Where the Candidates Stand On Net Neutrality 420
nmpost writes "Net neutrality is one of the biggest issues with regard to the internet today. At the heart of the issues is how much control ISPs will be allowed to have over their networks. Each candidate has come out with a strong position on the matter, and whoever wins will have a drastic effect on the future of the internet. Barack Obama has been a proponent of net neutrality. Under his watch, the FCC has implemented net neutrality rules. These restrictions did not apply to wireless networks, though; a gaping loophole that will be problematic in the future, as mobile internet is exploding in popularity. Until it is addressed, Obama can only be given a barely passing grade with regard to net neutrality. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has come down on the other side of the issue. The former Massachusetts governor strongly opposes net neutrality. According to Politico, Romney believes net neutrality will restrict ISPs, and that they alone should govern their networks. The governor has stated that he wants as little regulation of the internet as possible."
Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality means? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have seen no evidence that any of them do. Republican or demonrat, it makes no difference.
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:4, Insightful)
And those that do lie about what it means to push their agenda (eg, painting NN as a government takeover or new fairness doctrine)
Re: (Score:3)
Yep. You've got to love the Mumbo Jumbo add [youtube.com]. I assume this will degrade into pointless partisan bickering, but what's at stake is your ability to reach places slashdot.org. The anti-net-neutrality crowed would literally give ISPs like AT&T and Comcast the right to censor the web for you, to support their own agenda. It's incredible that so many of our representatives are anti-net-neutrality. On the other side, there's beneficial traffic shaping and various tricks ISPs play to improve the typical us
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. A church is not an ISP, nor is a business who is allowing you to use their Internet connection for free, nor a library, nor any other person or entity that isn't charging you for use of the service. These rules do not apply to them.
Wrong again. The actual rules are fairly straightforward and easy to understand. The first rule is that the company must be transparent about its network management policies. The second is that it may not block anything, and the third is that it may not give anyone preferential treatment. None of these things prevent a company from cutting off your service when your contracted coverage runs out.
See also #1.
Ah, now we get to the point—the magic libertarian theory that competition will somehow fix censorship. Here's the reality:
What an amazing coincidence. That's the first of the three FCC net neutrality rules. Unfortunately, information doesn't help when you're outside DSL range. In most places, your only remaining options are cable (from a single cable company) or a dedicated trunk line. You cannot usefully have a free market when the cost of infrastructure is so high that the market naturally degrades to a monopoly. So you have two choices: liberate all the telephone, cable, and fiber lines and lease them back to any ISP for a line rental fee plus the cost of running a trunk line and dropping a router into the government-owned central office, or regulate the commercial entities so that they cannot screw the customers. Those really are the only two options that can actually work.
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who do lie about it are going further. Verizon is suing the FCC, specifically for the right to choose what content to block, and what to allow. From this article [pcworld.com]:
Talk about twisted... requiring that users have uncensored access to the internet is a violation of corporate freedom of speech? I think I have to go shower now to get the slime I feel all over after reading that.
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Why do we believe that people have a right to buy something that the seller doesn't want to offer?
Everywhere I can think of a rule that someone must sell service they don't want to offer, I see a constant frustration by people who don't feel their right to buy is being met sufficiently mirrored by frustration that a seller cannot provide the service they really want to provide.
I believe you have a right to free speech, but I don't believe you have a right to come into my home and spray paint slogans on my w
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Insightful)
Republican or demonrat, it makes no difference.
Are you saying that they are both equally ignorant? Or that the choice between Romney and Obama would have no impact on this issue?
I'm not sure about the first point, neither one of them has demonstrated Ted Stevens-style ignorance, but the second point is definitely wrong: even if they don't know the full impact of the promises that they make, those promises still influence policy. Legislation will result from this, on one side or the other, if only to keep up appearances of making good with campaign promises.
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The question is whether net neutrality is an unnecessary step to further Internet regulations (like requiring ISPs to police for copyrighted materials), or whether it even matters since they are all so willing to participate with that kind of thing anyway.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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That was an insightful post. My ISP, AT&T, capped my data exactly where they felt it would do the most harm to Netflix. In the meantime, there's no data cap for AT&T U-verse, or their pay-per-view. I had crappy reliability with Vonage, so now I pay AT&T for their more expensive VoIP service instead. The only difference has to be AT&T bias against Vonage packets.
However, there's some hope. I agree with the other poster that content providers like Google will put their dollars behind net
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Insightful)
What is wrong with the idea of getting billed based on the amount of data you consume?
You mean, other than having absolutely fuckall to do with Network Neutrality, and being completely irrelevant to the conversation at hand?
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Insightful)
I will certainly acknowledge that special interests have far more influence than they should, and even more in the wake of Citizens United, but I don't understand this nihilistic approach to politics. If you really believe that election results are completely inconsequential, why are you here commenting on them?
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you really believe that election results are completely inconsequential, why are you here commenting on them?"
What else is he supposed to do? Vote?
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Funny)
Voting just encourages them.
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I think we won't suddenly get better government just by getting the 40% who probably know/care the least to show up.
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:4, Informative)
ISPs (AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast, Verison, and friends) are 100% behind Romney. There are no significant ISPs putting money behind Obama. On the other side we have Microsoft, Google, eBay, Vonage, Netflix, and Amazon, who are all companies that provide content and services over the Internet, and they are 100% behind Obama. In short, the ISPs want to charge the big content providers extra money to be quickly accessible, or even accessible at all, over their network. It's a shakedown by stupid tube maintainers of the corporations whilch provide real value, and a major thread to innovation and smaller content providers. Dorks like TCP inventor Bob Kahn refuse to comprehend that net neutrality is not about regulating how packets are routed, and instead continue to espouse the AT&T view that Google wants to destroy the internet by shackling "network engineers". It's about routing Vonage packets and Netflix packets without purposely destroying their QoS. It's about not being evil.
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Insightful)
ISPs (AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast, Verison, and friends) are 100% behind Romney. There are no significant ISPs putting money behind Obama. On the other side we have Microsoft, Google, eBay, Vonage, Netflix, and Amazon, who are all companies that provide content and services over the Internet, and they are 100% behind Obama.
I guess elections are nothing more than proxy wars between corporate interests.
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Wall Street regulation comes from the financial industry
I think things like the debate on the Consumer Protection Agency show there are meaningful differences in policy between the parties on financial regulation. Neither party is perfectly pure is far from saying that the choice is a false one.
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Can any of you see a politician locking down a Cisco firewall?
I can, and the picture is almost as funny as a BOFH negotiating an international treaty.
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I have seen no evidence that any of them do. Republican or demonrat, it makes no difference.
Heck, plenty of slashdotters can't agree on what Net Neutrality means.
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdotters include a major portion of people with mental issues, who will find reasons to disagree with anything. They couldn't agree that the sky is blue on a clear sunny day. If you're parsing that sentence and trying to figure out why you disagree with it, consider yourself at least somewhat mental.
However, the non-mental slashdot crowd has a strong consensus on the basics of Net Neutrality. This strongly correlates to the subset of net neutrality that has been implemented as policy by the FCC. Net neutrality should not prevent ISPs from treating TCP packets like TCP packets, and UDP packets like UDP packets. It should prevent ISPs from charging content providers a fee for being fast or even accessible on their network. It should prevent them from filtering or censoring legal content. It also should prevent ISPs from purposely harming the QoS of competing services such as Vonage and Netflix. These are the sorts of policies that we generally agree on, and it's what the FCC is enforcing (poorly it seems).
Where reasonable slashdotters often don't agree is Bittorrent. Should ISPs be allowed to purposely slow down any P2P traffic? We don't have a solid consensus. Just because we don't agree on 100% of the details doesn't mean the FCC should not move forward on issues where there is consensus. It's currently doing the right thing, and that will probably be reversed if Romney/Ryan get elected.
Just turned in a term paper on Net Neutrality. (Score:5, Informative)
Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality means?
I have seen no evidence that any of them do.
I just turned in a term paper on Network Neutrality issues and regulatory approaches to them.
One thing I discovered was that Obama (or at least his relevant policy wonk and/or speechwriter) was quite aware of the issues and was coming down strongly on the side of regulating to prevent entertainment/ISP conglomerate oligopolists from using their control of the pipes to strangle their content and services competition and shaft their customers.
Which may not be the right approach. But they did seem to be QUITE up on things.
Relevant Obama quote, from a June 8 2006 podcast:
Re:Just turned in a term paper on Net Neutrality. (Score:4, Insightful)
I just turned in a term paper on Network Neutrality issues and regulatory approaches to them.
Thanks, that's confirmation of the way I see things. Being an Aussie I don't get to see all the US political maneuvering on this issue. However I did see one Fox 'report' looking at NN (at least 6 months ago). It basically came to the conclusion that (paraphrase) "Obama wants to dictate what you can and can't see on the intertubes and the brave ISP's are fighting for your rights". And it was a "news" report, not that loud idiot with a whiteboard. How anyone with the slightest inkling of what this is about can swallow that shit, or worse still repeat it as if it were fact, baffles me.
Similarly there are a lot of posts here claiming that there's no difference between Obama and Romney on the issue. This is simply false, there's a clear distinction between the two policies that even I can see from 10,000 miles away. Claiming they're the same does nothing but imply the claimant is intellectually lazy. Such laziness in politics makes one a perfect target for propaganda presented as news.
PS: If any Obama operatives are reading this, take my name off your fucking spam list, I do not want to "Own a piece of the Democratic convention for as little as $5", I can't vote for your guy and the metaphor of selling political access nauseates me a little.
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Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:4, Insightful)
Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality means? I have seen no evidence that any of them do. Republican or demonrat, it makes no difference.
I'm not sure what evidence you would accept, but Obama has given multiple speeches on technological issues he seems to understand the basic idea of carrier based law. For that matter Romney's comments on this issue seem intelligent though I disagree. I'd say they both more or less do.
However what's unquestionable is that Julius Genachowski, Obama's FCC chair does. And appointing high quality people to regulate the tech sector is the difference between Obama and his predecessors. And is really what we care about. Because whether Obama doesn't or doesn't understand the internet, internet regulation is not going to be his focus. While for the FCC they can focus on that. And there is a big difference between regulations that are in the public interest like Obama's and regulations designed to support corporate America like what Romney proposes.
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When an ISP wants to offer certain filters like Christian fundamentalist, they can, it's just that they'll have to make an open pipe available for the basic price and not put any barriers in the way of the consumer wanting such.
And that's the beauty of NN, there's a basic not artificially restricted internet where it's left to the consumer to decide what extra services he wants to buy.
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Why would you think net neutrality would restrict any of those things? The FCC has implemented net neutrality rules, and none of that was effected. Are you one of those poorly informed people who thinks the FCC wants to keep you from optimizing TCP traffic differently than UDP traffic? Or do you believe AT&T should be allowed to block Vonage?
Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean (Score:5, Informative)
No, go read up. Obama understands and promotes net neutrality, which has happened under his administration through very reasonable FCC rulings. Romney has stated his anti-net-neutrality position, though like most topics, we don't really know what he knows or thinks about this issue. Ryan, on the other hand, has co-sponsored every piece of anti-net-neutrality legislation written for the GOP by AT&T and friends. He clearly understands the issues, and sides with the internet toll trolls.
Ron Paul (Score:4, Interesting)
Where does he rank? Or he even worth mentioning?
Re:Ron Paul (Score:5, Informative)
He's anti, though he claims to be "pro freedom." In actuality all that means is that he opposes regulation.
Re:Which is the only logical stance (Score:5, Insightful)
Regulations on ISP's take away rights.
And granting them monopolies takes away our rights
So, the solution is obvious. Net neutrality would be a given in a truly competitive business environment.
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With any company, you are free not to use their services. Well that us UNLESS regulations say that company has no competition, which is why usually you have but one choice for cable internet...
You are still free to not use their services... until the government requires you to have internet access.
Net neutrality would be a given in a truly competitive business environment.
Although I don't think you meant to say that you are exactly correct. So instead of fighting FOR limitations on the few ISP's you can choose, how about fighting for the right to have more ISPs as competition?
That should be the preferred option, but that's a local govt solution, and it's hard to get enough geeks locally to convince city councils to stop providing monopolies.
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You are still free to not use their services... until the government requires you to have internet access.
A requirement, regulation or law which I would also oppose.
That should be the preferred option, but that's a local govt solution
Now you are catching on to why it's so important to move things away from the federal level.
Yes fighting local government is hard, damn hard. But at least it's possible. With federal matters you have too many layers of indirection to hope to effect real change.
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Granting them monopolies takes away our right to choose the best service. It should not be allowed. And the process of granting those monopolies is riddled with corruption. What the feds should do is to overrule all local legislation that prohibits the municipalities and states or other coops from providing their own services. What we have now is the communication industry making the rules. Most likely it will stay that way until you vote the party (there is only one) out.
The way it changes is, fight from below (Score:3)
What the feds should do is to overrule all local legislation that prohibits the municipalities and states or other coops from providing their own services.
I disagree with that as being what should happen - primarily because as you say, it will not happen.
The only way to fight these local municipalities is, well, locally. We need to get more technologically sophisticated people involved in government. Even if only attending and commenting in local council meetings, just a few technologically knowledgeable
Re:The way it changes is, fight from below (Score:4, Informative)
The only way to fight these local municipalities is, well, locally.
You mean like we did so successfully with school segregation? And Jim Crow? And Voting Rights? Yeah, the locals were real good on that.. When the locals start acting like a bunch of gangsters, sometimes you have to call in the cavalry.
Re:Only regulations create monopolies (Score:5, Insightful)
Were you asleep the day they discussed 'natural monopoly' in EC101?
Re:Only regulations create monopolies (Score:5, Insightful)
People who argue for right-libertarian viewpoints almost never correlate with "people who studied economics" and only rarely with "people who studied at a university".
Indeed, they love to spout off about how economics courses at universities are utterly useless because they are so Keynesian biassed. Which is just a nice way of saying "when every economist in the world points out how batshit insane our ideas are we can accuse them of bias instead of having to argue that inconvenient empirical evidence of theirs".
The worst thing is that they claim to stand for personal freedom. Biggest load of bullshit ever concocted. One-dollar-one-vote is NOT freedom and that is what an unregulated market INEVITABLY becomes. Unregulated capitalism ALWAYS and INEVITABLY can ONLY devolve into outright fascism [syn: corporatism] (which is exactly what is happening in the USA right now).
Capitalist libertarians call the government a necessary evil - socialist libertarians believe it's not necessary at all, and the reason WHY the Randian's think they can't do away with it is exactly because it destroys rather than maximises individual liberty.
Their freedom only exists for those who are already privileged. People who work in sweatshops are NOT doing so by choice - no matter WHAT Ron Paul believes. They are NOT. "Work in hell, or starve outside" is NOT a choice, it's NOT freedom. That's just slavery with a sugarcoating.
Hell even their great intellectual founders would be appalled by what they are doing today. Adam Smith was the first American economist to PROPOSE a state pension fund. He also stated that the ONLY kind of market which is REMOTELY sustainable is one where labour is by far the most expensive product you can buy. Because "high wages are good for society as a whole, while high profit margins for business is bad for society as a whole."
Not to mention - if you read the actual John Locke books on his labour theory of value (which is the basis of both Rand-style capitalism AND communism I shit you not) - and especially his definition of property (which Murray Rothbard quotes at least 10 times in every paper he ever wrote) then you can see just how patently stupid their ideas on property rights are.
Hint: there is NOTHING except the word "man" in there that prevents a beaver from legally owning a beaver-dam.
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"Fascism should more correctly be known as corporatism as it's the alignment of corporate and state power." - Mussolini
All that other stuff, racism etc. - those are optional extras, government and corporations in cahoots rather than government actively POLICING corporations that is the DEFINITION of Fascism and it's stated end-goal.
What Fascism is diametrically opposed to is individual liberty. The REASON for aligning state and corporate power is to create a power structure that is capable of MORE control
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http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7370 [gutenberg.org]
There you go. Locke's theory of value goes: "Only through human labour can value be created". That's why I say it's the basis of both communism and capitalism. Indeed Adam Smith and Murray Rothbard share with Karl Marx a fondness for quoting that.
They just disagreed on what to do about it. From this Locke derived his theory of property which goes: "All natural resources are initially in an unowned state. When a man mixes his labour with a resource, he creates value, and t
Re:Only regulations create monopolies (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sorry but the facts simply don't bare you out. There are "natural monopolies" that is why we have utility companies. Given an open market, the largest players will eventually coalesce into a single all powerful service provider, and because they own the entire net, they will be in a position to call any cost to their service they like. That's why we originally broke up Ma Bell? Remember? Have you noticed the little Bells all getting back together again? Have you noticed the number of mergers between service providers?
The system you speak of no longer exists. It may have at one time, but it hasn't been around any time in the last 50 years. Corporations have the power. They join to concentrate power. They continue to change the environment to discourage small to medium sized business, and funnel all the society's wealth into their coffers. You want to flatten the playing field, then by all means, deregulate. But not until.
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Competition can only flourish to the benefit of the consumers when these companies have to abide by comparable and preferably national rules.
Having them decided at local level is simply highly inefficient for *all* parties involved.
Let companies, as service providers, compete on services rendered for the price the market supports, not by allowing them to do back room deals with strong interests and thus taking away any choice for the consumer.
At all points the
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Yeah, about that, could you please name any private toll road that restricts (or is allowed to restrict) passage to its competitors trucks (other civil construction/transportation contractors)?
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That actually was an issue with the railroads in the early days. It was quite the scandal.
Re:Two can play (Score:5, Insightful)
"Can you name ANY ISP that blocks traffic from any competitors domains as you claim?"
Yes: every ISP/TV provider out there counts Netflix against your bandwidth cap, but not the pay-per-view choices you get through their service. Phone calls are free, but Skype counts against your bandwidth cap. Watching live TV doesn't slow down your internet connection, but streaming a video through Youtube does.
These are the beginnings of non-neutral networks. These are the beginnings of telcos and cable providers cracking down on possible competitors on the content side by leveraging their last-mile assets. At the same time, these large incumbants have multi-billion dollar legacy networks and content assets that prevent any new startup gathering enough cash and clout to make a go at competition on the last-mile end.
We're already seeing where this road leads: the US is falling further and further behind the leaders in the internet race, since the incumbants would rather spend their time cashing out on their legacy networks and strangling (or merging) startups to death rather than compete by building out new technology. This is what happens when you spend 10 years "letting the market govern itself": it doesn't work, and continuing to do nothing is just going to mean that we continue to fail as we have for the last decade.
Oh well, at least the ISPs didn't manage to cock up the stock market, like what happened when we let the banks "govern themselves."
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Entirely different network, not actually an issue under net neutrality.
The internet is a network of networks, and if you can reach it via your internet connection using the internet protocol then it's not an entirely different network. If they were delivering this stuff via another protocol there might be more sympathy for this claim but clearly it's just another internet server. The last mile is the bottleneck and it's the bulk of what I'm paying for. It's also what they have a monopoly on, in many cases literally as they have exclusive right-of-way.
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Paul is "pro-freedom" only when it's consistent with his prejudices. For example, he supports "antisodomy" laws. Consider that next time you're doing something kinky.
Are you sure? (Score:2)
Where and when did Ron Paul support anti-sodomy laws?
Saying you are against something, does not mean you support laws against it. Just that you are against the thing.
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Forget about Paul, he's not going to be President or even Vice President. Ryan scares the bejebus out of me. I'm not particularly happy with abortion as a means of birth control, but I'm a firm believer that the person already here trumps the one who may or may not be coming. Ryan has made it perfectly clear given the chance, he will outlaw all abortion. That includes abortions, related to rape, incest and necessary to save the Mother's life. He wants to pass a law that says a human being exists the instant
Re:Which is the only logical stance (Score:5, Insightful)
You seriously cannot see how Net Neutrality is the enforcement arm for SOPA?
I sure as hell can't.
Net Neutrality means that your ISP cannot discriminate based on content, services, hardware, applications, etc etc etc.
Further, they cannot interfere with your connection because of any of the aforementioned reasons.
SOPA [wikipedia.org] has nothing to do with that.
If you'd care to explain how a law/regulation that prevents discrimination = the copyright police, I'm all ears.
Re:Here's how it works. (Score:4, Insightful)
You'll need someone to check up on ISPs to make sure they're staying neutral, and a bunch of new regulations that define exactly what neutral is.
Not true. The entire point of net neutrality is that ISPs should be a content-agnostic dumb carrier line. The legal framework is identical to that of traditional phone networks, no new definitions required. A neutral carrier has no idea if transmitted data is copyrighted or not, they just keep the network online and collect the monthly bill like a utility company. As a counter-example, imagine that your electric company wasn't a neutral carrier (and could somehow tell what devices were being powered in your home). In this scenario, the electric company would be free to arbitrarily charge you a higher per-KWh rate to power air conditioners even though you're already paying more for the high KWh usage of the AC in the first place.
Note the distinction between WHAT you use the network for vs. usage LEVEL. A neutral carrier can do what they have to about high usage levels to maintain the stability of the network. The big content companies want it to work like cable TV so they can nickel and dime you to death over what you use the network for (think "additional fee to access Facebook" that's awkwardly packaged with other things you don't care about like cable TV channels). However, this opens up a can of worms by making the carrier liable for the content transmitted on their network, which I suspect is part of what is preventing ISPs from going hog wild. It's more prudent for them to toe the line.
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I can't believe you are modded up as informative for this dis-information. Go read about what the FCC has done. They've implemented the most rational parts of net neutrality, and every enforcement action has been over pretty outrageous violations. So, net neutrality is here today. Are you experiencing any of those broken links you talked about, those links that would only be broken if net neutrality were revoked?
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I'm sorry but I completely fail to see how ensuring that the network being made available to everyone equally is a threat to anybodies freedom. In fact I would equate this to water, or gas, or any other basic utility. The vital need for high quality, high speed network access grows by the minute, and allowing the service providers to turn it into a limited resource for the wealthy and powerful only, would eventually ensure a society where the have nots (you and me) would be at the mercy of the haves (as tho
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Where does he rank? Or he even worth mentioning?
He ranks as high as Mr. Magoo.
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Mitt Romney has come down.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeh, but if you wait a week, Romney will endorse Net Neutrality as essential to a free and open internet marketplace. Then if you point out his flip-flop he'll scream 'you're trying to divide us with your hate speech!'.
Seriously Republicans, I know the pickings were slim, but couldn't you have done better than Romney?
Re:Mitt Romney has come down.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when you sell your soul to the crazy extremists. The Republicans embraced and encouraged the deluded fringes of society by spreading lies about "government death panels" and what not. It got them a lot of votes in 2010. But it was a Faustian bargain. The crazies have taken over the party from within, and serious candidates like Gary Johnson and Jon Huntsman don't stand a chance. Instead, we get the likes of Gingrich and Trump and Santorum.
I'm reminded of a point in the 2008 campaigns. McCain was giving a speech, and mentioned Obama. The crowd went wild, screaming things like "Terrorist!" and "Kill Him!". McCain winced, having clearly heard and been bothered by the remarks. But did he speak up? Did he change his campaign, and drop the "terrorist sympathizer" rhetoric? No. In my mind, that marked the death of the GOP. What's left is akin to Old Yeller. Dangerous, violent, and needs to be put down for everyone's sake (figuratively -- we're talking about the party, not the people in it). Let the sane members form a new party. They're being forced out of office by teabagger primaries anyway, and I'm sure the Blue Dog Democrats would join them.
Re:Mitt Romney has come down.... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llef8ZRTWQo [youtube.com]
He did actually speak up. Could he have said more and altered tone? Sure, but he wasn't silent about it.
As a side note, you should really stop trying to label entire groups of people based on douche bag members of that group. Every group has people that the group itself should be ashamed of but that hardly justifies tar and feathering the entire group. That's called applying stereotypes. Two examples of applying stereotypes that you may be familiar with are racism and sexism.
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The Republicans would get less flak for the fringe elements of their side if the reins weren't handed over to them.
Increasingly, you see the Republican party as a whole kowtowing to its fringe elements rather than taking the more sensible, moderate road. It has been this way for years, most notably since Obama first started campaigning, but it has been especially bad since the 2010 elections.
I keep waiting for a responsible adult to stand up and tell the Tea Party fanatics to calm down.
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Re:Mitt Romney has come down.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Global warming denial, irresponsible tax breaks, partisan obstructionism, preventing homosexual marriage, going after contraceptives, etc it's good that most republicans aren't into all those things. However, if they tolerate the crazies and allow them to dictate what the party does, then yes, they are partly to blame.
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That's a separate incident from the one I referred to. Here's a (low quality) video [youtube.com] of what I was talking about. The fact that he once said Obama wasn't a Muslim does not mean that he wasn't embracing the hatred as a means to an end.
Furthermore, I did not stereotype at all. I said there were crazy members that have taken over the Republican party from within, and that since it seems to late to save the party, the remaining sane members should abandon ship and start a new one.
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No, they're tossing the election. Neither side wants a super majority that could be held culpable when things get really exciting.
rotating villain [urbandictionary.com]:
"In American democracy, when the majority party has enough votes to pass populist legislation, party leaders designate a scapegoat who will refuse to vote with the party thereby killing the legislation. The opposition is otherwise inexplicable and typically comes from someone who is safe or not up for re-election. This
Re:Mitt Romney has come down.... (Score:4, Funny)
Mitt does not do 180 degree about faces every week. Once a year, twice tops.
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Seriously Republicans, I know the pickings were slim, but couldn't you have done better than Romney?
Yes, they could have gone with Paul or Huntsman, but they were told neither of them had any chance of winning.
They also could have done worse than Romney though, remember everyone else who ran for the republican nomination? Santorum. Perry. Cain. Bachmann. I mean, on net neutrality, maybe some of them would have been better. For instance, maybe Cain would have accidentally been in favor of net neutrality. The issue is more complex than geography, [thinkprogress.org] he might have vetoed a bill he meant to sign or v
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Why would he be afraid? He is an agent for the wealthiest people on the planet. People like Paul Ryan are paid to steal the wealth of the middle class and give that wealth to their masters. Paul Ryan approaches this task with sincerity which fools some people into thinking he is a sincere, decent human being. That is far from the truth. If you are a member of the middle class, he is sincerely going to fuck you over, again and again, until you have nothing left to take, that is all.
Net Neutrality /will/ restrict ISPs (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Net Neutrality /will/ restrict ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
You mention auto regulation. Not sure why. Cars are much safer than they have ever been, fuel efficiency is better than ever (and will continue to increase due to regulation). Cars have not increased at a faster pace then inflation. They properly regulated auto manufacturing industry is a perfect example of how things SHOULD be done.
Re:Net Neutrality /will/ restrict ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
1. If someone thinks the regulations we have are bad, the solution isn't no regulation, but good regulation
2. The oil, loan, and investment industries are mostly self regulated, as their regulatory bodies do not have the manpower or resources to actually verify the things they do.
Hence the constant string of disasters in finance and the dumping of unfiltered wastes by the oil/fracking and mining industries.
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>Barebone car with a very efficient engine would drive miles on a teaspoon of gas but it won't exist because cars have to have a shitload of safety stuff
I would be all for removing safety regulation if the only risk involved is to yourself. Just as you can buy a motorcycle if you want - even though it's provably far less safe for you to drive than a car.
But it's not just YOUR safety at stake, many (maybe most) of the safety regulations are to reduce the risk you pose to MY safety to reasonable levels. De
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Preventing businesses from being GACAHs is the first step down the slippery slope to socialism!
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Government regulation is why most of the U.S. has a single cable company and a single phone company as their only choices for Internet service. Municipal governments have granted local cable and phone monopolies. Because of this artificial duopoly, government-enforced net neutrality is needed.
No; most of the US has a single cable and phone company because wire infrastructure is insanely expensive to install and maintain. The municipal monopoly deals say things like "if you service the center of town, you also have to service every house in the far edges". Getting rid of those monopolies would mean one or (in large cities) maybe two cable companies serving rich, densely populated regions, and zero companies servicing the rest.
Don't believe me? Surely some libertarian utopia in Texas or New Ham
Let's make a deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
Government should regulate the internet as little as possible? Great! Let's make a deal! You repeal copyright, completely, and invalidate all communications-related patents and we'll tolerate ISPs that want to favor their own IP TV over that of competitors.
No? Yeah. Thought so.
Or to put it as succinctly as possible: Romney wants as little regulation of the internet as possible? Bullshit.
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If you are really good at creating something, you will make money without resorting to imaginary property. Be it live performances, lectures, donations, guidance, etc. Will the death of imaginary property mean the end of a lot of mediocrity? Yes. Will it be the death of truly great artists and authors? Of course not.
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I have. I write open source code. I've released some of it into the public domain.
What was your point again?
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little regulation AKA (Score:4, Insightful)
As little regulation as possible AKA no regulation for the companies, but real name policies, regulations on how we can use those connections, and everything monitored.
Translations for non-Americans (Score:2)
Anti-neutrality (a.k.a. anti-regulation)
My friends / owners / suzerains already control that industry.
Pro-neutrality (a.k.a. pro-regulation)
My enemies control that industry, or my decision is still for sale (applies to government officials only).
A compromise (Score:2)
A) Preserve property rights
B) Protect the internet
C) Keep the internet free
What I propose is that net neutrality be built into the requirements for ISPs to obtain federal/state/local funding. Don't want to implement net neutrality? Don't take taxpayer dollars. Want to take taxpayer dollars for your ISP? Implement net neutrality.
Its the best of both worlds.
um ... (Score:3)
So the problem is that there's still the question of what exactly 'net neutrality' means by the time someone works it into legislation. Odds are, there will be some glaring loopholes put in my some staffer who the week after it passes gets hired by a corporation or lobbyist organization.
For instance ... if we must pass all 'legal' traffic, what about e-mail that complies with the CAN-SPAM act? Would we be allowed to filter that out, or does it have to go through to the customer's mailboxes?
What I'm pissed
they all use public land (Score:3)
Public land is heavily used by all ISPs. The ones that connect to your house they use public land to get to your house (the road system) while you could say that is not something that belongs in the discussion because it is not giving them money. I would say that public land which connects everybody together is an EXTREMELY valuable asset and the fact the public owns it is the reason we easily added infrastructure we take for granted. To allow private use of OUR land is a massive huge handout.
Same thing
So we're screwed either way (Score:2)
One more reason why I'm not voting. At this point I'm not choosing, I'm enabling.
Obama says he supports Net Neutrality, then gives cart blanche to the well funded carriers. Landline Internet? Ha! One of my techs found out his Comcast service is capped at 200GB per month.
At least Romney is honest about his corporate ties, which is the biggest reason not to vote for him or any Republican. The other being they are on a similar Moral Crusade just like the Democrats. Unless you buy that "only sensible/inte
We must bear this election stupidness. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's silly season again and the proponents of each side must make fools of themselves once more. We must hear again why this one is a saint, and the other a demon - and the equivalent counter arguments while the vast majority in the middle by trying to find the least worst course split the difference in a way that seems semirandom. For once let me just lay out our folly in a nonpartisan way.
1. We don't want one party in power because they do things. When they do things, it's always bad. That's why lately the executive and legislative branches are typically governed by different parties. When we give the executive to one party, we give the legislative to the other, and we trade them back and forth to ensure the Justice branch has balance because it's appointed by the executive, or we at least split the House and Senate. God help us should one party gain control of all three long enough to be free to press their agenda through all three branches of government. That would be the end of liberty no matter who held the reins. The "do nothing" accusation is laughable, as that is exactly what we want - and yet it's a major factor in the campaigns.
2. In a regime change the exiting regime raids the treasury. The toll for this has grown to trillions of dollars per time. This is an executive branch thing, and the legislature is powerless to stop it. You may expect another financial crisis around election time that requires emergency action of the Federal Reserve. Some bankers and funds will make hay, but for some odd reason those responsible for managing your retirement funds will not be among them. And so that money you paid in will be worth less even than if you had stuffed it into your mattress, even with matching funds from your employer. They are stealing even the benefit of your own forethought, and forcing you into it by limiting your available choices of funds to invest in for your retirement.
3. Federal funds are used to influence elections. Whether it's bridges to nowhere, jobs stimulating federal programs, or disaster relief that seems to be where the money goes. That seems to be the only place the money goes. Being the hand that guides this funnel seems to be the only reason to seek office any more, and it's a circular chain that's self-reinforcing. The entire federal budget is nothing but campaign money now, defense spending included. The lobbyists are past or future Representatives or Senators, or representatives of same, and it's a revolving door. It's The Worm Ouroboros, eating itself to our doom.
4. Whoever wins is going to sell us out to those Hollywood cokeheads for campaign money again. Neither side is in favor of true network neutrality, open Internet, breaking the backs of the mobile provider and cable TV and Internet provider monopolies. What they're in favor of is campaign money to get the power that they cede to the people who gave them the money to get the power. Both sides take the Hollywood money, and after the election the bill comes due. They'll get their Justice Department appointments, or copyright re-extension, or software patents, or secret international trade agreements or whatever it is they're looking for this time because if you buy a ticket you get to ride the ride and they're smart enough to buy both tickets. The only thing legislators or executives of either party care about the rule of law is that they're exempt, and they can use it for fundraising.
5. Neither main party has a plausible plan for balancing the budget, delivering the promises of social programs like Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Nor could they. The problem has become insoluble without radical new thinking that would be political death to propose. This will be the cause of the devaluation of the dollar, because we must print money to keep these promises, which then void the promises as the money paid becomes worth less. That's actually not as dire as you might think, but it's bad. It is, however inescapable as the public debt cannot cont
Why Not Do it Ourselves? (Score:3)
What's really stopping people from forming a "Mesh Network" out in the wild? Seriously, the best thing about the Internet is that it's just content - the infrastructure is something we can replace if we really need to - and while you'll need to wait for Big Names to come over if you want them, a lot of the general community and information we share can be migrated to any network.
I have a router, neighbor has a router, etc. We build out some infrastructure in the form of DNS servers, web hosting, etc; throw in a couple Wikipedia copies, and expand the network out into surrounding areas.
The problem does come when expanding beyond city limits or other areas where you get miles and miles between yourself and your closest neighbor, but there are solutions to these issues (or some I'm led to believe...I do have a phone that talks to a satellite...)
So, what would be the real hurdle here? What could we do as a community? What happens if the ISPs become so oppressive that we have no choice?
Re:Romney Is Full of %*#% (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama talks out his ass too. The police state has increased dramatically under his watch. Whistleblowers, leakers, spying, assassinations, erosion of civil liberties, illegal wars, you won't get anything positive out of either of them.
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It's funny to hear lame complaints about how we live in a "police state", If we did, you wouldn't be able to complain about it!
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And I doubt you can really say what the Republican party really stands on any one issue, anymore its made out of 3 major camps, you've got the "neo" conservatives which believe in having a strong offensive military and government control over the economy, you've got the tea partiers who want the big milita
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What's interesting about your post is that you assume anyone who opposes Obama MUST, AUTOMATICALLY, WITHOUT QUESTION be a Romney supporter.
There are plenty of us who don't like and won't vote for either of them...because they're two sides of the same goddamn coin.
Net Neutrality is NOT smaller government (Score:3, Insightful)
Then, Romney should be in favor of net neutrality since he's in favor of smaller government? I don't understand why anyone will vote for this man when he clearly wants to increase regulation?
None of that made any sense.
Net neutrality is about putting controls on ISP's, controls that you WILL come to regret later as they add on more controls to limit what ISP's can do. Every regulation has begat more limiting regulations, often far beyond the original scope where regulations started.
That is why it is tota
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How can you support a man that wishes to take away the right of an ISP to properly manage a network?
You seem to confuse the right of the ISP to properly manage a network with the right of the ISP to manage the network content.
I'm all for the former. Not so much for the latter.
Nor am I (Score:2)
You seem to confuse the right of the ISP to properly manage a network with the right of the ISP to manage the network content.
YOUR confusion is that they are unrelated.
An ISP does not care to manage network content today because that involves more work, which eats into profit.
So then Network Neutrality is passed, which adds whatever regulation the government feels is most appropriate for an ISP. Blocks on government disliked IP addresses. No torrent traffic allowed. So on and so forth.
All this is wrapped
Re:Net Neutrality is NOT smaller government (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Net Neutrality is NOT smaller government (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the case of Wickard V. Filburn (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn [wikipedia.org] ) which took the phrase "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes" in the US constitution and made it somehow apply to a guy growing wheat for his own consumption on his own farm. If something that basic can be so misinterpreted, what can't be misinterpreted?
Re:Net Neutrality is NOT smaller government (Score:4, Insightful)
Then oppose regulatory over-reach. Oppose misrepresentation of standing laws. Fight court battles and write letters to congressmen about these issues. And stop turning every specific issue into a general one for whatever libertarian ideal you hold - there is nothing more toxic to effective opposition against bad laws then people who reframe every issue into some broader meta-fight, since it distracts from real discussion about the very specific issue's being addressed.
These things don't just happen - people let them happen. Our system of government is pretty uniquely equipped to prevent slippery slope fallacies from happening, but it doesn't work if when the vote is scheduled no one turns out for it.
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There is a bigger picture, there is a broader history, the entirety of history simply screams that government regulations don't work. The history of
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true that, never underestimate the ingenuity of the govt when it tries to justify its existence and expand its scope.
What is particularly bad in the US legal framework is that these fucking ridiculous rulings filling ad hoc political need (like this one, cracking down on smartasses not playing ball with central planners during the great depression) instead of being revised, trashed, buried and forgotten become de facto laws themselves and pollute the legal system to eternity.
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I believe some regulations and laws are very sensible.
Ok, which ones? Other than the basic ones such as restrictions on force and fraud, meaning laws against murder, theft, (real) rape, etc. Which regulations do you think have been beneficial and haven't been twisted?
Oppose those, then. As I said, whether or not we have things such as net neutrality, the government will always try to take away our rights. Regulations aren't what creates these laws; the politicians do, and they're elected by the people. Eternal vigilance is what is needed. Stop opposing unrelated things out of fear that it's some sort of slippery slope.
Ok, but show me which ones won't be misinterpreted. Honestly if I was one of the ones approving the brand new US constitution I don't think that I could have ever dreamed that those words would have been taken in such a way to prevent the personal consumption of wheat by the federal government
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Or how about this one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_v._United_States [wikipedia.org]
Or this one? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/justices-approve-strip-searches-for-any-offense.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
Or what about the FDA raiding "raw milk" sellers? http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/08/the-latest-raw-milk-raid-an-attack-on-food-freedom/243635/ [theatlantic.com] Do you really think that those approving the bill creating the FDA would
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If ISPs do start throttling and the markets are still free, a market opens up, when a market opens up one of two things happens:
A) A new company comes in existence to capitalize on that market
or
B) E