Al Franken Makes a Case For Net Neutrality 604
jomama717 writes "In a post titled 'The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time' this morning on The Huffington Post, Senator Al Franken lays down a powerful case for net neutrality, as well as a grim scenario if the current draft regulations being considered by the FCC are accepted. Quoting: 'The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing. That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable. Although Chairman Genachowski's draft Order has not been made public, early reports make clear that it falls far short of protecting net neutrality.'"
Al Franken ticks me off (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh please you old windbag (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the problem with the internet. People are getting confused, and it's the politicians that are milking it.
On Slashdot, Engadget, Gizmodo, and every other tech site that you can think of: Net Neutrality is about preventing companies from creating a tiered system.
To the government, Net Neutrality is an excuse to take control of a system that seems to be out of control simply based on the happenings of the worst government-granted monopoly: cable (specifically Comcast). Truth be told, it is out of control. However, similar to everything else in life, you do not want the government to decide what's best for the rest of us (I say the "rest of us" because Congress has a nasty habit of exempting itself from large government bills: social security, including taxes, and the recent health care bill come to mind)!
To really fix the system, they need to fix cable. Stop endorsing the local monopolies that these companies live from, and start allowing (not immediately forcing) competition. As long as cartels are blocked from forming to avoid the next-best-thing from occurring where cable companies simply agree not to compete, then competition will force these companies to open up what they're doing. This would also positively affect TV deals so that your bill can stop going up every month for the exact same service (which is why I live off of Netflix and Hulu and only pay for FiOS internet).
Once this is stepped up, then the government can talk about its end of the enforcement bargain. Talk should focus only on preventing a tiered system. Fines and levies make sense in such a system, but not control by the government. We do not need another internet kill switch, or the ability for the government to inject party-of-the-year rules over the internet. This is what we will get if the current government gets to stuff Net Neutrality down our throats. And once the government gets a taste, then it is incredibly hard to pry it away.
Re:Shame people tune him out (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think he's a buffoon, but, you're right, it is a shame that people tune him out. Maybe those who tune him out should take this opportunity to rethink their position on the guy. So few politicians are willing to defend net neutrality it's really nice to see someone buck that trend.
Re:Oh please you old windbag (Score:5, Interesting)
Excuse me, but who do you think controls government? Over the last 30 years, there has been a steady erosion of checks and balances, middle class earning power and quality of life, and civil rights and freedom. At the heart of all of this has been the wholesale purchase of our government by commercial interests. At this point in the game, big business writes law, polices itself (or doesn't as the case may be), and has the vast majority of our representatives in it's pocket (in fact, forcing the need of multi-million dollar political campaigns for offices from Dog Catcher on up, ensures that only candidates who've been vetted by the money interests even get a chance to play in the political arena.) If government sucks, its because big business bought it, and now we're being governed by self obsessed, greedy capitalists who put personal profit ahead of justice, dignity, or the future of human advance.
If you're at all interested in government that isn't a brazen travesty, let's declare business a religion, and separate it from government so that the two might function apart as designed and immeasurably improve the human condition. While we're at it, we might also consider teaching ethics and social responsibility in our business schools... just a thought.
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My argument against the Net Neutrality (Score:1, Interesting)
Some Clarifications (Score:5, Interesting)
The guy can make a good arguments without resorting to shouting or out right ignoring the public. [youtube.com]
You have to consider that the people asked a question and let him respond without shouting or interrupting. On one hand this shows a dialogue with some actual interest in hearing what the other person has to say. On the other hand this is a key capability every politician needs: to be able to talk for a very lengthy amount of time and identify with anyone. What he did was good, he achieved some common ground with some very passionate opponents. But that's what politicians do. He's good but he's not accomplishing some impossible feat -- merely exhibiting good politeness and genuine interest in his constituents (opponents included). Franken had the attention of people that wanted to talk to him and what you saw were two parties genuinely interested in what the others had to say. Franken can lose his cool [youtube.com] and act just like other politicians [youtube.com].
I wish my Senator would come around to the county fair and talk to his constituents like that.
Okay, I must correct you here. That was at the state fair [dustytrice.com] which is a very huge thing in Minnesota and still a three to six hour drive from some of the more remote parts of Minnesota (like where I grew up). I don't think Al Franken makes it out to county fairs.
Now, I'm not disagreeing with you here and just to put some more positive spin on Franken, when I last went home my grandfather started rambling about all the times he had called up Franken and spoke with him on the phone. Thinking that my grandfather had finally lost it and was entering some sort of dementia, I asked my grandmother what he was talking about. She said he would wait on hold for thirty minutes and get about ten minutes of the senator's time every now and then (my grandfather is a retired dirt farmer living between Porter and Taunton). I was still skeptical but he showed me follow up letters from Franken's staff, hand signed by Franken explaining why Franken had voted on some bills that my grandfather had phoned him about. I was pretty impressed.
TFA makes some good points and breaks down "Net Neutrality" to the lay person who just wants to use the internet. You should try reading it.
On this point, I agree. I think Franken's on the right track here although I think he could have added another two sentence paragraph about limiting what specifically the FCC would be doing to address the obvious government control rebuttal a little more thoroughly. I am glad to see Franken writing this letter, though a little sad to see it in the Huffington Post and not a more mainstream publication.
It's odd but my favorite moments of Franken [thinkprogress.org] are often very different than most people's.
Re:Yay (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Al Franken ticks me off (Score:5, Interesting)
*sigh* This again. (Score:2, Interesting)
Look, I love the idea, but.
No one has yet given me a technical definition of network neutrality that allows me to block or filter spam.
The right to say "I don't want your content" or "I only want a trickle of your content" is a pretty important right. In fact, it's also a free speech issue -- one of the rights of free speech is freedom from compelled speech.
I want the right to refuse unwanted traffic, or traffic-shape it into oblivion. But that seems to be essentially incompatible with "net neutrality". Once I'm making judgements on whether I feel happy with the amount of traffic I get from a given source, I'm not being net neutral. But if I can't make those judgements, people drown in spam.
So go ahead. Offer a set of words that we could back as "net neutrality" which couldn't be used as the basis for lawsuit-based harassment of ISPs that block spam. Remember, you're proposing laws; you can't rely on any kind of common sense or sanity. If your words do not mean EXACTLY what you want, and have all the exceptions clearly encoded, you have probably made things worse rather than better.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:*sigh* This again. (Score:5, Interesting)
No one has yet given me a technical definition of network neutrality that allows me to block or filter spam.
Spam is already illegal. Enacting rules or legislation that explicitly allows for filtering of traffic deemed illegal based on pre-existing law would be trivial enough.
If your words do not mean EXACTLY what you want, and have all the exceptions clearly encoded, you have probably made things worse rather than better.
While I believe your example is poor, in this, you are absolutely correct.
The problem is, there really are legitimate uses of QoS, and defining regulation that enforces net neutrality while *also* allowing for legitimate use of QoS is extremely challenging. For example, a rule stating "source/destination-based QoS is illegal" is too simplistic, as it still allows protocol-level discrimination (Skype is the obvious example here). If you then say "well, then make protocol-level QoS illegal" means you've made *all* QoS illegal, and that's bad, too (deprioritizing bulk transfers behind real-time traffic is the primary need QoS fills).
Fundamentally, I'll bet net neutrality regulation would have to go the way of obscenity laws... ie, the "I know it when I see it" approach. Which, obviously, has massive problems of its own.
Re:Maybe people living in the rural US need a real (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who lives in a rural area, allow me to explain how I and everyone around me views the situation.
You are correct. Living in a rural area comes with trade-offs. Everyone, and I mean everyone, who lives out here understands that.
For water, we must pay for a well and a pump. For heat, we must pay for propane tanks to be regularly refilled. For trash, we must drive our own refuse to a dumpster facility, as there is no pickup. After a snow, our roads get plowed last if at all, so we use our own vehicles and equipment to do it sooner. For television, we pay for satellite or make do with rabbit ears.
For Internet, we're willing to pay for the wires to be extended to our area.
Oh, wait, we can't. We don't even have the option of paying for the last mile (well, last several miles).
I guess what I'm saying is, your welfare-queen image of rural residents is wrong. We accept that we have to pay more for a lot of things. We don't want subsidies or charity. I and most people around me would be happy to pay the extra cost.
Currently, I pay for a wireless broadband service. I get about 3 Mbps each way. It's decent but I'm sure I would do more (more work, more video chat, more Google Earth browsing, etc.) if we had Fios. But it's clear we never will. (Before the wireless service was available, I had satellite Internet, which is so bad I wouldn't wish it on anyone.)