“The Federal Communications Commission approved the so- called net-neutrality rules by a vote of three to two today,” Shields reports. “Supporters argued that Internet providers, which also own some of the content they deliver online, may interfere with videos and services owned by others such as Google Inc. ‘Today’s decision will help preserve the free and open nature of the Internet while encouraging innovation, protecting consumer choice and defending free speech,’ President Barack Obama said in a statement released today by the White House.”
“Stephen Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Inc. who traveled to Washington from his home near San Francisco to attend today’s FCC vote, told reporters after the meeting that the FCC should have passed more restrictive rules,” Shields reports. “For example, Internet-service providers may block online consumers from receiving movies streamed by Netflix, forcing users to watch movies owned by the telecommunications and telephone companies, Wozniak said. ‘Every normal person in the United States knows this,’ he said.”
“Commissioner Meredith Atwell Baker, one of two Republicans to vote against the regulations, called the rules an overreach. ‘There is no factual basis to support government intervention,’ she said. “The majority’s approach will inhibit the ability of networks to freely evolve and experiment,'” Shields reports. “Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate’s Republican leader, called the vote ‘a first step in controlling how Americans use the Internet.’ Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who is to become chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee when Congress convenes next year, said he would work ‘to strike down the FCC’s brazen effort to regulate the Internet.'”
Shields reports, “‘The FCC does not have the legal authority to issue these rules,’ Robert McDowell, the other Republican commissioner at the FCC, said during the meeting today. ‘This new effort will fail in court.’ Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, said in an e-mailed statement she would ask Congress to revoke the rules, calling them ‘an unprecedented power-grab by the unelected members’ of the FCC.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Back in April of this year, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to impose so-called “net neutrality” regulations. Read more via CNET: Court: FCC has no power to regulate Net neutrality – April 6, 2010
NN is nutz!!! Commie TakeOver!
That link that Everyone put up is some great reading. Thanks!
At this point you know anything coming out of Mitch McConnell’s mouth is going to have the aroma of Corporate Oligarchy butt:
Reeking propagandist double-talk.
:-Q*****
Our world is going under because of lack of limitations in our our consuming frenzy… It’s about time to learn to downscale it a little and become a little more realistic.
Better doing it willingly while we still can… Waiting too long and it’ll be just too late. Then, we’ll have no other choice left to die with our stupidity…
@theloniousMac
“We need to pass the law so we can figure out what’s in it.”
– paraphrasing Nancy Pelosi
You are a jack ass. Her point was that those working on the bill should be looking at it “away from the fog of controversy’ meaning away from knuckleheads like you who want to contort and distort statements.
Few monikers on this website suffer such a wide intellectual chasm between namesake and person who has co-opted the name.
May it die a premature death in the courts.
Oh and I am usually supportive of what Obama tries to do but I am not with him on this one. I am for Net Neutrality that is truly Net Neutrality but this ain’t it. There may be a few good parts but it is fatally flawed with loopholes and the fact that it doesn’t cover wireless at all is outrageous.
almux-
wow, just wow 😀
anyways, I could see one person left to die in stupidity.
Actual Network Neutrality is lost from this bill. Network Neutrality is a dumb pipes concept. The providers sell bandwidth. Period. No per message charges for text messages, no bundled content with favored throughput factors. Just bandwidth. You can charge more per MB if you want to modulate use, but bandwidth is all you sell and it treats every packet the same. As soon as the regulation started exempting certain types of connectivity (wireless) or using terms like “reasonable” restrictions, it lost focus and became useless.
BRING BACK DADT TOO! LIBERAL COMMIE GAYS ROONING THE COUNTRY!
ah
1984
f 454
nazi germini
the government regulation of information always ends so well doesn’t it
(and I will not be responding to any comments since this is a political thing)
Supreme Dictator Obama has decreed you must buy health insurance, or it’s fines and the gulag for you. And the FCC can regulate anything they want if it helps him get re-elected.
And you must wear underwear, and on the outside, so we can check.
@Urban B
Please stop the hypocrisy and doublespeak.
1) Republicans are for smaller Government *except* for massive increases in defense spending. We do not need to spend approximately $500,000,000,000 (count the zeros on your fingers and toes) each year on national defense using borrowed money. And that is in addition to the hundreds of billions being spent on actually waging war. Get a clue on fiscal conservatism and fiscal responsibility.
2) Republicans are for self determination except when it goes against your state-supported religious preferences or you need to use up a couple of decades of military stockpiles. Then the message is to impose regime change on the other side of the world (Iraq).
3) Following up on (2), the Constitution that is claimed to be so beloved by Republicans when it suits them guarantees many freedoms including that of religion. Stop trying to impose your insanity on me.
4) Furthermore, cease your attempts to institute Constitutional Amendments *against* certain practices. Prohibition did not work for obvious reasons, and neither will your other ill-considered and asinine concepts for amendments.
5) Republican administrations have spent hundreds of billions on missile defense with little success. Reducing the number of nuclear weapons is a far more logical and effective approach than developing missile defenses that will, at best, stop only a portion of the incoming missiles in a major conflict. The treaty can be formulated to permit smaller scale defenses against one or a few missiles, such as might be launched by terrorists or religious nuts.
6) Republicans had eight years to do something for first responders. They did *nothing.* Stop acting like you have a heart. If you want adequate “controls” then help to develop some. Otherwise, get your obstructionist asses out of the way.
7) Republicans have done *nothing* to facilitate the entry of “skilled immigrants” into the United States. In fact, the Bush administration alienated college professors, college students, and others. If they left the U.S. to visit family then they could not get back in. The real reason not to “fast track citizenship” for immigrants via military service is that it stinks of the mercenary approach that led to the downfall of Rome. When a society becomes decadent and its citizens become unwilling to defend their country, then that society is on a path of decline.
8) You have no idea what “Orwellian” means, do you?? It is just another Republican buzzword – a label that you use to dumb down a discussion because your position cannot prevail when confronted by reason, evidence, and facts.
9) The health care system is broken. The system only works for the health care industry (which tends to funnel a great deal of money to Republicans), the wealthy, and the subset of American workers who enjoy decent health insurance. It fails the rest and, therefore, it fails us all. In the Republican approach, however, the impacts of that failure trickles down to the bottom. This is one of the few cases in which “trickle down theories” actually work.
If we work together, then we can arrive at reasonable solutions to our social, environmental, and economic challenges. But the first step is to stop claiming to have all of the answers and to be willing to debate, discuss, and compromise.
The biggest surprise to me is that the Republican party has been so successful in convincing lower and middle-class Americans that they matter and that Republican policies will benefit them. Tax cut and spend will doom this country.
@swiley
You do realize that 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 (not 454) are fictional works intended to illustrate the dangers of totalitarian government?
nazi germini?? Really, “germini”? Education is fundamental to a successful democracy. Get some.
It is obviously time to renew my commitment to cease responding to the political drivel on this forum. Your minds are closed and impaired. Your reason is shriveled. Your vision is clouded. This is a total waste of time.
Wow great posts KingMel. Trying to change closed minds can be a waste of time. But speaking the truth isn’t.