The Federal Communications Commission will unveil new potential regulations today that could see the government agency impose some additional rules on broadband providers to ensure the government has authority to move ahead with a sweeping plan to bring high-speed connections to all Americans.
Regulators also want to ensure they have jurisdiction to impose so-called “network neutrality” rules requiring phone and cable companies to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their broadband networks.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to lay out a roadmap for regulating broadband. This step has been eagerly anticipated since a federal court ruling last month cast doubt on the agency’s authority over high-speed Internet access.
The FCC now regulates broadband as a lightly regulated “information service” and had maintained that this gave it legal authority to act on its national broadband plan, which it released in March, and to mandate net neutrality. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected this argument.
Since then, the FCC has been trying to decide whether to reclassify broadband as a more heavily regulated telecommunications service, which would be subject to “common carrier” obligations to share networks and treat all traffic equally.
Late Wednesday, the agency said it will seek a “third way” approach that strikes a balance between “weak” rules for information services and “needlessly burdensome” rules for telecommunications services. This approach, the FCC said, would apply a “small handful” of telecommunications regulations on broadband providers and would include “meaningful boundaries to guard against regulatory overreach.”
The commission is trying to craft a compromise that will satisfy big phone and cable companies that strongly oppose any additional rules, and public interest groups that have been calling on the agency to regulate broadband as a traditional telecommunications service.
The FCC said the new approach is also intended to “restore the status quo as it existed prior to the court decision.”
Damn this socialist Regime! Another industry being taken over by the Gov’t.
I guess they’ll force Telecom Co’s to give free Internet to the poor because Internet access is now a “New Right” given by the government. After Equal Justice means equal bandwidth at our expense, of course.
Yeah, because it clearly says in the First Amendment that how much free speech you get is based on how much you can pay for it.
Oh, wait, it doesn’t.
By the way, Dave, if you really hate Socialist programs that much, you shouldn’t be on the Internet in the first place. You also can’t use highways, police, firefighters, or libraries.
There are some excellent arguments to the dangers of the FCC ever-expanding power, and one should be suspicious of it’s many attempts to broaden their regulatory power beyond what is clearly defined in their charter (courts have repeatedly smacked them back, but they keep trying).
As far money and free speech, it may not be in the constitution, but that’s how it works.
Finally, while no expert, I don’t think one can view libraries as socialist programs. They are primarily depositors of information, and it’s not mandatory to join and use them. Additionally, libraries are incorporated entities, often fairly autonomous, even though they get public funding through local referendums.
Likewise, i think it’s wrong to confuse some public services with socialism.
As far as the internet, how do you arrive at the conclusion it is part of Socialist program? To my mind it is as far from a structured social program as one can get . . . hence why most government want to reign it in.
Well, let’s just use the fire department as an example. Prior to the 20th century, many of the fire departments in major metropolitan areas were managed by “fire brigades”. Independent organizations that were paid through insurance companies if the owner of that property could afford fire coverage (fire coverage in the since of actual firefighters, not fire coverage to insure stuff that may be lost in a fire). Shortly after the Civil War many of the major cities like Boston and New York began to make their fire departments government run, insuring everyone in the city was covered by its services. This is essentially socialism. An entire industry run by the government.
As for the internet, the internet was originally invented at a government run lab, funded by tax payer dollars, intended for the use of the military, until a bright visionary Senator (from Tennessee of all places) saw it’s potential and got some of his colleagues to push for more funding for it.
And of course there’s purging Western Europe of Fascism in only 4 years despite being initially outnumbered and outgunned. G.I. stands for Government Issue, remember? But yeah, the Teabaggers are right, government can’t do anything; except win wars, put men on the moon, provide us with the tool we use to listen to Slice of Sci-Fi, and make sure we can get from one side of the country to the other in a reasonable amount of time via the highway system, and…
Basically I’m just sick to death of the “anti-Government” crowd, because in America the people ARE the government, so really, the Right Wingers, when they attack Government, are attacking America. And I happen to like my country a lot, so I take it a smidge personally when they do that.
Essentially socialism . . . interesting concept. Certainly nothing I can argue about, at least not while using the government run, socialistic internet.
One thing, are you saying dissent is un-American? Despite your personal opinion, what with you loving your country so much, I would have thought you would welcome people celebrating their freedom to raise voices without fear of being charged with sedition, and being thrown in jail. I think you mentioned something about the First Amendment . . .
Plus, without others challenging our thinking, we are all in danger of becoming ideologically frozen, unable to grow. How wise is it to summarily dismiss the concerns and opinions of people we disagree with without first examining the basis for their grievances?
Finally, this is not really the place to discuss this, so my apologies for having contributed to leading this discussion down this road. Very un-American and unpatriotic of me.
There’s dissent, then there’s inciting treason. “Vote the bums out!” is dissent. “Hang the Kenyan” on the other hand…
But thanks for completely twisting my words. I of course at no point endorsed or even implied I would support throwing people in jail. I was expressing a dislike of irrational knee-jerk reactionaries who throw around words like “socialism” without knowing what they mean. On what planet is that a bad thing, apart from one where such easily misled angry morons are your voting base?
I have looked at the basis for the grievances of the anti-Government crowd. There is some legitimate disagreement in there, but a lot of it is self-centered, untrue, loud, nonsense. It’s not a “We the People” attitude, like that of the Founders and the Constitution, but a “I’m White so I’m special, give me mine and screw everyone else, especially the n***ers, s**cs, and queers” attitude.
By the way, that snarky comment at the end? Proves nothing about my argument. In fact, in whole your comment seems to be based on the premise that you can prove me wrong not by providing facts, but by being sarcastic. At no point do you actually provide anything even remotely resembling a counterargument. Yet I’d be willing to bet that in your mind you think you won anyway.
Sorry, I was not aware this was a contest.
I claim no victory here; I already said I should not have answered, and I once again apologize to you and others for having made any comments at all.
The fire dept is not an extra-constitutional federal power grab and therefore is hardly an argument that is even relevant to the newly proposed slippery slope of government regulation. The internet has had massive growth because of the lack of government regulation, otherwise it would have stayed locked up in classifed military labs and the incredible technologies that make the internet so usable would still be nothing more than some green text flickering on some classified terminals. Apparently you swear allegiance to government. I swear mine to the constitution which was written specifically to keep government in check and restrained from again blooming into the very tyranny that this country was founded to escape.
SirExcedrin: The Constitution is the key document OF our Government. To call the two separate is to not understand what America is about. I bet you think we were founded as a Christian nation and that Big Business always does what’s best for the country.
One very bad habit is to assume things about other people. Be it true or not, it should not be the basis for any discussion unless specifically mentioned by the other party.
For example, I seem to remember in a not-too-distant past a certain individual made some comments regarding a supposedly hot movie star . . . Margie . . . Mary . . . something Fox . . . Megan!! . . . Megan Fox.
The individual said he did not find her attractive. The comment was a personal opinion, and was expressed along other opinions being presented.
As a result, the individual suffered speculations as to his sexual orientation; something which had no bearing on the argument at hand, but which was used to in part denigrate his expressed opinion, and him by association . Why, I think his dad even got in the act.
I’m not sure how that individual felt about it . . . and it would be wrong for me to “bet he secretly liked the association” because I simply don’t know. For all I know, he actually likes farm animals, but that has no bearing on the discussion, then or now, and as such it should not form the basis or be a part of an evaluation regarding the merit of his opinion.
Ending the political discussion now. Just agree to disagree, and go back to arguing about Doctor Who. 🙂