FCC Says Net Neutrality Decision Delay Is About Courts, Not Politics 60
blottsie writes with this news from The Daily Dot: "The Federal Communications Commission's seemingly suspicious timing in delaying its net neutrality decision has absolutely nothing to do with recent politics, according to an FCC official. Instead, it's a matter of some people in the agency insisting they be more prepared before going to court to defend their eventual plan. In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled in favor of Verizon, which challenged the FCC's 2010 Open Internet rules, striking down the agency's net neutrality protections. The court found that the FCC did not use the proper legal structure to establish its regulatory authority over broadband service—something that many legal experts say would not be the case if the FCC invokes Title II. The FCC's move to delay the net neutrality decision, which followed President Obama's support of Title II reclassification, was just a coincidence, according to the FCC official:" Before the president weighed in, several of our staff felt like the record was a little thin in areas, and the last thing you want when you go to court for the third time is for a court to say the record was too thin, or you didn't give adequate notice. We are going to be so careful this time that we have crossed every T and dotted every I. Some of the staff felt we're not quite there yet."
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You make some interesting points but I'd like to hear about what Bennett has to think about your position.
Nov 25 or 26?, or Dec 19, 22, or 23? (Score:5, Insightful)
The best days to announce things like, "We've decided to completely ignore the will of the people and do what the guys with wheelbarrows full of money tell us to" are the days right before Thanksgiving and right before Christmas. My bet is on Nov. 25, leaving a day to get home to family, but Nov 26, or Dec 19, 22, or 23 would not surprise me.
We can also say with some certainty when they won't announce; Dec 2, 9, or 16 -- Tuesdays during full work weeks -- are extremely unlikely.
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They're feds. Why don't they just pass it in the secret courts like they do everything else?
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These guys don't really think like that, usually.
They'll be aware of it, sure; they will avoid making decisions that tank later opportunities in the private sector. But they are also usually not actively trying to do the wrong thing--they're trying to figure out what a fairly decent policy is that they can get traction on.
The FCC doesn't have big teeth, and it has a lot of people who have industry experience and therefore an industry point-of-view. They are realists, and will probably try to put together
Re:Nov 25 or 26?, or Dec 19, 22, or 23? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nov 25 or 26?, or Dec 19, 22, or 23? (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the will of the people--we're talking net neutrality. People support it because they like the word "Neutral."
There may be some like that, but people like me, who have been working on the Internet since before hypertext, support it because the idea of letting ISPs make deals for fast lanes is about as stupid as allowing the electric company make deals with companies to cut off electricity to their competitors.
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Or
I am convinced that government regulators will find a third
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which form of Net Neutrality? A) protocol neutral? B) endpoint neutral?
Both -- the carrier should not make prioritization decisions for me. My network and software should handle that, since my ISP can't know which packets are highest priority to me.
I am convinced that government regulators will find a third definition for Net Neutrality
That is a good reason to be eternally vigilant of the FCC, and the Internet is worth our effort. It is not a good reason to abdicate the decision to the ISPs, whose financial
It's not about courts or politics (Score:2)
It's about money.
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Yeah, and politics is never about money.
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Pbbbt (Score:1, Troll)
It's been a conspiracy since day one, Obama appointed a lobbyist for the industry to the head of the FCC, then after it's a republican controlled congress and he has zero clout he comes out for "Net Neutrality" mean while fascist like Cruz say it will hurt Internet commerce, and that it's extreme.
This is about buying time to grease the congressional wheels with industry cash and figuring out the best argument against the common carrier.
Re:Pbbbt (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's been a conspiracy since day one, Obama appointed a lobbyist for the industry to the head of the FCC, then after it's a republican controlled congress and he has zero clout he comes out for "Net Neutrality" mean while fascist like Cruz say it will hurt Internet commerce, and that it's extreme.
This is about buying time to grease the congressional wheels with industry cash and figuring out the best argument against the common carrier.
Absolutely! GW Bush would never have appointed someone beholden to the industry to head the FCC [wikipedia.org]
There's plenty of blame to go around -- and even more money, especially after the Citizen's United [wikipedia.org] decision.
"staff" (Score:1)
"Some of the staff felt we're not quite there yet." by "staff" they mean Verizon, right?
Full Title II (Score:2)
If they weren't opting for a trashy "hybrid" approach designed specifically to avoid preventing ISPs from abusing consumers, and instead were going for full bore Title II reclassification, they wouldn't need so much time to create a legal defense.
Re:Full Title II (Score:5, Interesting)
Except for the Congressmen and Senators and ISP reps who're saying the FCC doesn't have the authority to change the classification to Title II. What they're probably doing, what I'd be doing, is preparing an iron-clad argument based on the statute and on case law since then that the FCC does indeed have not just the authority to decide the classification (easy, the statute explicitly says they do) but also the authority to change it at a later date (this takes more research to nail down).
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And then a month later, the law is changed after it's attached to something that 'must' pass. Then the lawsuits pour in.
Like we ever believe anything the Gubment says... (Score:1)
It's not like we the people ever believe anything the government says anymore. The American people have been so filled with BS over the last few administrations regardless of which part is in power that we have all become jaded. If you are a republican you don't believe anything the democrats say. If are a democrat you don't believe anything the republicans say. If you are one of the aforementioned parties you have been sucked into the false dichotomy and they have you pitted against each other so they
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Total nonsense. You've been sucked into the false equivalence trap.
Really, AC? What's the real truth? You obviously have the corner on the "way it is," so do tell.
The way I see it is (sorry not a car analogy) that with the Center Right party (the Democrats), it's like walking through an underground access tunnel with a sewer pipe at the ceiling. The pipe is cracked and raw sewage is dripping on your head.
With the Far Right party (the Republicans), it's the same tunnel, but the sewer pipe is ripped wide open and you're choking on the raw sewage instead of getting drenche
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Total nonsense. You've been sucked into the false equivalence trap.
It's not false equivalence, because the argument is not that they are two things which are the same. The argument is that they are two parts of one thing, and that they are united in screwing over the non-wealthy public because they both work for the wealthy. The wealthy write the laws, then pay for them to be passed, and sometimes they pay the (R)s and sometimes they pay the (D)s and sometimes they pay both. Big Pharma, for example, gives lots of money to both sides. After the failure of Hillary Clinton's
I guess they have to say these things (Score:1)
Constant repetition is a proven method of reenforcing an idea, no matter how absurd it might be. People are believing. All is well. There is nothing to complain about.
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Going along to get along appears to be an inherent trait of humans...
Nothing 'human' about it. It's plain old herd instinct. It's hardwired in. This is what is being exploited so easily, and we're not ever going to argue our way out of it. On the contrary, we will continue to write holy books wholly rationalizing it as necessary subservience to whoever's god rules that particular century. The best we can do about our biological nature is ponder. Change is not forthcoming.
Today I realized... (Score:2, Insightful)
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I find that I tend to get them after making a few posts, I think their algorithm identifies active participants and gives them points.
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If that were the case, more of us would get mod points more often.
What happens is that the moderation system is biased against frequent visitors. Visit more than once a day and you'll basically never get mod points. Go away for a day or two and you'll come back to a heap of them virtually every time.
I'm not sure why Slashdot does this. One would think frequent visitors would be the people you'd want modding - someone who will see a story before it's too old - but perhaps they want someone a little less fana
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I'll bet that I'm one of probably 5 people that are moderating
I don't moderate because moderation is fundamentally broken. You cannot moderate and comment in the same story, so the people best qualified to do both have to choose one or the other.
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Sadly, I have to agree. I've been a frequent visitor to the site since 1999, and in that time, I've seen lots of ups and downs. I think things really culminated in a fever during the iOS vs. Android arguments three or four years ago when every article was clickbait to get the masses to chew each other up. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the "old guard" packed up and left during that time.
Since things have calmed down, Slashdot seems to be slowly sinking into irrelevance. I'm seeing a lot more conversati
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I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that it's inevitable to be one or the other.
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Do NOT be fooled by the "Net Neutrality" cover story. This is an effort to regulate the Internet by hardcore leftists, and if allowed to proceed will be the end of the Internet as we know it.
The unregulated Internet CHANGED THE WORLD. Allowing government regulations will only destroy what has been created.
You sir, are uninformed. Until 2002 [fcc.gov] Cable inernet service *was* classified as a common carrier [wikipedia.org] under Title II. DSL Internet was also a common carrier until 2005 [fcc.gov].
Since those orders reclassifying internet access under Title I rather than Title II, the ISPs have slowed innovation, dragged their feet with infrastructure upgrades despite the USD$200 billion [newnetworks.com] subsidies given to them, raised prices, created ever more abusive terms of service, and consolidated their stranglehold over both content distribution and l
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Do NOT be fooled by the "Net Neutrality" cover story. This is an effort to regulate the Internet by hardcore leftists, and if allowed to proceed will be the end of the Internet as we know it.
The unregulated Internet CHANGED THE WORLD. Allowing government regulations will only destroy what has been created.
Hardcore leftists? Who exactly are you talking about? Dennis Kucinich is about as left as it gets in major parties in the US, and he isn't too far to the left of center. Obama is center-right on most issues. Eizabeth Warren is straight up center-left, as is Bernie Sanders. Based on their policy decisions, most of the rest of the Democrats in the house/senate would have been considered moderate Republicans not so very long ago.
What the hell is it with you guys? Based on the rhetoric, if Ronald Reagan a
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We know net neutrality is something that could be enforced, there is enough bandwidth available now over fiber to give everyone a standard amount of bandwidth. Fast lanes are probably inevitable; if that is the price for getting standardized internet access then fine, do it. It's a reason for companies to roll out the upgrades.
Let's face it, business will not upgrade the networks to the speed required without being told that they will get to charge for premium access. It's a fact, you can't get around it. It's better for everyone to just accept what can't be changed, live with it, deal with it, and let's get IPTV to everybody nationwide so we get more channels, more content, etc, etc.
Just imagine a future time when you don't have to watch football on the weekend, where you can watch whatever minority sport you prefer, be it surfing or chess or mountaineering or whatever. Imagine having the freedom to choose what shows you watch when. It's not going to happen if we don't get the networks upgraded and that is not going to happen without fast lanes, I don't believe.
I don't think we'll ever get net neutrality, but by the trickle-down theory, we should be able to get serviceable internet to everyone which is sufficiently neutral for it not to matter. Let's shift the cost onto content rather than the medium, and we'll need fast networks to do that, and that requires fast lanes for now, I think.
That's a steaming load [newnetworks.com] of grade A [theverge.com] bullshit [theverge.com]. Do you work for the CTIA? Or just one of its members?