FCC's Pai: I am going to kill net neutrality in US The head of America's telecoms regulator, the FCC, has vowed to kill off his nation's net neutrality safeguards. Speaking in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Ajit Pai said he will, next month, set out proposals that will, by the end of the year, axe today's net neutrality rules. In particular, Pai focused on the classification …
So, Kieren thinks Pai is right but his words are too hostile?
Focus on the actions, not the words Kieren. This is DC you're talking about. The bluster is used to raise campaign dollars. Now that the internet is finally a big political issue, you're never going to avoid the inflammatory rhetoric again.
Fair enough. I'm just saying that in critiquing elected American officials, you pretty much have to take their words and attitude out of the equation, because they are trying to use strong emotional appeals to communicate to donors and voters. They are not trying to communicate to you or me.
I look at their actions and little else.
Also, under the Trump administration, every project starts with an outrageous claim of some future action that they don't actually have the political capital to pull off. It's part of Trump's "Art of the Deal". But nearly all of their final actions are in line with typical moderate Republican positions (or center-right Democrat positions) from years past.
But the thing about trumpers is the fun of just waiting for them to cock up one way or the other,it's almost as much fun as watching a good known accident blackspot to watch arrogant bad drivers suddenly find out that the tech in modern cars cannot defy the laws of gravity.
With trumpers,it's just when will they get caught with their hand in the till or screw up so badly that even trump cannot save their ragged arises from being dragged across the nice red hot coals..
If America wasn't such an influence on the rest of us poor schmucks it would be entertaining to watch America shoot itself in the head repeatedly,but their cock ups effect us too much..
Looks like trump is working on a 5 year only plan,knowing that America and world will be in such a dire position that he would never get a second term,trump will do for America what Blair did to the UK,gut it,sell it short and then wonder why he is so loathed and laughed at when he flaps his gob hole with more hot air...
America has had it..
Mind you,the way that all leaders in the world seem to be acting like there is no tomorrow and don't seem to pay even lip service to warnings about the future,I'm seriously starting to wonder if they know something their not telling us,like a massive planet killer hitting in the next 50 years !!!
" if they know something their not telling us"
No, they know nothing new or special or truly secret, it's how they play politics and business; make a fast buck, get out before anyone notices you did crimes, pretend every failure is a success, claim all opposition as unpatriotic and "out to make a fast buck," just like them, but never admit it.
These are the kind of true scum that look at someone extending their hand and wonder how they can use it against them. The "we only win, compromise is loosing" mentality. You know, assholes. It's how the Trump's of the world operate; rip off anyone and everyone, commit tax fraud as much as possible, complain that other people are scum for using the services taxes pay for, drive on the roads paid for by taxes yet calls people who point this out liberal, socialist, basically every word they used to save for Russians, but those guys are their pals now. There's a lot of shit still in the swamp, and it's filling up, not draining. Good call, morons for Trump! Where's the scary tax break that will make you all billionaires overnight? Low priority, no doubt. :P
Tories. Trash with a tie.
The one thing they know, that they're not telling us, is the very simple truth about their own jobs. As Trump would put it, if he had enough fundamental honesty in him: "Who knew that running a government was so hard?"
(Well, everyone who's ever tried it, of course. But the big selling point about Trump was that he refused to listen to those assholes.)
Seriously, read a few books about politics. A biography or two, perhaps. All the venom we hurl at politicians is basically the Dunning-Kruger effect writ just as large as it can be.
(Sidenote: this is why referendums are a stupid way of making political decisions.)
There are far too many politicians that believe that the "Rapture" is going to happen in their life times, so there is no point in saving things if all the "good people" are sent up to heaven while the 'heathens' are forced to fight each other for resources, so why leave some behind for them?
It isn't just crazy fringe politicians either, Ronald Reagan believed in it, as well as many other presidents and high-level senators since the 1950's. Reagan actually believed that he could start the rapture by initiating a full-scale nuclear war with the USSR. The same brain damage that causes people to believe in that non-sense is also the same type of brain damage that causes them to think that they are qualified to hold power.
Ronald Reagan was a fringe president, relying on rhetoric while his administration engaged in multiple criminal endeavors Reagan Quote "I honestly don't remember) from the Iran / Contra affair. A record number of his administration actually were convicted of various crimes. Many of his policies screwed over working folks and still do. He enabled the rise of the 1 percent to todays heights. Trump will do no different.
Workers are animals in their view, easily manipulated, with short memories. Pai, Trump's half baked moron in charge of the FCC, Like Michael Powell, views the rest of the folks out here the same way. We'll do as we're told, take what they give us, and in the words of Darth Vader (paraphrased) Be glad they don't alter the agreement further.
This FCC is gonna screw up the internet to the point that it's FUBAR.
There are far too many politicians that believe that the "Rapture" is going to happen in their life times, so there is no point in saving things if all the "good people" are sent up to heaven while the 'heathens' are forced to fight each other for resources, so why leave some behind for them?
The problem with many today who profess to know their Bibles (well, one of many). They think the "rapture" is about to happen any minute now and that the earth is refuse to be used up as much as possible before God destroys it. (I've been hearing that personally for over 30 years, I know it's been the view of many for centuries). It may be soon, it may not. That's not the point.
We're not soldiers passing through enemy land with a mission to cause as much damage and mayhem as possible. Christians (and Hebrews) are tenants and servants with a mission to protect and improve God's Creation. We're not here to waste and abuse resources on the possibility that God will take us off to Heaven in a moment's time (also note, only 144,000 get into Heaven - 12,000 from each tribe of Israel, who have lived to a moral code well above what I could manage (never lied for one thing) - the rest of us get to live on a "new" earth, not Heaven - check Revelation if you doubt me!). Imagine that you're wrong, and the damage you do to this world is left for your children and grandchildren to clean up. Imagine that your child's asthma or cancer or other problem is due to the pollutants you pumped into the world.
We're here as caretakers. One of our duties is to do a good job caring for the planet, for it is God's Creation - lovingly crafted by Him as a gift to us, His children. When you treat it like garbage to be disposed of, you're insulting Him. Think twice before you do damage to this world.
(I am far from perfect, and myself had done much harm before getting a clue. I don't know if I ever could make up for the harm done, but I am working at it.)
One (of a rapidly growing set) advantage of not living in the US.
It should be possible, as a consumer, to simply buy an X Mbps connection and have full control over how that bandwidth is used. No snooping, no bandwidth lost to ads, no force-feeding from "preferred suppliers". I could live with ads for "free" services, but it's really galling when it comes out of a monthly (paid) cap.
I don't get told how I can use my electricity, gas or water and my phone calls aren't monitored (by the provider!) and don't have content injected. Strange how all these utilities manage to provide a service and invest without "extras".
I also find it funny how that the ISPs still made record profits while under these 'burdensome' regulations. Funny how many new business were able to thrive during this, how the average internet connection got faster, how even massive internet-based companies grew dramatically, all under those regulations...
I find it quite irksome that the same people that keep complaining that government regulations are hurting their business are the same people who own the largest buildings in the world, or that their net worth keeps increasing, or that their profits are also increasing.
Trump's previous comments about immigration have helped derail his executive orders to regulate it. Pai's invocation of unrelated subjects, like preventing deranged demagogues from speaking on campus, may have the same result, when his attempt to rewrite history hits the courts. Which it surely will. This administration regime keeps acting like a dictatorship, and keeps getting slapped down. Fortunately, it's unlikely they'll endure past 2020.
If he was doing something radical that might be true, but all he's doing here is undoing something controversial and taking the power of regulating net neutrality away from the FCC. The FTC would still have that power, as would congress. It was the inaction of congress that made Wheeler try to find a way around it, but since it was done via a ruling in the executive branch it is undone in the same way.
We'll probably have to wait a few years for major ISPs to start abusing their freedom and making deals with big players like Google and Netflix to choke off upstarts before it becomes apparent that something needs to be done. Pai is one of those ideologically rigid and basically clueless conservatives who thinks ALL regulation is automatically bad. He doesn't understand that regulation that makes a market function better is pro-capitalism. Not saying putting ISPs under Title II was the right way to do it, but his argument against regulation shows he doesn't understand this at all.
Actually he doesn't understand free speech is protected by such regulations like the Constitution. Before governments were subjected to regulations - limiting their power - through constitutions, citizens had no rights, and those in power could do whatever they liked. If you didn't like it, you could always migrate to a distant land... hoping to find a better master.
Now, put big companies in the place of governments, and customers in the place of citizens, and you'll see that without proper regulations those with power will do whatever they like at the expense of those without power. Good regulations are actually necessary to limit and balance power, it won't 'self-regulate'.
These 'republicans' advocate for 'limiting power', but they are just giving more power to a few, and crippling citizens rights.
"Fortunately, it's unlikely they'll endure past 2020."
Hmmm ...
I'd say *hopefully*.
To paraphrase George Carlin (1937-2008), very first host of 'Saturday Night Live':
“Never underestimate the power of stupid, ignorant people in large groups.”
Those are the ones that put the schmuck in the Oval Office in the first place and may well do it again.
Interesting times indeed.
Of why I think the only way forward for the US out of this partisan mess we're in is to amend the Constitution to require a 2/3 majority from both the house and senate to pass legislation.
With the current crop of extremists of course nothing would get done, so the parties would be forced to reconsider the people they bring forward in primaries and go back to the 'good old days' when people who weren't so ideologically inflexible were election and were willing to work with the other party to find something in the middle of the road.
I fear Trump's parade of executive orders is going to become the norm for an incoming president replacing one of the other party. If a democrat is elected in 2020, he'll do a bunch of executive orders that undo all the orders Trump did to go back to the Obama days, and then the next republican will go the other way. That's no way to run a nation, where you can't depend on the laws and policies having any consistency but instead flying with the political winds.
A better change would be to smash the parties so that no single party could gain a majority without cooperating with others. The current problem is that the government has devolved into "Us versus Them" where if you do not agree 100% with whoever is currently in charge of "Us", then you must be one of "Them" and should be crushed. Of course then, because you do not agree 100% with the leader of 'Them' then you are essentially without support, and without support from the parties, there is very, very little chance of getting elected.
The rights of political parties in the US is effectively guaranteed by the first amendment to the Constitution, especially the part that forbids the government abridging "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The fourteenth amendment extends that to the states and their political subdivisions.
That is pretty much what the parties, in an organized and continuing way, do. Smashing them up would not be likely to work in the US. Party name allegiance has been shown to be very durable over time, preventing establishment of significant regional parties as in, for example, the UK. That doesn't mean a party advocates for the same policies across the country; it does not. Montana or Wyoming Republicans or Democrats tend to be quite different from members of the same party on either coast. Because there is only one president, the parties come together every fourth year, paper over the differences for a week or ten days, adopt a platform with lots of important sounding words designed to be as vague and inoffensive as possible, and choose nominees. Sometimes it works out badly, as in 2016, when each major party managed to choose a candidate disliked and thought untrustworthy by a majority.
That might be a help, especially if supplemented by a requirement for 1/3 in each of the House and Senate to repeal legislation.
The march of executive orders by Trump is, so far, no more far reaching than Obama's executive orders, even if several of them had not been enjoined temporarily by the courts. As the injunctions show, however, an executive order may not exceed what the Constitution and the laws enacted by the Congress allow.
1/3 to repeal legislation? Why should it be easier to undo laws than to enact them?
The problem with Trump's executive orders aren't that they are worse than Obama's, though he's pretty hypocritical given how much he criticized Obama for dealing in executive orders and Trump has so far way outdone Obama in them. The problem is that the executive has far overreached the power the constitution granted them, so executive orders have been going too far for many decades.
The courts are pushing back on Trump not because he's overreaching (which he is, but not any worse than Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, and so on) but because his statements and those of others in his administration showed they (potentially, yet to be determined for sure by the courts) have an unconstitutional basis. If he wasn't such a loudmouth and just let the orders speak for themselves, and hadn't made clearly unconstitutional promises during his campaign, they would be in force today.
One third to repeal is, in a sense, the arithmetic equivalent of two thirds to enact.
The problem, in my opinion, is not the executive orders as much as the overall, and overwhelming, size of the federal government. An executive order cannot exceed the Constitution and laws, as we are seeing in the judicial attacks against some of those issued by both Trump and Obama. The vast majority of "rules" are issued by executive branch agencies, and exceed by many orders of magnitude what is possible for the Office of the President. To compound things, the Supreme Court has, so far, generally acceded to executive agency interpretations and extensions of laws enacted by the Congress.
The question of legality as to Trump's immigration orders is a work in progress. Court use of campaign statements as a basis to find the orders unconstitutional seems odd view of the manifest fact that neither order came close to implementing those campaign statements. The first order arguably overstepped as to those who already had valid visas, but that was eliminated in the second, which was temporarily enjoined on the same basis. It seems perverse to impute meaning clearly absent from the orders based on campaign statements when, as a rule, campaign statements generally are considered to be inconsequential and to be ignored. It is o be hoped that such rubbish will be struck down in the decisions on the permanent injunction or by a higher court on appeal.
The additional argument, accepted by the courts so far, that states would be damaged by the orders, seems too general and weak to be adopted as a general basis for standing or finding of violation. As a precedent it seems likely to open the door to a wide variety of mischief, as such "damage" could be attributed to an enormous range of federal executive branch action.
"Of why I think the only way forward for the US out of this partisan mess we're in is to amend the Constitution to require a 2/3 majority from both the house and senate to pass legislation."
And disallow unrelated "riders" on Bills. Do you really want every bit of legislation, good or bad, to end up like the attempts to pass the budget?
It might be a good idea to be extremely wary of such a proposal as "single subject legislation." It is the rule in some states, and probably works well enough in them. States, compared to the US as a whole, range from tiny and densely populated to rather large and sparsely populated with a substantial part of the population concentrated in a few large cities. Within most states the range of opinion is not really very large and the distances involved mostly are within a day's automobile travel. The US, by contrast, is vast, even the lower 48 states, and the issues and range of opinion about them varies by a correspondingly large amount.
National legislation must be passed by a majority of each house of the Congress. In the Senate for sure, and generally in the House of Representatives as well, that means legislation requires votes of senators from a large number of states for passage. For many bills that is not a problem, but for those where significant geographic differenced of opinion operate, incorporating a number of disparate matters into the same bill allows formation of coalitions that allow passage of combinations in which a majority of the legislators can vote for something important to their constituents while concurring with the same vote in a matter their constituents do not care much about but that is important to those of other legislators. Eliminating that as an allowable tactic might lead to more ideological purity at the cost of making bill passage even more difficult than it is at present. It is not clear why one should think this would be a good idea.
It is a somewhat unfortunate fact that competition is hard to arrange for services that require a large capital investment for each customer. There is a reason why there usually is only one electric power company, one water company, and one natural gas company in any area. The same applies to a slightly smaller degree to communication services, which often can share part of the investment with the power company and historically have had implicit subsidies, either long distance service (pre-1984) or cable TV. Fiber to the home is slow to come partly because of lack of incentive for the substantial additional capital investment that would be required, but is reported to have produced a competitive response where Google has entered the market. Radio based internet service, with lower per customer investment requirements might be a competitor, although in the Salt Lake, UT area it does not seem to have made much of a mark in the last few years.
The US government was established to govern. It was expressly prohibited from governing "speaking your mind." Despite a number of notable exceptions, the judicial branch has hammered that prohibition down fairly consistently over the following two and a quarter centuries.
That pretty much sums up why the US Government was originally created, but hey, let's all try some medieval law for a while. Who's up for feudalism?
Feudalism didn't precede the US form of government. It was based on English parliamentary democracy, where the primacy of the Commons was already established and the monarch had already been sidelined (although George III railed against that, thanks to the influence of his Prussian-born mother). The US even copied some of the English restrictions on enfranchisement, though that's not too surprising given the era, and structured their new republic so that power would remain in the hands of the landholders too.
Free markets win over bureaucrats every time.
Except that free markets are only ever interested in people who can buy their products (and the more product you can buy, the more influence you have). Which is why the big US ISPs are so happy - they now have their former employee acting on their behalf as head of the FCC.
If you can't afford the product then you are of no interest to the market. In fact, you potentially become a hindrance and so are required to be sidelined.
Pai has worked in various federal government positions for all but 26 months of a roughly 20 year employment history. His employment by an ISP (Verizon) ran from February, 2001 to April, 2003. His predecessor, Wheeler, on the other hand, spent 45 years in the private sector, at least 22 of them in telecommunications. Disagree with either of them as to policy if you wish, but neither is a good example of tainting based on prior employment.
There are very good arguments against net neutrality, for example Netflix paying to have a server filled with 4k content nearer their customers, but the dangers of providers restricting some content is massive.
Imagine if the ISP, at the behest of a TLA agency, decided to massively slow down all content it couldn't decipher, well there goes your VPN. They could ask for the key to speed it up but there goes the whole point of having a VPN.
The best solution is for the ISP to have to* provide unfettered access at the speed you pay for and if content providers want to pay them extra to give YOU better service then good on them.
* This will require some form of regulation, not necessarily as restrictive as title 2.
"* This will require some form of regulation."
Yes, it would. That does not mean it will require government regulation, however. Service level is, or can be made, a matter of contract. Companies like Netflix are well situated to monitor contract compliance and litigate over failures. End consumers, even in the absence of government regulation, have contracts that could be litigated as class actions against providers that consistently fail to deliver the contracted service.
"Service level is, or can be made, a matter of contract."
And that would be ideal, except ISPs and mobile operators often have clauses like "we reserve the right to change the terms of this agreement including, but not limited to: price; allowances; service levels; your phone number; your passwords; your last name; your blood type etc. without informing you and you have to suck it up, bitch." Also doesn't help that the majority of the US is effectively a monopoly as most consumers only have a single broadband provider. I'd rather have a competitive market sort it, but if it won't then 'the greater good' and all that.
The dangers of stripping out net neutrality are fairly well established and make logical sense. The arguments againt it seem mostly based on swivel-eyed frothing against "regulation". Let's face it, without regulation the bastards will do whatever they want. It's also incredible how the Tories/Reblicunts decry any regulation of businesses but when it comes to citizens seem to be interested in regulating every aspect of their lives in case they engage in some the (usually) religious fruitcake/totalitarian control freaks disagree with.
If net nuetrality gets stripped away the ISPs will charge content providers for superior traffic speeds. This will, of course, be passed on to the customer. In the case of Facebollocks, et al, this will mean advertising costs rise so the cost of all products advertised with them will rise as well because it will always be the consumer paying.
In the case of Netflix and other paid services the increased cost will be passed directly onto the consumer.
Then there's the issue that once these tarrifs have been imposed, any alternative providers who are starting out small will be scuppered immediately as they can't pay for decent traffic speeds.
This is only of benefit to the ISPs who will get to swell their accounts while providing a massively unfair playing field that naturally favours the established content networks.
Considering a lot of the content networks are already engaged in multiple scumbag activities the idea of them getting an even greater hold on their position isn't something anyone should look forward too.
on an unregulated, non-neutral internet? Yeah, only if you can afford it.
I also find it interesting the the US Government tried to intervene in the law-making process of the sovereign nation of Canada over net neutrality. Why, that's nearly as bad as trying to influence an election!
I think he's doing the right thing. Gummint does NOT need to over-regulate "teh intarwebs". Beyond the simple regulation of common protocols, business practices (such as privacy issues) belong with the FTC, and _CONTENT_ should _NEVER_ be regulated by _ANY_ gummint or agency, _REGARDLESS_.
Otherwise, it's "the fairness doctrine" ALL OVER AGAIN, and you KNOW "they" have targeted conservative (and even libertarian) opinions for elimination under the guise of "fairness".
/me would *HATE* to see the day when POLITICAL CORRECTNESS defines what is "fair" (or even *LEGAL*) on "teh intarwebs"
The fact that it was the head of the FCC discussing the opening of a new public policy process is a sign of just how far President Trump's style of fact-free name-calling has extended into the federal government. It does not show Ajit Pai in a good light.
It's very hard to show Pai in a good light, because cockroaches tend to run from light to hide in piles of filth, generally of their own creation.
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