Amy Klobuchar Calls For Net Neutrality 'Guarantee' In 2020 Presidential Announcement (dailydot.com) 161
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said she wanted to "guarantee" net neutrality for all Americans during her 2020 presidential campaign kickoff speech. "[T]he senator bringing it up in her announcement marked perhaps the most high-profile stage the issue has had in terms of recent presidential politics," reports The Daily Dot. From the report: The Minnesota senator brought up the issue among other technology platform goals, including privacy and cybersecurity. "Way too many politicians have their heads stuck in the sand when it comes to the digital revolution. 'Hey guys, it's not just coming. It's here.' If you don't know the difference between a hack and Slack, it's time to pull off the digital highway," she said. "What would I do as president? We need to put some digital rules of the road into law when it comes to people's privacy."
She added: "For too long the big tech companies have been telling you, don't worry, we've got your back," she said. "While your identities, in fact, are being stolen and your data is being mined. Our laws need to be as sophisticated as the people who are breaking them. We must revamp our nation's cybersecurity and guarantee net neutrality for all. And we need to end the digital divide by pledging to connect every household to the internet by 2022, and that means you, rural America." Other Democrats seeking the 2020 nomination have shown support for net neutrality in the past. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) tweeted late last month about reports suggesting that telecom investments have not risen since the FCC's controversial repeal of net neutrality, calling the decision "another handout to big corporations & telecom giants."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also told a crowd in Iowa last month that she believed "in net neutrality the same way I believe everybody should have access to electricity," according to the Washington Post.
She added: "For too long the big tech companies have been telling you, don't worry, we've got your back," she said. "While your identities, in fact, are being stolen and your data is being mined. Our laws need to be as sophisticated as the people who are breaking them. We must revamp our nation's cybersecurity and guarantee net neutrality for all. And we need to end the digital divide by pledging to connect every household to the internet by 2022, and that means you, rural America." Other Democrats seeking the 2020 nomination have shown support for net neutrality in the past. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) tweeted late last month about reports suggesting that telecom investments have not risen since the FCC's controversial repeal of net neutrality, calling the decision "another handout to big corporations & telecom giants."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also told a crowd in Iowa last month that she believed "in net neutrality the same way I believe everybody should have access to electricity," according to the Washington Post.
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Klobuchar Rhymes with "Frau Blucher" (Score:2)
Not sure if horses whiny when her name is spoken, though.
Re: Klobuchar Rhymes with "Frau Blucher" (Score:2)
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Everybody loves aids. (Score:5, Funny)
Is that before or after she beats her aides.
Re: Everybody loves aids. (Score:2)
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Define what you mean (Score:4, Insightful)
If by "Net Neutrality" you mean I cannot pay for prioritization or some kinds of traffic, nor have free delivery of some rate listed video over mobile connections - then I, and millions of others, want no part of it thank you very much.
The kind of Network Neutrality people do want - equal ability to access any location on the internet - we enjoy already, and all you can do is fuck it up if you mess with it.
Re:Define what you mean (Score:5, Interesting)
Good definitions are important.
Does it ban QoS? Does it leave things so nebulous and undefined, nobody will know the actual rules until 200 million are spent on beltway law firms? Like the last version?
Re:Define what you mean (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it does not.
Again, no it does not. The millions those beltway law firms spent was in an effort to circumvent the rules, which will happen with any rules. Fuck them. The fact that people break rules (and laws) does not mean we should not have them. It just means they need to be enforced better.
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The fact that people break rules (and laws) does not mean we should not have them.
Actually it very much means that! If you know a law will be widely disobeyed, it should never be passed. It degrades respect for the rule of law, and punishes those that obey laws.
We should strive to have as few laws as we can, while keeping the field as level as possible. Unfortunately lawyers are horrible at making laws.
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Don't be silly.
There are tens of thousands of murders every year. They happen in every state. So the law against murder is widely disobeyed.
Should we have laws against murder?
There are over 20 million speeding tickets given each year. Does this mean we shouldn't have no speed limits?
One in six children will be sexually abused b
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Would you please provide a cogent explanation of why paid prioritization is a good thing for consumers? If you can make a reasonable argument for that, I'd really like to hear it.
How is this not dirt simple to comprehend (Score:1, Troll)
Would you please provide a cogent explanation of why paid prioritization is a good thing for consumers?
Very simple: I would like to be able to pay some additional fee to designate traffic from any source of my choosing to be of higher priority than other traffic.
To put that in simpler terms, I want Netflix to stream as fast as possible to the possible detriment of random browsing or other update traffic from my house.
Why is it so hard to understand people would like to watch Netflix without skipping just b
Re:How is this not dirt simple to comprehend (Score:5, Informative)
Very simple: I would like to be able to pay some additional fee to designate traffic from any source of my choosing to be of higher priority than other traffic.
To put that in simpler terms, I want Netflix to stream as fast as possible to the possible detriment of random browsing or other update traffic from my house.
Umm.. no. That's not what Paid Prioritazion, in the contest of this pissing contest called Net Neturality is about.
What it is about is this: "Gee, Netflix, if you don't want your packets mysteriously chopped up and sent out at random you must pay me One Billion Dollars! Muahahah!"
It's not about YOU paying for YOUR traffic faster. It's about Amazon getting preferential treatment over Joes Internet Bait shop. Or Netflix getting "QoS'd" to hell because Comcast would rather push their streaming instead of Netflix. Unless, of course, Joe's Internet Bait Shop paying up some ridiculous fees on top of what they already pay their hoster. Ditto netflix.
None of this is for our (the comsumer's) benefit.
People are so misinformed on this subject it makes the head spin.
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Don't lump him in with the other plebs.
Re:How is this not dirt simple to comprehend (Score:5, Interesting)
That's quite an amount of umbrage - at your narrative being shown to be complete corporatist bullshit. One that ignores the very real history of ISP's blocking competing services, or extorting Netflix to pay up least they be throttled.
Re:How is this not dirt simple to comprehend (Score:5, Interesting)
That's never been on offer. What has been is that Crappee media inc. can pay your ISP to make sure Netflix never outperforms them on your internet connection. Does it still sound good.
It also means that your ISP can start dropping packets from Netflix and then you can pay them to allow it to perform the way it used to.
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Time marches on, competition isn't what it once was, and some businesses have been busy "innovating" exciting new ways to screw the customer over.
Re: How is this not dirt simple to comprehend (Score:1, Insightful)
You can manage this at your own router for free using QoS software. You don't need to pay an ISP for this.
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What you want is called Quality of Service (QOS) controls. That's fine. Everyone wants that, because anything realtime breaks without it. Prioritize the data that needs to arrive promptly over the data that doesn't. You get to use the max bandwidth you paid for, and data gets prioritized so the time sensitive data comes through first.
The big ISPs want the right to slow down whatever sites they choose, and demand payment to remove the limits. You might have a 100 Mbps connection, but Netflix is going to be c
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...we will live in a Socialist Utopia of free beer, free porn, and free internet!
There are some stupid comments here, but this one might be the stupidist.
Net Neutrality MUST eliminate paid prioritization (Score:5, Informative)
Follow this through with me.
Suppose AT&T strikes a crooked smoke filled back room deal with Netflix. AT&T says that if Netflix pays it some extortion money, then Netflix traffic will have a good connection to AT&T customers watching Netflix. Now Netflix is not just going to eat this cost. All of Netflix customers end up paying for it. Including Netflix customers using, say, Verizon. So Verizon customers watching Netflix are subsidizing AT&T customers watching Netflix.
Next, Verizon strikes a crooked extortion deal with HBO so that HBO pays Verizon to ensure that HBO traffic reaches HBO's Verizon customers okay. Gee, that's a nice video streaming service you've got there. It would be a shame . . . but now AT&T customers watching HBO are subsidizing Verizon customers watching HBO.
None of this is needed. All it does is raise everyone's prices, while obscuring the true costs.
If AT&T needs to build more network infrastructure to support my Netflix watching then CHARGE ME for it!!! I'm AT&T's customer. I'm going to pay to build out AT&T's network either way. So just charge me for it. AT&T needs to build out its network to support the 21st century. So does everyone else. And thus customers using that bandwidth should reasonably pay to build and operate the network, plus some reasonable profit. That's capitalism.
What AT&T and Verizon, and others, should do: Focus on being the biggest, bestest, dumb pipes there are! Nice dumb pipes that route traffic efficiently and smoothly. That's what people are wanting when they sign up. Despite AT&T's service agreement having terms saying that AT&T can sneak in the middle of the night and steal your and your familiy's organs, unless your cable tv company has already harvested them first. And the FCC allows such conditions.
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It would be good to split up companies that own both content and infrastructure, as they have a built in bias that screws up free market competitiveness. But since that is unlikely to happen any time soon, we need to have enforceable net neutrality in the meantime.
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but now AT&T customers watching HBO are subsidizing Verizon customers watching HBO.
AT&T customers already subsidize HBO since AT&T owns them [wikipedia.org]. I'm sure they won't bundle HBO with my internet bundle and keep trying to sell me a land line though. Synergy.
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The root of this problem is that you have massive broadband monopolies in the US. If Netflix doesn't work on AT&T it's not like customers can just go somewhere else, because chances are they only have one provider in their area.
Contractual organ clause! I love it. (Score:2)
...service agreement having terms saying that AT&T can sneak in the middle of the night and steal your and your family's organs, unless your cable TV company has already harvested them first. And the FCC allows such conditions.
Make license agreements great again!
PS - I agree wholeheartedly.
The bottom line: metering always affects the bottom line. The heavier and more convoluted the more costly.
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Both (Score:2)
I speak for the freedom of all to get the internet service they want, for whatever purpose they want it.
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so you'd be fine with me, as a streaming provider, being able to pay your ISP so my bits go faster than Netflix? If not I'm going to assume that the actual answer to the question you breezed by is "as a consumer".
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... so my bits go faster to you than Netflix's bits, I should have said, to be clear.
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The ISP promises you a bit rate. If they don't give it, that's fraud.
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Try reading what I wrote, not what your imaginary opponent wrote.
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I'm trying to get clarification. You said "if I cannot pay for prioritization" and I'm trying to nail down what you want to be able to prioritize - the bits coming from your ISP to yourself or the bits going from someone else's ISP to them. If you feel that the latter is so clearly not what you meant that it is silly of me to need to ask, that's fine, just say so. But I've seen more "obviously silly" interpretations turn out to be what the poster meant, so I prefer not to make assumptions.
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I don't want paid prioritization of one entity's service compared to an equivalent service. Ie, Netscape and Hulu should have the same prioritization as all other video streaming services. However it does make sense to prioritize a class of services over a link, as long as it's not done to favor the link owner's own service.
Re:Define what you mean (Score:4, Insightful)
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NN in the Obama-sense of the word means regulating existing providers so new providers and actual competitions stands no chance to comply with the regulation.
I also want pre-2010 Net Neutrality which the tech world then defined as no messing (QoS or zero rating without my consent) with the traffic. Then Obama changed it to: sure zero rating is allowed as long as you have FTC overseeing what the FCC did. Then Trump completely removed those rules but left FCC oversight removed.
Re:Define what you mean (Score:5, Insightful)
The kind of Network Neutrality people do want - equal ability to access any location on the internet - we enjoy already
Tell that to the Madison River Communications customers who were blocked from using a competing VoIP service until the FCC stepped in. Or the Comcast customers who were blocked from using BitTorrent until the FCC stepped in. Or the Comcast customers whose service was throttled (i.e. less than equal access) when attempting to reach Netflix until Netflix caved and agreed to pay for a service that Comcast was already being compensated for (via subscription fees). Or even little developers like Panic Inc., who found themselves getting throttled by Comcast [panic.com].
Ever since cable Internet was classified as an information service in the early 2000s, we've seen one bad actor after another cropping up (though Comcast is easily the worst) and it's been a constant battle to keep them in check. An FCC that regularly asserted and reasserted its authority to enforce neutrality—despite cable being classified as an information service—through both Bush's and Obama's administrations was our best line of defense. With Trump's FCC openly abdicating its authority and most US addresses lacking access to more than one cable/fiber broadband service, we have neither regulations nor market forces protecting us.
all you can do is fuck it up if you mess with it.
You seem to be under the incorrect assumption that the status quo is to NOT have neutrality. You couldn't be more wrong.
When dial-up was the king of the hill, we had neutrality because the Internet ran over POTS, all of which was classified as a telecommunications service thanks in large part to the AT&T breakup. When cable was classified as an information service in the early 2000s, the FCC issued statements making it clear that they intended to continue enforcing neutrality, despite the change in classification. When the enforceability of those documents was challenged in the late 2000s, the FCC rewrote them as rules so that they'd be enforceable. When those rules were challenged as being beyond the FCC's authority, the FCC reclassified cable as a telecommunications service, as per their authority. Again and again, net neutrality has been fought for and preserved for the last several decades, and the FCC has continued to do its best to enforce neutrality against bad actors who would try to abuse their special position between consumers and the outside world.
The FCC's 2017 decision to throw out all of their prior work isn't a restoration to how things were: it's a final step in a long war the cable industry has been waging to end the status quo we've enjoyed up to this point.
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That free lunch you're looking for turns out to be fairly expensive.
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Straw man much? People aren't talking about banning QoS for classes of traffic when they talk about Net Neutrality. They're talking about the carrier using its middleman behavior to steer consumers toward some providers of services over competitors providing the same kind of service.
Wary of Populism (Score:5)
Net Neutrality was a bullet point in the campaigns of many Democratic candidates last year, even those I'm sure have little to no understanding or interest in the issue. If a politician doesn't demonstrate a deep understanding of something beyond "we need to do this for jobs and to secure America's future" then they don't know or care about it (or aren't being honest) and I count it as pandering. We need less pandering and more fixing of actual problems, which are legion. If Klobuchar said "stop the FCC's regulatory capture by the corrupt telecom oligopoly" THEN I'd pay attention.
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The US health care system was not dismantled in any way. The system at the time was seriously broken and parts of Obamacare were widely supported by both parties (removing pre-existing conditions as an excuse to deny insurance for example).
Trump was 50% responsible for the shutdown, or had you not noticed that. If you think one party is solely responsible then you are too partisan to make a good argument. I see the Republicans as having lost their minds for doing a 180 on their opposition to Trump to then
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The only serious party left is the Voter Apathy Party.
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If a politician doesn't demonstrate a deep understanding of something ...
As long as a politician votes the way you want, why do you care if they understand the issues?
You need to have realistic expectations. 99% of the bills are not even read before they vote on them.
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Many bills are hundreds of pages in length, and changes and amendments are made right up to the vote.
Most congresspeople have only a hazy idea of what they are voting for, and "understanding the issues" makes little difference.
"Laws are like sausages. It is better to not watch them being made." -- Otto von Bismarck
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Voters don't understand things like "regulatory capture" and we're in a political climate where too many voters just want to know if someone is for or against regulation. So candidates may understand these issues while not actually voicing it that way.
Good grief (Score:4, Funny)
Which is the shorter list - Democratic politicians who are (or are expected to be soon) running for president, or those who are not planning to run for president?
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Which is the shorter list - Democratic politicians who are (or are expected to be soon) running for president, or those who are not planning to run for president?
The really short list is the announced candidates with an actual shot at winning.
Yesterdays news? (Score:2)
Amy made her big announcement yesterday - how come Slashdot is only caught up to it today?
Re: Yesterdays news? (Score:2)
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Amy made her big announcement yesterday - how come Slashdot is only caught up to it today?
Because the news story was sent to Slashdot using an internet connection where Slashdot traffic was heavily deprioritized.
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Re:This the same woman (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, I'd say he was one of those people who are completely unashamed about their ability to understand the impact that presentation can have on the effectiveness of a message. For instance, calling someone a fucking retard is more likely to convey an impression of you than the person to whom you're referring.
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Wow. Are you still one of those fucking retards who are completely unashamed about their maliciously ignorant confusion of weather with climate? REALLY?!
Oh man you can't even deal with someone disagreeing with you, and you go around insulting other people's intellect ? That's something else indeed.
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Your stupid comment shows you don't understand the difference between climate and weather. If you can't understand something a child does, you are an idiot. There's no disagreement. You are WRONG.
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You are WRONG. And the fact that you don't admit you are wrong makes you a valid target for insults, because rationality doesn't work on you.
Well that's certainly persuasive. Would you care to start insulting my ancestral line next ?
But as to being right or wrong it's an interesting choice to place yourself on let's read from theTHE BOOK OF THE CLIMATE APOCALYPSE
James Hansen predicting Manhattan being underwater
https://www.salon.com/2001/10/... [salon.com]
Or particularly ironic with the predictions of the end of snow
http://www.climatedepot.com/20... [climatedepot.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
50 million climate refugees anyone ?
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
For som
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You're still confusing weather with climate, dipshit.
Nope but you have just demonstrated conclusively you don't know what the difference or the fact that there are different types of climate.
this is discouraging (Score:3)
The thought that net neutrality will be an issue for the 2020 presidential election instead of being put to bed this year is very discouraging. The speed increase I get when using a VPN connection with streaming services is steadily increasing.
On a related note, I'm having frequent connection issues, up to a few times a week now for around an hour at a time, using multiple major public DNS systems including Cloudflare, Google, and OpenDNS. Interestingly, I can get to them through the VPN when I can't get to them directly. I believe my provider is interfering with competitive DNS systems that are taking away information that my provider sells.
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It's been happening for at least two years. Providers are aware of it but don't give a damn.
Basically it comes down to a failed attempt at ddos mitigation by abusing recursion and glue records. When you ask for foo.bar.com, you're given different results then if you traversed the entire path.
Specifics are fairly guarded secrets but by dampening reuests directed at GTLD and root name servers they believe it protects them. Akamai and Amazon go so far as to reroute your requests through the worst possible
I'm voting for... (Score:3)
So I'm waking through the airport and someone is announcing her for president in the middle of a blizzard, it was pretty impressive.
She gets my vote just for not being afraid of the weather.
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There was a caaaameraaa to stand in front of.
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Blizzards are mainly due to high winds (35MPH+) and poor visibility, but not necessarily a lot of snowfall. We had one on Feb 7th, where the snowfall was only about an inch. That one was what they call a ground blizzard, which blows snow around that had already fallen.
Halloween '91... now THAT was a proper blizzard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Privacy? (Score:2)
Back when Facebook and Twitter came out, I looked into it. I remember Zucherberg stating that they make their money selling your data.
So, I never signed up. Likewise, my 17yro grandaughter here does not do it either. Why would I want to have that company use MY data?
On the other hand, if FB was not allowed to use your data, it would go belly up shortly.
I wonder if Amy Kochublar is on F.B.? I wouldn't know. But if she is (Twitter is similar), the what the hell is she complaining about?
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Are you seriously unable to understand privacy and net neutrality are different issues?
Welcome back (Score:2)
More NN laws to keep a monopoly telco in place.
Net Neutrality is an out of date idea (Score:1)
When websites, not ISPs, are the ones censoring people through double standards and selective enforcement of rules, sometimes of rules that don't even exist, Net Neutrality is demonstrably irrelevant.
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If that was actually a problem, you need Net Neutrality to solve it. Because Net Neutrality means the new competitors with fairer (to you) enforcement practices can appear and grow.
Not having Net Neutrality means all those sites you hate for banning you can stop those competitors from getting decent service, and thus those competitors never take off.
I hate to tell you this, but.... (Score:2)
nobody cares. It's a nerd issue. It's not a campaign issue that will resonate with voters, most of whom have no idea what net neutrality is even about. You can say, "It's all about sticking it to the Man and those big, bad, evil corporations!" and you'll get a vaguely positive response. But as a campaign issue, it sucks. Her candidacy is already dead in the water.
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I hate to tell you this, but one tiny part of a candidate's platform is not a candidate's entire platform.
This was the bit that was tech-related, so it's on Slashdot.
Pass it now, what's the problem? (Score:2)
Why wait until the election? There's broad based support in favor of it, and it was a travesty that the unelected body like FCC got to decide on this in the first place (I wonder what Obama had in mind when he enacted NN shortly before the end of his presidency). You're a lawmaker, make this a fucking law of the land. 100% guaranteed Trump will sign.
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100% guaranteed Trump will sign.
You're kidding, right?
Also, there's a 100% chance McConnell won't let it come up for a vote.
If you want to have fun.... (Score:3)
Ask her what "net neutrality" actually means.
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"If you don't know the difference between a hack and Slack, it's time to get off the digital highway,"
SLACK!
Anyway, why does every women entering the race have such an atrocious civil rights record (for a Democrat). She's almost as bad as Harris. I don't care so much about phony tech cred, but claiming you're some kind of civil rights hero because apparently racism and sexism are the beginning and end of all civil rights issues, so it's ok if you shit on every other part of it for your entire career up until 201
I know Amy; read the most insightful post: (Score:1)
I've worked on Amy's campaign, since the 1st time she ran. She will not win:
- She is a moderate, while Americans want things to get done in their 50yr dysfunctional government they do not want to elect moderates anymore. Even a somewhat conservative democrat like Amy who 60 years ago would could have been Republican if they weren't so racist (they were much so worse back then, Millennial's heads would explode.) She is a law and order prosecutor type; that is her background... total opposite of Trump, more l
Propositions (Score:2)
Privacy or neutrality? (Score:2)
Why is she conflating privacy concerns with net neutrality? Any chance she knows the difference between the two? Probably not.
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She isn't. She's listing several issues. After all, you didn't think she conflated cybersecurity, privacy and net neutrality because you understood it to be a list....until you needed to come up with something to call her a dumb woman.
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Can you really claim to be on the internet when constitutionally protected speech can and will get you banned from facebook, twitter, youtube, itunes, paypal, uber, lyft, airbnb, netflix, patreon, all of the app stores, etc?
Yes.
It turns out, the government not throwing you in prison for your speech (aka "Constitutionally protected") does not mean private companies are required to contract with you.
If you want to stop deplatforming, you want the government to run those sites. Then "Constitutionally Protected" would actually be relevant.
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Because consumers are helped when you limit their choices via back-room deals between large incumbents.