Posted on 06/07/2006 6:46:13 AM PDT by bstein80
Check out the new website on Hillary's attempt at a federal Internet grab!
http://www.neuters.net/
What is Really Going On Here?
Net Neutrality legislation is a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist.
That’s why the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act" (H.R. 5417) is opposed by nearly every conservative and free market organization, from FreedomWorks to the Heritage Foundation to the CATO Institute.
As Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), and opponent of the bill, declared, "This is a regulator's dream, but an entrepreneur's nightmare."
The idea driving the pro-Net Neutrality camp is that some companies may want to block users from competing web sites or services. Like most socialist notions, the idea of Net Neutrality protections is appealing. After all, most people want unfettered access to Internet sites and services (Although some people may prefer a family friendly ISP—and Net Neutrality mandates may eliminate this kind of choice from the market.)
So what’s the problem? Well, while the idea of Net Neutrality sounds reasonable, it will be far-reaching and disastrous in practice.
First, it is unclear how exactly broadband providers would comply with the vague rules in H.R. 5417. Second, it locks in a single network design, instead of allowing alternative services to develop.
Most importantly, Net Neutrality mandates will be the proverbial “camel’s nose under the tent.” Once federal regulators, politicians, and business lobbyists have regulatory leverage over the Internet, the Washington parlor game will ensue. And the Internet will never be the same again. Growth, investment, and innovation will all decline.
There are, or course, some problems today. Existing federal and state laws limit competition among broadband providers—especially in cable broadband. Congress should act to bring in more competing broadband providers. Letting the market give consumers seven or more broadband choices will eliminate concerns about any one provider abusing its market power.
The Internet is growing—over a billion people are online worldwide-- and the people and firms who constitute the ‘Net community should be free to continue to build and innovate. There is no cause for new federal regulations that will neuter the Internet.
Please join us in telling Congress: Don’t Neuter the Internet!
just another Rat grab.
certainly believable coming from scum of that nature
Humorous site.
Click here for a direct link for sending a letter:
http://www.rallycongress.com/freedomworks/petition.php?action_id=144
What a joke. How are they going to enforce this? Sounds like a good law to completely ignore.
I was on the fence, then I saw that MoveOn.org was supporting it.
MoveOn, Hillary, Pelosi, Moby and liberal Dem. Markey, among others.
The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Heritage Foundation, Cato Insitute and FreedomWorks all oppose net nuetering.. er.. neutrality...
I have a few questions for the poster...
1. If it is a HOUSE RESOLUTION (ie, "HR") then why is Hillary being targeted her (besides that it is fun)?
2. Why no mention of the sponsors?:
Rep Sensenbrenner, F. James, Jr. [WI-5],sposonor
Rep Boucher, Rick [VA-9]
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14]
Rep Lofgren, Zoe [CA-16]
I mean, if we're gonna look at this thing, then it's important we get the raw data on it!
Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006 (Introduced in House)
HR 5417 IH
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 5417
To amend the Clayton Act with respect to competitive and nondiscriminatory access to the Internet.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 18, 2006
Mr. SENSENBRENNER (for himself, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. BOUCHER, and Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
A BILL
To amend the Clayton Act with respect to competitive and nondiscriminatory access to the Internet.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006'.
SEC. 2. PURPOSES.
The purposes of this Act are to promote competition, to facilitate trade, and to ensure competitive and nondiscriminatory access to the Internet.
SEC. 3. AMENDMENTS TO THE CLAYTON ACT.
The Clayton Act (15 U.S.C. 12 et seq.) is amended--
(1) by redesignating section 28 as section 29,
(2) by inserting after section 27 the following:
`DISCRIMINATION BY BROADBAND NETWORK PROVIDERS
`Sec. 28. (a) It shall be unlawful for any broadband network provider--
`(1) to fail to provide its broadband network services on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms and conditions such that any person can offer or provide content, applications, or services to or over the network in a manner that is at least equal to the manner in which the provider or its affiliates offer content, applications, and services, free of any surcharge on the basis of the content, application, or service;
`(2) to refuse to interconnect its facilities with the facilities of another provider of broadband network services on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms or conditions;
`(3)(A) to block, to impair, to discriminate against, or to interfere with the ability of any person to use a broadband network service to access, to use, to send, to receive, or to offer lawful content, applications or services over the Internet; or
`(B) to impose an additional charge to avoid any conduct that is prohibited by this subsection;
`(4) to prohibit a user from attaching or using a device on the provider's network that does not physically damage or materially degrade other users' utilization of the network; or
`(5) to fail to clearly and conspicuously disclose to users, in plain language, accurate information concerning any terms, conditions, or limitations on the broadband network service.
`(b) If a broadband network provider prioritizes or offers enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type, it must prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin or ownership of such data) without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service.
`(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent a broadband network provider from taking reasonable and nondiscriminatory measures--
`(1) to manage the functioning of its network to protect the security of such network and broadband network services if such management does not result in discrimination among the content, applications, or services on the network;
`(2) to give priority to emergency communications; or
`(3) to prevent a violation of a Federal or State law, or to comply with an order of a court to enforce such law.
`(d) For purposes of this section--
`(1) the term `affiliate' means--
`(A) a person that directly or indirectly owns, controls, is owned or controlled by, or is under the common ownership or control with another person; or
`(B) a person that has a contract or other arrangement with a content or service provider concerning access to, or distribution of, such content or such service;
`(2) the term `broadband network provider' means a person engaged in commerce that owns, controls, operates, or resells any facility used to provide broadband network service to the public, by whatever technology and without regard to whether provided for a fee, in exchange for an explicit benefit, or for free;
`(3) the term `broadband network service' means a 2-way transmission service that connects to the Internet and transmits information at an average rate of at least 200 kilobits per second in at least one direction, irrespective of whether such transmission is provided separately or as a component of another service; and
`(4) the term `user' means a person who takes and uses broadband network service, whether provided for a fee, in exchange for an explicit benefit, or for free.', and
(3) by amending subsection (a) and the 1st sentence of subsection (b) of section 11 by striking `and 8' and inserting `8, and 29'.
"Funny you should say that, since the spokesman being paid to flack for your side of the issue is none other than Mike McCurry, former paid flack for Bill Clinton."
This entire THREAD, including original post, is being submitted to the Moderators to have it pulled.
We've been duped, folks.
This is a hack political attempt, using a shell organization (FreedomWorks) that can barely answer its phone, to stop legislation that the big telcos and cable companies don't like.
Worse yet, the site wasn't mentioned directly in the original post, and the info contained there would be considered "propaganda" if it had any use at all.
FOR SHAME!
An organization that has been around since 1984 is not a "shell" organization.
http://www.freedomworks.org/know/index.php
National Review, The Wall Street Journal, Heritage and Cato are not "shells" either. They have all added to the anti-net nuetrality debate.
This website is a parody. But the policy is there, too.
This is clearly a free-market issue.
IT IS THEIR TELECOMMUINICATIONS BACKBONE, PRIVATELY OWNED AND RUN AND FINANCED BY THEM - NOT THE GOVERNMENT.
If telecoms want to offer "enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type" and they do "prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin or ownership of such data)" they have every moral, financial and legal right to impose "a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service". What in the ^&%$## do you think a DSL line versus a standard modem is? Do they charge more for a DSL line? You bet. Same moral, business, and economic principal.
The Googles et al are skating on billions in revenue from a telecom backbone that is primarily financed by your land-line phone fees, because "Internet" (ISP) service with the telecoms has never paid for the Internet's share of the use of the one single interfunctional telecom backbone. Those land-line fees are in decline as a portion of telecom revenue and as a portion fo their profits, yet continue to provide the bulk of revenue paying for the backbone.
Meanwhile the Googles et al are reaping the rewards of a business model that essentially depends on you providing the bulk of the revenue for the backbone from which they derive billions in profits.
It is about time the true "profit centers" of the Internet start helping to pay for it, from their profits.
That is essentially what the telecoms seek to do, in changes to their revenue plans, which would provide the Googles et al the level of services they are actually getting - pushing the billions of bits of their profitable content as quickly as they push the few bits from little ole you - for additional fees charged to the Googles et al.
Google et al want to be treated by the telecoms like little ole non-profit you. That's their version of net-nuetrality. They have enlisted you as their ally as if they are protecting some "right" of everyone, when in fact they are trying to protect their profitable business model which depends on an Internet that is essentially financed mostly by you.
Congress needs to stay out of this and get its regulatory hands off of the telecoms industry. Technology and competition, and commercial companies making free market decisions based on technology and competition will sort this stuff out - in your favor in the long run, as it has continued to do for the past decade.
okay...
Talked to a human there.
This page was supposed to be PARODY. I guess that I'm not understanding that today. I suggested that it be more clearly marked as such.
Still, this is a battle in which content providers (Google, Amazon, et al) are fighting with the ISPs. By opposing this bill, we are siding with those content providers. This still leaves us with the issue of ISPs who try their darndest to funnel our traffic to their partners.
The Hillary connection? Supposedly she's gonna champion this bill if/when it goes to the Senate. This is a good thing (the sponsorship, not the parody), since Hillary can't get anything thru the Senate.
Google pays for bandwidth. All content providers have to provide the server power and bandwidth necessary to serve up content to those who request it. If they don't, you don't get it as fast.
If you don't pay for enough bandwidth, you can't get it as fast as they can serve it. If they don't pay for enough, they can't serve it as fast as you can get it.
They pay, you pay - already. That's not what net neutrality is about. It's about fees on top of this double-pay.
Thanks for posting the legislation. I'm for it.
They pay, as you and I do, only at the point of connection.
Yet, in terms of the mass of data running on the backbone at any given time, using the pipelines of the backbone at any given time, their mass of data is actually measurable, where your individual portion is infintessimal.
But their billions of bits, that they are making $billions on, are ferried through all the switches of the backbone with the same "quality of service" that your few bits are, for no additional charge, in spite of its mass, and in spite of the size of the pipelines that make that quality of service possible for all that mass. That quality does not come out of your or Google's "Internet" connection fees. It has, all along, been financed predominately by your land-line phone fees.
Long before the Internet, and recognizing the demands of large, profitable commercial enterprises were not the same as your demands and that you should not have to subsidize the accomodation of those demands by one standard of service, the telecoms developed premium telephone services to businesses to (1) accomodate the demands on the networks for large commercial enterprises and (2) get them to pay for the enhancements that would insure their demands would be met.
It should not be any different for the "Internet" services that keep the pipelines working for the highly profitable Googles et al. They are not you and they do not deserve to have their profits, and the basis of those profits, and the financial basis of the backbone that makes those profits possible confused with your access rights. The scope and the scale are not the same. There is nothing nuetral about the differences in the scope and scale either.
They, the Googles et al, are not your friends or your allies. They are highly profitable commercial companies and they need to be left to compete with and deal with the legitimate business rights of the commericial companies that supply services to them. They are using you to try to continue to skate on your subsidies to the backbone.
Government has been closing in on our freedoms for years. It really does not matter by Republicans or Democrats, it is a constant effort to put us in a cage and control what we eat, breath, excrete, etc. It doesn't seem to bother most Americans until one gets caught up in the crap. Our freedoms are eroded by politicians that work on easy legislation they can get away with, and the important things are just talked about. Currently we own nothing that cannot be taken away from us and our rights to protect ourself is literally gone.
Here are some good policy papers on net nuetering.
Heritage Foundation
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/bg1941.cfm
Cato Insitute
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1365
FreedomWorks
http://www.freedomworks.org/informed/issues_template.php?issue_id=2571&isitsearch=1&search1=arpan
The Washington Post weighed in AGAINST net neutrality:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/12/AR2006031200808.html
But guess who supports net neutrality?
MoveOn.org
http://civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/
The free market works. Regulation stifles innovation and deters competition. OPPOSE NET NUETERING!!
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