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Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

carole — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:51:59 -0000

There are too many Americans that are ignorant to what Obama is doing to this wonderful country. Government has NO business controling anything is this country; not healthcare, not the internet, not banks, not the car business. Our elected officials are supposed to be working for us, not working to control us.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

justinleon — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:49:55 -0000

Thank god! Even though he's a honorable man, many of his ideas are misguided.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

rb — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:23:41 -0000

John McCain... the senator from AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast over $900,000 in contributions from the major broadband players over the last 2 years..

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Joe_SUV — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:35:33 -0000

you showed a strong dislike that Republicans are all about big business ruling your life. My dear, the Democrats are far more guilty of this, as they implement their strategy of taking over business in America, even dictating wages of employees of private companies (not just those who came begging, or those it coerced to take bail-out money) Put your party politics aside, and look at what is fair or not fair. Both [parties fall short because politicians most often try to make themselves rich or secure for life, and the people they are pledged to serve are not their deepest concern, and are in their thoughts only as to how they can get re-elected. Stop hating "the other side" and evaluate every political act for how it will affect your freedom, and whether or not it is fair. Embrace freedom and capitalism, innovation and free-market competition. Don't like it, don't buy it. That's how a capitalist system works. Vote with your dollars, and buy the better product for you. The ones that can't (or won't) compete will wither and die. That fosters innovation, and "Darwin-izes" what doesn't work or isn't wanted.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Jason — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:38:43 -0000

I love McCain I hope he is able to run again for election the next go around. We need a leader who is more for the people as a whole and a leader with common sense too.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

jamesanton — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:21:43 -0000

"I love the smell of paranoia in the morning."

me too. This entire thread is paranoid that corporations are going to control the Internet.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Stephen Bates — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:55:36 -0000

"Also, do you want the government controlling the Internet?! It can and will be used to squash free speech."

I love the smell of paranoia in the morning.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Stephen Bates — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:51:39 -0000

Can anyone explain to me how preventing ISPs from having full control of what is transmitted on the internet will stifle innovation?

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Henry — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:50:34 -0000

Actually i like McCain
the FCC’s rules are about to be put under the microscope and thrown into the fire.
thanks for the sharing~

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Joe Tighe — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:04:50 -0000

The US government is proposing broad new regulations for telecommunications and cable internet service providers.

The new proposals appear to target specific providers for regulation and government oversight. Specifically, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has proposed the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, or the “Net Neutrality” bill, outlining government policies to impose new governance and restrictions targeting telecommunications and cable providers AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and Comcast.

The proposed is based on the unfounded fear that service providers will “control who can and cannot offer content, services and applications over the Internet utilizing such networks.”

The Markey bill indicates the vast majority of consumers receive services from only one or two dominant internet service providers. And, the bill says the national economy could be harmed “if” these providers interfered with access to internet applications.

The bill proposes regulations imposing equal treatment (eg price/performance) of all internet traffic and content, regardless of content type and delivery costs. Specifically, the legislation proposes internet service providers could not sell prioritized internet applications or services.

One of the main problems with the proposed legislation is the lack of recognition of costs to provide internet services. Some applications, such as video are bandwidth hogs and require significantly greater network infrastructure and associated costs to deliver when compared to the network infrastructure costs to deliver email access. Under the proposed legislation, services providers would have to charge the low bandwidth users (casual browsers and email readers) more to offset for the higher costs of the video users. One result of the proposed legislation would be less consumer choice and a hidden “bandwidth hog tax”. Today, most service providers offer tiered products and pricing to consumers and businesses to account for the additional costs to deliver bandwidth intensive applications. You pay more if you use more under the tiered pricing model. These are not “discriminatory” practices. Rather, tiered pricing and application prioritization are sound business models delivering reliable, profitable product choices and unburdened internet ecommerce. Consumers and businesses currently have choices. The proposed legislation takes away choice and increases costs to consumers and businesses.

Another problem with the legislation is, certain applications such as voice and video over the internet require prioritization and special treatment to work properly. The proposed legislation makes existing application prioritization products and networking practices illegal. Internet service providers would have to dismantle these services to make all internet applications “equal” with no prioritization schema. The new legislation would kill off reliable voice and video over the internet as we know it.

The other problem with the Net Neutrality legislation is anti-trust and federal trade regulations are already in place to protect consumers and business from monopolistic practices and unfair trade. For example, when AT&T disconnected MCI customers in 1974, MCI filed and won a successful anti-trust lawsuit resulting in breakup of the AT&T monopoly. Another example is, the Federal Trade Commission recently investigated possible antitrust violations caused by the Apple and Google sharing two board directors. Arthur Levinson has since stepped down from both Apple and Google boards.

The US government would better use taxpayer dollars and valuable legislation time by asking two questions:

Which companies are hiring lobbyists and launching advertising campaigns promoting Net Neutrality legislation?

What is their agenda?

Net Neutrality legislation is not needed. Consumers would have less choice and higher costs. Internet service providers would incur additional costs and compliance overhead. Taxpayers would pay higher taxes to create and support additional government oversight organizations.

What business and consumers need is effective interpretation, oversight and enforcement of existing laws and regulations.

Disclosure – Joe Tighe has no paid relationships, products or endorsements from any company, political or government organization cited in this article.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Jose Abreu — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:51:54 -0000

McCain is a joke. Stifle innovation? We are falling behind the rest of the world in this technology. This guy is out of touch. Nice to see who the giant telecoms have in their back pocket. He just outed himself. Moron!

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

perezkaram — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:08:38 -0000

You are right, let's talk about the bill... if internet is not open for IPS and internet based companies alike, McCain (whom I respect in many many ways, regardless of his or my political view) says this will help build an economy. The truth is that if you give the power to ISP or other services to close their platforms to whomever they feel they should, then this can create monopolies and hurt competition, which is one of the principals of capitalism. So as a Conservative Capitalist, McCain and all his friends should support open internet that will create many many new business that can be sustainable, instead of creating a little elite of internet business that will control everything...

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

jamesanton — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:06:39 -0000

"Comcast uses traffic shaping (which is about as opposite to Net Neutrality as possible) and it's something that infuriates WoW players every week on patch day. :P

Net Neutrality doesn't mean telling you where you can or cannot surf. It's only saying that, no matter where you go online, you won't need to worry about your ISP throttling your connection just because they don't like the site you are visiting or its content."

This isn't going to really help people out. Would you rather they throttled some sort of bandwidth (such as torrents, etc) or charged more?

Comcast won't throttle, but they will just end up having higher bandwidth plans. I would rather have those things throttled (which isn't that bad. It is just a way to keep costs down for the consumer and make it so your lines aren't saturated by your neighbor downloading loads of torrents and full movies).

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

jamesanton — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:00:34 -0000

Instead of talking about the actual bill, you attack the person. This won't get your point across beyond some simpletons and in Internet forums.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

jamesanton — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:57:25 -0000

"It points squarely against giving certain websites an advantage over others. The Internet is a level playing field; if it wasn't, many websites would not be able to get off the ground. This would discourage people from starting their own website, which would certainly stifle innovation."

I would like to start a socialbookmark service. But, digg and reddit are getting too much traffic. We need the government to regulate these sites so their traffic is distributed evenly among all social bookmarking sites on the Internet, giving everyone an equal advantage.

"Another point is that if ISPs were allowed to discriminate against competitors' websites, it would unfairly discourage switching ISPs. Competition is good; stifling competition is bad."

and the government doesn't do this? Obama has already given kickbacks to the unions (the healthcare bill has special provisions for the unions).

Just remember, when a corporation is corrupt, they can get fined, people can get fired, and you have the freedom to go to another company. When the government is corrupt, your freedoms are taken away and you have very little choice.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

jamesanton — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:44:27 -0000

"based on what?! All Evidence points to the contrary"

Show me a goverment regulated industry that isn't void of innovation?

Also, do you want the government controlling the Internet?! It can and will be used to squash free speech.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Tom Usher — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:18:45 -0000

John McCain being older has nothing to do with it. The real point is that John fairly recently admitted knowing next to nothing about the Internet. What he did was listen to those who got him there - whose deep pockets paved the way to his Senate seat.

Do you know his past? I was an adult living in Arizona when he showed up there after his people calculated the best place for him to go, where his chances of being elected would be the greatest and quickest. It was Goldwater Country, and Goldwater's career could only last so much longer. I also looked into John's past and his connections with organized crime in Arizona and Canada via his wife's family. Check out Kemper Marley (Mafia), Don Bolles (murdered investigative journalist), and Jim Hensley (John McCain's wife's father). I did that so I'd know "where he's coming from" with his various talk.

I also remember firsthand the rules about giving up information to the "enemy" being conveniently and radically relaxed primarily on account of John's POW-experience in Vietnam. He is the son of a son...the Admiral's boy of the Admiral's boy, now U.S. Senator, married to a well-connected, very wealthy heiress whose money resulted from what?

He's fabulously rich now. He didn't get that way by caring about the little people.

He's a major, if not the major, military imperialist in the U.S. He wanted to be Teddy Roosevelt with a bigger stick.

Now, if you want to let that mind, John's mind, decide the who, what, where, when, and why of the gate-valves on the Internet, then you'll get the superrich, military imperialists, who love to clamp down against all dissenting voices, being the ones controlling the valves and where and when they decide simply because they are rich and bought your mind and soul and vote. They are rich because they are selfish and they bribe you to turn to that mentality too. So, why sell out?

If you think that, that will get you innovation, then why does Bill Gates hate open-source programming so much? Why does he think it's wicked communism? Why does he work against it if not for selfish, anti-you reasons, unless you're working for him and bought and paid for.

If competition is so great, why is it so great only when it's done with purely self-centered motives? Why is capitalism always so paranoid to go head-to-head with the non-profit cooperative that should be the people's government?

Yes, we have crony capitalism in the United States. John McCain is a prime example of that. So the telecoms will be sure to have people paid to troll the main sites where they can leave telecom/imperial propaganda when those same telecoms have had no problem working secretly and illegally with the NSA that was definitely spying domestically on domestic calls by U.S. natural-born citizens to U.S. natural-born citizens whether or not those individuals had done anything truly suspicious.

They listened in on your most private and personal conversations that were none of their business and on which they should not have been eavesdropping.

They are not capable of being God. They get nearly everything wrong to create a lively terror (just as Winston Churchill liked it). They persecute. They oppress without cause. They imprison and torture the innocent right along with the guilty. Then they say, "Just move on."

The only CEO (QWEST) who fought it, per the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, ended up in prison. Every CEO who went along with it and everyone right on down the chain-of-command who went along with it and the same on the NSA side should have had to face the music. John McCain was instrumental in seeing to it that that didn't happen. He received big political funding for doing that too. Yet you want his backers and him making the rules for which voices get the exposure on the Internet. In my book, that's extremely gullible, naive, and foolish.

Now, there's a huge battle of the so-called Libertarian Capitalists, mostly on the part of little-fry dupes doing the bidding of those who fund that movement, against those who are more open-source minded (sort of where the first libertarian/anarchists on the Internet started before they were further corrupted). Also, it was the people's government that started the Internet (DARPA) albeit for military reasons.

If you look at where the big money comes from for the think tanks (such as the Cato Institute for one) that plant the "libertarian" seeds that the famous talking heads, such as Glenn Beck for one (who isn't really a purist but has tons of neocon in him), then cause to go viral, you will find ultra-rich plutocrats who have a long history of fighting tooth and nail against everything that's best for the little people. You'll find Big Oil such as Koch Industries for instance. Follow the money.

They (the plutocrats) hated the truth coming out about tobacco smoking. They hated every effort to stop their ability to bury 55-gallon drums loaded with highly toxic waste that then rusted and leaked into your water tables. They hated catalytic converters being put on vehicles so that the old and weak and you could breathe cleaner air. They hated unleaded gas. They hated anti-dumping legislation. They hated child labor laws and even managed to get them repealed for a little while. They hated the 40-hour week. They hated OSHA. They hated Social Security. They hated unemployment compensation. They hated worker's compensation. They hated being held liable for Love Canal. They hated unions. They hated anything that took back from them to spread amongst those from whom they derived it in the first place. They hated and still largely hate anything that cramps their luxurious and obscene lifestyles while those who work for them are reduced to food stamps and Hoovervilles and being canon fodder or robotic mass-murderers on the other side of the planet or now from air-conditioned offices in the U.S. where they can play with their joy sticks and laugh and give each other hi-fives about which innocent "Hajji" or "rag-head" child's head they blew off: demonic.

It's amazing how the Libertarian Capitalists complain against the people's publicly controlled regulators, but at the same time those Libertarian Capitalists, such as those at the cowardly Ludwig von Mises Institute (that censored my submitted comments there), complain about the major bankers and the Federal Reserve (who supposedly are privately self-regulating and who fund themselves and the corporations off your hard-earned taxes with usury due them, the banksters, for having done absolutely nothing but arbitrarily picking the amount of money they want to create) who are working the hardest to bring in the anti-public regulation New World Order that the Libertarians love to hate. It is amazing that the telecoms are right in bed with exactly what those Libertarians hate but then defend right here. It's confusion! It's hypocrisy! It's inherent in capitalism as a worldview.

Let me put it this way. The Libertarian/Objectivist Capitalist, Ayn Rand utopia is just that and always will be: nowhere. That's because you can never arrive at what is truly best via a selfish starting place. The answer isn't in everyone realizing the best individually selfish thing to do. The answer is in everyone serving each other not with dreams of selfish rewards but rather with dreams of how much better off everyone whom everyone loves will be. That's not when serving something greater than self starts, a la the neocon John McCain. That's when self starts becoming the whole, a la Christ.

Libertarian Capitalism is anti-coercion until it comes time to be coercive against those who want an equal vote. The telecoms by-and-large are extremely anti-democratic if you care about democracy.

As for not wanting the government in my business, it depends upon the circumstances and not whether or not there is a check attached. Do you drop a coin in a meter as you pull your car out of your driveway if you can still afford a driveway and a car (no thanks to the predatory Wall Street bankers unless you work for the likes of Goldman Sachs with its biggest bonuses in its history during this economic depression)? Do you remember Henry Paulson, George W. Bush's Treasury Secretary, who threatened mass riots if his cronies weren't bailed out on the public's dime? Do you remember the bait and switch where we were all told how it would get lending started again and then suddenly it became bank consolidation: big fish swallowing even healthier little fish?

Does that coin (chip debit) you'd have to drop in at the end of your driveway go to the private corporation that constructed the road? Do you want that privatized system everywhere you try to go and with everything you try to do or would you rather pay your share as you are able and still be allowed to drive on the freeway (hence its name "free way" - more akin to "free dom" is "toll road") in the fast lane even if you're temporarily out of work and otherwise broke and even if you need to cross the whole country? You might need to get to that job interview in a hurry afterall.

Do you hate the public, toll-free, generally tax-funded superhighway system where the rich and poor can both travel versus a network of private toll roads where the poor won't be able to use the road? If you do, then you love magnifying slavery.

Perhaps though, you think the rich aren't rich enough with the middle class and poor not yet having been reduced enough to make the rich even richer in relative terms. How long do think that can go on? The superrich think they'll end up with advanced enough science and intentionally super-expensive technology that they won't need the downtrodden worker-bees anymore, not even the middle class or even the upper-middle class. All will be expendable. In fact, they will be eliminated so that the superrich can enjoy more of the planet without the riffraff uglying up things. That's the long-term vision they have. It's sociopathy and anti-God.

If you create that system of private tolls at every turn (and it is the inevitable result of libertarian capitalism), you will have zero say. You don't vote in the shareholders meetings or boardrooms if you don't have the filthy lucre to do it; and if the people's government (ostensibly designed against sole sovereignty in the top plutocrat, monarch) is reduced to having no say, then only the biggest money will speak and be heard. You can though go to the public polls to vote for your representatives, not that that's been good enough, far from it.

If everything goes capitalist-private, you will not be allowed publicly to voice any thoughts not pre-approved by the private corporations controlled by the superrich (the new royalty). Then you'll have the same New World Order in any case.

I'm already heavily censored. They are trying to buy the government too to censor everywhere the kinds of things I'm saying. We already have much of that, but do you want so much of it that it ends up being total mind-control?

The people's government is the mundane instrument for leveling the playing field. Are you against a level playing field? Are you for feudalism? Are you for despotism?

I haven't given my full view here, so don't assume that I subscribe to coercive pure democracy. I don't.

Lastly, I don't disagree with everything the Pope says about sex. He does though owe it to everyone to look into all sides of the various issues and to do his best to give a Christian-only answer. However, he hobnobs in his huge palace. He's far from with the people. He has his fudging, Distributive, political-economic-religious answer at best. His church was never anti-elitist. Just look at what it's done about the fascist coup in Honduras. Jesus was though.

Peace

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Julian Bond — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:54:14 -0000

Speaking as a European, that's a load of old bollocks. The problem you can't seem to get is that this is not an issue of ideology. It's not about free market vs government controlled markets. It's about how a society deals with a very small number of very large corporations controlling an infrastructure that has a bottle neck right next to the customer that limits the last mile to a single supplier. It doesn't matter if it's water, electricity, telephones, cable TV or internet access, you can't have a properly free market if there's only one connection at the house. And even in apparently open and free markets, capitalism has many, many examples of monopolies abusing their position and requiring government interference *for the greater good of society*. So get off that soap box about the superiority of the US vs the European, Canadian (or South American or Asian) political systems. And try and look dispassionately at what works and what doesn't.

Competition between providers is a good thing. Real competition between ISPs makes Net Neutrality a non-issue. As long as one ISP provides a Neutral service the customers who want that will move to them. But what you have right now is not competition, it's a monopoly or series of monopolies. And monopolies need government interference to break them up. Leaving the monopoly in place but trying to legislate the behaviour of the monopoly won't work in the long term. And as much as anything that's because very large, monopolist corporations are much better at lobbying governments than you or me.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Joseph Rooks — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:52:59 -0000

What does he even know about the issue? If I had to guess, I would say nothing. He has no business talking about it, much less introducing a bill related to it.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Carlos — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:10:47 -0000

Simple, because Charter pays for the bandwidth!! At the why should Charter have to flip the bill for the bill the geek to download 20 gb of data a day amd torrent it to bunch of thieves? And as much as you think you paid $200,000,000,000 in taxes i can promise you between fee's, taxes, permits and capital gains tax.. they have paid much much more.

Capitalism is not cute, its successful.. as much as you would like ot think Europe and Canada is a great model for boradband expansion.. its comes at a great risk of freedom. Million of middle class tax workers have stocks in these companies because they are PUBLICLY OWNED, meaning they are not some rich duides private company. Introduce net neut. and will see more tanking of the private investment. Less investors = less jobs.. Mac speaks truth.. its simple math.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Chris Olbekson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:54:39 -0000

Just another example of a Republican trying to shape public policy so that their large corporate campaign sponsors continue to get richer. Why would any government official support they way cable and tel co companies take advantage of consumers?

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

howlett15 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:40:37 -0000

Man... I chose this topic to write an argumentative essay over in my English comp. class. I really don't see any reason other than to put more money in the pockets of the already BIG ISP's to want to change or do away with net neutrality? I really feel like for the first time technology would be moving in the wrong direction! Am I right? I believe I picked a tough, confusing topic!

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

futuristic_concept_juice — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:14:26 -0000

Keep the government out of the internet.

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

futuristic_concept_juice — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:13:08 -0000

The fact that Ted Kennedy was one of the leading sponsors of the net neutrality bills in the past sort of makes your point moot. Because, y'know, he was older. BUT TEDDY IS STILL WITH IT... right?

Re: John McCain Wants to Block FCC’s Net Neutrality Rules

Vinicius DM — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:11:56 -0000

McCain is an idiot! A Tech neanderthal.