US Congressman Wants To Ban New Internet Laws 205
SchrodingerZ writes "Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, has drafted a bill for the internet. The bill, aptly named the Internet American Moratorium Act (IAMA), is, 'a two-year moratorium on any new laws, rules or regulations governing the Internet.' In short it hopes to deny any new government bills related to lawmaking on the internet for the next two years. The bill was first made public on the website Reddit, and is currently on the front page of Keepthewebopen.com, a website advocating internet rights. 'Together we can make Washington take a break from messing w/ the Internet,' Issa writes on his Reddit post. The initial response to the bill has been mixed. Users of Reddit are skeptical of the paper's motives and credibility. As of now, the bill is just a discussion draft, whether it will gain footing in the future is up in the air."
1st! (Score:3, Insightful)
My worry is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Will it help net neutrality, or will it be more designed to favor corporate profiteering and plundering at the public's expense?
Re:My worry is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you mean net neutrality, or 'Net Neutrality'? One is TCP/IP's 'fight for your life' fair approach, while the other is a political movement that undermines the internet while appearing to serve it, in much the same way that any bill making its way through Congress can be understood by taking the negation of its name.
Sounds great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Until you realize that this will also put a moratorium on things like privacy laws, as well as put a hold on any action regarding things like bandwidth caps, net neutrality, and copyright enforcement legislation. That may be good or bad, depending on how we're represented, but I'd rather have the debate in congress, rather than have them be forced to sit idly by while the incumbents go unchecked.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at his history (Score:3, Insightful)
The Corruptman in question is against Net Neutrality. To force net neutrality, laws are needed. This guy wants to stop that. He wants unbridled and unchecked market forces to regulate the Internet.
We know who the market it is, HINT: it ain't you and we know the market wants to destroy net neutrality. This corruptman isn't proposing a freeze, he is proposing government do nothing while business gets to do everything it wants.
If you want to see if this is a good idea, fellow republican corruptmen forced the government to step aside and let the financial industry do whatever it wants... how is that economy going US of A?
People say that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others. Well, tight government control is the worst of all systems to regulate markets. Except for all the other methods.
Always follow the money. Who is paying this guys salary? No, not you you silly voter. His election campaign fat cat jobs once he retires. YOU don't factor into his decision making, never have, never will.
Re:1st! (Score:5, Insightful)
A law to not make laws? Why not just not pass the laws you don't want?
This prevents any laws from passing, even the ones Mr. Issa doesn't want to pass but others do
Actually, it doesn't. Congress can't make a law that binds Congress's lawmaking ability.
What this is about is being seen to do something while actually not doing anything. The measure won't pass but some members will climb on board and talk about it and get attention that they hope will build their personal reputations.
Re:Just look at his history (Score:3, Insightful)
The Net Neutrality laws that have been proposed is just allowing three unelected FCC officals to determine what is allowed and what is not. Those three will be unanswerable to the people or Congress, it will basically put the internet under complete control of the executive branch to put in place any regulations they feel is needed.
What you think of net neutrality is great, but I have yet to see any law proposed that promotes that. They just cleverly use the same name and assume you won't actually read what they are proposing. It looks like their plan worked since you are for their bill and are against others who have actually read what was proposed.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:1st! (Score:3, Insightful)
These are all broken campaign promises, things that people voted certain folks into office over, "Hoping for Change", if I can borrow a slogan... It sure didn't!
Leading to Discuss v. Directing Opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
skeptical of the paper's motives and credibility.
Being skeptical of our government is among the most important patriotic duties of U.S. citizens. The Declaration of Independence is an impassioned ode to the enduring beauty of critical enquiry of the motives and actions of government. Regardless of how we feel about Rep. Issa, it is our duty to challenge his statements.
a discussion draft
One of my common complaints about the state of our government is that our elected officials, when addressing complex issues, focus more effort on directing public opinion than on fostering public debate. The goal of our leaders should be to bring the nation into the analysis, not to establish our conclusions. By presenting this as a provocative entree rather than a finalized declaration, he has given us a kernel upon which to found the discussion.
For my part in that; I think a moratorium is a double edged sword. Authoritarian versus libertarian is only one dimension, another is organizational versus individual. It is possible to believe that individual rights to speak and associate freely on the Internet should be subject to less government authority and also that that organizations (lobbies, unions, corporations, religions) should be more limited in their permits to influence or monitor the behavior of individuals on the Internet. A moratorium could prevent the government from censoring individual speech, or it could give ISPs a two year foothold on selective restriction of online activities.
Re:My worry is... (Score:5, Insightful)
I still would rather have Congress and the FCC do nothing to change the net, then have them "do something."
The FCC is especially dangerous. Look at how much they cater to the mobile companies' desires. Do we really want the determining what 'Net Neutrality' means.
Re:Compare filibuster threats (Score:4, Insightful)
That doesn't prevent the passage of laws, it just requires a supermajority of 60% to pass, which, if the legislation is heavily controversial, sounds like a good idea to me. Prevent the whole 51% dictating to 49% thing.
Not that different from needing a supermajority to override a presidential veto really, except it works even if the president is of the 51%
Just one more check.
Re:My worry is... (Score:2, Insightful)
You'd prefer to have the companies themselves determining what 'Net Neutrality' means? That is the other option.
Re:Just look at his history (Score:0, Insightful)
You say: Just look at history and He wants unbridled and unchecked market forces to regulate the Internet.
History says that the Internet was created on those unbridled and unchecked market forces you denounce. In fact, your argument is false from the start, as every business in the US is subject to countless costly regulations, many of which are unnecessary and counterproductive to providing the better service those in favor of net neutrality desire. More regulations, controls, and price fixing will only make that worse. Free market forces and competition is what grew the Internet from something that can be commonly accessed from a 56K modem to a connection of several Mbps and greater and from text terminals to high definition, real time video and graphical interfaces in just around a decade's time. These things don't happen via government mandate. Where there is demand for a service and money to be made providing that service, history dictates that businesses will undoubtedly fill the need, as long as they aren't hampered by an over-burdensome government.
Freedom is a two-way street. While you are free to choose what service you want to purchase, others that provide services to consumers are free to provide the services they choose for the price they choose. Government only need be involved to make those transactions safe and free from interference. Anything further impedes the freedom of all involved. Impeding the freedom of business owners from providing the services they should be free to provide distorts the market, creates inefficiencies, and slows or halts innovation that ultimately costs consumers much more in the long-run. Government mandate is not a short-cut to innovation and prosperity. I think few would argue that the Internet would have grown as quickly and exponentially as it did had government heavily regulated it from the start. Look at the postal service or any other government service or any socialist, centrally planned economy in history to see how that would have turned out -- it fails every time. We need not put these familiar shackles of government on the Internet in the form of net neutrality and further taxation and regulation. The intention of a moratorium on new Internet laws is to protect the Internet from these ills, allowing those who run it the freedom to prosper, innovate, and evolve -- true progress -- the same freedom and progress that created the Internet to begin with.
Re:Shallow illusionism (Score:4, Insightful)
So, are you against Obama when he makes "symbolic, substance-free gesture in order to generate the illusion that he is interested in" doing something you agree with? If not, then why is Issa different?
Cutting 900 million out of a budget that is Trillions of dollars under funded, is one of those "symbolic, substance-free gesture in order to generate the illusion that he is interested in" doing something. Or going to a book store with his kids in support of buying "local" when most of the time he doesn't do any thing like this.
Don't get me wrong, both sides do the same thing, making "symbolic, substance-free gesture in order to generate the illusion" of lots of things. Speak against them all or stop cherry picking because there is an (R) or (D) after their name.
I can support Dennis Kucinich when he is right on something, as much as I can support Issa on something he's right on. They are not even close politically on most issues.
Re:Compare filibuster threats (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but these days...Presidents are just using Executive Orders and bypassing Congress completely......getting unelected agencies to do their bidding over the citizenry...