Big Brother Wants You!

For years, proponents of so-called “net neutrality” have been calling for strong regulation of broadband “on-ramps” to the Internet, like those provided by your local cable or phone companies. Rules are needed, the argument goes, to ensure that the Internet remains open and free, and to discourage broadband providers from thwarting consumer demand. That sounds good if you say it fast.

So yet again, the liberals idea of the only way for you to be free is for the government to control whatever it is.

Orwell would be proud you my sons.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

And my 4th Precept: FEAR IS HOPE. (https://indyfromaz.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/the-4th-precept/)

It’s very typical of the modern Liberal to want to control everything for your own good, because you’re far too stupid to it yourself.

Health Care, Finances, Education,News,Entertainment, Food, and now the Internet.

Freedom is slavery to the government. Government is here to protect your stupid ass self from the evil capitalist exploiters.

Gee, aren’t you happy? 😦

What has the Liberals’ panties so much in a bunch?

People like me. Little ole me. And all the other anti-liberal progressives out there.

Matt Drudge, Daily Caller, bloggers, etc.

We can’t attack in frontal assault so we’ll do what all Liberals always do, attack from the rear, in seemingly innocuous ways by “fairness” and “concern” that creep like a cancer that just grows and grows until it kills the patient.

Leaving Dr. Liberal is control of everything.

What liberal wouldn’t like to control everything?

None, that are in power right now.

The government, The Liberal Progressive one is  your only hope.

You can’t possibly do it without us.

So what if you have ever since the Internet exploded onto the seem 20 years ago. You can’t now.

Why?

Because they say you can’t.

And if you learn only one thing about Liberals, and that is that they believe they are incapable of error and are vastly superior to the mere mortal  both morally and intellectually.

So questioning them is impertinent.

Still feeling quixotic pressure to fight an imaginary problem, the FCC leadership this fall pushed a small group of hand-picked industry players toward a “choice” between a bad option (broad regulation already struck down in April by the D.C. federal appeals court) or a worse option (phone monopoly-style regulation). Experiencing more coercion than consensus or compromise, a smaller industry group on Dec. 1 gave qualified support for the bad option. The FCC’s action will spark a billable-hours bonanza as lawyers litigate the meaning of “reasonable” network management for years to come. How’s that for regulatory certainty?

To date, the FCC hasn’t ruled out increasing its power further by using the phone monopoly laws, directly or indirectly regulating rates someday, or expanding its reach deeper into mobile broadband services. The most expansive regulatory regimes frequently started out modest and innocuous before incrementally growing into heavy-handed behemoths.

On this winter solstice, we will witness jaw-dropping interventionist chutzpah as the FCC bypasses branches of our government in the dogged pursuit of needless and harmful regulation. The darkest day of the year may end up marking the beginning of a long winter’s night for Internet freedom. (WSJ)

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

And Lame Duck Cancer is a disease we are already suffering. We just don’t need another dose of it.

But the Liberals are thinking, we have to do it now because if we don’t the evil Republicans won’t let us next year. So it’s now or never!

And they are hardly the only ones.

The very liberal and toothless namby-pamby UN wants to get into the act.

The U.N. has been wanting to run the Web for years and is not letting a crisis — the WikiLeaks releases — go to waste. Following the Chicagoland model, it has plans to form an intergovernmental group that would “attempt to create global standards for policing the Internet.”

The meeting delegate from Brazil, which is pushing the proposal, told iTnews that the plan isn’t to take over the Web. Which is no reassurance at all. Whenever an elected official or bureaucrat says a program won’t cost much or the regulation being considered won’t be a burden, history teaches us to expect the exact opposite.

This big idea is coming only a few months after the Internet Governance Forum, a group that consults with the U.N., met in Vilnius, Lithuania. Its goal: to save the Internet with an international treaty that would include net neutrality.

So you could have the FCC, The US Government and the the UN all look after you.

Gee, don’t you feel better now. 🙂

The Internet is in no need of supervision from the U.N. or Washington. It is an energetic, broadly accessible marketplace of ideas.

Ideas, that the Liberal Left wants to control. For your own good, of course.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

As Rod Beckstrom, president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said in September at the Vilnius meeting that the Internet works. It lets us communicate on an unprecedented scale, and its relative lack of regulation has made “it a fertile field for innovation and competition.”

The best thing for the U.N. and Washington to do is just stand back and let it flow. (IBD)

But Liberals, especially, and Washington in general has Control Freak issues.

But it’s for own good.

We are from the Government and we are here to protect you. 🙂

FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski:

As we stand here now, the freedom and openness of the Internet is unprotected. No rules on the books to protect basic Internet values. No process for monitoring Internet openness as technology and business models evolve. No recourse for innovators, consumers, or speakers harmed by improper practices. And no predictability for the Internet service providers, so that they can manage and invest in broadband networks.

That will change once we vote to approve this strong and balanced order…

On one end of the spectrum, there are those who say government should do nothing at all.

On the other end of the spectrum are those who would adopt a set of detailed and rigid regulations.

I reject both extremes in favor of a strong and sensible framework – one that protects Internet freedom and openness and promotes robust innovation and investment.”

Barf Bag anyone?

The FCC’s new, ostensibly softer approach comes on the heels of a U.S. Court of Appeals decision earlier this month, which ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to directly regulate internet providers nor require them to offer equal treatment to all Web traffic. Comcast sued the FCC, arguing that the commission could not force the company to be “net neutral” in regards to the file-sharing program BitTorrent, which Comcast at one point was filtering on its system.

In response, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski announced the “third way” which consists of simply removing ISPs from their current classification in order to “have enough of a legal footing in place to make sure the agency can protect consumers and achieve goals presented in the National Broadband Plan.”

Currently, the FCC categorizes Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as Title 1 “information service.” The classification meant that the FCC lacked the direct authority to regulate these providers. The FCC’s other option, however was to classify ISPs as Title II “telecommunications service,” which internet providers say would bring with it regulatory madness and  the same red tape that wireline phone agencies find themselves in.

Genachowski’s “third way” then will be an attempt to run between the two classifications:

The chairman will seek to restore the status quo as it existed prior to the court decision in order to fulfill the previously stated agenda of extending broadband to all Americans, protecting consumers, ensuring fair competition, and preserving a free and open Internet,” the official said.

The confirmation from the FCC comes only hours after two senior Democratic politicians sent a letter to Genachowski saying that imposing Net neutrality regulations on broadband providers such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon is “essential.” And Free Press, the liberal lobby group that’s led the fight to hand the FCC more Internet regulatory authority, hastily convened a conference call to warn that Genachowski would be leaving President Obama’s Net neutrality promises unfulfilled.

Net neutrality proponents have bemoaned the recent Appeals Court decision and wish to see a “free and open internet.”  But those opposed to interference from the FCC have argued that regulation will only suffocate business and innovation in an area that has thrived without government interference.

Yesterday, one FCC official said Genacoswki was trying to have it both ways, hoping:

to balance “a weak Title I and a needlessly burdensome Title II approach.” Title I refers to lightly regulated information services; Title II refers to heavily regulated telecommunications services, such as legacy telephone networks.

The balancing act between what the FCC has been told it cannot do and what it wants to do, has caused the committee to run over itself more than once. As BetaNews reports:

“The Third Way,” as the FCC now calls it, is a clear effort to defer to US Supreme Court decisions that suggested the FCC has the authority to declare what it does not regulate. As a model for deciding what’s in and what’s out, Schlick refers to the classic dissent of Justice Antonin Scalia in the 2005 Brand X decision. There, Justice Scalia argued that since it doesn’t make much difference to the customer whether he receives service through one route or another, it shouldn’t make much difference to the law, either.

Dancing lightly over the fact that Scalia’s argument was a dissent from the decision, and not actual law, Schlick suggested this morning that the FCC should now embrace an approach that it had vehemently rejected just weeks earlier.

Currently, the “third way” contains only six provisions from Title II regulations, although “the FCC could decide it needs more or less as this process wears on,” according to Engadget.com.

Republicans in Washington rejected the “third way” characterization and accused the Obama Administration of once again seeking to expand the power of government over the private sector.  House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said, “Under this job- killing big government scheme, the Obama administration is seeking to expand the power of the federal government.”

Republican FCC Commissioners Rob McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker issued a joint statement, saying: “This dramatic step to regulate the Internet is unnecessary.”

“It is a stark departure from the long-established bipartisan framework,” they said. (Daily Caller)

Bi-Partisan, wonder where I’ve heard that before?

Oh, yeah, it’s when you roll over and let the Liberal do what they want to do without objection.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY