Obama & McCain Conflicting On Net Neutrality 427
longacre writes "For all their incessant bickering in the first two presidential debates over conflicts of interest and government regulation, PopMech columnist Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics: Net neutrality. John McCain and Barack Obama have stated elsewhere their opposing views on the issue, with McCain being opposed to Net neutrality and favoring light regulation of the Internet, while Obama is in favor of neutrality and seeks Government involvement. In any case, since there is no standard accepted definition of 'network neutrality,' until the candidates elaborate on their positions (which they both declined to do for this piece, nor anywhere else so far, for that matter), 'both sides can make a credible case that they're the ones defending freedom of innovation and open communication.'"
Dude, have you read Obama's page on this? (Score:1, Informative)
There was a slashdot article on the changes made to Obama's IT page after he joined up with Biden, who's a bigger opponent of Net Neutrality than anyone.
Damn, man get your facts straight before you post this crap.
Re:Both sides... (Score:2, Informative)
Obama has already started changing his position on the topic.
Then denied it.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/techies-keep-an.html [wired.com]
Keep a close eye on this one.
conundrum (Score:5, Informative)
Typical...article going too far to look "balanced"...unfortunately, our standards for journalistic objectivity now require MSM to throw out all analysis and simply ask dimwitted questions and repeat the candidates talking points.
In this case, the article is really bending over backwards to make the false point that:
by saying that:
That statement is simply false [wikipedia.org]. Of course anyone could quibble over the definition of any word ad infinitum, but the general idea is no tiered service [wikipedia.org].
This is where everyone who is in favor of John McCain flames me with how my links and definition of 'net neutrality' isn't exactly right..blah blah blah...I used to work in IT, and everyone...I mean everyone I worked with in our rather large company had the exact same basic understanding of 'net neutrality'...the wiki definition is as good as any and represents the general idea as it is understood in common usage
It's blatantly obvious that when it comes to net neutrality issues, Obama is the one who favors an internet unfettered by tiered service "packages" that do nothing more than deliver less for the same or more $$$. Why do we have to pretend that "net neutrality" is some nebulous, undefined thing that the candidates haven't talked about in enough detail...if you want more specifics, just look at the list of laws [wikipedia.org] that have tried to promote net neutrality and failed, then look who voted for or against them [votesmart.org]
Obama is best for net neutrality by a mile...
Re:Both sides... (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, you meant "that one" [google.com]. Or did you mean the other McCain slur, "The One" [youtube.com]? More Slashdotty.
We do have to keep our eyes on all these politicians. They will all change their terms after getting power if we can help it. It's pretty clear that with McCain, he doesn't even have to "spend any political capital" to side with the telcos against Net Neutrality: he's already against it, and fully lobbyist compliant.
Obama has made a couple of statements on his website that only support Net Neutrality, which is the position he's taken all the times he's mentioned it in public. If he'd made a simple statement, then changed to the more detailed one, people would say "he's just changing an easily identified opposition to a load of complicated doubletalk so he can weasel out later". That article you linked to is complaining about "changes", when it's the same policy, just stated in under 50 words as the website's traffic grows heavy with the mass of people who tune in late in the campaign to the more easily understood message, rather than the wonky details the earlier audience of more political consumers wanted. The campaign, when asked, confirmed that the policy hasn't changed. The activists for Net Neutrality of course have the earlier rendition of the policy in full detail, and aren't complaining. Because it hasn't changed, it's just being communicated to a wider audience.
By all means keep a close eye on both of them. But with Obama, you can actually watch him support Net Neutrality. Especially if you actually vote for him for president. With McCain, all you'll get is the short end of the stick: he's never even offered anything else.
Obama's Precise Policy on Net Neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
Re:On the fence (Score:1, Informative)
They weren't. The lines were paid for by the telecoms. They're owned by the telecoms.
The closest to "public money" you can get is the fact that frequently the lines run along public roads. In order to be allowed to use public space, the telecoms have to provide service to certain areas.
So there are already costs for using public spaces. But the infrastructure is owned and maintained by the telecoms themselves. No public money is involved.
You also might be thinking of the "billions of dollars" that were supposedly invested in improving US broadband. The thing is, these dollars don't exist. The telecoms didn't receive a thing from the government, not one cent.
Re:Government Involvement? (Score:2, Informative)
"You seem to misunderstand what Net Neutrality is. Net Neutrality is the principle that telecoms can't favor one type of net traffic over another. Since the telecoms are in a sense the gatekeepers of net access, then they have the technological power to do this."
Thereby perpetuating the myth the Telecoms have been trying to spread.
Net Neutrality is NOT about discriminating against types of traffic, it's about discriminating based on the SOURCE of that traffic. It has it's seeds in comments made by ATT and others about how they own the pipes and how Google and other heavy producers should pay them for the privilege of their content traveling over ATT's lines.
Since this is nonsensical in it's face, the telcos and cablecos have spun it so that Net Neutrality is about "types" of traffic and managing QOS. This gave them natural allies in the **AA's, and set up the straw man where people who are arguing against net neutrality are just Bittorrent users pissed that their speeds are down.
And you've bought into it.
Re:Both sides... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Both sides... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Both sides... (Score:5, Informative)
maybe you should have read the entire article (including the PDF link at the end). i agree that removing the detailed tech plan from the web page was a questionable decision, and supporters were very right to be concerned. however, upon closer inspection it seems that Obama's web staff simply trimmed down on the text displayed directly on the page, but the original tech plan remains available for viewing. and if you look at the Versionista Page comparison and the PDF still linked to on the web page, all of the text discussing Net Neutrality are indeed still intact.
it's more likely that Obama's campaign staff simply decided to cut down on the amount of text on the website while making updates to the content. perhaps it's meant to make the site more accessible to people too impatient to read the entire text, who knows? but even the new page directs people to a PDF link of the full tech plan at the bottom.
McCain (Score:3, Informative)
His website echos what I've seen him state several times, that like most other issues, he isn't a fan of government regulation in business. I've yet to see him say he is anti-net-neutrality, or that he wants government regulation.
Obama was very pro-net-neutrality, so he gets points for that, except the stance disappeared from his website, so the promise is less clear. This is also a guy who promised to vote against the FISA bill over and over again, even the day before the vote, and then voted for it.
With Joe Biden, the RIAA will have a big friend (Score:3, Informative)
By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide, and whose anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html
Re:Both sides... (Score:3, Informative)
Obama will always be called a liberal because he is.
McCain should never be called a conservative because he is not.
Re:Both sides... (Score:3, Informative)
On Obama's website he says he is going to increase the number of overall soldiers in the armed services by 92,000. Personnel is one of the biggest expenses in just about anything, and in the armed forces you have to pay for their Benefits(Their insurance costs more than normal), Equipment, Travel, Housing, etc.
so just Salary alone 92,000 X $40,000(best guess average) = $3,680,000,000 per year not counting all the other expense which could easily double that number.
Re:On the fence (Score:2, Informative)
Silly analogy. Just because the military buys a jet with your tax money doesn't mean it's your jet. Or even better, just because the government subsidizes a farm, it doesn't mean you own the farm either.
The telcos did in fact pay for the glass & copper that they put in the ground. They do pay for the easements granted by whatever municipality they are running through in the form of taxes. The government giving the telcos a blank check to purchase this stuff is not relevant to this discussion (if it's even true) because there were obviously no restrictions placed on the telcos on what or where they could do with said money, other than having to use it to expand their networks.
Again, I can't believe I'm defending these jackasses, but your information is simply incorrect.
Re:Both sides... (Score:4, Informative)
>>>engineers who would like to define a workable scheme for traffic management
(1) Do what they've been doing since the 80s and 90s: Install fatter or more lines to handle the increasing load. The internet is not like a road with finite space. It keeps growing wider-and-wider-and-wider as technology advances.
(2) Another effective means of managing traffic is by charging for it - use more, pay more. Use less, pay less. This method encourages users to conserve bandwidth via the feedback of reduced billing costs. It also provides extra funds to buy additional wires.
Re:Both sides... (Score:4, Informative)
Biden's from Delaware, the credit and banking capital of the U.S. He's the one that sponsored, introduced, and rallied support for the "anti-bankruptcy" bill which caused many families to lose their homes over the last three years. Under the old bill, homes were protected; under the new bill they were not. Under the old bill people had a safety net to start-over with a clean slate; under the new bill they were screwed to the wall with 40-year-long repayment plans.
Some "man of the people" - he should more properly be called the "man of the credit corporation".
Re:Both sides... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure if you're using the word right. cfi Libertarian Party
EVERY law RESTRICTS a FREEDOM. As does every regulation, "suggestion," edict, mandate, statute, etc...
We already have too many laws. Obama is quite pleased to create more while we need fewer.
For every law that grants a freedom there is an opposite side that is restricted. There are some important freedoms, those we've already outlined. We don't need any more.
Re:Both sides... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, but since many laws protect freedom by interfering with someone else's freedom to interfere with another's freedom, it's not so simple.
Yes, there are too many laws, but it's their quality - not primarily their quantity - that is the real problem. In our system, even striking down a law requires a new law, so there are two, though the effect is zero (or somewhere between 0-1, if only a reform or partial strikedown). However, we also have judges to throw out laws that are successfully challenged in court. And along the way, there are many chances for laws to fail to be installed, in votes in each Congressional chamber, and in presidential vetoes.
Right now, the most obvious governance topic is banking, which suffered from irresponsible deregulation. Without laws restricting it, the banks would make today's crisis permanent, the standard of business. There would be no transparency. We would have an economy as popular to participate in as any Latin American or Eastern European or Central Asian backwater's.
The right amount of the right laws is necessary. Thinking of it as just "too many laws" is like thinking of programming software as "getting rid of the wrong ones or zeroes".
Sorry, but you are over-simplifying (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, but you are over-simplifying the argument. There is not just one definition of Network Neutrality, but three commonly-held definitions.
The main topic link to Network Neutrality on Wikipedia is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Definitions_of_network_neutrality [wikipedia.org] The links you provided are to the sub-topic of Network Neutrality in the United States.
The three definitions are:
Re:On the fence (Score:2, Informative)
If you think there are no good ISPs in your area, then you are in a prime location to start up your own ISP.
Yeah, sure. I'm sorry but you've got no idea. When the population density is really low (like in some rural areas), an ISP doesn't make profit. The cost of servers and equipment compared to the return of investment is so low that you'd probably have to wait 80years to stop paying all the equipment and start making money.
I have no idea how it goes in the US, but I'll tell you how it goes in Spain: When a telco wants to deploy in a highly populated area, they are forced by law to choose also a less populated area and give service there. That guarantees that even in remote areas you've got at least an ISP available.
If free market reigned unrestrained, only highly profitable areas would have internet connection and/or rural areas would have to pay outrageous rates for it.
Re:come on (Score:3, Informative)
Internet policies will effect your life. A 2% (number admittedly pulled out of my ass) increase in oil production will not. If they spent more time talking about repealing the the nuclear fuel reprocessing ban, fine, that would be discussion actually pertaining to energy independence. Things as minor as a few more oil rigs, are nearly off-topic in the energy independence discussion.
Re:Both sides... (Score:1, Informative)
"- Obama will allow those movies, but instead he'll setup a regulated Uncle Sam monopoly - thereby stifling freedom-of-choice."
What are you even talking about?
Re:Both sides... (Score:4, Informative)
Rather the opposite. It makes you more attractive to companies that want to give you credit because you can't declare bankruptcy again for a period of time. An acquaintance of mine got his first offer for a new credit card less than a month after he signed the bankruptcy papers.
If you really want to screw up your credit, use a credit counseling service that negotiates lower payments with your creditors and lets you pay your bills off. Sure you're doing the right thing in actually paying off your bills, but you're poison to the lenders because there's nothing stopping you from doing it again.
Re:Both sides... (Score:3, Informative)
This whole article is really just a distraction to push people to vote Obama, simply because he isn't on record as being against neutrality.
He is on the record as being pro net-neutrality [barackobama.com]. So I'm finding your point confusing. You are conflating the issues of net neutrality and telecom immunity, both important but not directly related. Given that, to my knowledge, there have not been any votes on Net Neutrality in congress, what more could Obama do to show his support of Net Neutrality.