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Trump's Pick To Be the Next Attorney General Has Opposed Net Neutrality Rules For Years (fastcompany.com)
William P. Barr, President Trump's pick to become the nation's next Attorney General, is a former chief lawyer for Verizon who has opposed net neutrality rules for more than a decade. "Barr, who served as attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush from 1991-93, warned in 2006 that 'network neutrality regulations would discourage construction of high-speed internet lines that telephone and cable giants are spending tens of billions of dollars to deploy,'" reports Fast Company. From the report: Barr's appointment would be welcome news for at least three major internet service providers and a trade organization -- including Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association -- that have spent more than $600 million lobbying on Capitol Hill since 2008, according to a MapLight analysis. Their lobbying on a key issue was rewarded last December, when the Federal Communications Commission, led by another former Verizon lawyer-turned-Trump appointee, overruled popular opinion by voting to scrap rules that banned internet companies from giving preferential treatment to particular websites or charging consumers more for different types of content.
Barr's previous employment with Verizon foreshadows credibility problems similar to those faced by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, also a former Verizon lawyer. Barr, however, is likely to face even more scrutiny stemming from his role as a member of WarnerMedia's board of directors. The entertainment conglomerate, which includes HBO, Turner Broadcasting, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Group, was created in the aftermath of AT&T's 2016 purchase of Time Warner Inc. [...] Barr has argued that net neutrality rules will discourage internet service providers from investing in high-end delivery systems, such as fiber-optic networks. "Companies are going to make these kinds of investments only if they see an opportunity to earn a return that is commensurate with the risk, and only if they have the freedom to innovate, differentiate, and make commercially sensible decisions that they need to compete and win in the market," he said at a 2006 Federalist Society convention. Barr also claimed that 81 percent of the nation's roughly 40,000 zip codes have three or more choices of broadband providers. A PC Magazine study last year found that to be untrue, with only 30 percent of 20,000 zip codes having three or more broadband options.
Barr's previous employment with Verizon foreshadows credibility problems similar to those faced by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, also a former Verizon lawyer. Barr, however, is likely to face even more scrutiny stemming from his role as a member of WarnerMedia's board of directors. The entertainment conglomerate, which includes HBO, Turner Broadcasting, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Group, was created in the aftermath of AT&T's 2016 purchase of Time Warner Inc. [...] Barr has argued that net neutrality rules will discourage internet service providers from investing in high-end delivery systems, such as fiber-optic networks. "Companies are going to make these kinds of investments only if they see an opportunity to earn a return that is commensurate with the risk, and only if they have the freedom to innovate, differentiate, and make commercially sensible decisions that they need to compete and win in the market," he said at a 2006 Federalist Society convention. Barr also claimed that 81 percent of the nation's roughly 40,000 zip codes have three or more choices of broadband providers. A PC Magazine study last year found that to be untrue, with only 30 percent of 20,000 zip codes having three or more broadband options.
...that anyone capable of landing a position in government has a clue about the internet or aspects of it that they currently enjoy. Probably for the rest of the time humanity is here, the following will be true: "Today's government will be focused more and more on undoing what the previous government did."
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Trump also appointed former Fox News journalist Heather Nauert as ambassador to the UN.
What's up with that ? Didn't he claim that journalists were the "ennemy of the people" ?
Oh, it's just liberal journalists. Ok, got it !
The Internet is mission-critical for everything now. All roads are on the Internet. Whoever controls the Internet, controls the world.
So, naturally, the telcos believe that they should control the Internet. They desire access monopolies so they can jack the prices up (and people will pay, because they have to), as well as the ability to burn the candle at both ends. They also want control over what content everyone can consume; who can access what, so they can stack charges on top of charges without end. Want netflix? you have to pay for internet access, pay for netflix, and pay us again to allow netflix on the pipes. Want facebook too? You have to pay even more for that. And, not that you really care, but facebook is having to pay extra for every region of the world in which they want to have their services available at all.
And so on.
Apart from the king-of-the-world level of wealth they want to suck up, they also want to have influence over what news people can and can't read, and what kinds of political forums people can and can't have online. That way they can tip the political scales in their favor, to ensure that they never lose their control over everything.
They want this as badly as Sauron wants the Ring of Mordor. And they own far more politicians than you or I ever will.
He just opposes using regulation to achieve network neutrality
Network neutrality by definition is regulation. If he opposes regulation for network neutrality then he opposes network neutrality.
worrying it would harm the internet as it is - which is working fine.
Working just fine? Do you not remember what happened with Netflix? Can you tell when they paid off Comcast?
Why people want to take a perfectly good system and tart it up with regulations that can only do harm, I've no idea.
Because we've learned from the past behavior of corporations to predict future behavior of corporations. There is no incentive for them to abide by network neutrality in the same way there is no incentive for corporations to not pollute when they are allowed.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Why people want to take a perfectly good system and tart it up with regulations that can only do harm, I've no idea.
We already had net neutrality and the internet didn't implode on itself. The only "harm" done would be to the greedy telco companies, who want to squeeze every last penny out of their customers.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Actually, Trump is wrong more than 63% of the time.
But hey, you keep blaming the Communists for your problems, and the Muslims, and the Irish.
Right now the ISP's are not throttling that much because they are uncertain about the political ramifications and state-level counter-actions. However, they want to throttle because they want to charge you add-on fees for full-speed access to anything they can bilk you for.
IF there were enough viable ISP choices for the typical consumer, then the market would indeed solve the problem by itself without the need for regulation. But as most of us know, the average consumer only has between 1 and 3 viable ISP choices, and oligopolies have historically shatted all over consumers. (The big players already do.)
A rule of thumb is you need at least 7 competitors in an area to have sufficient competition to avoid OPEC-like collusion among a few companies.
Without regulation, the oligopolies will turn the Internet back into AOL, CompuServe, etc. They will control the content and control where you go, and nickel and dime you if you wander outside their compound. They'll do it simply because they can and you'll have no alternative.
Table-ized A.I.
It's lying turtles all the way down...
Table-ized A.I.
and understands why it's important. So does Liz Warren. And Ro Khanna.
/., but at a certain point it really is a partisan issue. 3 Republicans voted for NN out of 52. Not a single Dem voted against it. We've got another election in 2020, so now's the time to decide if NN is really something important to you or not...
Here's a list of Senators and how they voted on NN. Notice all the "D"s when it comes to "for" and all the "Rs" when it comes to against? I know partisanship isn't popular on
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Hear hear!
The market is continuously fluctuating between healthy competition and virtual monopoly... one end of the spectrum best benefits the consumer, and the other benefits the corporations.
Government intervention, ideally, acts like finger on the scale attempting equilibrium. More often than not, the finger is clumsy, but its absence from the markets typically does not favor those rooting for healthy competition.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Never mind, whatever bullshit they cook up will be overturned in 6 years.
Agree or disagree, at least you're smart enough to realize the incumbent always wins and he's not going to prison.
Lying turtles? I don't see what Mitch McConnell has to do with this.
No, Net Neutrality is by definition regulation to fix other regulation. ISPs are able to throttle Netflix because they have a monopoly granted to them by the local government. So even though they degrade Netflix quality, their customers cannot flee to another ISP because the local government has banned competition. They can then extort Netflix to pay for access to those customers.
Net Neutrality is an attempt to fix these regulatory monopolies by requiring they behave. It's regulation trying to fix problems caused by other regulation. Which begs the question - why not just fix the original regulation? Don't give out local Internet monopolies.
Network neutrality is achievable without regulation. Simply allow multiple companies to provide Internet service in all areas. If one ISP intentionally degrades Netflix as a ploy to try to make Netflix pay them, their customers will simply cancel and switch to a different ISP. And ISPs will strive for network neutrality because that's what their customers want.
We can argue about which approach is more effective. But it's erroneous to think the only way to achieve network neutrality is Net Neutrality regulation.
Interesting post. Thanks for it. One point, though:
Trump doesn't deserve 50% of America's support - and he'll never have it. He'll die in prison like Paul Manafort.
As much as I think an orange jumpsuit would look good on him, I doubt he'll go to prison. He'll pardon himself on the way out -- or at least he'll try, and if it doesn't work, then Pence probably will (just like Ford pardoned Nixon.) And although he does not, and may never have, 50% of America's support, I have to wonder whether 50% of American citizens want to see a former president in the slammer.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
His actual claim [twitter.com] was, Fake News media are the enemy of the people. And he was right â" he usually is...
Trump has been right more times than he has been wrong. The problem with the times that he is wrong he is usually wrong in a big way, almost to the point of being clueless. Some of the times that he has been wrong most of the time it looks like he is really ignorant on the issue.
Then there is the media. I can't count the number of times when I read something in the media, only to go look at the source to find that isn't what he said at all. I've watched a number of Trump speeches only to find the media has spun the meaning 180 degrees.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
All the federal regulation and rules allowed a few near monopoly networks to use NN as a way to keep out innovative new network construction.
Community broadband allowed by relaxing the federal NN rules will finally allow more wealthy communities to consider their own innovative new networks.
No more having to wait for a federally approved NN ready telco to upgrade their network.
Using community broadband innovative ISP can offer fresh network ideas on new fast hardware.
Imagine really new advanced hardware connecting from computers to the internet. Not some POTS network used for NN internet.
No more federal NN rules regulating for a few monopoly networks.
Enjoy some competition and build new networks with ISP able to offer fast new networks.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Impeachment is the only route to removing the President
Tell that to the CIA!
I can't count the number of times when I read something in the media, only to go look at the source to find that isn't what he said at all. I've watched a number of Trump speeches only to find the media has spun the meaning 180 degrees.
I'm guessing either you have a selective filter, or you can't count very high.
You also appear to be overlooking the many times that Trump is on record as saying something, and he flatly denies that he did.
Bullshit.
It was Telecom who wrote the anti-NN legislation with lobbyists.
It was Republicans who gave industry monopoly abusers everything they ever wanted.
It was Comcast liars who tried to charge competitors for their customers using their services ON TOP OF the subscriber fees to access the internet they paid for already.
It was LYING FAGGOTS LIKE YOU who tried to conflate the Russian Trollbots who flooded the FCC website with fake shit as if that was a valid sentiment and not complete horseshit spammed verbatim.
It was Ajit Pai who tried to cover this debacle up once exposed by the media, and lied about it.
It's LYING FAGGOTS LIKE KEN DOLL who pretend their mealy-mouthed bullshit has meaning or any backing in reality when it's clear you dishonest faggots will say literally anything even when caught.
BULLSHIT IS RIGHT.
Correct. Nobody in the WH can pardon a state crime. Thanks for pointing that out.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Ex-CIA, pro-incarceration, telecommunications shill, long time political insider and AG under Bush. And plays the fucking bagpipes. No chance of this guy possibly being another Tom Wheeler. Champion of the status quo might has well be written across his forehead.
Passing up John Ratcliffe is a signal that the DOJ will continue to protect the Clintons and their allies. It's all up to Judicial Watch now.
Well they also can't pardon themselves or anyone of a crime they're at all involved in.
There have been discussions back and forth on this topic ever since the Russia investigation began. One side of the argument is that the POTUS pardon-power is wide-sweeping. On the other side, there is a principle in law (sorry, don't remember where) that "no man can be his own judge."
So Pence would be too close to be able to pardon Trump.
Can the POTUS pardon someone else of a crime if he is also complicit? Excellent question. IANAL, but I suppose the answer is yes, unless it's seen as obstruction of justice. Note the recent hue and cry after Trump hinted that he hasn't ruled out pardoning Manafort. It can be seen as a way to keep Manafort from co-operating with Mueller's investigation.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
This video will play in your head every time you see Mitch on the news:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Table-ized A.I.
What we haven't learned from the past is that we are pretty bad at predicting future when it comes to complex systems.
So instead of acting from a place of being sure that sometime in the near future Internet will crumble because companies are greedy, try with minimum regulations first, and IF you notice things are coming apart, then introduce a fix.
You don't preemptively go for a stomach reduction surgery when a person has normal weight just because they like to eat and food is readily available. There are many other factors at play.
Three or more? I don't even have a broadband provider as an option. And I don't consider satellite to be broadband. And after 2020, I'd question whether dial up will be viable due to cost savings efforts in the telephone industry. Voice will carry over SIP lines, and touch tones are somewhat ok, but faxes don't seem to work at all. When AT&T converts their backbone to SIP, dialup will probably stop working. Satellite is almost completely unusable without a dialup connection for requests. It will probably be another decade before anybody gets around to upgrading the last mile to my house.
No DSL, no Cable, no Fiber Optic, no LTE cellular signal, no handoffs to cat5 Ethernet from anything. The old stuff is still hanging from the poles, if you happen to already be paying for it, but they don't service my area anymore.
ISPs are able to throttle Netflix because they have a monopoly granted to them by the local government. So even though they degrade Netflix quality, their customers cannot flee to another ISP because the local government has banned competition.
This concept is factually wrong, that is, there is no monopoly granted to ISP's. Anyone can go buy a "resellable" INTERNET feed from a carrier like Zayo, Hurricane Electric or Cogent or similar and then build out a local network from that. The cost to do so is relatively low in the grand scheme of things, especially if technologies like unlicensed wireless are used to do so. But the repealed network neutrality rules makes it harder for these small, independent, providers to be able to do so.
All that the repealed Title II-style network neutrality did was increase the amount of paperwork required to be filed with the FCC, increasing the costs for Internet providers to comply with the regulation. This was a tolerable thing for the big providers, but a very bad thing for the smallest of the providers who are desperately trying to compete with the largest carriers (Comcast, etc). The reason is that a company the size of Comcast can afford to pay the couple of full time staff needed to keep up with the record keeping requirements, but a smaller ISP just trying to provide service in a reasonably small area or even a portion of a state generally does not have the resources necessary to keep up with all of the filing requirements - even though that small ISP is generally going to be far less likely to do the 'evil' things that people thing that we need network neutrality for.
Or stated differently: The companies which most needed the regulation were the ones least affected by it.
We need to quit thinking that Internet can only be provided by the Cable company and the Phone company. There are thousands of small providers out there who are proving that it's not only possible for other to provide internet service, but that actually these smaller companies are often able to provide better service at a similar cost.
They work only for Putin, and are against the American People.
Apparently, THIS was Gingrich's 100 days of power...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Just like he deserves.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Has blown the lid off decorum.
Most lying politicians at least TRY not to look like a lying douchebag; Trump is now a definition for it.
If we can't put him in prison for what he's done, we have no "Justice System", it's a sham.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
The Title-II style network neutrality did not do a lot of what network-neutrality proponents seem to think it did. For instance throttling generally was permitted provided it didn't single out one source. In addition, ISP's had a lot of latitude as far as what they could or could not do under the guise of 'reasonable network management'. For instance, an ISP would have been permitted to slow down traffic such as software updates in order to improve performance during peak times for other traffic such as video streaming. This is provided the ISP discloses what they are doing.
As I mentioned in a different comment, one thing the Title-II regulation did do is saddle ISP's with a lot of paperwork and regulatory hurdles, increasing costs. For a carrier like the large companies which dominate the landscape this wasn't a big deal. For those smaller companies trying to bring another option to the mix, this was much more difficult, and could mean the difference between a viable business and bankruptcy. So the Title-II style network neutrality actually helped prevent the breaking of the oligopoly.
So let me get this straight - what you want to do, is to take the system that works pretty well the way it is now, and place it firmly in the hands of the Trump administration.
Along with all our guns, our freedom of speech, the rings of the seven dwarf kings and the rods of the five wizards.
We have to give everything to the government, because Trump is LITERALLY HITLER.
try with minimum regulations first, and IF you notice things are coming apart, then introduce a fix.
Network neutrality is a minimal fix. A lack of network neutrality hasn't been a problem in the past but it began showing up as a problem (e.g. Netflix). Network neutrality keeps everything like it's been in the past, not making any drastic changes.
You don't preemptively go for a stomach reduction surgery when a person has normal weight just because they like to eat and food is readily available.
Network neutrality just takes away the extra food that they are tempted to eat before they become some morbidly obese monster. No surgery needed.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Net Neutrality is an attempt to fix these regulatory monopolies by requiring they behave. It's regulation trying to fix problems caused by other regulation. Which begs the question - why not just fix the original regulation? Don't give out local Internet monopolies.
No monopolies have been given out.
If one ISP intentionally degrades Netflix as a ploy to try to make Netflix pay them, their customers will simply cancel and switch to a different ISP.
Except that takes time, effort and an honest ISP in the area. What if they all behave badly?
And ISPs will strive for network neutrality because that's what their customers want.
In a perfect world with perfect information, this is correct. However, your ideal world doesn't exist and people are really fucking dumb and uninformed.
We can argue about which approach is more effective. But it's erroneous to think the only way to achieve network neutrality is Net Neutrality regulation.
We can go from ISP to ISP and blow the brain of every manager that thinks network neutrality is a bad idea all over their walls. We can reengineer humans to not be greedy. We can beg them to be better every day until they comply. However, all of these ideas are more time consuming and ultimately less effective than simple regulation.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
You should really educate yourself about net neutrality, the reason it exists is to keep the ISP's in line, without it, the ISP's can literally do whatever they want to your service, charge whatever rates they want, fast lanes, exclusivity, spying, shove their ideology on you, block you from viewing sites etc etc. Government regulations were there to prevent that kind of bs from happening, without those regulations we're at the complete mercy of the ISP.
Incumbents do not always win.
George H.W. Bush for a recent example.
As far as Trump goes, I hope he loses in 2020, but I want him to serve his entire term. Trump is incompetent, but Pence is pure religious ideological evil.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
She was the only one who would take the job. Remember that Trump destroys everything he touches....almost, he didn't destroy Nikki Haley but she was such flack that would have been overkill.
There is some speculation that Manafort got played and was used to play Trump. The trap isn't just set, it's already been sprung.
Notice that they said Manafort was lying very soon after Trump gave his written answers to Mueller. Manafort's legal team and Trump's legal team were known to still be conferring even after Manafort began "cooperating". So likely Manafort was planning to feed Trump info on the investigation...
Except Mueller is wise to this, and is feeding Manafort BS, knowing the stable genius will get wind. Trump answers the questions thinking he knows what Mueller's "got" on him and that he can't be caught lying. Of course he lied, because it's Trump, but in this case it matters because he lied about material things in writing which Mueller already has the hard evidence for.
The other possibility I've heard is that if it's actually Trump's answers Mueller is using as evidence that Manafort lied... then Manafort's only defence becomes proving that Trump lied. He might get a pardon, but Mueller has state charges lined up as well just in case. Even if Manafort's not up for perjury, it's pretty damning for your character if the evidence you're a liar is a sworn statement by the POTUS.
It's actually pretty fucking funny when you think about it.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
As I mentioned in a different comment, one thing the Title-II regulation did do is saddle ISP's with a lot of paperwork and regulatory hurdles, increasing costs. For a carrier like the large companies which dominate the landscape this wasn't a big deal. For those smaller companies trying to bring another option to the mix, this was much more difficult, and could mean the difference between a viable business and bankruptcy. So the Title-II style network neutrality actually helped prevent the breaking of the oligopoly.
To those in power, this is a feature not a bug. To them an oligopoly is a good thing, as it makes it easier for government to exert control and maintain mass surveillance when there are only a handful of carriers/hosters to control, and it makes "de-platforming" inconvenient people, opinions, and news from the internet, along with controlling the spread dangerous (to their continued power/wealth) new ideas and concepts, an easier and more effective social manipulation tactic.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
which is working fine.
Sorry this would have been a first post, but your bits were delayed getting to me in favour of my ISP's own sponsored content.
Why people want to take a perfectly good system and tart it up with regulations that can only do harm, I've no idea.
It was a perfectly good system. The regulations only serve to turn it back into what it was. Are you just trolling or are you really that ignorant on the history of the development of the internet?
"I can't count the number of times when I read something in the media, ..."
Not sure whether this is commentary on your poor arithmetic skills or poor reading comprehension. I would assume both considering your other comments,, but that leads nowhere.
"I've watched a number of Trump speeches only to find the media has spun the meaning 180 degrees."
That's no doubt true since zero is a number.
What was implemented WAS the minimum needed to be effective. So what the hell are you complaining about when they did exactly what you said!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're thinking of the House of Representatives, with a mid-90% victory rate for incumbents. The senate rate is 5-10% lower, and the presidency is ~70% over the last fifty years.
As the parent explicitly pointed out, the net for net neutrality is not hypothetical. It's a response to a demonstrated problem.
Also: waiting for a problem to manifest before you do anything about it is terrible planning. You should be ashamed of yourself. You were clearly never a boyscout.
*need. need for net neutrality.
Perhaps you could argue that. But the other side is that without network neutrality, no-one will want to use all the shitty, overpriced applications, even if all the bits arrive like a [highly metered] bat out of hell.
A tremendous amount of innovation derives directly from the old adage "too cheap to meter".
There are things you can build in the absence of friction, that simply won't fly with friction added (nor does it help that this friction is almost always capricious and unpredictable—if we can agree to term a consistent program of sudden, unannounced price jacks "unpredictable").
Innovation is fundamentally an ecological good. "Ecology" is a term of art meaning "you can try, but you'll never manage to attach oversimplified, hard numbers that don't make you look stupid the first time a non-idiot raises a hand in challenge."
The Tyranny of Metrics (2018) by Jerry Z. Muller is a good antidote, if you're stuck in a work culture that worships only that which emerges from a trance of numbers.
So along comes a guy like William P. Barr, prince of the silver lining: that the measurement of ecological goods (such as innovation) ranges from difficult to impossible is easily reconstrued by the glib as a feature, not a bug, this line of argument always working out to "physical-asset sunk-cost is king" (kings being known for their palatial spreads paved with acres of green).
Hard innovation is bone, soft innovation is flesh (so easily melted away with a bathtub full of neocon acid-reflux).
Funny, I would have guessed that the polar opposite of network neutrality was chilling effect.
Who else out there is breathlessly awaiting Comcast to bring us the next AlphaZero?
They say that a watched pot never boils, without mentioning that an unwatched pot can't boil, for the type of pot where the boiling point goes up as fast as the market will bear.
Normally, I no longer respond to comments in political discussions since I find that most comments don't have any real substance. Just thinly veiled insults, and not even creative insults. The OP that I'm responding too is a perfect example.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Point taken, it wouldn't be as bad now as it would of a few months ago since the R's took a shellacking in the house. Had they remained in control they would of lined up to suck Pence's cock.
Still don't want Pence closer to the presidency than he is now.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
One partial solution is to have many of the regulations only apply to ISP's above a certain market-share % in an area. This would allow upstarts to gain market-share before being subject to regulation details.
Table-ized A.I.
Yeah, let's wait and see if this cancer metastasizes before we start thinking about treatments.
Net neutrality is not surgery. Shutting down Comcast and sending its management to prison, that's surgery.
If it is profitable to violate network neutrality, then the free market will encourage it.
Trolls can get rich if they extract tolls on busy bridges. Especially if they can charge more from the heavier carriages that travel across.
Bottom line is, if the telcos have something to gain by holding traffic hostage for ransom in the form of bribes^Wfees for priority, they'll charge for it.
If people using that network have something to lose if they don't play ball, they'll pay up.