Catch future episodes of The Needle for a special discussion of Tech at Night and my other project, UnlikelyVoter.com. Be warned, though, The Needle is a bit rowdier than RedState.
I’ve said it in this space before, and I’ll keep saying because the Lame Duck session is coming: Republicans need to get out in front on Net Neutrality and we need to do it quickly. We cannot hinder the Internet by forcing ISPs to go to court over Title II reclassification.
Imagine if every video you play online, every download you make, every OS upgrade you run, every podcast you play, all got slower, skipped more, and just became a greater drain on your time. That’s just the beginning of we face if Title II reclassification happens, and investor dollars are scared away from building private Internet infrastructure in America.
But that’s the situation. Henry Waxman is using Republican inaction to argue for radical FCC action. It shouldn’t be the case as Seton Motley points out, but that’s what he’s saying. So let’s judo this and fight back by using his own bill against him.
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Apologies for missing the last two Tech at Nights. But unlike the paid staff of the well-funded Free Press, every word I’ve ever written here on technical issues has been on my own time, for free, because I care about the issues. And when work overwhelms me, as it did last week as a huge deadline approached, something had to give. And what gave was what I had to do at night when I just wanted to sleep.
So we start tonight with an update on the Waxman Net Neutrality bill. I wrote of it before in support of it, and proved prophetic as Henry Waxman used Republican opposition to justify radical, illegal FCC action on the issue.
It’s not too late, though. We can still build momentum to stop the FCC’s end run around the Congress, the Courts, and the Constitution. We need to talk up the Waxman bill because it is more limited than any other major proposal we’ve dealt with during this debate, because it would strictly, expressly forbid the FCC from doing the disastrous Title II reclassification which would give the FCC broad powers, and it’s just possible that the Congress taking the baton on this would encourage the FCC to back down until the process runs its course.
Politics matters, and there’s going to be a lame duck session. We can judo the Democrats on this, and use their bill in a bipartisan way to get the Congress behind a clear majority of the nation against massive Internet regulation. But we have to step up to the plate, ignore the Waxman name, and use the decent language of his proposal to make it happen. It’s time to put country first.
Especially when it gives even Barack Obama an out from a divisive issue, even as it gives American an out from regulation potentially more devastating to our economy than Obamacare, if it chokes off the Internet, one of our high growth, high potential areas.
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Hello. The longer the Democrats are in Washington, the more the mask slips with respect to their true beliefs regarding freedom online. They claim they don’t want a government takeover, they claim they don’t want to regulate content, they claim they don’t want a kill switch, they claim they want to respect privacy, but time and again all of these issues just keep coming up.
Witness the new disaster coming out of the White House which would force private firms like Facebook, Skype, and RIM to assist the government with spying on you. They are to cripple, deliberately, any safeguards they have on your privacy to make it easier for government snoops.
Remember: already nothing prevents them from listening in on the Internet. What they are demanding now is a huge expansion of power to require encryption in America to be crippled for the benefit of domestic Internet spies. Or at least, that’s the phrasing the left used throughout the Bush administration, so I’m going to throw it back in their disingenuous faces every single chance I get.
Remember when fining Janet Jackson’s breast was the worst thing going on in Washington with respect to this stuff, and how horrible that was? As the sign goes, “Miss me yet?”
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Hello! As it crosses midnight here in California, I apologize for the lateness but do return with yet another installment of Tech at Night.
Still don’t believe the socialist pushes at the FCC are driven in part by a desire to get free stuff? Take a look at the ITU Broadband Plan for the whole world, what with its insistence that governments must build Internet infrastructure, which of course would result in greater state ownership of the Internet.
Ars Technica points out also that the ITU claims that state Internet development will end poverty and hunger. Talk about socialist utopian thought! And we’re supposed to let these types get more power over the Internet with magical thinking like this?
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I skipped Tech at Night on Friday because I was in Austin for the Red State Gathering 2010, but I’m back now, so here we go.
We start off with what would have been the lead story on Friday, too: Net Neutrality hero and all around socialist gasbag Al Franken is now under a cloud of suspicion for ethics violations, violating Senate rules to spend money inappropriately on Net Neutrality advocacy, as well as using his role as Senator to raise money for private groups.
He’s crooked enough, he’s dishonest enough, and doggone it, people pay him.
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I’ve worn myself out tonight making last minute preparations for my trip out to Austin for the RedState Gathering this weekend, so this will be brief. Additionally, Tech at Night will not appear on Friday because I will be in Austin and away from Safari, whose great RSS reader is the most important tool I use to complete my Tech at Night research.
First off, the Google backlash is well underway. The firm seems to operate under the assumption that there will be no serious objections from the technical community to whatever they do, because of that “Don’t be evil” mumbo jumbo. But when articles like this at IT World show up with no purpose but to question the attitude displayed by Google and CEO Eric Schmidt, it’s time for a new plan.
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Happy Friday! In case you’re not a regular follower of the Net Neutrality issue, over at Frum Forum Jon Henke outlines the state of the debate. The Frum title sounds like advocacy, but Henke doesn’t promote the Google-Verizon Net Neutrality proposal here. It’s worth a read if you’re catching up.
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Yesterday at the Daily Caller we found out why John Kerry was such a flip-flopper during his Presidential run. The reason is that he just can’t help it. He even flips around when he’s not running for anything. In 1998 he wrote a letter to the FCC explaining that the Telecommunications Act 1996 forbids the FCC to do the very same deem and pass Title II Reclassification that the FCC is talking about now… a move that John Kerry now supports.
So all that time we thought he was flip-flopping to become President we were wrong. He does even when nobody’s looking! If character is what you are in the dark, then we now know all about John Kerry’s character right now.
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Yes, I’m sorry. When I found out yesterday morning that it was Labor Day, I did shift gears and relax a bit. By the evening I was treating it like a weekend and forgot all about Monday’s Tech at Night. So we’re making it a Tuesday morning Tech in the Morning instead.
Let’s get started with what happens when you let government regulate: they begin to ban things over their content. Yes, The DSCC is sending lawyers after the book Young Guns. Or at least, the Democrats are trying to ban the promotion of the book, which effectively amounts to banning any mass-produced book of this nature, because you can’t afford to publish a book without making sure it sells.
Just imagine what they’d do online once we gave them regulatory power there.
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Another quick one tonight. I’d feel bad, but the Net Neutrality situation is so important that the current developments by themselves are worth noting. And here’s the key fact right now: It is confirmed that Net Neutrality will not be on the agenda at the FCC’s September meeting. They’ve talked for months, but they’re going to talk some more.
My theory is that Google has pulled out the rug from everyone, the White House is considering going along with the plan as it can be said to meet the President’s campaign promise (transparency online, no discrimination on the public Internet, no two tiers of public Internet traffic, you name it). Another theory is simpler: public and industry support for the Free Press plan is collapsing, so the FCC has to throw out that idea and start over.
Even if Free Press pet Commissioner Michael Copps says the sky is falling. Again.
P.S. Remember when I said that Eric Schmidt sounded like he belonged in politics? he’d better work on his image a bit before he tries. He’s just too much of a target right now after he’s made so many outrageous remarks denying Americans should have privacy.