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Electronic Frontier Foundation Democrats Government United States

Can Democrats In Congress Restore America's Net Neutrality Rules? (nbcnews.com) 256

"Democrats are expected to use their upcoming control of the House to push for strong net neutrality rules," reports NBC News: "The FCC's repeal sparked an unprecedented political backlash, and we've channeled that internet outrage into real political power," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights-focused non-profit organization. "As we head into 2019, net neutrality supporters in the House of Representatives will be in a much stronger position to engage in FCC oversight...." Gigi Sohn, a former lawyer at the FCC who is now a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology, Law and Policy, said she expects Democrats to use their new power to push for the restoration of strong net neutrality rules -- and for the topic to be on the lips of presidential hopefuls. "I have no doubt that bills to restore the 2015 rules will be introduced in both the Senate and the House relatively early on," Sohn said....

Jessica Rosenworcel, an FCC commissioner who has been a vocal supporter of net neutrality, noted that it has become a national issue -- and one that has broad approval from Americans. She pointed to a University of Maryland study that found 83 percent of people surveyed were against the FCC's move to undo the rules around net neutrality... Ernesto Falcon, legislative counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation...said he is "extraordinarily confident" that proponents of net neutrality will win. "It really just boils down to how one side of the polling is in this space," Falcon said.

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Can Democrats In Congress Restore America's Net Neutrality Rules?

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  • Legislation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @10:07PM (#57773352)

    What they should pass:

    "If you are an ISP, you cannot charge for preferential treatment of packets based on their destination"

    What they will pass:

    "If you are an ISP, you can't touch packets for any reason unless they are illegal or if the MPAA or RIAA wants them throttled or if they are in relation to a hate site or related to foreign involvement in government.." and two hundred more pages of nonsense that have nothing to do with net neutrality.

    • by Kohath ( 38547 )

      They won't pass anything. There's no chance for any bill to pass unless Democrats and Republicans and Trump all work together.

      Do you want them all working together? Do you think 50% of voters want their legislators to work with the other side?

      They won't even try to pass it.

      • The Republicans need the Democrats to pass their federal budget. Telling Trump no budget till we get network neutrality and healthcare for all should suffice. Sequestration means no money for the wall, budget cuts for the (republican) military industrial complex.
        • by Kohath ( 38547 )

          The Republicans need the Democrats to pass their federal budget. Telling Trump no budget till we get network neutrality...

          I hope they try that. Keep it shut down for 2 years for some issue 95% of people don't care about.

          ...and healthcare for all

          I really hope they try that. They won't though. They would have to appropriate funds to pay for it. There's nowhere near enough money anywhere for that. And actually trying to go ahead with it would mean ignorant people like you would find out they've been telling you fantasy stories the last 20 years.

    • who won't do that. There's plenty of honest, left wing candidates that ran in the primary and lost to bought and paid Clinton Democrats. Then show up in the general and vote them in and problem solved.

      It isn't even hard to know who's bought off. There's a website called Open Secrets that tracks it. It doesn't list all the dark money shenanigans, but it's not like these folks are trying to hide.

      Nancy Pelosi had a left wing primary challenger that didn't take a dime from corporate PACs. For all everybo
  • The FCC's repeal sparked an unprecedented political backlash, and we've channeled that internet outrage into real political power

    Come on, the House win was because of something the FCC did over a year ago?

    Sounds like an awesome way to squander what political power they did gain on a fruitless fight for something almost no voters understand or care about.

    By the way, if it was such a clear-cut political victory how did the GOP gain two senate seats over what they had before?

    • by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @11:09PM (#57773558)

      By the way, if it was such a clear-cut political victory how did the GOP gain two senate seats over what they had before?

      Well let's see. There were 26 blue seats up for grabs and 9 red seats.
      So I guess the answer would be... math?

    • by meglon ( 1001833 )
      You've already been told about the election math for the senate. I know, because i did a week ago. Are you seriously so fucking stupid you're incapable of learning a damn thing? You really area worthless STUPID cunt.
  • Obama's royal decree concerning "network neutrality" was badly flawed, but I think the CONCEPT is worthwhile.Let's see how Congress does in working out viable law, which would actually be enforceable, where the FCC was making it up as they went along. And now, since any law would need to be passed by both the Democrat House and the Republican Senate, AND signed by President Trump, we're likely to get a much better law.

  • Federal NN rules protected a few near monopoly networks.
    Remove the federal NN rules and let more competition and communities broadband grow.
    • by meglon ( 1001833 )
      Apparently you don't understand what NN is.It has nothing to do with the different states trying to limit municipal broadband development. And as for competition in general, that what NN does... it makes it impossible for corporations to stifle their competition by limiting access or increasing the costs of bandwidth.
  • by bmo ( 77928 )

    no.

    longer answer: the dnc is tied to incrementalism, which means giving lip service to the rabble at the EFF and then doing nothing. because they are just as bought as the republicans, except they are paid to lose.

    --
    bmo

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday December 08, 2018 @10:41PM (#57773482)
    They already forced a vote [cnet.com] to show who was and wasn't in favor of it. We learned two things from that

    a. it's an almost completely partisan issue

    b. There's not enough votes to overcome a veto.

    so I don't think it's a good way to spend political capital.
    • if you care about NN vote Democrat in 2020. Same goes for healthcare, especially pre-existing conditions protections. Trump's admin is pushing through a challenge to the ACA that, if Trump gets another term, will likely strike the law down. That means no more protection for pre-existing coverage. If anyone reading this has one now's the time to vote and get your family to vote.
      • Trump's admin is pushing through a challenge to the ACA that, if Trump gets another term, will likely strike the law down.

        And that would be one of the few reasons I would be happy for Trump to have another term. Once the Public Option was thrown out, the entire ACA should have been thrown out with it. It was bad law to begin with, but then it became absolutely useless. The best thing the Republicans did with their power was to mercifully gut the Individual Mandate (the single worst part of what remained of the ACA). Of course, they were responsible for making it absolutely useless to begin with, but at least they carried t

      • If you want NN, then join the Democrat party and primary the Republicans in sheeps clothing that are undermining the party. Once you HAVE a political opposition you'll start making progress.
    • by meglon ( 1001833 )

      a. it's an almost completely partisan issue

      Like a number of things that the PUBLIC overwhelmingly want, votes in congress end up split by party. That's why people say people voting republican are often voting against their own interests.

  • The way Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been neutral and non evil has me routing for the ISP's to launch competing services and throttle the hell out of the big three, until you get seconds per frame out of youtube, and can't reach facebook or Twitter at all.

    So I am pretty glad the rules got repealed now, and seeing as both my senators are now Republicans I'll be writing them to ask them to keep it that way.

  • ...as long as they can convince the GOP majority in the Senate to pass it as well, and then Trump to sign it.

    Do people (Americans) not really understand how the US government works? Do Democrats think winning one house of congress is meaningful in any but a blocking way?

  • Dunno if the Democrats will succeed at it, but that's the way it's supposed to work. The legislature passes potential changes in the law for the President to approve. This whole mess began when the Democrat-appointed Chair of the FCC tried to short-circuit the legislative process and unilaterally implemented a new policy. When a new President got elected, his appointed Chair of the FCC unilaterally changed the policy. It's hypocritical to support the former but be upset about the latter. In terms of pro
    • This is excellent, and it's just a shame no one bothers to teach Civics in any sensible way any more. And very sad and very necessary for our little echo chamber to hear and understand. Much of what has been said here about NN is the product of the bizarro world.

      Everyone should *want* rules/regulation/laws *voted on by elected officials* who can subsequently be made *accountable* for the results. Not by fiat of a President, appointed functionaries, etc. It is *supposed to be* very hard

  • No.

    They could possibly introduce a bill that has this in it, but unless they throw in enough Republican sweeteners to get it though the senate and past the Whtehouse, the Democrats cannot DO anything.

    In reality the past election didn't change much at all. It moved the power of the Democrats to say "NO" a bit towards the House and allowed them to actually get bills onto the Senate, but they cannot force the Senate to debate them or the president to sign them any more than before.

    So the balance of powe

    • They now have the power to prevent Trump from permanently ruining America before he leaves office in 2020. Anything he does by decree can be undone by decree by president Bernie Sanders in 2021.
  • Seems to me this whole stream is academic.

    In the US system of government - the House, Senate, and President need to agree on a Bill to make it law (Me thinks someone needs to watch School House Rock again..).

    With that being said - only the House is in the hands of the Democrat party - the Senate and Presidency are in the hands of the Republican party. Can you say grid-lock boys and girls?

    QED - Can't/Ain't gonna happen.

  • Public agenda is set by the president, and democrats are a minority in this administration.

    Sure, they can try and advance something in the House, but it goes nowhere without the President and the Senate onboard.

  • Yes, the Dems have the House, but they lost seats in the Senate, and a bunch of moderate Republicans dropped out of the Senate as well. Any attempt to reimpose net neutrality by legislation will never make it through the Senate.

  • No, not while Republicans control either the House, Senate, or White House. If Democrats controlled the House and Senate, they might be able to pass a bill--if they got 60 votes in the Senate to override a filibuster--but it would still be hard to override a presidential veto by a Republican president.
  • Consider no other legislation until a Net Neutrality bill is signed into law.

    Now, this may cause other problems because the legislature will be shirking their constitutional duties, and the other side will do the same with some other piece of legislation, like that "Border Wall", But "putting your foot down" to advance critical issues is something the corrupt US congress needs to start doing.

    • The Democrats are controlled by corrupt right wing politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. There is zero chance the Democrats will stand for anything before 2020, and given their inaction when Obama had control we can assume they will do nothing after.
  • Some rule of headlines says no anyway. But the reason is that the Dems and Reps will want to nurture it as a wedge issue rather than fix it.
  • What happens to the Internet can wait for now. They have more important things to deal with, like stopping the damage being done to just about everything in our government, and to start reversing/repairing the damage already done. Things got horribly out-of-balance and restoring that balance, so that all voices are heard, not just so-called 'conservative' voices, is much more important right now than anything about the Internet.
  • Why is it such a big deal? The apocalypse didn't happen prior to then. I'm also pretty sure that the major tech players ignored it whenever they want to.

    So, what does it promise to do, and will any of the major tech players care?

It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty small price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands computers.

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