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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."
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."
We all know that Republicans are totally retarded and clueless when it comes to technology
While I am a strong supporter of net neutrality, in the end some things are even more important...
- opposes net neutrality
+ understands that the people who wrote the constitution should be deferred to when legal questions arise about the document that they wrote.
+ firm supporter of the 2nd amendment, without which all other amendments become moot
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.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
We all know that Republicans are totally retarded and clueless when it comes to technology
A) Who among the high ranking politicians from either party has given you the feeling they should be judging any technical matter? MAYBE Rand Paul. Who among the Democrats? So already the Republicans take the lead in understanding technology (though in reality it way more independents that either R or D)..
B) If you want to look at mastery of using Technology anyone would have to admit Trump comes out vastly on top, being Twitter Grand Master and all. Cocaine Mitch is not too far behind him. The Democrats on Twitter remind me of the flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz, full of sound and fury and foul smells from above but accomplishing little of import.
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