Tag: net neutrality

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Internet Freedom Debate Continues

Senate passage, via a quirk of the rules and the cross-over of three Republicans resulting in a 52-47 vote on a measure (which faces relatively poor odds for approval by the House) that seeks to reimpose Obama-era net neutrality rules (scheduled to expire on June 11) has re-opened the contentious and confusing debate on the future of freedom of the internet. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had previously voted against the measure.

On the surface, net neutrality sounds attractive. It mandates that internet providers treat all equally, despite claims by providers that certain customers who stream heavy content such as movies require faster speed than, say, a casual user who only deals in words.

Alex Bugaeff succinctly described the issue to New York Analysis of Policy and Government readers in April:

“Prior to 2015, the internet was open and operating freely, albeit in a rough-and-tumble fashion at times. Then, after the Congressional election of 2014, the Obama Administration tried to take complete control. The President ordered the FCC to implement the regulations found in Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. Those regulations had been designed to reign in the monopoly that Bell Telephone had on landline phone circuits. Though outmoded, those regulations gave control of the internet to government.

“The White House named this order “Net Neutrality” in an attempt to put a benevolent face on this takeover of internet operations. They claimed that the big companies were stifling innovation and that the regulations would impose a level playing field for the small service providers. The implementation of Title II had the effect of freezing in place the rules which benefitted the big companies and gave the FCC (and its Obama appointees) the power to enforce government regulations as a form of public utility.

“In fact, the term “Net Neutrality” appears nowhere in the law or regulations and has no legal definition. It is a fiction designed to serve a larger purpose – government control of communications and internet commerce. So, the 3-2 vote of the FCC after Trump took office merely returned the internet to open and competitive business. Innovation is once again unfettered by government bureaucracy.”

Beyond the typical “signs” such as, she’s great looking, good in bed or insists she doesn’t want you to experience relaxing sex without the complications like early ejaculation or infertility, then you should consult the best sex spe cialis pricest in Delhi, Dr. There are times when the problem is major with the device, but sometimes it is because of a heart disease which disrupts your freely blood flow to your penis which results to Erectile Dysfunction. viagra prescription After a careful evaluation, a speLearn More Here cheap cialist can make a conclusion in view of a specific example of side effects. It is because of its buy viagra without prescription http://secretworldchronicle.com/category/podcast/season-nine-avalanche/page/2/ faster action over the erectile dysfunction rather than giving their attention towards the blood pressure. In a recent PBS interview,  FCC Chair Ajit Pai explained his opposition to the net neutrality concept:

“I favor a free and open Internet…My concern is with the particular regulations that the [Obama era]  FCC adopted two years ago. They are what is called Title II regulations developed in the 1930s to regulate the Ma Bell telephone monopoly. And my concern is that, by imposing those heavy-handed economic regulations on Internet service providers big and small, we could end up disincentivizing companies from wanting to build out Internet access to a lot of parts of the country, in low-income, urban and rural areas, for example. And that, I think, is something that nobody would benefit from.

“There is significant evidence that investment in infrastructure has gone down since the adoption of these rules. For example, there is a study by a highly respected economist that says that among the top 12 Internet service providers in terms of size, investment is down by 5.6 percent, or several billion dollars, over the last two years. And amongst smaller providers as well, just literally this week, 22 Internet service providers with 1,000 customers or less told us that these Title II regulations have kept them from getting the financing that they need to build out their networks. And, as they put it, these net neutrality regulations hang like a black cloud over our businesses. And so what we’re trying to do going forward is figure out a way that we can preserve that free and open Internet that consumers want and need and preserve that incentive to invest in the network that will ultimately benefit even more consumers going forward.”

The left’s move to bring the internet under government control through the net neutrality concept should be seen as part of a two-pronged effort to bring this vast medium to heel.  In 2014, President Obama announced that the United States would surrender administrative control of the internet.  America loosely had jurisdiction over areas such as domain names, with the input of international concerns. But a number of foreign governments, such as Russia, China and Iran complained.  Those nations engage in censorship over their domestic internet users and are angered when the citizens of other nations openly criticize them. First Amendment restrictions prohibited similar actions within the United States, but internationalizing controls was a step to overturning those protections.

Regulating the internet as though it were a public utility gives the government the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent to control this most free and open source of speech and ideas.

Illustration: Pixabay

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The Fiction That Is “Net Neutrality”

A guest article by Alex Bugaeff

We hear the term “Net Neutrality” from time to time, but many avoid it as a technical area that they wouldn’t understand. It’s simple, really. It has to do with whether the internet will be controlled by government or left open to the forces of the marketplace.

Information flows through the increasingly busy internet “highway” system. Each new internet innovation, such as video gaming, streaming movies and huge blocks of statistical data, requires more and more of the “highway’s” capacity. That capacity becomes stressed from time to time.

Think of it as the Los Angeles interstate highway network – the more lanes they add, the more cars clog them up. Creating restricted lanes, like HOV lanes, does little good. The government transportation planners impose rule after rule to no avail and public transportation companies lobby to maximize their own interests, the driving public be damned.

Internet policy analysts have defined two sides to the internet control question that roughly correspond to the two sides in the LA traffic condition. On one side, analysts implement government regulation – the equivalent of transportation planners. On the other, they have grouped the existing major private sector players – mostly big internet service providers.

The private companies had been making the rules for the most part, until February, 2015. They engaged in practices such as “throttling” – the slowing of the streams of some sources of data in favor of other sources. Throttling can be compared to hot and cold water faucets with these big companies turning the handles to allow a greater or lesser flow from each, depending on which temperature is of greater benefit at the time.

Such private control of data through the internet has resulted in complaints from small players and government advocates. The small players complain that throttling and other such practices are unfair to those who have little marketplace clout. Government advocates complain that control of such a large and important segment of the economy by big business risks the government losing control.
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Prior to 2015, the internet was open and operating freely, albeit in a rough-and-tumble fashion at times. Then, after the Congressional election of 2014, the Obama Administration tried to take complete control. The President ordered the FCC to implement the regulations found in Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. Those regulations had been designed to reign in the monopoly that Bell Telephone had on landline phone circuits. Though outmoded, those regulations gave control of the internet to government.

The White House named this order “Net Neutrality” in an attempt to put a benevolent face on this takeover of internet operations. They claimed that the big companies were stifling innovation and that the regulations would impose a level playing field for the small service providers. The implementation of Title II had the effect of freezing in place the rules which benefitted the big companies and gave the FCC (and its Obama appointees) the power to enforce government regulations as a form of public utility.

In fact, the term “Net Neutrality” appears nowhere in the law or regulations and has no legal definition. It is a fiction designed to serve a larger purpose – government control of communications and internet commerce. So, the 3-2 vote of the FCC after Trump took office merely returned the internet to open and competitive business. Innovation is once again unfettered by government bureaucracy.

And, lest anyone suggest that the big service providers will dampen creativity, one need only look at the development of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to see how the entrepreneurial spirit thrives in the internet world despite the supposed entrenched corporate interests.

A Bachelor’s in Political Science and a Master’s in Public Administration both from the University of California, Berkeley, launched Mr. Bugaeff on a 40 year career in school and governmental consulting and teaching, during which he wrote and published over 100 manuscripts and technical manuals privately for his clients. Along the way, he continued the serious study of early American political history, concentrating on the original letters and writings of the Founders.

U.S. Commerce Dept. Photo

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Attack on internet freedom continues

Politics has always been a blood sport, but the repeated attacks by the Obama Administration and its key supporters on the most sacrosanct American principal of free speech is in a class of combat all by itself. Despite a loss on January 14 in the U.S. Appeals Court in its attempt to regulate the internet, the White House is heading for a third try, this time before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The Wall Street Journal notes that “At stake is whether the Internet remains safe for permissionless innovation—so that anyone can launch a website, app or new business model—or regulators get to set rates and decide the “reasonableness” of business practices…The politicizing of an agency whose independence is established by law is a good argument to invalidate Obamanet.”

Key analysts, such as the Manhattan Institute’s Brian C. Anderson have described the move as a “power grab” by the President.

CATO notes “Last February 26th, the Federal Communications Commission officially mandated that the Internet would henceforth be regulated under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. With this action, the FCC totally reversed over 30 years of aggressive “unregulation” of the Internet (and all information services), imposing the most restrictive regulatory framework available under the act, originally adopted in 1934 to regulate the then-monopoly Bell System.”

Heritage worried “With a stroke of a pen, the networks connecting millions of Americans to the world-wide web would be subject to thousands of regulations, requiring them to obtain FCC permission for the most basic of decisions. The nimble Internet we know would be slowed to the speed of government, and innovation level of a local water company.”

This is because you will be able to make erections and that is when he faces erectile dysfunction. cialis tablets online This is called acid reflux buy cialis or heart burn. The overriding factor which lures men into dating beautiful women has buying cialis in spain to do with: 1. On the day commander cialis http://deeprootsmag.org/2013/05/14/two-worlds-under-one-sun/ after the Feast of the Assumption in 1815, our Lady gave us a gift, in the birth of John Melchior Bosco, in this unknown place, which is still not on the map of Italy today. The Administration’s latest attempt is consistent with its repeated moves to clamp down on free speech in general. Its record is one of repeated attacks using several different approaches, such as seeking to place FCC monitors in newsrooms, and transferring control of the internet from private American sources to a United Nations body with members advocating restrictions.

Amending the First Amendment itself to limit free speech spending in political campaigns has been attempted, as well. As the New York Analysis has previously reported, “over the past several years, this keystone right has come under significant attack…As  Hans A. von Spakovsky and Elizabeth Slattery wrote in a Heritage article, “Frustrated with the Supreme Court’s consistent defense of political speech protected by the First Amendment, the Left is driving a movement to amend the Constitution to allow Congress to limit fundraising and spending on political speech. Supporters of this amendment claim that restricting the amount of money that may be spent on political speech and activity is not the same as limiting speech, but as the Supreme Court has recognized, bans on spending are indeed bans on speech. Limiting spending on political communication necessarily affects the quantity and quality of that speech. Rather than ‘level the playing field,’ this constitutional amendment would protect incumbents and violate a fundamental right of Americans.”

From a raw political viewpoint, it’s not difficult to understand the White House’s concern about free speech on the internet.  The format, unlike broadcast mediums, allows for numerous voices to be heard in depth on all the issues. The Administration’s dismal record in foreign affairs, national security, unemployment, economic growth, and racial relations has been sharply criticized in depth.

Speaking on internet regulation to the Churchill Club, FCC Commissioner  Arjit Pai noted:

“In some regards, the way this issue is playing out reminds me of the lyrics from the classic James Bond theme song Goldfinger, sung by the great Shirley Bassey. Like Goldfinger, the FCC’s leadership is pouring golden words into the ears of over-the-top providers, beckoning them to enter its web of sin, or in this case, regulation. But my advice to providers is the same as Dame Bassey’s: “Don’t go in.” For you will soon find yourselves ensnared in a web of regulations from which you will never escape.”

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Net Neutrality as an excuse for government control

Freedom of speech, and particularly freedom on the internet, is again under attack, as the “net neutrality” issue once again flares up.  The White House now seeks to regulate the internet as though it were a public utility. Net neutrality is concept that all users of the internet should be treated equally.

The battle is between two forces, each seeking to exert control over how information is transmitted on the internet. One side seeks to provide faster access to more powerful users such as entertainment giants, (Smaller users may be forced to endure second class status and may not benefit from faster speeds in the future if the concept of “net neutrality” does not endure) and the government, which is seeking to use that attempt as a means of gaining ultimate control for Washington bureaucrats, posing a problems for the average user.

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In yet another assault on free speech, the Washington Free Beacon eported yesterday that a U.S. University conducted a study on how to delete conservative-oriented tweets from Twitter.

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FCC to end “Net Neutrality”

The attack on equal use of the internet took another potentially threatening turn as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it would end “Net Neutrality,” restrictions that previously prohibited internet service providers (ISPs) from offering higher speeds to wealthy or powerful organizations.

The FCC decision came in the wake of the lengthy decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.  holding that the FCC didn’t have the authority to prohibit this type of behavior. Advocates of equal internet treatment were disappointed that the FCC simply didn’t ask for enabling legislation that would offset the Court decision. There are other rules—known as Title II—that some felt could be relied on to accomplish this.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has pledged to have rules in place by the end of the year allowing ISPs to offer higher speeds for a price.  He noted that the FCC could still act to prevent “harmful behavior” by ISPs, that no legal content could be blocked, that policies must be transparent, and that no preferential treatment could be offered.

Of course, providing faster speeds IS preferential treatment. Critics, including Jon Brodkin writing in arstechnica  have pointed out the Chairman Wheeler formerly was the president and CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, a group that stands to benefit from the FCC decision.
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Smaller companies could be placed at a competitive disadvantage, as would political or ideological users who couldn’t compete with organizations that are funded by wealthy backers such as George Soros.

The concept of faster service is not restricted to the internet. The U.S. Postal Service offers overnight delivery for a fee significantly higher than an average first-class stamp. A better analogy may be a hypothetical act by Washington that would allow well-financed transportation companies to drive on federal highways at faster speeds for a fee.

Following the Obama Administration’s recent decision to surrender control of the Internet to an international body without the consent of Congress or the opportunity of the public to effectively comment, fears have been raised that users without access to power or wealth could be marginalized to speeds that discourage or prevent access equal to what currently exists.