Posted on 03/03/2007 2:16:23 PM PST by Anti-Bubba182
A tech legislative priority of congressional Democrats, "net neutrality," threatens America's unique Internet success, because it would reverse America's 11-year, bipartisan policy to promote competition and not regulate the Internet.
Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are co-sponsors of Dorgan-Snowe (S.215), a net neutrality bill that for the first time would mandate broadband provide equal treatment to all Internet content. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also supports net neutrality as does House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, who plans a series of hearings soon to promote net neutrality legislation.
To justify massive new government intervention in the Internet marketplace, Democrats are busily manufacturing a "broadband crisis" and an "Internet blocking problem" that simply does not exist. Policymaking by false premise is always dangerous. It's downright irresponsible when it threatens to undermine the unregulated Internet, one of the key engines of our nation's economic and productivity growth........."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
If the Dems hold Congress and win the Presidency bet your life that all of this regulation comes down. If you like posting at FR as it exists, kiss that goodbye and a whole bunch of other freedoms.
The names of the players and the stadiums may change but the game always remains the same.
Damn Right!
They must related to Chavez...
ping
Wait till Rush hammers the wakeup gong on this one...
the ringing will be deafening!
I'd call it the government network grab bill.
For instance, Comcast has their "digital voice" product which is similar to Vonage.com's Voice Over IP phones. Should Comcast be able to wall off their millions of users from using Vonage, unless Vonage pays Comcast? NN in this case is just "give us a connection at a set speed for a set rate, and do not try to control a user's access to the Internet otherwise".
The above is the NN I support.
Whether that is what some are trying to pass or not, I do not know.
Hands off the internet! High school textbooks already have language that promotes regulation of the net as a good thing (accessibility for all as a right, uniform information control.)
They call "net neutrality", leveling the playing field, I call it BS.
>>The author is too kind. This bill is not merely irresponsible or even irresponsible at all, it is a naked power grab by the most prominant Democrats today.
If the Dems hold Congress and win the Presidency bet your life that all of this regulation comes down. If you like posting at FR as it exists, kiss that goodbye and a whole bunch of other freedoms.<<
Would you mind elaborating? As a techie, I think of net neutrality as one of the key principles that has allowed the net to flourish. I also wasn't aware of a Republican/Democrat split on this.
My first take is that data flow freely rather than carriers charging more or less based on the content is more like the Free Republic outlook. Without net neutrality isn't it more likely that conservative content will be squeezed?
I would certainly change my outlook if I thought that continued net neutrality would prevent conservative speech on the net.
The Commie sympathizers at Google are for it, always have been.
>>For instance, Comcast has their "digital voice" product which is similar to Vonage.com's Voice Over IP phones. Should Comcast be able to wall off their millions of users from using Vonage, unless Vonage pays Comcast? NN in this case is just "give us a connection at a set speed for a set rate, and do not try to control a user's access to the Internet otherwise".<<
That's the kind of example I think of first too. The opposite of net neutrality seems more like phone companies charging based on what you have to say rather than on what services you use.
Clinton and Obama, go to Russia! (or North Korea) and stay there. They think like you)
I like your tagline.
LOL! And the left is always screaming about the Patriot Act....
>>I like your tagline.<<
Thank you - I was a boy scout and the concept of looking ahead and being prepared is pretty deeply ingrained in addition to my belief in doing what God might ask of me.
".. While it’s true that I am a skeptic about government regulation in almost every instance, I am still surprised about how many Internet-savvy people are willing to make this major leap of faith and put their trust in government without considering the unintended consequences of Big Government control.
Consider the recent comments of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) regarding why she’s backing Net neutrality mandates: “Each day on the Internet views are discussed and debated in an open forum without fear of censorship or reprisal.”
When I read that, I practically fell off my chair. It’s not just that Sen. Clinton is asking us to believe in some asinine conspiracy theory about how broadband companies are supposedly out to censor our thoughts or engage in reprisals. (“Reprisals”? For what?) No, what really blew my mind here was the fact that Ms. Clinton had the chutzpah to declare that the private sector was somehow the real threat to online speech.
After all, those of you who follow First Amendment issues know that Ms. Clinton’s name frequently pops up in news stories about new government proposals to regulate speech. In the early 1990s, she promoted aggressive new federal regulations under the Children’s Television Act, a law that imposed children’s programming requirements on television broadcasters. In the mid-90s, she stood with her husband in support of the Communications Decency Act, which proposed a federal censorship regime for online speech. More recently, I’ve been writing several pieces about her crusade to regulate video game content. She’s even hinted that government needs to do more about objectionable content on i-Pods. And don’t forget what she said after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke back in 1998 about how “we are all going to have to rethink how we deal with (the Internet).”.."
I agree with the above and wish to add that you cannot trust these people to act in good Faith. They mean us harm.
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