TopShelf TG Fiction in the BigCloset!
So, it seems like the Net Neutrality thing that just passed is good. I am not aware of an opposing view but must confess that this whole issue is not clear to me.
Anyone care to elaborate in simple terms?
Gwen
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It means that the Government is in charge
The Government will regulate the internet just as efficiently as the Government regulates everything else that it regulates. In otherwords, not well and with extreme bias depending on which Party is in charge of the Government. While I am a moderate Republican, recent history has shown that both political parties here in the U.S. are controlled by the Extremes to the left and to the right depending on if you are talking about the Dems or the Repubs. Those of us in the middle tend to get stomped on by the ends as they fight each other. However, it is not the 2 parties at the ends who are getting hurt but us in the middle.
Look At It This Way
The big Internet providers (cable companies & telecoms) spent huge money on lobbyists and support to friendly politicians to defeat net neutrality. This included an incredible amount of disinformation from those elected officials with ties to the cable companies & telecoms which mostly talked about Internet freedom and the evils of government regulation.
On the side of net neutrality were Internet companies like Google and Netflix and a very large number of private citizens.
This was a win for us. You can bet it will be challenged in the courts, and the losers will likely continue to influence law makers.
http://www.usatoday.com/story
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/02/26/fcc-net-neu...
"What many in Silicon Valley don't understand is that, according to the Supreme Court's 2005 Brand X decision, nearly any "tech" company that builds a telecom-style network to deliver its content and apps has the potential to be captured by the FCC's new rules. If the agency tries to exempt some companies but not others, it will be choosing the politically favored over everyone else."
And the whole 381 page monstrosity will be administered as content neutrally as the IRS' suppression of Obama's opposition, or how Operation Chokepoint disadvantaged firearms retailers and manufacturers. Or for that matter, people supplying the hydroponics hobbyists or pornographers. Or how Republican donating Gibson guitars was raided and fined for supposedly illegally using foreign wood, where it's Democrat donating competition does the same thing and is untroubled.
Reducing innovation and making everything more costly while privatizing profit and making risk and cost public--all public utilities laws have ever done--is the least ill this regulation will accomplish.
Do you think the internet would exist at all as is does today if AT&T were the monopoly phone provider? We might still have usenet.
A Public Utility
The Internet was built with government research and development money. In its early stage, it was known as ARPAnet and facilitated Cold War work between university researchers, government agencies, and military/aerospace contractors. WHEN the government opened up the Internet's backbone to civilian use, it actually took some time before the big communications companies took note of it. The root servers still belonged to the government for at least another decade after that. Many, many IT wizards freely contributed additional protocols and standards that turned it into what it is now, many without remuneration. And now, the "big boys" have access to a gravy train NOT of their own making, one that arguably belongs to US, the American people, because our government built the core of it.
It SHOULD be regulated as a public utility. The Republican campaign against net neutrality is scurrilous, and one in favor of their donors, who are basically greedy pirates who would steal the whole thing for themselves and the public be damned.
"The Internet was built with
"The Internet was built with government research and development money. "
The Internet was prototyped with government money, and built overwhelmingly by private investment. In the early period when private users first got onto it, the ARPAnet crowd wanted them banned.
"It SHOULD be regulated as a public utility."
No better way to have expensive, bad service. Not that there won't be any investment, but it will all be crony capitalist investment, more Solyndra's.
"The Republican campaign against net neutrality is scurrilous, and one in favor of their donors, who are basically greedy pirates who would steal the whole thing for themselves and the public be damned."
There is no reason to think 300 plus pages which are kept secret are anything but a gift to the Democrat party and not the public interest. "Throttling" is something best addressed by class action breach of contract suits. ISPs should be free to provide premium service at extra charge, and this is not synonymous with ISPs not providing the bandwidth and throughput they contract to deliver at a lower charge.
Ask yourself why, if NASA had all the technology SpaceX is using, that we didn't have the cost per pound to LEO dropping towards the hundreds of dollar range thirty years ago? Because the Space Shuttle meeting 4% of it's program goals and killing 14 astronauts was the best government could do, even on a tremendously high profile program.
NASA isn't the problem
Ask yourself why, if NASA had all the technology SpaceX is using, that we didn't have the cost per pound to LEO dropping towards the hundreds of dollar range thirty years ago? Because the Space Shuttle meeting 4% of it's program goals and killing 14 astronauts was the best government could do, even on a tremendously high profile program.
The Apollo One fire was caused by sloppy workmanship by union workers employed by contractors that wanted to pad their bottom lines.
The Challenger disaster was initiated by a NASA management team member (who was not part of the flight management team at KSC) who over-rode the range safety and weather people who said it was not safe to launch. The root cause was a faulty design by a another union contracted design engineer who decided it was easier to put together a weather joint that caught rain, rather than a weather joint designed to shed water.
Seventeen deaths over a period of fifty two years is an outstanding record in a field of endeavor as hazardous as manned space flight.
SpaceX has the technology that they have now because of research and development, initiated by NASA and paid for by the taxpayers, fifty years ago. Where do you think the original low power transistors and the integrated circuit chips came from? NASA did far more development on things other than TANG. Remember, Murphy was a NASA Engineer who worked on the rocket sled program.
Actually...
..none of what you claim, even if true, detracts from my point. NASA did as good as it could, and killed 14 astronauts not because of the inherent dangers of spaceflight, but because of political pressures impinging on management, and despite how important it was, the program cost far more than it was supposed to, and it met 4% of it's goals. I don't know that SpaceX had any more technology transfer from NASA than can be found in Sutton's Rocket Propulsion, and I know they did the R&D themselves to perfect the friction stir welding on their fuselages, key part of their cost saving and robustness for re-usability.
And transistors were in radios long before NASA used them.
They would not have failed to be adapted and adopted to aerospace work if NASA has never existed, neither would ICs have never been heard of in NASA had never existed.
The Apollo One fire started because of bad workmanship. It killed three astronauts because of bad design and arrogant program management, just as the review board found. Both Shuttle disasters happened owing to bad management that was criminally chargeable in my view, each train of decisions leading up to the deaths showing a depraved indifference for human life either before the accident event or after.
"Seventeen deaths over a period of fifty two years is an outstanding record in a field of endeavor as hazardous as manned space flight."
A case could conceivably be made that the detaching foam was just one of many things that could cause a disaster, just another risk to be managed. NASA hasn't made that case.
The O-ring issue was flatly in-unarguably criminal negligence, they were explicitly told not to launch, that the boosters would fail, and NASA ignored the clearly engineering based and engineer generated true statement there would be a catastrophic failure.
Competence vs. Incompetence
As far as I know, the statement of the O-ring issue is possibly an understatement even: "Red Alert! Don't launch!" repeated memos from engineers. "Take off your engineering cap, put on your management cap." If this instruction was true, the Challenger deaths were manslaughter.
The problem isn't government vs. private enterprise, the problem for massive projects is competence vs. incompetence. Richard Feynman found widespread incompetence in both government and private corporations in the space shuttle program. But of course, the space shuttle did take off, go into orbit, and return the vast majority of times. (So we had >99% competence. The remaining <1% made the difference in those cases.)
Looking back on things, with the benefit of hindsight and experience, USENET, email, and the WWW could have been better designed. But that's only from hindsight. (Very different from the Challenger explosion.) Did anyone really foresee the problem of massive spam swamping both email and the newsgroups?
In the case of net neutrality, do we really trust the large corporations to maintain net neutrality on their own? Especially when they admit they don't want to? On the other hand, do we trust government these days to actually be honest in its net neutrality regulations and laws? Especially when people have been prosecuted (and convicted and sentenced to years in prison!) for linking to web sites of supposed terrorist groups. (Could be simply citation in support of a statement.)
Past experience regarding the mass mainstream media: Which congressman had a dead woman turn up in his office?
-- Daphne Xu
They have so far.
"In the case of net neutrality, do we really trust the large corporations to maintain net neutrality on their own?"
The issue of throttling it seems to me can be dealt with better through class action breach of contract suits. Eventually they will be forced to add compensation for the times the network is too highly loaded,or build out more capacity.
The thing with Net Neutrality as it is usually discussed is, does it prohibit them offering premium services at higher prices? I don't want them avoiding getting fiber to me because they can't recoup costs at a rate that draws investment.
BEEP!
No, they haven't. Comcast put Netflix in a slow lane until they coughed up some extra dough. That's exactly the situation Net Neutrality is intended to prevent.
So, no, they haven't maintained NN and they have admitted repeatedly that they have no intention of doing so, not just Comcast but ATT and Verizon and other big carriers want fast and slow lanes.
And recouping costs has NOTHING to do with whether you get fiber. This business is so profitable that they could give large parts of it away and still make money. They will roll fiber out as slowly as they can in order to maximize profits, not to recoup costs.
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Net Neutrality is what we have now
What this decision means in the short term is that things can continue as they are with big companies not being allowed to buy the internet. ISPs cannot charge more for faster delivery of content, nor can they throttle content to a slower speed from websites that have not paid them extra for not being blockaded.
As to whether government regulation of the internet is good or bad in the long term, I think I trust elected officials more than I trust people who are just out to make as much money as they can with shoddy service and charging on both ends with contracts like Comcast recently forced on Netflix. There's no perfect solution but the big ISPs have made it clear that without government intervention they are going to run the Internet to suit themselves. And woe to little tiny websites like ours who can't afford to pay for preference.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
"What this decision means in
"What this decision means in the short term is that things can continue as they are with big companies not being allowed to buy the internet."
Since they paid for almost all of it, why shouldn't they own it?
"I think I trust elected officials more than I trust people who are just out to make as much money as they can with shoddy service and charging on both ends with contracts like Comcast recently forced on Netflix."
Isn't a better, simpler approach to remove any protection the ISP's have from suit for breach of contract?
No Internet FastLanes
What is means at it's core, is that companies like Comcast won't be allowed to charge you an extra fee on-top of your normal internet fee's if you want access to Netflix or Hulu or similar. They wanted the ability to "slow down" access to various sites and services to make you more likely to use their in-house streaming services. It's like if you are on a toll road, where you already paid for access, and then for an extra $3 you get the option of driving in the fast lanes, otherwise you are only allowed the slow lane for the base charge.
What it means specifically for BigCloset is that we don't have to pay $ to every internet provider in the US for their users to be "allowed" to access our website. We only need to pay for our basic server bandwidth from our primary provider who then contracts with other parties via public and private peering contracts.
But as mentioned, yes it comes at the price of the FCC being in charge of "it" (the internet) just as they are in control of the phone lines and long distance carriers in the US.
And just an FYI, this only really affects US internet customers and US based sites, as the FCC has no jurisdiction outside of the US.
-Piper
Here's the short of it. The
Here's the short of it. The arguments were roughly that companies want to innovate, and wanted the right to charge extra for 'faster' services. The alternative argument was that the companies wanted to slow everything down, then charge extra for what people were already getting.
To me, there's nothing wrong with wanting to charge extra for additional service, or faster speeds. The problem was that even if it _started_ that way, it wouldn't end that way. Using the above example, there was a war between streaming content providers. Cable companies would prefer you used their own 'on demand' movie/show service - which costs extra, making them more money. People were wanting to use Netflix (Hulu, etc), and simply use their current internet service.
"Net Neutrality" proponents say "The speed of the service must remain constant and appropriate for conditions." "Innovation" proponents were saying "If you want to serve your content to our customers at the same speed as our services, you need to pay us for them."
To boil it down, the innovation people claimed that what would happen was that _new_ services would be charged at a higher rate (like FIOS to the home, or Internet2, or whatever the catch word of the day might be), and that the existing services wouldn't be affected. In practice, it didn't work that way.
Frankly, I don't know why the FCC fiddle-farted around so long. Internet services has _always_ been telecommunications services, which is under the aegis of the FCC. AT&T, Verizon, etc, all provide phone _and internet_. Comcast now provides Internet _and phone_ - they were _already_ being regulated as such. (And you were taxed accordingly! )
All that they did is say "Oh, yeah. That service you're providing over the wire that we're already regulating? It's also part of the same regulation package."
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
A nice blog comment on Net Neutrality
The Good Math, Bad Math blog has a nice comment on net neutrality: http://www.goodmath.org/blog/2014/05/13/net-neutrality/ . His view is that opposition to net neutrality is about double-billing: people pay for the bandwidth, and then they have to pay again to get or use that bandwidth. He also mentions small net services not being able to get in. My own fear is that it's potentially about censorship.
Google "Lori Klausutis" and compare HER mainstream media coverage with Chandra Levy's, the summer of 2001. We don't want the Internet castrated like the mainstream media.
-- Daphne Xu
Long and short of it
The ISPs have stayed stagnant, wanting sweetheart deals to provide internet service in some areas as long as they are the only provider in that area and they have lobbied and bought out state governments to put in laws to prevent local government to introduce competition to what is usually the only game in town.
So what is disingenuous about conservative arguments to let the market decide is that there really is no market in a lot of places so guess what, why innovate when there is no competition? They can just sit back and suck in money without the need to upgrade infrastructure. That is what any 'red blooded' business would do if they want to maximize profits. it is ironic that there are a lot of under served areas in 'red states' are cutting off their nose to spite their face since they are in the very situation just described.
And guvmint in charge of the internet? *yawn* The government can't control the content of it and by preventing monopoly markets we ultimately, ironically create more competition and enable the markets to work and giving consumer choice. The ISPs would love to be something other than a dumb pipe with no choice of what packets go through their system and 'innovate' by prioritizing which packets who go to where as long as they get paid the most. So let's say Gwen wants to start a competitive business against Netflix then she would need to pay just as much as Netflix to get the same amount of access for the information being sent out, stifling competition.
So for all of you skype users out there, there would be the potential of snuffing out another skype like business to come into the market as the ISP can dictate 'a guarantee delivery' of information at a certain rate only if they are paid enough.
For an even simpler example, visualize a world where it is possible to micromanage whose phone calls get priority for getting through. Currently that would be implausible, phone service is title 2, but if not then early phone service where operators do all the connecting of calls could've potentially be the ones to decide who get priority on getting a phone call through.
It boils down to Free Market
It boils down to Free Market vs Government Regulated.
Free Market: The "unfair" system the Internet has been running under for decades, where bandwith, content, selection, and availabilty have been increasing continuously. Where service providers try to fill the customers needs, because that's how one prospers in a Free Market. Every year, more people the world over have gained greater access to more information and services than ever before.
Government Regulated: The "fair" system where a small group of people who are mostly ignorant of the customers needs try to centrally manage everything, which always results in an ever increasing number of regulations. Service providers will spend more of their budgets lobbying the new decision makers (bureacrats) instead of investing that money in providing better services to the old decision makers (customers).
I expect to see the gradual encroachment of content controls, to "maintain fairness and truth". The problem is, who determines what is fair, and what is true? Currently, the end user gets to make up their own mind. Under state control, someone else will decide for you.
It's very likely that web publishers will eventually have to meet certain criteria to remain "on the air". Again, who do you want deciding who you get to read or listen to or view? You, or a distant group of bureacrats?
Small players will slowly get squeezed out, since only the big guys will have the resources to deal with the many "necessary" regulations.
Or maybe I'm just a complete nutter. I certainly hope that I'm wrong, although history would have me believe otherwise.
- vessica b
Um... since when was the
Um... since when was the Internet ever a 'free market'? I've been working with it since fall of 1990 - where it was still 100% controlled by the DoD. Universities and major companies had connections, and there was a slight deregulation where you started seeing groups like CompuServ, Prodigy, and AOL allowed to cross connect their services to the internet (that's right, they were not internet service providers. They were Network Service Providers. You paid for access to their network and services - nothing to do with the internet)
By 1994, I think, they started allowing regular people to get domain names - but you had to buy them from Network Solutions. Even now, Network Solutions is _the_ primary monopoly of DNS. The MAE systems between major providers (AT&T linking to GTE, etc) were huge bottlenecks - if one went out, you couldn't see up to half the country.
Again - we've never _had_ a free market Internet. Heck, I remember when DSL was coming out and they had to go after Southwestern Bell (SBC) for squeezing the dial-up ISP's. They were ordered to provide their _monopoly_ lines to the ISP's for DSL and similar service at cost. That lasted all of 4 years, then they did it again - notice how few ISP's there are left? They couldn't compete with the monopolies. (There were some SERIOUS squealing fights about who was allowed to put equipment in the CO's. (Central Offices) Silly, because with the upgrades and changes from Analog to Digital equipment, the old COs had room to burn. 4,000 square feet of rotary equipment were replaced with 9 square feet of cabinet. They only fought so that they could retain enormous profit margins, and flout the requirements to share)
They're still doing it. (Despite that, Logix, at one customers, is providing a Metro Ethernet connection at 20 Mbps up and down, for about $300 a month)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Comparing this with the Good
Comparing this with the Good Math, Bad Math blog comment, it sounds as if "Free Market" means contracts are free to abrogate: one may be charged to get what he already contracted for. "Gumment Regulation" means contracts get enforced.
-- Daphne Xu
there was the service monopolization as well.
Here in the US in most areas there are only on average 2 ISP providers that you can choose from. The cable companies have carved up the country so they have agreements not to compete with one another, and the phone companies are the same way. or you are like me and there is one subpar option and the other owns the rights for the area but will not install service. For me its AT&T has subpar service in the case of inconsistent DSL service maxing out at 3.0Mbs that rarely exceeds the minimum as they say acceptable of 1.5 Mbps at any given time. The lines have been cut and patched so many times since I moved here I cant count them anymore. The real Peev is that they ran New Fiber a 3rd of the way down the street where no one lives, but there is a brand-new Cell tower. and the Subdivision behind it gets told to suck it. Comcast bought the rights to the area but will not run down the steet becuase the density is not enough in their opinion. And so we have no choice in service its take it or leave it. the other options like internet over Cell Modem, or Satellite Modem are not pheesable they cost too much and severly cap bandwith usage with hefty fines for overages. Now the laws in states that the companies have had passed so that no one else can compete with them have been overturned by the FCC saying that State law Violates hour federal charter of that agency. So they are overiding the State laws. They have done it for 3 states and cities but will probably come to bat for more areas. So metro-internet networks can now be built with money from FCC potentialy, The argument is we pay fees as part of our service for network maintanence and upgrades that is set by law, but the companies are not using it for that. So the FCC is saying too the Companies you dont take care of your customers you can loose them.
"Cortana is watching you!"
We have service issues like that here
Back in 2003 AT&T requested our permission to run fiber optic lines through our yard, on the promise that it would mean that we would soon be able to use DSL and other broadband internet services in our area. There's a junction box for access at the end of our driveway. Yet, AT&T refuses to let us get DSL because we are supposedly outside their coverage area: the lines that we so nicely let them run are being used for larger communities to either side of us. MILES away from us.
If we want anything other than dialup, our only option is satellite internet. 1.5 Mbps? I'd KILL for that, since on a good day, with the winds just right and nobody else on either at our house or in the general area, we're lucky to pull 300 Kbps down for five minutes at a time, with our average speed lying closer to about 80-120 Kbps. No cable companies service our area, so that option is completely out the window, and isn't likely to change any time soon.
The net neutrality laws won't do anything to fix that, but I'm still all for them. I can see Vessica's points, but they come from a completely different age of information distribution. Simply put, we barely can afford the internet we get at the speeds we get; if the companies could get away with making us have to pay more simply for the right to visit the handful of sites we do, we'd likely simply have no internet at all, and I know that there are many, many people in that kind of situation.
Corporate control of the internet would literally mean the death of the internet for many consumers, turning it from an information exchange and household installment into yet another "luxury" service, like cable or satellite, which would in the end not just cost the entire US a great deal of productivity, but destroy the infrastructure and sustainability of many growing educational and career fields.
Melanie E.
Net Neutrality was not the only rulling the other day.
They ruled on Net Neutrallity and the issue I mentioned. Both were passed by the same 3 voters and opposed by the same 2 voters on the FCC council.
Basically The ISP's lost 2 battles at the same time and now they are going to take their case to the Courts to try and again buy the decision they want.
I am all for capitalism and free market within reason, because if you have free market with no government oversite we would be back in the situation where its there are only the small few who have everything and the rest of us who have absolutely nothing. Corperations have proven thoughout time that if they can get away without inovating and milk there customers with high fees for service that is only getting worse over time they will. It is competition that incourages inovation and advancment in services and technology. But when those service providers can come up with no-compete clauses so they can keep service costs high they will. and the thing is I don't see how that does not classify as monopolistic practices by law. They crush start-up competitors and then use there money and size to buy poloticians so they can keep competition from ever being capable of starting up. The only reason for example that the attempts of the ISP's to get the FCC's ability to regulate them stopped by changing the law in the companies favor was the fact that it would have for that point and time been political suicide for the members of the house and senate. because groups were watching and putting out the word on what was happening like SOPA a while ago. Corperations never look out for the customer as they claim the look out for Number one and number one alone, them.
"Cortana is watching you!"
Are AT&T Paying you rent for their cable?
If they aren't then they should be. They are uysing your land for free?
Then a ''wandering' JCB (backhoe for you colonials :) ) digging a trench might make them take note and either pay you for the passage their cables make over your land OR let you have access at a very discounted rate.
I have a 'pole' on my land. This pole supplies POTS to around 10 houses near me. I get paid for having it there by BT even though I don't use BT for any service.
Even with the last 20ft being overhead wires I get 76Mbits download. I do sympathise with you for existing on 1.5Mbits on a good day. My Mother lives near the middle of a town of 200,000 people and can only get 500k speed. Mobile is equally a bad even with a mast in plain sight. She lives in a big 'Not Spot'.
The sad truth about it being Fiber.
if it is a fiber line running through the property it without a doubt serves a partial purpose of carrying 911 service (emergency service) line communications. And if you cut that they would swarm in to repair if fast because if people have no 911 service a fine is incurred for every moment it is down per customer. And they if they can prove who cut it, will pass the fines unto them and throw the book of law at them by seeing to it that both Civil and Criminal cases were pursued.
"Cortana is watching you!"
They pay nothing, and apparently we can't even request it.
The "asking permission" was more of a technicality and nicety than required, and we were informed of that as well. We could have refused, but all it would have done is gotten us in trouble and they woulda gotten to run the cable anyway, and we STILL wouldn't have DSL.
I've considered going and cutting it, then bugging the repair person about when we were gonna get DSL, and doing that every 3 months or so 'til we did, but like Raith points out, that could mean Big Trouble if I were caught.
We're, in essence, screwed, because we're not a profitable enough area to fight over nor capable of raising a big enough stink to make a difference. My phone gets good data speeds, but AT&T doesn't offer a reliable MiFi service around here EITHER, and even if they DID, the rates for mobile bandwidth are absolutely ridiculous.
Melanie E.
If all it was...
...was Net Neutrality, the concept that ISP's either as subsidiaries or partners of content providers, cannot impede as a matter of policy, packets originating from their competition's ports if they have impinged on government paid for (in whole or in part) servers or transmission means, then it would actually be Net Neutrality and be an at least rational, reasonably just law. If that's all it was it would be around 5 or 8 pages, maximum.
It's 381 pages.
The reason it's 381 pages ...
... probably has nothing to do with hidden agendas to control Internet content (as if anyone could). It has more to do with making sure the regulation is solid enough in every way to protect it from the inevitable court cases to come. Often, the simpler you make a law or regulation, the easier it is for others to subvert it. When you have to protect your rulings from every sort of legal challenge by companies with deep pockets and big law firms, 381 pages seems a small price to pay. *grin*
Randalynn
except
the claim it is JUST like article 2 regulations except all the exceptions they are making. THAT is why it is so big, they are taking existing regulations, that have LITTLE to do with how the internet is used or works, and trying to make that polygon fit the square hole of article 2, THAT will allow LOTS of challenges all by itself. I dont think EITHER side has OUR best interest at heart. the Government states it HAS to have control of the internet. WHY???? to control information, just like a lot of foreign governments do (china, russia, n. korea, any of those ring a bell?) Regulations WILL raise costs. Will it DROP the costs any??? I doubt it, history shows the opposite, they increase costs. so i am still trying to see the benefit for us THE PEOPLE from this?
Teresa L.
Teresa L.
Simple clearly written laws
I think to the contrary that simple clearly written laws are far less subject to "interpretation" by lawyers. Why was this regulation a secret?
I believe it was because it's contents cannot withstand public scrutiny.
Evidently evidence of the criminality and perfidy of this administration is not to be posted here, since Erin seems to have had a reply I made to her removed--but there is ample evidence this has all but nothing to with net neutrality.
A link to the FCC's order?
I've been able to find lots of rhetoric about the "net neutrality" order lots of articles on the web, but not the text of the order.
It was entirely a secret...
...until recently. That's because it's indefensible from public scrutiny.
If you find a publicly available copy of it, please let me know.
The concept behind the rule making ...
... has been available as a proposal for public comment for more than a year, so it's hardly some secret plan. This is common administrative rule making procedure.
Please stop propagating the belief that the government is somehow trying to secretly take control of the Internet for its own nefarious goals. The government already HAD complete control of the Internet when DARPA created it, and opened it up for use by the public (an inherently stupid idea if you want to use it to rule the world).
The United States government was designed specifically to protect its people and serve their needs. That's why it creates rules and regulations ... not to deliberately stop businesses from being successful, but to protect the public from the things businesses might do in pursuit of success that could hurt the American people. You know, like selling expired foods, or medicines that kill instead of cure, or polluting the air we breathe and the water we drink.
There are reasons we have traffic lights — not to stifle freedom but to lower the number of people who die at intersections.
Randalynn
It isn't the concept which is
It isn't the concept which is supposed to be open for comment, it is the proposed text of the regulation. I have no reason to think this regulation has anything to do with net neutrality in fact.
And since you haven't read it, you really don't either. You are taking them at their word.
Net neutrality can be done in a few pages, so I conclude quite reasonably there is far more to this than net neutrality, if in fact anything resembling net neutrality is even in there at all.
Hi Radalynn
The problem comes down to yes, the proposal has been available for a year. BUT, that doesn't mean that the FCC board is going to stick with the proposal, or what "details" were stuffed into the final order. The FCC board members are politicians. If they actually worked for the public interest, then they would have laughed Comcast out of the room when Comcast submitted their proposal to purchase Time Warner Cable service.
With regards to "nefarious purposes", we have them in spades, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Patriot Act, CARNIVORE, National Reconnaissance Office, and every US based cloud service provider that makes disk storage and email available to users.
If you believe the world is out to get you ...
... be prepared for a long miserable existence inside a bunker full of canned food, surrounded by land mines in case FEMA comes calling.
Government is full of bureaucrats with specific missions, not corrupt masterminds bent on watching and controlling everyone in the US. Spy agencies overstepping their authority isn't part of some plan to invade your privacy because everyone in the NSA is a closeted voyeur or a potential blackmailer. They're tasked with protecting the country from threats they can't see – they want all the edge they can get. They don't listen to every phone call, because it's impossible.
You don't know the motives of the people in power, or the reasons they do what they do. You can't read minds, so you assume the worst. People who work in government aren't inherently evil. They're just people like me and you.
Randalynn
Maybe not a closeted voyeur...
But there are these wonderful founding documents called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Whenever the FBI whips out the Patriot Act and wanders over to the Public Library to see what I've been reading, or goes down to Blockbusters to see which movies I've been renting, or does a 'sneak and peek' break in of my house to see what I have on my walls and in my personal papers because they spotted an order for 3000 rounds of ammunition from an Internet supplier, that's an invasion of privacy, MY privacy.
Or they come kicking my door in, dropping flash bangs and tear gas throughout the house, shooting my dog in the process, because they've seen in my emails that I've been corresponding with a person in Kabul who's not using an ARMY.MIL, STATE.GOV or USMC.MIL address. Never mind the fact that the man I correspond with happens to be the Director of Cultural Programs at ISAF Headquarters, where I used to work.
Or, based on emails I send back and forth to my friend complaining about how the last decent President we had was Regan, that Carter was a coward and the current occupant of the Oval Office is a Marxist with delusions of dictatorship, I get a visit from the DHS and the Secret Service, along with the local PD's SWAT team, because they've check my records and found out that I'm a Navy Veteran, a Life member of the NRA and *GASP* White! I've just hit the Intelligence Fusion Center Trifecta for being a Homegrown Domestic Terrorist.
Does a human ear listen to each and every phone call? No, as you said, there's not enough people to do that. But they can get a computer to do just that. It's not that hard to do as long as you have enough processing power and enough bandwidth. I have one of the ELINT towers up the highway from me, sitting atop Stone Mountain.
I do assume the worst, because I worked in Washington for over a decade. The Federal government is just like any other business, to survive it grows, it gets bigger. It puts its tentacles in more and more places, gathers more and more data, invades more peoples privacy. The people in places of power get seduced by creeping incrementalism. "If only we could do this little bit more..." "We need to gather this much more data..." "For the sake of the children".
The local PD's here in Atlanta want to station cars with plate readers alongside highways to gather license plate data, and check to see if any of the cars going by are stolen. When asked how long the captured data on NON-Stolen vehicles would be retained, the answer is between 3 and 5 years. Why does the police need to retain data on license places that have passed a certain place, at a certain time, on a certain day for FIVE YEARS?
I have the right to drive anyplace, anywhere and at any time without being subject to electronic surveillance. But the police want to keep the personally identifiable data of my movements for FIVE years. Why?
I don't believe the world is out to get me. I do know that the government of our country, at the Federal level, does not have the Citizens best interest at heart. I know because I worked there.
"The LOCAL police in Atlanta ..."
... (capitals are mine), not the Federal "secret police." Everyone is guilty of overreaching. it's not just at the federal level. Virginia lawmakers want to expand the state’s DNA database to include DNA of people convicted of certain Class 1 misdemeanors. I think that's intrusive and over the top, but the people of the state elected them, and I'm stuck with it until I can do something to change it. It seems that, all too often, the "people" who elect lawmakers are just as bad as the government you think is trying to control your life.
And what's your alternative to federal law? Let the states decide? How's that working out with the Atlanta PD? State legislators are much cheaper to buy than federal ones, too. But you don't have to buy them if they support and advance "the will of the people." That's why, without federal intervention, segregation would still be the de facto standard in much of the south. Without federal regulation, a lot of what we take for granted just wouldn't be anymore, like cleaner air, clean water, and safer food, not to mention safer working conditions.
So both federal and state governments suck at times, basically because they're run by people. Have any of the horror stories you mentioned in your comment about invasion of your privacy happened yet? No? When they do, take 'em to court. That's what the judiciary is there for — part of the system designed to stop government overreach. They push, you push back! EVERYONE in government can't be corrupt or power-mad. If that were true, we'll all be screwed, no matter what government we put in place.
Want to turn the United States over to the corporations? "Let the marketplace decide?" Businesses are like sharks, they only exist to serve themselves. Risk assessment calculations would happily let them decide that X number of people can die from polluted air every year as long as the country makes a profit.
The federal government has a simple mission statement. It's the preamble to the Constitution. Federal and state governments exist to serve the people, and they're all we've got. Instead of assuming conspiracy, assume humanity. Find a way to put better people in positions of authority instead of the circus we have in Congress now. Run against the incumbents in state government who think science is a bunch of hooey and "nothing will matter once the Rapture comes anyway, so why try to make things better here?"
The truth is, any government is better than anarchy, or the idea that "the one with the biggest gun gets to make the rules." Why not work to fix the government we have instead of cursing its overreaching? Work to put intelligent, thinking people in places where they can stop overreaching before it starts. "It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness,'" right?
And please stop assuming everyone who works in government is corrupt, greedy or power mad. My husband has worked in the federal government for more than twenty five years, and all he wants is to do is his job to the best of his ability. Because he's good people.
Randalynn
The problem is that the LOCAL
The problem is that the LOCAL police generally turn their data over the to FEDERAL police. That's what happens with the children's fingerprints for recovery of kidnapped children. Also, Texas requires fingerprints for driver's licenses. They aren't actually _in_ the license, they're only so that they can build and export a database of people they think are criminals, but they haven't been caught yet. That is, everyone but them.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Net Neutrality order full text
Here's the link to the full text of the FCC order.
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf
http://www.fcc.gov/document
http://www.fcc.gov/document/protecting-and-promoting-open-in...
Thanks for the link Piper
But this goes to the text of the "proposed" rules, not the ones that were finally adopted. There's a lot that can go on behind closed doors in our government that radically alters what's proposed to what's finally approved.
Thanks, but this is not a link...
...to the proposed regulation. The linked doc is only 99 pages.
while a lot of what said here makes since
some of the statements from members of the government "we need to control the internet" for one scares the F**K out of me. so much for "free" information, about the same as we are getting from the news agencies ALL OF THEM are tanked, some slanted for one side or the other but all not "touching" things the government doesnt want touched, so not "REAL" news like we used to have when we actually had REAL investigative journalists, not talking heads reading the news, no matter how wrong or biased it is.
totalitarian governments, like communistic ones (china, russia no matter its claim of democracy now it has fallen back to its old ways, and others) or just plain banana republics with "presidents for life" etc have controlled media, "free" western countries should NOT. now if it is a true matter of national security, in something ACTIVE, not from 20 years ago, then fine, limit exposure but JUST until the issue is done, and explain why it was important NOT to put it on the air, not expose people etc and put lives in danger, but just so we know WHY our rights were violated, and if it was for a good reason.
While it is SUPPOSED to be our politicians job (i dont trust them anymore, so i cant call them real leaders) to do this, and remove that obligation from our shoulders, they are more worried about getting rich (insider trading for starters, with no penalties, really?) and keeping their positions so they can KEEP getting richer, while doing hardly ANY real work to earn the pay and benefits they receive.
Teresa L
Teresa L.
And as opposed to anything to the contrary you've heard here...
"Because the text of the rules has not yet been made public..."
and
"Instead of outright blocking the rules, Republican leaders on the House and Senate Commerce Committees are prioritizing legislation to enact many of the net neutrality principles advocates have supported, while at the same time restricting the FCC from reclassifying broadband Internet, "
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/234180-gauntlet-awaits-...
A few extra pieces.
Some great points have been made from a lot of you, Starfox and Rasufelle off the top of my head.
These companies wanting no Net Neutrality IS about controlling information flow.
I don't remember if it was "Wall Street Journal" or "The New York Times" but there is an article there where Verizon says they think they have the right to express editorial discretion. Let that sink in...they are saying they think simply because you're using their service to access the internet they have the right to block you from certain sites because they don't like the news on there.
So Verizon would block my access to Democracy Now, The Intercept, Guardian, Usenet, etc.
SBC, now calling themselves AT&T, want Net Neutrality revoked so in addition to subpar service they can make you pay more for common access. SBC gives crappy service because they know you have few options. They use that money to buyout other companies because it's cheaper to do that then set up your own infrastructure for things. It's why SBC wanted to buy T-Mobile, for the 4G.
You may ask why I say SBC instead of AT&T...because I don't think AT&T was likely as heavyhanded with this bs.
When we had DSL it took a lightning strike to get them to fix our dated connection. Our line clearly wasn't as adept at handling the DSL as it needed to be. Even when the strike happened they kept trying to argue it was on our side, never mind the sound on the LAN line had noticeably degraded after the strike. With the amount of times we had to call in and complain the BBB should've been called.