Posted on 07/07/2006 5:50:54 AM PDT by areafiftyone
Proponents of Network Neutrality have been relentless at highlighting individual Congress members' failings to protect Internet freedom. Senators John McCain and Ted Stevens have felt the heat in past weeks. This week, the heat is on Virginia Senator George Allen, who MoveOn.org believes tried to pull a fast one on his website.
For the record, Allen voted against the Snowe-Dorgan amendment, which was expressly worded to prevent Internet service providers from setting up a two-tiered system that could be easily abused and made into a system of Internet toll roads. Opposition to that type of system is what, at the core, defines the Network Neutrality movement.
And from Allen's Website, it appears he agrees with the deluge of constituent requests to protect Net Neutrality. In fact, Allen comes right out and says he voted "yes" to protect it:
Granted, it doesn't say anything about the Snowe-Dorgan amendment until further down the page, where Allen defends his opposing vote with a non-government interference stance - similar to Ted Stevens' opinion on the matter, who's only okay with government regulation when it comes to cable television content. It's nice Stevens finally got the "internet" his staff sent him that took so long to get there.
MoveOn.org's Adam Green, though, isn't buying one bit of it. In a blog post at DailyKos, Green lambasted Allen for attempting to deceive the public about how he voted on the issue.
Allen is now using his taxpayer-funded website to say he "voted yes" on a bill that "addresses the issue of Net Neutrality."…the bill Allen voted for "addresses" Net Neutrality by putting it on the road to elimination. He voted no on preserving Net Neutrality.
Only they can do that.
I completely agree. The internet as we see it now will become a thing of the past.
This guy deserves to be trashed on this issue!
Then Allen should face the music in the debates with Webb on this issue.
Agreed.
Not quite. For ISPs that are utilities, this is a states' rights issue that should be left to local franchise authorities.
While Senator Allen voted against the Snowe-Dorgan Amendment, he firmly believes that the principles of Internet freedom were properly addressed in the Internet Consumer Bill of Rights Act. Under this legislation, all Internet users are guaranteed to have access to any application or service within their bandwidth. Before any additional government action is taken, we must be absolutely sure that it is necessary. Continued investment in and innovation on the Internet should not be stifled by needless, burdensome government regulations.
See also:
Allen Hails Victories In Telecom Bill
The four amendments which Senator Allen sponsored include: Ban access taxes on the Internet by a permanent extension of the Internet Tax Moratorium...."With the committee’s acceptance of the permanent Internet tax moratorium we are now one step closer to keeping the Internet free from avaricious State and local tax commissars who have tried to saddle consumers with higher Internet bills which would have slowed down the spread of high speed Internet and thereby exacerbated the economic digital divide in our country."
And...
Allen: Big Victory For The Internet & America's Competitiveness
“I believe it is our responsibility as public servants and legislators to implement and advance policies that enable innovation and allow the United States to effectively compete and taxes on Internet access would harm our ability to compete and succeed. If we don’t permanently ban these taxes, we will be exacerbating the economic digital divide, harming small towns and rural areas, and punishing consumers, which is not my idea of pro-consumer, technology policy,” Senator Allen told the Committee.
That said...I'm not sure the Senator was right on this issue, but as is often the case with the way he votes, there's likely more to the story.
Considering that the attacks are coming from MoveOn.org and KOS, I know who I'd trust.
I guess I don't understand this issue enough.
Why do we need government to protect the internet? If parts of the internet are owned privately, should we be taking away from those owners the right to do what they want with their private property?
Are we really afraid that we will start getting surcharges for pulling data across the internet?
And if we do, is that because we are using someone's private network to pull the data, and they are going to charge us for it?
Should free-market conservatives argue that owners of bandwidth must donate it for public use because it's better for us not to have to pay for what we are using?
Or is the issue something completely different?
Does anybody have a good link to somewhere that clearly explains this? Everything I've read is written from one point of view or another, just like most things in the telecom world.
I'm not aware of any laws preventing the creation of private networks. It's perfectly legal to buy routers and DNS servers.
I could not find this Amendment to bill on the floor -- it is looks like it was still in the Commerce Committee and that is where Senator Allen voted against the Amendment. Considering Snowe-Dorgan introduced the Amendment and these two nutcase organizations are against his vote, I would say I agree with Senator Allen that this is already addressed. Snowe-Dorgan look to be wanting more Government intervention from what I could read.
HRC, MM, Soros et.al. are fed up with the fact that their best laid plans are being laid bare by bloggers.
Even the term "Net Neutrality" smacks of political opiate.
Agreed. Stopped clock and all that.
Sorry, "net-nuetrality" is promoted and funded by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to try to protect their lucrative Internet business models; by which they have various "tiered" surfaces for preferred business customers but want an Internet that you susbidize through all the non-Internet fees you pay to the telecoms and cable companies; which is what is paying for the backbone that the Internet uses.
The only ones who will be affected by "tiered" services of the telecoms and cable companies will be high-volume, high-content content providers (like Google, Yahoo, etc.) who, upon being charged more for their use of the backbone, will pass those costs onto their real customers - their advertisers, not you.
You have been enlisted under false pretenses by the billionaires of Google and Yahoo to protect their business model, not you.
"Net-nuetrality" is really a "net-protection" racket for the multi-billion dollar commercial Internet content providers, whose business model is sliding on your land-line, cable TV subsidies to the backbone.
For instance, they want to compete with the cable companies with things like HD-TV clips over "the net", adding quadrillions of information packets to the volume that must be pushed through "the net", and still pay nothing additional for adding all that volume.
In order to make all these new technologies possible, workable, manageableover "over the net", "the net" has to have the revenue to keep improving to make those things workable, somehow.
The telecoms and the cable companies think that they should not have to raise your monthly Internet rates, to provide the revenue to make the needed investments.
The highly profitable, commercial companies that want to provide all this new content should pay for the revenue stream that will make the investments that will make all that new content that they want to do possible "over the net".
Google and Yahoo prefer that you pay for it.
That is what "net nuetrality" is all about.
Thanks for that explanation.
Considering that the attacks are coming from MoveOn.org and KOS, I know who I'd trust.
But you can. The idea that you can't was broken when MCI built its own telecommunications network and then demanded and received the recognition of the right to offer services competitive with Ma Bell. You can become an ISP or any kind of telecommunications offering that you have the knowledge and resources to create.
"Google has enough money to build an internet, but they aren't allowed to, that is kind of BS."
Technically and legally there is nothing stopping them. But the whole idea of "the Internet" is that there is not separate "Internets" each closed off from the others; so why would Google what to have an isolated "Internet" of its own. It makes no sense.
And as far as what Google can do with all its money today, there was a good article in the latest Investors Business Daily, speculating that Google is in fact creating its own telecommunications broadband network and may just, in the future, go into direct competition with the telecoms and the cable companies. I am sure that when it does it will also continue to have multi-tiered pricing for its offerings, just as it hypocritically has now for its premium customers; while demanding it should escape such pricing from the telecoms.
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