Slashdot Mirror
Net Neutrality Bill 38 Votes Short In Congress, and Time Has Almost Run Out (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Legislation to restore net neutrality rules now has 180 supporters in the U.S. House of Representatives, but that's 38 votes short of the amount needed before the end of the month. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, already approved by the Senate, would reverse the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules. But 218 signatures from U.S. representatives (a majority) are needed to force a full vote in the House before Congress adjourns at the end of the year.
Net neutrality advocates previously said they needed 218 signatures by December 10 to force a vote. But an extension of Congress' session provided a little more time. "[Now that the Congressional session has officially been extended, members of Congress could be in town as late as December 21st," net neutrality advocacy group Fight for the Future wrote yesterday. "This means we have until the end of the year to get as many lawmakers as possible signed on to restore net neutrality." A discharge petition that would force a vote on the CRA resolution gained three new supports in the past two weeks, but even if all Democrats were on board it still wouldn't be enough to force a vote. Republicans have a 236-197 House majority, and only one House Republican has signed the petition.
Net neutrality advocates previously said they needed 218 signatures by December 10 to force a vote. But an extension of Congress' session provided a little more time. "[Now that the Congressional session has officially been extended, members of Congress could be in town as late as December 21st," net neutrality advocacy group Fight for the Future wrote yesterday. "This means we have until the end of the year to get as many lawmakers as possible signed on to restore net neutrality." A discharge petition that would force a vote on the CRA resolution gained three new supports in the past two weeks, but even if all Democrats were on board it still wouldn't be enough to force a vote. Republicans have a 236-197 House majority, and only one House Republican has signed the petition.
Well, lets see, almost all votes for NN are from Democrats, including centrist democrats. Only one single republican supports this legislation.
So when you say to vote out the Clinton democrats you are telling us to vote out the people who actually signed their name to this legislation, while fail to even acknowledge that the republican party is 99% against net neutrality.
This ridiculous claim that both sides are at fault when one is at fault while the other works to protect us is the exact reason that our country is in the mess we are in.
I hope Bernie Sanders gets last place in the primary, tied with some other sore loser who can't tell the difference between his allies and his adversaries.
Republicans favor the Net Neutrality we have today.
Yeah, it's so fucking awesome to have a single choice of broadband provider, one which now has carte blanche to implement whatever means they deem necessary to squeeze more profit out of a market they've monopolized.
Government regulation is not the best solution, but voting for regulation is all that remains when voting with your wallet is not an option. The fault is not with those of us who were forced into a corner and vote "left". The fault lies with businesses who have chosen not to play fairly at the game of capitalism. We're simply demanding they be held accountable.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
That's not at all what it's about. It's the concept that your ISP should be considered as a telecommunication utility rather than a content provider. As such, they should not be allowed to selectively throttle your connection based on what media you consumed, but rather treat all bits as equal. We're paying for the connection already, and the entities we're connecting to are paying for theirs -- nobody is trying to get anything for free.
They can still have data caps, but things like 0-rating to make their own content more desirable would also be illegal. Since most consumers only have 1 or 2 broadband choices, letting them take advantage of their natural monopolies does not lead to a competitive market.
The repeal has far-reaching implications, as with it providers are free to throttle their competitors or even block any content they want to discourage -- we have to take them at the word for it that they won't. And we've actually seen them throttle competitors before, which is the entire reason NN was enacted in the first place.