Obama wants to make the internet a utility

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NationalTitles18

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In your examples, the two companies that eventually got punished, were Microsoft and Intel. For the most part, they really were the only players in their field. The telecom companies, either through happenstance, or collusion, have managed to make it difficult for the government to ever step in again. If there are 4 cell service carriers, how can there be a monopoly? If there are 6 or 7 cable/internet companies, how can there be a monopoly? The issue is that in certain markets, there really is no competition. The companies don't even try to compete due to the barrier to entry from an infrastructure standpoint. It is much easier to buy the local provider in an area, than to try and move in and out compete. So to think that the government will be able to use the same arguments as they did in Microsoft and Intel seems a bit of a stretch.

I guess my point is this, the FCC has already tried to use 706 to stop the companies from doing what I feel most fear, which is the fast lanes concept becoming common place. There really isn't another alternative that I am aware of, that would not require legislation which I think we both realize would likely make it worse, other than common carrier status. I am open for alternatives, but the first one (using 706) you argued quite succinctly upon, seems to have already been tried and discounted in the courts. What are the other, non legislative alternatives? My main worry is that if it doesn't get done in the next two years, and the Republicans get control of the WH, it will never get done, at which point it will be too late as the entrenched ways of doing business will be too hard to remove. That coupled with this is all kind of a moot point because if the Republicans do get the WH, and an even bigger lobbyist gets put in charge of the FCC, who is to say that they won't just switch it back?
I would argue that might be a reason to favor new legislation specifically geared to these concerns, but no one enforces the laws they don't like anymore anyway. What good is even a law if the man who vows to enforce it decides not to do so (speaking of anarchy)?

ETA: Generally speaking, new regulations usually end up written in a way that protects the old companies and creates barriers to new entrants in the market. Not sure you are going to get what you want with new regulation.
 

chanson78

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I would argue that might be a reason to favor new legislation specifically geared to these concerns, but no one enforces the laws they don't like anymore anyway. What good is even a law if the man who vows to enforce it decides not to do so (speaking of anarchy)?
Hard to disagree. However is giving more power than necessary worth the risk of it not getting done at all? I personally believe that it is. I think it really comes down to who are the people willing to trust more, companies or the FCC. Both entities (companies and the govt) have given ample evidence to trust neither, but in this instance I would rather have one target of my ire.

Edit: The reason I think nothing can get done legislatively is because you have people like this trying to understand and vote on the legislation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes

Wikipedia said:
Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.


[…] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material
Pardon me while I get back to checking my internet. Someone sent me one yesterday, but I think that my ISP hasn't been using that interwebs drano enough to make sure it gets here on time. Likely someone dumped into that internet and we will have to get it snaked.
 
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Jon

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Here is a really, really long but incredibly well done piece from a Conservative blogger discussing why Net Neutrality is not only a good idea but why it should be fully supported by Conservatives

http://www.jamesjheaney.com/2014/09/15/why-free-marketeers-want-to-regulate-the-internet/


Like most Americans, conservatives do not know very much about Net Neutrality.

What they do know about it makes it sound like a terrible idea: a bunch of Silicon Valley elites, backed by the Google panopticon and the Mozilla jerks who publicly executed Brendan Eich over his quiet support for traditional marriage, are demanding that the FCC impose sweeping regulations on the companies who bring the Internet to your door. With help from their close ally President Obama, these shysters have made tremendous forward progress against the so-called “evil” corporations who (in reality) own, develop, and generally manage the series of tubes that make up the Internet – corporations who have, in short, ushered in the entire Internet Age and all the good it entails. The only people in this drama who are holding off the regulators are the valiant heroes at the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, who are not afraid to stand athwart the regulatory agenda yelling “stop!,” demanding free markets and free peoples and not an iota less.

Given that narrative, it seems odd for a conservative – whether an old-guard big-business Bush-era conservative or a new-guard Paulite libertarian conservative – to support Net Neutrality.

Except I do Internet for a living, and I am one of the lucky ones who actually knows what Net Neutrality means and what it’s responding to. And, folks, I’m afraid that, while L. Gordon Crovitz and Rich Lowry are great pundits with a clear understanding of how Washington and the economy work, they don’t seem to understand how the Internet works, which has led them to some wrong conclusions.
 

dWarriors88

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Time and Wall Street journal are running stories to oppose the neutrality and utility ideas. If you guys needed proof that this is truly in the publics best interest, why would ISP providers be dishing out millions of dollars to smear the Idea. Please don't be fooled by their money.


Time and the Wall Street Journal both published opinion stories this week from people who oppose strong net neutrality protections—without disclosing that each of them did or do receive money from Internet service providers.

This appears to be glaring evidence of corporate astroturfing—the idea that Internet providers are secretly filtering their opinions to the public, a practice ISPs have been repeatedly accused of.
 

4Q Basket Case

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actually you could not be more wrong. All this does, all it does is make ISP's treat all data as equal that is it, nothing more. This does not give any government agency any power over any sort of content. None what-so-ever. This does not give the FCC any power to say what you can or cannot see over the internet. It opens the door to nothing. In fact by not allowing net neutrality you are giving comcast, time warner, mediacom, cox cable, at&t or verizon exactly the power you are afraid to give the government

Anyone here not get SEC network because your cable provider is too cheap? How about AMC or the turner networks? I am having this problem with Dish right now and others are about to lose the walking dead. Without net neutrality your provider could do the same thing with tidefans, espn.com, netflix, hulu, amazon prime video, pandora, iheartradio, you name it you are giving your isp the power to block it.

What if an Auburn fan billionaire bought mediacom? They have a healthy monopoly in parts of Alabama. Will you be ok with absolutely no bama related websites or data traffic? Type Alabama football into google and only get Auburn related responses? Want to get all your tide news from itat? This is of course a massive stretch but this also exactly what you are dealing with. without net neutrality this is actually a feasible scenario. Without this reclassification your isp could do this.

Question to the mods or Brett If comcast asked you for $5,000 a month to get tidefans.com delivered to comcast customers how would you respond? Without net neutrality this could happen. Would you charge a fee for tidefans? or shut down the site? For the rest of us, you ready to go to some other nowhere near as good bama site? I'm not. I like it here and want it to stay. Without net neutrality your isp could buy one of those big message board sites and throttle tidefans to a point where it took a full minute to load an image just to make their crappy site seem better. Please understand if you are against this regulation, by default, this is what you are for.
IF I trusted Obama to do what he says, with his stated intent, I might agree.

But I don't, and nobody who's been watching the last six years would either.

He's already flat-out lied on the fundamental points he used to get ACA passed. He's already used the IRS as a cudgel. He's already played the populace for the ignorant fools he thinks we are.

And you think he's going to regulate the internet for the benefit of the same populace he thinks are too stupid to do without his beneficence?

Regulation of the internet might start out as you say. For about five seconds. Soon, they'll be monitoring your activity like they monitor your tax return, and forcing you to pay to allow access for all sorts of people and favored organizations that are willing to pay for service by casting votes for their benefactors.

And yes, I am paranoid. Paranoia is a reasonable, rational, self-protective response when they really are put to get you. And this guy most definitely is.
 

Bama Reb

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IF I trusted Obama to do what he says, with his stated intent, I might agree.

But I don't, and nobody who's been watching the last six years would either.

He's already flat-out lied on the fundamental points he used to get ACA passed. He's already used the IRS as a cudgel. He's already played the populace for the ignorant fools he thinks we are.

And you think he's going to regulate the internet for the benefit of the same populace he thinks are too stupid to do without his beneficence?

Regulation of the internet might start out as you say. For about five seconds.
Soon, they'll be monitoring your activity like they monitor your tax return, and forcing you to pay to allow access for all sorts of people and favored organizations that are willing to pay for service by casting votes for their benefactors.

And yes, I am paranoid. Paranoia is a reasonable, rational, self-protective response when they really are put to get you. And this guy most definitely is.
It's called "Getting a foot in the door" and it's been used by salesmen of all sorts of products for as long as there have been door-to-door salesmen (Been there, done that). The big difference is that this is the US Gov't, and once you let them in, you can never get them back out.
 

chanson78

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Someone needs to coin a new internet law. Something like Godwin's Law but for Obama references where he is a massive schemer, and is actively imagining ways to bend over the populace until at which time in 2016 he can become supreme leader of the Muslim States of America.

Mainly because once this kind of talk gets thrown out there, it effectively kills the thread because you can't argue with conspiracy theories. It reminds me of the Brass Teapot argument in theology debates. Nothing anyone says can even begin to approximate the fear that is held, so there really is no counter argument.
 

4Q Basket Case

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Someone needs to coin a new internet law. Something like Godwin's Law but for Obama references where he is a massive schemer, and is actively imagining ways to bend over the populace until at which time in 2016 he can become supreme leader of the Muslim States of America.

Mainly because once this kind of talk gets thrown out there, it effectively kills the thread because you can't argue with conspiracy theories. It reminds me of the Brass Teapot argument in theology debates. Nothing anyone says can even begin to approximate the fear that is held, so there really is no counter argument.
Hmmmm....I'm assuming by the timing of this post that you're referring to my citation of several facts as reasons not to trust Obama or anything he says.

I didn't allege any conspiracies or invoke religion (or fear thereof) in any way. There are no tinfoil hat or doomsday prepper rants in what I said.

So I'm curious...if you were replying to my citation of several facts, where do you see either conspiracy theories or concerns that are groundless in light of established fact patterns?
 
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chanson78

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Hmmmm....I'm assuming by the timing of this post that you're referring to my citation of several facts as reasons not to trust Obama or anything he says.

I didn't allege any conspiracies or invoke religion (or fear thereof) in any way. There are no tinfoil hat or doomsday prepper rants in what I said.

So I'm curious...if you were replying to my citation of several facts, where do you see either conspiracy theories or fear-mongering?
To me the conspiracy and fear-mongering seems evident in that your statements seem to indicate that it is one person that can actually control all of this. He may have staff, or people he has appointed who have done some stupid things, but you can't attribute every bad thing that has happened to one person. When you make statements like Obama did X, Y, and Z the inference is that it was his direct intention to have those things happen. Unless you actually believe it was Obama who did all of these things personally, it involved other people complicit in his wishes. This automatically implies a conspiracy. I just have a hard time believing it, and furthermore, there isn't any direct proof, only inference and extrapolation. Government is a huge self serving beast, that has far too many moving, often uncoordinated parts to believe that there truly is one person pulling all of the strings.

If you truly believe that Obama is sitting in the WH lamenting on how he hasn't been able to spy on everyone's internet traffic (the NSA already does it), and if only the FCC would regulate as a title II he could take over the interwebs, then there is no point of trying to continue the argument, because at that point it becomes something very similar to a religious argument. You have a deeply held belief about his motivations and intentions. I disagree because there is no evidence that shows this to be the case. I cannot convince you, you cannot convince me, and at that point, there is no meaningful discussion.

Just for clarification, isn't the definition of someone who is a tinfoil hat conspiracist, someone who believes that they need to wear a tinfoil hat so the government doesn't snoop on them? Granted, said head protection is to ward against telepathy, and you did not say that Obama wanted to read your thoughts, so I guess it technically is not a tinfoil hat rant.
 

Gr8hope

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One of the reasons for the shift in voting the last election was the ability of conservatives to get the truth out. The main stream media is biased far to the left and controlled by Democrat talking points. Just observe the exact wording used daily to report. Of course leftists would like to control the message, it's been part of their agenda for a long time. Internet freedom in today's tech savvy society makes that hard.
I cannot say nothing about the proposals are good but I will never be in favor of allowing government to control anything more than they already have. My tin foil hat is looking more and more like a smart idea everyday under the oppressive Obama administration. Many of the so-called conspiracy theories have been re-titled "truth."
 
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Jon

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One of the reasons for the shift in voting the last election was the ability of conservatives to get the truth out. The main stream media is biased far to the left and controlled by Democrat talking points. Just observe the exact wording used daily to report. Of course leftists would like to control the message, it's been part of their agenda for a long time. Internet freedom in today's tech savvy society makes that hard.
I cannot say nothing about the proposals are good but I will never be in favor of allowing government to control anything more than they already have. My tin foil hat is looking more and more like a smart idea everyday under the oppressive Obama administration. Many of the so-called conspiracy theories have been re-titled "truth."
sorry but title 2 will do as much with content on the Internet as it does with the content of your private phone conversations, exactly freeking nothing

this is about equal treatment of Data, thats it

why is that so hard to understand?
 

Gr8hope

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sorry but title 2 will do as much with content on the Internet as it does with the content of your private phone conversations, exactly freeking nothing

this is about equal treatment of Data, thats it

why is that so hard to understand?
So they say.
"If you like your insurance plan you can keep your insurance plan."
"If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."
"Insurance rates will drop $2,500 on average."
"We counted on the stupidity of the American voters to pass the ACA."
 

chanson78

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I have changed my mind. Please do everything to block net neutrality. It will be a little more work for me to get around it but at least know how. As a side effect, this may have one positive note in that it will force the tech savvy to start encrypting everything.
 

Jon

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So they say.
"If you like your insurance plan you can keep your insurance plan."
"If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."
"Insurance rates will drop $2,500 on average."
"We counted on the stupidity of the American voters to pass the ACA."

yeah, they lied, because they are Liars and the law they passed gave them the power to do it

Title 2 exists already, it is used to regulate other communications channels and we know what power is has, and it does not have the power that scares you


as a matter of fact, the power that you are afraid to give government is exactly the power you are allowing these corporations to have without the reclassification

how many more ways do you have to hear it?
 

Jon

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I have changed my mind. Please do everything to block net neutrality. It will be a little more work for me to get around it but at least know how. As a side effect, this may have one positive note in that it will force the tech savvy to start encrypting everything.
I like your answer better
 

twofbyc

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All of this mistrust of Obama...it lends itself to think that some believe there are, in fact, politicians they can and do trust; and frankly, that's scarier than anything Obama ever has done or ever will do.
 

Al A Bama

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So they say.
"If you like your insurance plan you can keep your insurance plan."
"If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."
"Insurance rates will drop $2,500 on average."
"We counted on the stupidity of the American voters to pass the ACA."
I could not have stated it better! Two thumbs UP for your post!
 

TheAccountant

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sorry but title 2 will do as much with content on the Internet as it does with the content of your private phone conversations, exactly freeking nothing

this is about equal treatment of Data, thats it

why is that so hard to understand?
Because........ OBAMA
 
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