theresa May on the same day that video of him doing so came out.

Judges can't make laws but they can break them

[rsilvergun]

The Supreme court could just declare each and every law they don't like unconstitutional. It's easy to do with the 10th amendment. Heck, they're basically making laws at that point since no law will pass that they oppose.

If you stack the courts with pro-corporate judges expect pro-corporate laws to be the only ones that survive. Once you accept that the only question is are you OK with that.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Waffle Iron]

You go on and on, completely missing the fact that in today's world, government information about you completely neutralizes any ability for you to use arms against it. That's why rights regarding limits on government surveillance are orders of magnitude more important than the 2nd amendment you keep persevering about.

But do you care if this judge thinks that unfettered mass surveillance is OK? I doubt it. Even your sig indicates that you've drunk so much Kool Aid that you probably can't even comprehend what I'm taking about.

(You should also note that Afghanistan has now been occupied and run by a US-installed puppet government for over 15 years. How long until these local patriots start "winning"?)

Re:Simple trade offs

[Gilgaron]

Eh, the phalanx and a cavalry wing used to be pretty great too. With automation comes the devaluing of labor, and if labor isn't valuable you can drone the serfs into submission if you're feeling generous or into extinction if they're being difficult. We probably aren't quite there yet, as it is still cheaper to control populations with propaganda, but small arms aren't relevant and won't help against someone willing to use total war doctrines.

There's a much bigger problem with Kavanaugh.

[GameboyRMH]

A much bigger problem with Brett Kavanaugh is that he's a shitty judge who has a frighteningly amateurish understanding of the US' legal system. One nervous-laughable misunderstanding in particular is very appealing to wannabe-dictator President Trump: Kavanaugh believes that the US president has a power similar to the collective power of the US supreme court, and can declare any law unconstitutional on a whim:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and...

Re:There's a much bigger problem with Kavanaugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kavanaugh believes that the US president has a power similar to the collective power of the US supreme court, and can declare any law unconstitutional on a whim

Not really, that's just one interpretation of Kavanaugh's opinion... by another person writing an opinion piece on K's opinion.

Instead of just listening to secondary opinions, here's Kavanaugh's quoted words, from that original opinion piece that was referenced in your Vox link:

In a sixty-five-page opinion, Kavanaugh appeared to offer some advice to the Republicans who are challenging Obama in the election this year. âoeUnder the Constitution,â Kavanaugh wrote, âoethe President may decline to enforce a statute that regulates private individuals when the President deems the statute unconstitutional, even if a court has held or would hold the statute constitutional.â

One way to interpret that is certainly that K thinks the President has similar legal powers as SCOTUS, but I do think a more reasonable interpretation is that the statement is only about the President having a personal opinion.

The actual power K was referencing is the President's power to select which laws to prioritize. Selective enforcement was one thing Obama did that drove Republicans crazy, leading to them coming up with an "Enforce the law act"

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

Re: There's a much bigger problem with Kavanaugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

What drove Republicans crazy is any rejection of their dogmatic agenda or their manufactured narrative.

That's because they can't handle any difference of opinion, recognize any criticism of themselves as legitimate, or tolerate noncompliance.

Re:We pounded Afghanistan & Iraq into submissi

[burningcpu]

I wasn't speaking of only the American perspective of these conflicts. Your armchair general-ing is impressive - if only American had your leadership, we'd control the world!

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

You go on and on, completely missing the fact that in today's world, government information about you completely neutralizes any ability for you to use arms against it.

It certainly makes it more difficult to fight against, but there are only so many people that they can neutralize without the public finding out before they have the entire population against them, which then leads us to the scenario described by blindseer.

Re:Simple trade offs

[Waffle Iron]

It certainly makes it more difficult to fight against, but there are only so many people that they can neutralize without the public finding out before they have the entire population against them,

And how is this population going to organize themselves into a credible fighting force? On facebook?

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

The boot is currently crushing plenty of skulls here in the US - but you and your ilk don't do squat about it despite that being your #1 reason why the 2nd amendment exists. Why would that be?

Re: Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it really a strawman?

Here's a former Supreme Court Justice talking about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/opinion/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment.html
And a few others: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/why-its-time-to-repeal-the-second-amendment-95622/
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a19604852/democrats-repeal-second-amendment/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/guns-second-amendment-nra.html
http://www.wnd.com/2018/04/dnc-vice-chairwoman-repeal-the-2nd-amendment/

Also worth noting, a considerable portion of mass shootings are in designated "gun free zones".

Because big bad corporations, historically

[raymorris]

It's interesting how we got to this point.

Years ago it was sold as "business records" - the government could demand records from businesses without a warrant or any other standard, just demand records for no reason because they are getting it from a "big bad corporation". Nobody cared, nobody objected because corporations (groups of people) are bad, m'kay.

That established the principle that "business records" don't have the same protection. The phone company's "business records" include records of which calls they completed, for whom. Records from cell phone carriers about which customers were connected to which towers have been classified as "business records". It's okay because they are getting data from those big bad corporations, not from individuals, the theory goes.

Not a search? Well then, I think it's fair game.

[HeckRuler]

"In November 2015, Kavanaugh was part of a unanimous decision when the DC Circuit denied a petition to rehear a challenge to the NSA's bulk collection of telephone metadata. Kavanaugh was the only judge to issue a written statement, which said that '[t]he Government's collection of telephony metadata from a third party such as a telecommunications service provider is not considered a search under the Fourth Amendment.' Even if this form of surveillance constituted a search, it wouldn't be an 'unreasonable' search and therefore it would be legal, Kavanaugh also wrote."

Someone get his metadata and expose his daily routine, who all his contacts are, and who he calls the most, where he frequents, and where he travels to.

Let's see how well he likes "NOT being searched". He can enjoy the full benefit of privacy, but I guess none of this is private. So let's have at it. Money says there's plenty enough rope in there to hang himself.

Re:We pounded Afghanistan & Iraq into submissi

[HeckRuler]

This is insightful?

1) He's arguing that we SHOULD have "killed civilians indiscriminately".

2) He thinks the sectarian violence in Iraq was all US troops. Dude, it was open warfare between the Shiites and the Sunnis. We let it happy by knocking off the only guy keeping them from going at it, but that wasn't our troops shooting civilians. That wasn't the plan. We didn't want 300,000 dead civvies.

we managed to make torture^XEnhanced Interrogation OK again.

Only for half the populace in the USA. It was, and still is, reviled by the other half along with the rest of the world.

Dear Trump Voters

[Anonymous Coward]

From the current horror show on the border, going back to praising Nazi's after they killed Heather Heyer, to the current economy killing trade wars up to ending net neutrality, way to go.

Next up, killing off the pre-existing conditions protection and the rules put in place to prevent another 2008.

Nothing this guy does is in any of our interests, and most of it is shameful, all of it is embarrassing.

But as long as he keeps deporting brown people, you guys keep supporting him.

BTW, deporting a million brown skinned people is going to hurt the economy, and that wall is going to be used to keep you in someday.

Re:GNAA Copypasta

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, Stan Marsh here. I'm president of the BCNAA. We're like GNAA but for Bi-Curious men.

Joining is simple. Just invite a well hung negro over to fuck your wife while you watch. Offer to help guide his huge meat missile into your wife's wet hole (whichever one it may be). While he's busy violating your wife, watch his cock and jerk off. When he's done, eat the cream pie. If you're feeling adventurous, offer to lick his cock.

And kids laugh, show mom how to reboot the router

[raymorris]

Yeah ISPs here offer those too, they are client-side filters. Mom may or may not realize it only affects the computer she installs it on, not the tablet or anything else. Kids laugh at that software, while showing mom how to reboot the router.

Anyway, Kavanaugh figures it should be legal for you to get some kind of specialized internet service if you want to, if the provider isn't a major player. (Comcast etc can be subject to more regulation, he says).

Re:Simple trade offs

[Anonymous Coward]

It certainly makes it more difficult to fight against, but there are only so many people that they can neutralize without the public finding out before they have the entire population against them,

And how is this population going to organize themselves into a credible fighting force? On facebook?

If the government is found to be tracking people with license plates then people will remove their license plates. How is this organized into a credible fighting force? It's advertised by people removing their license plates.

It may surprise you that people still meet face to face, and they talk. It doesn't take much to create a "sneakernet" of USB drives handed off. I'd like to hear how the government is going to track that.

We know how crypto works, there's still books on it and college courses that teach it. Maybe the government can track the connections across the internet that are encrypted but they can't follow what was transmitted. This crypto can't be broken, at least not in any time frame that matters. Add enough noise to the signal and the government can't stop it.

Combine some old school tech that predates any government tracking, some open source software that hasn't had back doors coded in, and some new tech such as 3D printing, and a new network can be created. If the government tries and succeeds in some pipewrench crypto cracking and they get only what one person knows of the network.

You may be correct that the pen is mightier than the sword. Let's run with that, just how much can the government know once people get wise that the government is acting against the people? People have already been experimenting with off grid communications and even off grid currency. If the government starts messing with people's ability to use dollars to do trade then they devalue the dollar and people will gravitate to electronic currency. People will go "old school" with gold, silver, and barter.

The government does not have a monopoly on information. Not yet anyway.

To send this home let's consider the federal laws against possession of firearms, drugs, child pornography, or whatever else you can think of that the government has laws against but cannot get a handle on. People know people and these people smoke marijuana or whatever. I suspect everyone is less than six degrees of separation from someone with a connection to some underground activity. If the government squeezes too tight then everyone slips between their fingers.

Is anyone surprised?

[HiThere]

I didn't know in exactly what ways he would be against individual rights, but did anyone expect Trump to nominate someone who wasn't abominable? The question is, does he have any good points? If so, what are they.

Every Supreme Court Justice pick I've ever studied has had abominable points. Some have had a number of decent points also. So what are his good points?

not unresonable...

[Anonymous Coward]

someone send his cell meta data to his wife and we'll see if he still thinks it shouldn't be protected.

As a Judge he is correct. Your argument is flimsy

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Constitutional view he is correct. The Constitution protects the rights ( it does NOT EVER GRANT RIGHTS ) of individuals. In the eyes of the law a corporation has the same rights as a natural person, and some would say more rights. You don't like this because you want something for nothing, or something for little. You don't like it that someone hold power over you to charge extra money or control what it is you want.

  This is your whole argument for net neutrality and it is flimsy.

Bad Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

The interpretation of the Fourth Amendment in relation to telecom tech (presented here as a footnote) is much more important than whether the government intervenes in the free market.

Re:We pounded Afghanistan & Iraq into submissi

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes, the "lost" war, where North Vietnam sued for peace, and signed a treaty ending the war.

Then the US Congress, angry at the opposing party's President, pulled all funding for the troops in South Vietnam we'd promised to leave, and refused to sell South Vietnam the weapons they needed to re-arm and protect themselves.

Tell me, do you think the US lost World War II? What do you think would have happened if the US had pulled out of Germany in 1945, leaving only the Soviet Union there?
The Second Vietnam War didn't even involve the US; it was just North crushing the South after the South had been betrayed by it's "allies" in France and the US.

Re:We pounded Afghanistan & Iraq into submissi

[jittles]

the only reason we lost 'Nam was the press was paying attention and they wouldn't let us kill civilians indiscriminately

Watch the Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam war. It doesn't support your contention that the USA lost because it was restrained in its action. By the time the press started reporting on what was really taking place, the war was already lost. It's just that it was politically impossible to acknowledge the loss until later.

Read the Pentagon Papers. The US government knew that the war was lost long before we ever even seriously considered pulling out.

Where do you see that? Section IV of the rule says

[raymorris]

Section IV of the Rule defines affected providers as:

"establishments primarily engaged in operating and/or providing access to
transmission facilities and infrastructure that they own and/or lease for the transmission of voice, data,
text, sound, and video using wired communications networks. Transmission facilities may be based on a
single technology or a combination of technologies."

https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

Where do you see a "don't called it 'the internet'" clause in the Rule?

Re:Where do you see that? Section IV of the rule s

[Qzukk]

I'm saying it would be trivial to add that clause.

No different than going to the store to buy a pack of sliced Pasteurized Processed Dairy Product.

My personal favorite denial of care

[rsilvergun]

was that if you ever had your insurance cover acne medication and got skin cancer they'd claim your acne was in fact cancerous lesions and declare it a pre-existing condition.

you're clueless

[Anonymous Coward]

So your claim is that spreading out the people makes internet infrastructure cheaper and better....Okay.....

Re:And kids laugh, show mom how to reboot the rout

[q_e_t]

To be fair, I don't recall there being any options on my router that looked to be related to child safety, but neither do I know if the tools my ISP offers are purely client-side as I don't have kids. I'd make any kid of mine use Linux anyway, so the tools probably wouldn't work. :)

Headline could be corporatist spin...

[Uberbah]

...but who would be interested in such tripe? Aside from present company.

So a conservative-leaning judge supports free markets

The free market where ISP's suddenly start paying rent on what used to be right-of-ways? And returning hundreds of billions in government subsidies and research?

broad application of the First Amendment

Double-charging and denying speech is a first amendment issue on what planet?

Quite a deceptive and twisted interpretation

[Anonymous Coward]

I get it: Obama supporters (some of whom wear robes and others of whom have web sites) are freaking out these days and looking for ANY political ammo with which to attack the new nominee. This line of attack is, however, quite deceptive. Those who have the patience and intellectual capacity should go and take the time to read the entire opinion.

So-called "net neutrality" is a very political thing and its unsurprising that the arguments for/against it break down along the exact same lines as the lines between left-win judicial desires and right-wing judicial desires:

Those on the left mostly have "progressive" policies they want implemented or defended by judicial nominees who they expect to interpret the Constitution as-needed to get the desired result.

Those on the right mostly want "originalists" who will enforce the Constitution as-written, with the expectation that the results will mostly be policies they want.

Here too, those judges who favored net neutrality argued about the benefits, whereas the dissent is about whether it was proper for the government to do it and to do it the way it did. People who panic over the Ars article should read the opinion and realize that the Kavanaugh warnings are not unlike the warnings conservatives made about Obamanomics, Obamacare, and the temporary nature of policy by pen-and-phone - which were eventually proved right.

Incidentally, for those who missed it: Elizabeth Warren recently demanded answers to a bunch of questions from Steve Mnuchin (who now helms that consumer agency SHE designed). He hillariously told her to go pound sand - and pointed out that she specifically designed the agency to be unaccountable to congress (so any future Republican congresses would not be able to investigate/oversee it) and funded directly from the Federal Reserve (so any future Republican congress could not de-fund it) on the assumption the republicans would never again hold the White House. For some reason, the political left never seems to see the downside of big unaccountable government agencies [sigh] the supremely stupid Elizabeth Warren is finally getting schooled.

Re: Quite a deceptive and twisted interpretation

[Anonymous Coward]

Actuallu, it is the right that relies on being unaccountable and dismissing any inquiries to their behavior while relentlessly crafting a false narrative about the success of their own investigations and accomplishments.

The fact that the Trump administration could not even admit responsibility for their child separation policy but blamed it on Obama and Clinton was but one of many examples. Then again, some of us remember when Nancy Pelosi's words about the Affordable Care Act needing to be examined under real scrutiny rather than the concocted lies of the right were twisted by the very same Republican mouthpieces.

To put it another way, the log is in your own eye.

Re: Quite a deceptive and twisted interpretation

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and before I forget, we remember how your right-wing partisans including the profoundly stupid Mnuchin participated in lawsuits to try to malignantly interpret a law to suit their agenda of destructiveness, and how the so-called self-professed "orginalists" went along with such an obviously dishonest attempt.

Sorry, but "originialism" is nothing but a vainglorious attempt to cloak moral degeneracy in the supposed virtues of others. It is a vileness, nothing else.

Judge Kavanaugh ignores consolidation & last m

[Uberbah]

Those two factors ensure that Americans generally have only one crappy choice for cable or one crappy choice for DSL. Thus, net neutrality rules that applied to all.

As written, the rules applied to ALL ISPs, no matter what market power they had, so it was illegal to operate a kid friendly service.

Illegal for parents to opt-in to a kids portal? [citation needed]

Fixing that would have saved the Net Neutrality rules from a 1st amendment challenge, he thought.

He's a corporatist looking for any excuse to work his ideology into his rulings - he'll be at home setting next to the other hacks on the court.

my, what a nice hood you have, my dear

[Uberbah]

On your island country with a very unified culture and people you can do things like this.

Uniformly white skin has nothing to do with having nice things, Klansman.

Third Party Doctrine is bullshit

[Uberbah]

Because you as the user have chosen to give away that data to the carrier...

Because you have to live as a hermit or an Amish commune to enjoy privacy in modern times? You can't be a normal citizens WITHOUT third parties having information on you. Even SCOTUS, which has spent decades trying to render the 4th Amendment meaningless, now agrees that cops need a warrant to get cell phone data.

Re: Ok, Brett Kavanaugh What if Your Sites Are Bl

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing said was illegal, let alone actionable. No surprise that a right-wing mouthpiece is seeking to criminalize their opponents. Remember, you sought to have a comedian arrested for pranking the President and a restaurant burned down for not wanting to serve one of your lying thugs.

Mysteriously, of course, you support the blanket ostracism of homosexuals.

Dear Mr Kavanaugh...

[martinfb]

Dear Mr Kavanaugh:
"Websites" ALREADY pay a fee to be on the internet. They are already charged HOSTING fees.
Then, that HOST PROVIDER has already established a contract with an ISP to have access there FOR those hosted sites.

ANY other move to allow FURTHER fees to be allowed is a blatant, unethical, and greedy
push to further line the pockets of the already over-compensated execs of those monopolistic providers as-is.

Further, if we, the people, do not have our government elected officials break these monopolies down,
or severely regulate them, then we, the people, are in for some very unsavory times!

So, Mr Kavanaugh, please WAKE the FUCK UP!!! You'd better decide FOR THE PEOPLE here.

So Inspiring

[Anonymous Coward]

I have always found those words so inspiring.

... and that government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

The Trumpicans truly are making 'Murica great agin.

Quite the opposite

[raymorris]

Rather the opposite. His dissent said that NN laws can and should apply to Comcast, Time Warner, etc. Those companies are big enough, and have enough "market power" that the government's interest in regulating them thoroughly overrides their right to provide whatever services they want.

In contrast, Kavanaugh wrote, community mesh co-ops, etc should be allowed first amendment freedoms and the government's interest isn't as strong because these entities don't have "market power".

You CAN read his writing for yourself rather than making up shit to hate whoever Bill Maher tells you to hate.

Re:Quite the opposite

[Uberbah]

You CAN read his writing for yourself rather than making up shit to hate whoever Bill Maher tells you to hate.

And you CAN try not being willfully obtuse, as I already addressed that canard the first time: last mile and market consolidation naturally leads to less than a handful of providers in any market. The entire point is a red herring anyway; if I own a small company should I be free to ignore the Clean Water Act, dumping lead in the town's water supply, just because I don't employ 50,000 people like Dow Chemical? The entire line of "reasoning" is asinine on its face.

Re:Simple trade offs

[ComputersKai]

Incidentally, that seems to be exactly what the Chinese government does to undermine dissent. Small protests are fine, but anything that seems like more massive organization is swiftly suppressed. Maybe they remember the importance of mass organization to their own success in revolution.

Offering consumers different services isn't harmf

[raymorris]

> if I own a small company should I be free to ignore the Clean Water Act, dumping lead in the town's water supply, just because I don't employ 50,000 people like Dow Chemical? The entire line of "reasoning" is asinine on its face.

Dumping lead into the water is harmful. Offering an $8 / phone service for seniors who don't have or want a smartphone isn't harmful. Operating a community wireless mesh network isn't harmful.

The government has a strong interest in preventing lead in the water. They don't have a strong interest in preventing a community network from having rules about fair use of the limited bandwidth available. Your right to network with your neighbors is stronger than the government's legitimate interest in telling you that you can't do that.

Re:Offering consumers different services isn't har

[Uberbah]

Dumping lead into the water is harmful. Offering an $8 / phone service for seniors who don't have or want a smartphone isn't harmful. Operating a community wireless mesh network isn't harmful.

Neither of which would be at all hindered by network neutrality rules.

They don't have a strong interest in preventing a community network from having rules about fair use of the limited bandwidth available.

Network neutrality is about preventing favoritism, not quality of service. Nothing stops that tiny ISP serving hamlets in the Rockies from using QOS to prevent users from having their VOIP calls dropped.

Read them and see if you think so

[raymorris]

Read the NN law apparated by the Obama administration with those types of operations in mind and see if you still think so. Remember the whole point of the $8 plan is for seniors, kids, employees, and others who want a basic feature phone, not a smartphone, which doesn't stream Hulu or anything. Read the rules and think about how you could possibly operate such a service given the laws at the time.

Re:Read them and see if you think so

[Uberbah]

You mean do a great deal of reading to prove your talking points for you? Yeah, I'll pass on that. If you think the net neutrality rules would have prevented ISP's from using QOS to support VOIP (as opposed to prioritizing VOIP from a specific provider) feel free to make your case with citations.

Odd thing to say

[raymorris]

> You mean do a great deal of reading to prove your talking points for you?

Okay so you're saying if you did read the rule, you'd find I'm not making this shit up. Knowing what it says would prove my point, you say.

> Yeah, I'll pass on that.

You'd rather stick to what your first guess was rather than read it and know what it actually says (or listen to someone who has read it). That's cool. Of you change your mind, here's the final rule. It's very similar to the proposed time because the comment process, normally used to make refinements to a rule, to adjust things where needed, got hijacked:

https://www.federalregister.go...

Reading it, it's helpful to have some knowledge of routing on carrier networks, and particularly traffic shaping and policing. A familiarity with queueing theory comes in handy, but isn't required.

Re:Odd thing to say

[Uberbah]

Okay so you're saying if you did read the rule, you'd find I'm not making this shit up. Knowing what it says would prove my point, you say.

Not how this works. It's the job of the person making the affirmative claim to back it up as it's near impossible to prove a negative. If you're so confident in your talking point, you'll have no problem citing the part of the 2015 rules that would prevent QOS. Throwing up a link to a wall of text isn't a citation, it's laziness.

Changed your guess?

[raymorris]

You said you wouldn't "You mean do a great deal of reading to prove your talking points for you". Sounded to me like you were saying if you read it, that would prove my points correct.

Now it sounds like you're saying you're not so sure, that perhaps if you read the rule, it might not. Interesting guess.

Any time you want to know what it actually says, when you're done guessing, you now have the rule and can read it if you wish. If I were you, I wouldn't bother, since that rule is dead and gone. If I were you, I'd read the new NN bill that will be introduced. The proposed new law is, to me, more interesting than the law that is gone. So you could read the new proposal when it comes along. Or you could make random guesses about what it might say next time.

So you can't actually back up your claims.

[Uberbah]

I'm shocked, shocked that's the case. Again: throwing up a link to a wall of text isn't a citation, it's laziness, which is easily demonstrated. I hereby assert that a cheeky page inserted a line into the 2017 federal omnibus bill stating Ray Morris is incredibly lazy and likes to make up nonsense, a bad combination. If you disagree, feel free to read said bill to prove me wrong.