Court Blocks FCC's Attempt To Take a Broadband Subsidy Away From Tribal Areas (bleepingcomputer.com)

Jon Brodkin reports via Ars Technica: The FCC decision, originally slated to take effect later this year, would have made it difficult or impossible for Tribal residents to obtain a $25-per-month Lifeline subsidy that reduces the cost of Internet or phone service for poor people. But on Friday, a court stayed the FCC decision pending appeal, saying that Tribal organizations and small wireless carriers are likely to win their case against the commission. "Petitioners have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their arguments that the facilities-based and rural areas limitations contained in the Order are arbitrary and capricious," said the stay order issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "In particular, petitioners contend that the Federal Communications Commission failed to account for a lack of alternative service providers for many tribal customers."

The tribes and small carriers that sued the FCC "have shown a substantial risk that tribal populations will suffer widespread loss of vital telecommunications services absent a stay," the court said. The FCC hasn't proven that its plan won't result in "mass disconnection," the court also said. The court ruling was welcomed by the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and Oceti Sakowin Tribal Utility Authority, which are among the groups suing the FCC. Several small carriers and the non-profit National Lifeline Association are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Comments

Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum

[PopeRatzo]

We took their country. They least we can do is pay for their fucking broadband.

Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum

[dryeo]

Well 20th century diseases such as radiation plus heavy metal poisoning. The early uranium mining on Navajo land was pretty gruesome, what without realizing how bad radiation was yet and the 50's technology.
I know of tribes up here in Canada who's water is full of mercury (ex-pulp mill up stream) that most of the people have mercury poisoning.
The natives have been treated like shit. The American Constitution puts Treaties as the second highest law in the land but the history is lots of broken treaties, right up to the last year or so. Many of those treaties included ongoing payments of some type or other for the land as well.

Re:Smallpox, Measles, Influenza, Wampum

[DNS-and-BIND]

The smallpox blankets thing was neither an act of terrorism nor an attempted genocide because it didn't happen. The entire story is a fraud, perpetrated by a former "ethnic studies" professor named Ward Churchill. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.009/--did-the-us-army-distribute-smallpox-blankets-to-indians?rgn=main&view=fulltext

The High Plains Smallpox Epidemic of 1837 was caused by personal contact with infected passengers from the riverboat St. Peter's, owned by a fur trading company. The epidemic on the High Plains centered around Fort Clark which, despite the name, was not a military installation. It was a privately owned fur trading post. The boss of Fort Clark was Francis Chardon, a fur trader. His personal diary survived to this day, one of numerous eyewitness accounts preserved from the time.

Not only were infected blankets not distributed, but correspondence from Joshua Pilcher, the Indian Bureau's sub-agent to the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Ponca at Fort Kiowa, just south of Fort Clark, to Mr. Chardon describes one particular problem interfering with attempts to contain the epidemic that is curiously relevant to today. A smallpox vaccine existed in 1837, but Mr. Pilcher noted "it is a verry delicate experiment among those wild Indians, because death from any other cause, while under the influence of Vaccination would be attributed to that + no other cause[.]"

Sound familiar?

In 2006, Ward Churchill was found guilty of seven counts of research misconduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... by the University of Colorado Ethics Committee. He was fired in 2007. He promptly filed suit, and won a jury trial for wrongful dismissal. The jury followed the instructions to the letter in coming to their conclusion, but recognized Churchill for the lying shitheel he was and awarded him precisely $1.00. (One juror denied any such motivation in a public interview.) A judge vacated the jury verdict on the grounds that the (state) university enjoys quasi-judicial immunity. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal and in 2013 agreed with both the first judge and the Court of Appeals that the university was immune to suit in these circumstances. The US Supreme Court declined to get involved.

It took 19 years from when Churchill first published his fraudulent bullshit in 1994 to the time when the judicial system finished with the case. It could easily take four or five generations for his lie to finally exit the public consciousness. This despite the fact that humanity currently has the fastest, most ubiquitous communications systems in the history of the species.

Ward Churchill: I've never really stopped to spell out why I was saying what I was saying, or to flesh out the annotation, partly because I mentioned them in the context of developing broader arguments, and partly because I considered what I was saying to be more or less self-evidently true. So, I glad-handed things a bit. Mea culpa. http://dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Frank0919.htm

Two ideologies at battle

[rsilvergun]

on the one hand the Republican party really wants to stick it to the poors, especially if they're also colored. Stuff like this is basically fodder for the far right of the base. On the other hand there's corporate subsidies at stake. It's funny to watch the two fight it out until you think about all the completely screwed over people caught in the middle (source: been on the Res, got India friends, and that Casino money hasn't made it all over. Lots of blasted out trailer parks held together by spit and glue).

What do you call...

[drinkypoo]

What do you call the useless bit of skin at the base of the penis? Ajit Pai's feet.

Re:Tribe's don't deserve subsidies

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm somewhat sympathetic to your argument, but the fact is that they're not treated as sovereign.

Look, I think they should be able to have high-rise casinos with hookers and blow on tap if they want, but the reality is they can't.

Free them economically *and* take away their subsidies, if they are to be sovereign. That's much better than repressing them and subsidizing them.

But don't make the mistake of assuming that their sovereignty is being more than respected as a token effort. Or that DC actually wants to treat them as sovereign and not a conquered people.

Dude I'm a Bernie Bro

[rsilvergun]

I've got policy coming out my ears. Medicare for All, College for All, Ending the Wars, New New Deal, etc, etc, etc. I don't want or need race to win elections. Polls show my policy is overwhelmingly popular. Like, 70-80% popular.

What I need is to get those folks who voted for Trump because of crap like this and folks who wrongly blame the jews for the raw deal the 1%ers handed them to realize who's really pulling the strings and stop voting against their own interests. It's damn hard to do since the 1%ers own the mass media (mega corps bought everything up, re: Sinclair Media).

Ignoring the impact of racism on American politics isn't naive or foolish, it's deceitful. The Republicans do it so they can dog whistle. There's corportists Dems who do it so they can run on something besides economics since they're basically Republicans when it comes to money. You need to call both groups out because they're doing the same damn thing: Using race to distract from a bad economy. Bernie understands that. So does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That's why they never takes the bait. You shouldn't either. Even when you're trolling on /. If you've got to troll, troll for the good guys.