Posted on 12/02/2010 6:08:46 AM PST by Kaslin
Regulation: In the name of fairness, a Federal Communications Commission plan to impose "net neutrality" without any legislative or legal authority will in effect be silencing a conduit for the truth that keeps us free.
The Internet is once again under attack, not from hackers intent on spilling secrets or causing mischief, but by an administration intent on controlling the free flow of information that it views as a threat to its expanding power.
According to the Hill, which obtained a copy of the FCC's tentative December agenda just after midnight Wednesday, the government agency will seek to impose rules concerning "net neutrality" at a Feb. 21 meeting. The announcement says these "rules would protect consumers' and innovators' right to know basic information about broadband service, right to send and receive lawful Internet traffic, and right to a level playing field."
Regulation now is done by Internet service providers (ISPs) and Web sites that sprout up like weeds. A lot of nonsense is online, as well as a lot of valuable facts and information. Information's former gatekeepers, such as the mainstream media and the federal government, find this free flow of ideas inconvenient.
Note the announcement's emphasis on "lawful Internet traffic" and a "level playing field." This is government-speak for controlling what gets said and who gets to say it. The Internet is already open to all, but in the marketplace of ideas, as in other areas of endeavor, some ideas win out over others. The FCC wants to decide what and whose ideas get heard.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Pathetic!
ping!
This is right out of George Orwell’s book “1984”.
before anyone gets bent out of shape, net neutrality is essentially what we do have now and have had.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
I must be quite naive. I just read a copy of the U.S. Constitution and there seems to be a mention of something called “Freedom of Speech”. I checked carefully and there is just that single word...”SPEECH”. Not “love speech”, “unhappy speech”, “glad speech”, “hate speech”, “angry speech”, “Republican speech”, or even “Democrat speech”.
The Supreme Court has ruled everything from FLAG BURNING to strip dancing as protected “Free Speech”. I am quite certain that the written word, the typed word, the printed word is also protected.
Wouldn’t FCC attempts to “regulate and govern” speech be a governmental violation of the First Amendment?
There was a time, once, when it was believed that the Constitution was there to LIMIT the powers of government. When was it repealed? I must have been out of town that day.
No, too much information is a threat to tyrants. Only in the twisted doublespeak of a leftist authoritarian could we find that all of this information is putting pressures on our country and democracy.
It's going to be real cliffhanger trying to make it through the lame duck with this control freak trying to cram the Dream Act, Net Neutrality and the Food Safety Modernization Act down our collective throat. This guy is very desperate to implement his agenda from he!! before he loses legislative control. Hopefully those Senate Republicans will filibuster all this nonsense until Christmas.
Could someone explain what “lawful internet traffic” is?
Well, that's easy. It's whatever the FCC deems it to be.
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