Showing posts with label Net Neutrality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Net Neutrality. Show all posts

Monday, June 11, 2018

Today, the @FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIFO) effectively rolls back Obama-era Net Neutrality regulations. We debunked a few of the left's scare stories on this topic

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Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Dems catch GOP flat footed and pass reversal of Trump net neutrality bill.





...But the victory may be limited to the Senate. The resolution now heads to likely defeat in the GOP-led House, where House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has no plans to bring it up for a vote.

Without House passage, the FCC decision to end the Obama-era rule will take effect on June 12.

“This is not going anywhere,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who heads the Senate Commerce panel, said Wednesday. Thune called on Democrats to work with the GOP on bipartisan legislation that would regulate the Internet with a “light touch” rather than the Obama-era rule, which opponents said would be too heavy-handed and would squelch innovation....
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Sunday, December 17, 2017

California Legislature Plans to Pass Own Net Neutrality



California’s Democrat-controlled legislature is again leading the so-called “resistance” to President Donald Trump — this time, by planning to reinstate Net Neutrality rules repealed by FCC’s Republican majority last Thursday.

California State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) announced following the FCC’s 3-2 repeal vote that he will introduce legislation early in 2018 to re-regulate Internet providers under the so-called “People Power” rules....

California progressives argue that unbridled competition will be financially detrimental to consumers. But to pass state Net Neutrality re-regulation, they will need to argue against history and economics — to convince voters that President Reagan’s 1982 de-regulation of the AT&T monopoly, for example, did not lead to a spectacular fall in consumer communication costs, and an even bigger boom in the proliferation of telecommunication services.

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Saturday, December 16, 2017

FCC chairman Ajit Pai drops truth bomb on Jimmy Kimmel after ‘hysteria’ over net neutrality repeal

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Friday, December 15, 2017

The Internet Is Free Again: Killing Obama-era rules will remove the FCC as political gatekeeper















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Saturday, December 9, 2017

WATCH: Ted Cruz clears up a few things regarding net neutrality.

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Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Why Ajit Pai Is Right on Net Neutrality









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Wednesday, November 22, 2017

"Do you want [the internet] to be governed by engineers and entrepreneurs or do you want it to be run by bureaucrats and lawyers here in Washington?"









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Friday, February 3, 2017

FCC Deals First Blow to Net Neutrality...

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Monday, April 13, 2015

More than a dozen Republicans move to block the FCC's new net neutrality rules

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Sunday, March 15, 2015

FCC Plans Stealth Internet Tax Increase

◼ American politicians of all stripes clearly see and oppose the abuses of the Internet abroad. But our government officials are not aware that the Federal Communications Commission, without statutory authority, is proposing to expand its taxation and regulation of the Internet. - Harold Furchtgott-Roth/FORBES

One set of proposals considered by the FCC would classify Internet services, or at least Internet access services, as “interstate telecommunications services” bringing the regulation of those services exclusively to the FCC.

The FCC imposes fees of 16.1% on interstate telecommunications services that will generate more than $8 billion in federal universal service funds in 2014. Additional FCC fees on interstate telecommunications services raise $1 billion for federal telecommunications relay services. Although Congress mandates the general nature of the federal universal service fund and telecommunications relay services, it is the FCC alone that sets the budget size of the funds and develops the fee structure to raise receipts for the funds.

Even with all of its power, the FCC does not have the money to fund all of the new programs it seeks. For example, just in the past year, the FCC announced an ambitious multi-billion program to connect schools and libraries with Wi-Fi. Other advocates seek expansion of the low-income program. But where can the FCC find funds for new social programs not required by statute?

The FCC’s network neutrality proceeding may easily provide the answer. By classifying broadband access services as “interstate telecommunications services,” those services would suddenly become required to pay FCC fees. At the current 16.1% fee structure, it would be perhaps the largest, one-time tax increase on the Internet. The FCC would have many billions of dollars of expanded revenue base to fund new programs without, according to the FCC, any need for congressional authorization.
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Friday, March 13, 2015

FCC Cites Soros-Funded, Neo-Marxist-Founded Group 46 TIMES In New "Net Neutrality' Regs

◼ New internet regulations finally released by the Federal Communications Commission make 46 references to a group funded by billionaire George Soros and co-founded by a neo-Marxist. - Chuck Ross/Daily Caller

...The FCC received more than 4 million public comments as it was weighing the net neutrality initiative, but Free Press and other activist groups have received the most attention by pressuring the FCC and the White House on behalf of their cause.

One argument made against the FCC’s regulatory push is that the general public is largely happy with its internet service. Support for net neutrality was seen as the domain of special interest groups like Free Press.

The activist group has big money behinds its effort. It has received $2.2 million in donations from progressive billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and $3.9 million from the Ford Foundation.

And one of Free Press’ co-founders, Robert McChesney, a communications professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, has not been shy about his desire to see the internet regulated heavily....

But internet regulation appears to be only part of McChesney’s more radical agenda of completely revamping how the media operate in the U.S.

“In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles,” McChesney wrote in a 2009 essay.

“Only government can implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism,” he said.

“The news is not a commercial product. It is a public good, necessary for a self-governing society. Once we accept this, we can talk about the kind of media policies and subsidies we want,” McChesney once argued.

Sentiments such as these have raised questions about whether the FCC’s new regulations will eventually lead to oversight of internet content.

“The unthinkable has become thinkable, and the free-market Internet – one of freedom’s greatest triumphs – is set to be reduced to a public utility, subject to pervasive economic regulation and, in turn, to content control,” American Commitment’s Kerpen wrote in an open letter to McChesney after the FCC voted 3-2 in favor of the regulations.... KEEP READING
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Thursday, March 12, 2015

FCC releases 313 pages of #NetNeutrality regulations

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Thursday, February 26, 2015

FCC Approves Net Neutrality in Straight Party-Line Vote

◼ In what one Republican called a “monumental shift toward government control of the Internet,” the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved a proposal granting the federal government the authority to regulate Internet broadband providers under the same law as public utilities. - The Blaze
The five commissioners voted 3-2 along party lines in favor of the proposal known as net neutrality. The 317-page plan, which has not yet been publicly released, bans broadband providers from blocking, throttling or prioritizing certain Internet pages over others. The FCC has said the proposal will not seek to impose any new taxes or fees.
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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

‘Net Neutrality’ Is a Problem, Not a Solution

◼ The oldest trick in the collectivist playbook is to create a problem through government regulations, let it stew for a while, and then propose even bigger government as the only possible solution to the “crisis” it planted, nourished, and harvested. - John Hayward/Breitbart @Doc_o

We watched government tinkering in health care make it more expensive and complicated, year after year… until the time was ripe to stuff the biggest, sloppiest, most poorly-thought-out Big Government power grab of the modern era down our throats. Are we really going to fall for that again with the FCC’s new Net Neutrality regulations?

Net Neutrality is a problem, not a solution, and it won’t take long before we’re told that even more extensive and intrusive government control of Internet service is necessary to address all the “unintended consequences” it produces. The big difference between the government takeovers of health care and the Internet is that the latter will happen much faster, because everything happens faster on the Internet.

Mark Cuban, a longtime critic of the Net Neutrality push, went on Glenn Beck’s TV show Tuesday to talk about those “unintended consequences,” which one suspects are going to come as a surprise to the suckers who think the Obama Administration is heroically trying to make their telecom bills lower by fiat, rather than huckstering them into with a massive con job...

The mainstream media is risibly attempting to portray Net Neutrality as a David-vs.-Goliath victory of the Little Guy over evil mega-corporations with a regulatory slingshot. It’s more like David inviting Godzilla into the ring to take out Goliath, without much thought for what Godzilla’s going to do afterward.

They’re about to find out that Godzilla’s appetite for power will be whetted, not sated, by the meal they’re offering. Activist government uses its power to create crises that can be exploited to accumulate more power. It’s the most reliable process in the world, but smart people keep fooling themselves into being surprised by it. KEEP READING



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FCC CHAIR REFUSES TO APPEAR BEFORE CONGRESS AHEAD OF INTERNET TAKEOVER

◼ “So long as the chairman continues to insist on secrecy, we will continue calling for more transparency and accountability at the commission,” Chaffetz and Upton said in a statement. “Chairman Wheeler and the FCC are not above Congress.” - National Review



◼ LEFT GROUPS NOW FEAR: GOV'T NET GRAB GOING TOO FAR! - Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Unfortunately, if a recent report from Reuters is correct, the general conduct rule will be anything but clear. The FCC will evaluate “harm” based on consideration of seven factors: impact on competition; impact on innovation; impact on free expression; impact on broadband deployment and investments; whether the actions in question are specific to some applications and not others; whether they comply with industry best standards and practices; and whether they take place without the awareness of the end-user, the Internet subscriber.
◼ Plan Could Lead to UN Takeover of Internet
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune of South Dakota argued that by claiming more authority over Internet access for net neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission will undermine the ability of the U.S. to push back against international plots to control the Internet and censor content.
◼ SOROS CASH BEHIND PUSH - Paul Bedard/Washington Examiner
“The Ford Foundation, which claims to be the second-largest private foundation in the U.S., and Open Society Foundations, founded by far-left billionaire George Soros, have given more than $196 million to pro-net neutrality groups between 2000 and 2013,” said the report, authored by Media Research Center’s Joseph Rossell, and provided to Secrets.

“These left-wing groups not only impacted the public debate and funded top liberal think tanks from the Center for American Progress to Free Press. They also have direct ties to the White House and regulatory agencies. At least five individuals from these groups have ascended to key positions at the White House and FCC,” said the report which included funding details to pro-net neutrality advocates.
◼ Commisioner: 'Independence of agency has been compromised' - Reason Magazine
◼ Lawless? - The Hill
From all indications, the FCC contemplates that the new rules will be sufficiently burdensome and costly — and sufficiently ambiguous — that affected parties will be invited to seek exemptions from the new mandates through "waiver" requests or other administrative mechanisms.

But this likely flood of waiver requests should raise serious questions concerning the lawfulness of the agency's mode of operating. As Philip Hamburger discusses in his book, Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, one of our Founders' objectives was to control, if not eliminate, what in England was known as the "dispensing" power. Simply put, the dispensing power — which is much discussed in English constitutional history — was a form of exercise of royal prerogative under which the king could excuse himself or his favored subjects from complying with particular laws enacted by Parliament. As Hamburger explains, today's administrative agencies, in essence, have resurrected the dispensing power by the way they so often use waivers to grant favored treatment.





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Tuesday, February 24, 2015

FROM INTERNET TO OBAMANET:
'FUTURE OF ENTIRE INTERNET AT STAKE'...



◼ Obama’s Move To Regulate Internet Has Activists’ ‘Fingerprints All Over It’ - Daily Caller
◼ Three days before the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on the most significant Internet regulations in history, two commissioners are asking Chairman Tom Wheeler to delay the vote and release his proposal to the public. - Giuseppe Macri/Daily Caller Via Drudge
“We respectfully request that FCC leadership immediately release the 332-page Internet regulation plan publicly and allow the American people a reasonable period of not less than 30 days to carefully study it,” Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly said in a statement Monday. “Then, after the commission reviews the specific input it receives from the American public and makes any modifications to the plan as appropriate, we could proceed to a final vote.”
◼ FCC chief pressed to release net neutrality rules - USA Today
◼ Obama's regs will make Internet slow as in Europe, warn FCC, FEC commissioners - Paul Bedard/Washington Examiner
◼ From Internet to Obamanet - Wall St. Journal

Critics of President Obama’s “net neutrality” plan call it ObamaCare for the Internet.

That’s unfair to ObamaCare.

Both ObamaCare and “Obamanet” submit huge industries to complex regulations. Their supporters say the new rules had to be passed before anyone could read them. But at least ObamaCare claimed it would solve long-standing problems. Obamanet promises to fix an Internet that isn’t broken.

No one, including the bullied FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, thought the agency would go this far. The big politicization came when President Obama in November demanded that the supposedly independent FCC apply the agency’s most extreme regulation to the Internet. A recent page-one Wall Street Journal story headlined “Net Neutrality: How White House Thwarted FCC Chief” documented “an unusual, secretive effort inside the White House . . . acting as a parallel version of the FCC itself.”

Congress is demanding details of this interference.



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Sunday, February 8, 2015

How a Ragtag Band of Activists Won the Battle for Net Neutrality

◼ Despite fierce opposition from the major Internet providers, the FCC is poised to seize expansive new regulatory powers.

It was completely hopeless.

That's what Marvin Ammori, a net-neutrality advocate and consultant for tech companies, told Ari Shahdadi, the general counsel of Tumblr, over burgers in New York City in January 2014.

A federal court had just sided with Verizon and struck down the government's net-neutrality regulations, potentially giving Internet providers the green light to block websites or carve up the Internet into "fast lanes" and "slow lanes."

Ammori and Shahdadi feared the future of the Internet as an open and free platform could be in danger. But the only way to restore net neutrality would be for the Federal Communications Commission to do the politically unthinkable, what some called the "nuclear option."

They would have to convince the FCC to declare the Internet a "telecommunications service" under Title II of the Communications Act. That move, they believed, was the only way the FCC could enact real net-neutrality protections that could hold up in court. But it would provoke the full wrath of some of the most powerful companies in Washington. Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable would all argue it would strangle their industry with outdated utility-style government controls.

How could a handful of start-ups and some feisty Internet activists beat multibillion-dollar corporations with hundreds of well-connected lobbyists?

Shahdadi managed to talk Ammori back from the ledge. A few years earlier, Shahdadi reminded him, they had helped organize a huge online uproar over the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Thousands of websites shut down in protest over the anti-piracy measure. Despite the vocal support of Hollywood and the music industry, lawmakers were forced to drop the legislation in the face of the massive public backlash.... KEEP READING

◼ On the other hand: FCC Commissioner Slams ‘Obama’s 332-Page Plan To Regulate The Internet’ - Daily Caller

Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai on Friday raised the first of many criticisms to come about FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s aggressive net neutrality plan distributed to commissioners Thursday, which Pai described as “President Obama’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet.”

In a statement released Friday, Pai lamented the fact that the 332-page plan, which he tweeted a picture of himself holding next to a picture of Obama, won’t be released to the public until after the commission votes on its implementation later this month....

“President Obama’s plan marks a monumental shift toward government control of the Internet. It gives the FCC the power to micromanage virtually every aspect of how the Internet works,” Pai said. “The plan explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes on broadband… These new taxes will mean higher prices for consumers and more hidden fees that they have to pay.”

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Tuesday, November 11, 2014

This isn't a soapbox for publicity, it is a public forum for discussion. If you have no intention of discussing what the public wants to discuss it just serves as an insult as we aren't worth their time, effort, or even reasoning.

◼ HOW THE WHITE HOUSE REDDIT AMA ON NET NEUTRALITY WENT HORRIBLY WRONG - Charlie Spiering/Breitbart

In an effort to recapture some of the internet magic for President Obama, R. David Edelman, the Senior Advisor for Technology and Economic Policy at the White House tried to promote Obama’s net neutrality statement with a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) post.
Things quickly went sour, however, after members of the community mocked Edelman for being a phony government bureaucrat instead of embracing the free and open style of the community.

◼ Obama's big net neutrality announcement, explained - Vox (grain of salt)

President Obama just weighed in on the most controversial issue in internet regulation: whether to put broadband internet service into a different legal category to allow more regulation. Advocates say this change, known as reclassification, is essential if the Federal Communications Commission is to protect network neutrality. But critics say the move could tie the internet up in red tape, slowing investment and innovation.
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You’d think the man who couldn’t launch a website with a billion dollars in funding might be a little more circumspect about trying to seize control of the Internet


◼ PRESIDENT OBAMA CALLS FOR EXPANDED INTERNET REGULATION - John Hayward/Human Events @Doc_o

You’d think the man who couldn’t launch a website with a billion dollars in funding might be a little more circumspect about trying to seize control of the Internet, but no, there was Barack Obama on Monday, lecturing the supposedly independent FCC on the need to turn cyberspace into a highly-regulated public utility, using an archaic title designed for telecommunications from the rotary-dial era. ◼ The Washington Post reports:
President Obama on Monday called for the government to aggressively regulate Internet service providers such as Verizon and Comcast, treating broadband like a public utility as essential as water, phone service and electricity.
Yes, let’s allow the inept, corrupt government that has given you one titanic faceplant after the other to nationalize Internet access. What could go wrong?

...If your hackles go up at the notion of the Leviathan State ensuring Internet “freedom” through ham-fisted regulation, good: you’re thinking straight....

There are reasonable cases to be made for government regulation, and of course the industry isn’t exactly unregulated now. But using archaic laws to set up a massive new regulatory regime is just too much. It might begin with four proposals that sound good to many ears, but it surely will not end there. I counsel skepticism towards the regulators at least as deep as the cynicism we feel toward their targets. No matter what objections we might raise to their business practices, those companies will always easier to bring to heel than Big Government is.

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