The FCC’s Orwellian Internet policy

[J_J_]

The FCC, consisting of five appointed members, is celebrating the democratic process used in formulating the 332-page plan. In a campaign coordinated with the White House, commission staff solicited several million form letters from activists cheering the ever-popular “Title II reclassification.” Nearly 1 million voters responded furiously with comments of their own, advocating the exact opposite policy, one of Internet freedom. Many senators and congressmen are skeptical an “independent, expert” agency is supposed to work this way. Commission staff, however, are warning Congress, and its 535 elected representatives, to buzz off, lest it intrude on democracy.

The White House has spoken with authority. It directed the FCC to use “Title II of the Telecommunications Act” of 1996 to boost the deployment of “gigabyte” broadband. Never mind that the White House meant Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, or that it confused bytes with bits — it’s gigabit broadband. Oh, lighten up. Comm Act, Telecom Act — close enough, right? And what’s a mere factor of eight when designing complex technical systems?

Regardless, Congress doesn’t understand the law it passed in 1996. It thinks it told the FCC to leave the Internet alone. “It is the policy of the United States,” Congress said in the bipartisan Telecommunications Act of 1996, “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” Oh, dearest Congress. Such a quaint understanding of words.

Concise statutory statements are no match for the FCC’s linguistic gymnastics. For starters, Internet service providers, the commission’s press secretary informed us, will no longer be part of the Internet. See how easy that is. Congress says the Internet should be “unfettered” by regulation. The FCC says: ISPs aren’t the Internet. Voilà.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2888366/the-fcc-s-orwellian-internet-policy.html

[geek tragedy]

1. Nice rightwing Koch Brothers sewage you decided to post. nt

[shraby]

2. I could say something derogatory about the post...but I won't...I won't. The

rules around here hold me back.

[Fred Sanders]

3. Wow. How much more obvious can one be? Net neutrality must really be driving the telcos nuts.

[J_J_]

4. I know it is written badly, as they love Congress and hate Obama, but is there something to this?

Just wondering about this secret plan, like the TPP....thought we should discuss it....

[geek tragedy]

6. There is no secret plan. The proposed rule was published in May 2014. nt

[upaloopa]

5. Can you tell me why giving Verizon the means

to charge more me for something I already get now is good for me? Is freedom only freedom for telecom companies?
Who do you work for?
You want to set it up so more middlemen can charge people money for what they already get for free!
It is a kin to setting up companies who can charge me for going down to the sea and sticking my toes in the water when I have been doing that for years without them.

[djean111]

7. One thing that has not been mentioned much is that, while the FCC did declare the internet

a utility, it was also decided that regulating how much the providers charge users is soooo last century. That seems a bit ominous. I do like that they declared that a few municipalities can go ahead and crate and provide their own local internet, but wish this had been an across-the-board ruling.

Waiting, of course, to see if and how the TPP will make a lot of these rules and regulations moot - corporations will be able to bypass the entire judicial systems and try cases in their own corporate courts, staffed by corporate lawyers as judges, and hand down either cash awards from taxpayers, or directives to delete or change a law or regulation that affects profits. Currently, this sort of thing happens in a country's court system. The TPP "privatizes" this.