Free Republic

Ajit Pai, the sole Republican Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), inferred in a Tweet that President Barack Obama’s secret, 332-page “Net Neutrality” document is a scheme for federal micro-managing of the Internet to extract billions in new taxes from consumers and again enforce progressives’ idea of honest, equitable, and balanced content fairness.

Late last year, Obama asked the Federal Communications Commission to create a new set of rules to make sure everyone has access to the Internet and that phone and cable companies would not be allowed "to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online."

President Obama urged the US government to adopt tighter regulations on broadband service in an effort to preserve "a free and open Internet."In a statement released Monday, Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the principle of treating all Internet traffic the same way, known in shorthand as Net neutrality. That means treating broadband services like utilities, the president said, so that Internet service providers would be unable "to restrict the best access or to pick winners and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas."Obama wades into a contentious debate that has raged over how to...

It's time to mobilize Congress against Obama’s plan to relinquish our authority over the Internet.When the new Congress shows up on Tuesday, it’s going to have lots to worry about, but there’s one serious problem at risk of being overlooked. And that really can’t be allowed to happen; it’s much too important: In 2015, the Obama administration plans to hand over control of ICANN — the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — to international governance. ICANN oversees the superstructure of the Internet, and the American Department of Commerce oversees ICANN. The plan for handing our authority to the...

Federal regulators looking to place restrictions on Internet providers will introduce and vote on new proposed net neutrality rules in February, Federal Communications Commission officials said Friday.

Now that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have launched their new friendship initiative with Cuba, progressives are thinking more optimistically about what else might be possible in the remainder of the president’s term. After all, since the November 2014 elections, Obama has moved sharply left on immigration, climate change, and net neutrality. So why shouldn’t the Left hope for more? What might be next on the Obama agenda? Breitbart News has obtained one such to-do list: 10. Marijuana to be completely decriminalized under the ever-expanding doctrine of “prosecutorial discretion.” In the meantime, the administration will push...

Never before has it been so easy to turn an idea into a business. With a simple Internet connection, some ingenuity and a lot of hard work, anyone today can create a new service or app or start selling products nationwide. . . . . . Yet the threats from Washington to stifle freedom, entrepreneurship and creativity online have never been greater. Washington politicians want the money, and they want more and more control over our speech.Four basic principles should guide policymakers, in a bipartisan manner, to preserve America’s leadership role in developing the future of the Internet.. ....

Net Neutrality Net neutrality—the idea that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks equally—is a principle that EFF strongly supports. Unfortunately, the FCC is considering a plan that would allow some Internet providers to provide better access to some websites that pay a fee to reach users faster. This kind of “pay-to-play” Internet stifles innovation. New websites that can’t afford expensive fees for better service will face new barriers to success, leaving users with ever fewer options and a less diverse Internet. There are many ways ISPs may discriminate against how we access websites,...

When I read that the Obama Administration wants to regulate the Internet by having the Federal Communications Commission impose “net neutrality” rules, my immediate response is to be opposed.Does my opposition to more regulation and red tape make me a knee-jerk ideologue?I suppose so, though I think it’s simply a common-sense instinct.After all, it’s very difficult to come up with a list of successful interventions by government. So I think my automatic aversion to regulation is akin to my automatic aversion to touching a hot stove. Simply stated, I can’t imagine a positive outcome.But let’s be “open minded” and consider...

In a surprise move late Friday, a key Democrat on the Federal Election Commission called for burdensome new rules on internet-based campaigning, prompting the Republican chairman to warn that the left wants to regulate conservative political sites and even news outlets like the Drudge Report. Democratic FEC Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel announced plans to begin the process to win regulations on internet-based campaigns and videos, currently free from most of the FEC’s rules. “A reexamination of the commission’s approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long over due,” she said. The powerplay followed a deadlocked 3-3 vote...

There has been mounting evidence in the last two weeks that the Internet, one of the last unregulated venues for communication, might well be headed for federal regulation. What makes the specter of Internet regulation (or "net neutrality," as its proponents prefer to call it) all the more ominous is that it might become law through rulings by the Federal Communications Commission rather than a vote of elected representatives in Congress. On Sept. 24, the Washington Post reported that the FCC was working with activists seeking to generate comments in favor of tough, 1930s-style regulation of telephone. In what the...

The NYT is on an anti-human exceptionalism crusade. Other than columnist Ross Douthat, when was the last time the “paper of record” allowed arguments to be made in favor of the unique dignity of human life in its pages? I can’t recall a single time in recent years. But take actions to subvert our belief in the unique dignity of human life and the NYT is at your service! It has published columns arguing for “pea personhood,” that plants are the most “ethical” life form, and in last Sunday’s Magazine, a tribute to the Dark Mountain Projects’ push for “uncivilization.”...

Our recent interview with Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel about his provocative prediction that most employers will abandon health coverage by 2025 struck a nerve with You’re The Boss readers. It came as no surprise that Dr. Emanuel’s claim, first made in his new book, “Reinventing American Health Care,” would be swept up in the broader political and ideological debate about the Affordable Care Act. But in their many comments, readers raised interesting questions, and we took some of them back to Dr. Emanuel in another conversation that appears, edited and condensed, below. It’s worth noting that among those readers who...

State Sen. Leland Yee is going after another right-wing heavyweight, this time launching a boycott of any companies that advertise on Rush Limbaugh's radio show. Yee, a Democrat who represents northern San Mateo County and western San Francisco, began reaching out Tuesday to dozens of civil rights organizations to ask them to condemn Limbaugh. His staff has compiled a list of the show's sponsors and, with the help of the community groups, will begin putting pressure on them to pull their advertisements from the show. Yee also wants people to stop patronizing the show's advertisers and has launched an online...

You've probably heard that Cosmos, the new version starring Neil deGrasse Tyson, is causing waves because it's on FOX, and it actually talks about (gasp!) evolution. But this week, Christians upped the ante on crazy by demanding "equal time" for creationists. You know, because they need things to be "balanced." In his typically incisive style, deGrasse explained one reason why that's a silly idea. “You don’t talk about the spherical Earth with NASA, and then say let’s give equal time to the flat Earthers..."

It's Sunshine Week, so perhaps some enterprising White House reporter will ask press secretary Jay Carney why President Obama rewrote the Freedom of Information Act without telling the rest of America. The rewrite came in an April 15, 2009, memo from then-White House Counsel Greg Craig instructing the executive branch to let White House officials review any documents sought by FOIA requestors that involved "White House equities." That phrase is nowhere to be found in the FOIA, yet the Obama White House effectively amended the law to create a new exception to justify keeping public documents locked away from the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Internal Revenue Service employee took home personal information on about 20,000 IRS workers, former workers and contractors, putting the data at risk for public release, the agency said Tuesday. The employee took home a computer thumb drive containing names, Social Security numbers and addresses of the workers, and plugged the drive into an unsecure home network, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in an email to employees.

OPINION IRS doubles down on lawbreaking with regulation to kill free speech MARK J. FITZGIBBONS • | MARCH 17, 2014 AT 6:08 PM Proposed regulations from the IRS for 501(c)(4) "social welfare organizations" would censor speech such as legislative scorecards, voter registrations and get-out-the-vote projects. They also would eliminate communications before elections that name candidates, even if done in a neutral fashion. The IRS claims its proposed regulations are designed to create “a more uniform set of rules” for social welfare organizations, notwithstanding the long precedent of these types of communications. Censorship is now deemed appropriate tax policy. Coming after...

The Center for Competitive Politics created this working timeline of events surrounding the IRS scandal. A PDF version of the working timeline is here.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest defended President Obama’s weekend vacation in Key Largo, despite the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, arguing Obama would be able to monitor events from Florida. “What the president will be doing this weekend in Florida is essentially what the president would be doing back at the White House. It’s just that the weather will be a little warmer,” Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One. -snip- Hey, at least he’s being frugal about it. The rooms are only $2500 per night. There is at least one critic of the idea that a president should be taking...