Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm shocked and ashamed that California's own Feinstein appears on this list.
Why are you shocked? The entertainment industry is centered in Los Angeles.
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The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
71–80 of 91 posts
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#72The bill in question is COICA – "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" EFF has this to say: The main mechanism of the bill is to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS), which translates names like "www.eff.org" or "www.nytimes.com" into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate. The bill creates a blacklist of censored domains; the Attorney General can ask a court to place any…
I'm shocked and ashamed that Russ Feingold appears on this list. I thought him to be an upstanding senator until now.
Same goes for Sheldon Whitehouse. That was a real disappointment.
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, he was a pretty big advocate on net neutrality: http://www.alfranken.com/index.php/splash/netneutrality http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/08/19/can-al-franken-save-net... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011587-503544.html http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/08/600_convene_for_broad... Edit more links: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/senator-inte... http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/se…
More evidence that "net neutrality", like "reform", is a fill-in-the-blank phrase meaning whatever one thinks it means. In this way listeners to a politician speaking automatically fill in the blank with whatever they personally would support. That the actual legislation the politician implements might be anathema to the ostensible supporters is a humorous side-effect.
Well, originally (that is, somewhere before the term Net Neutrality was coined & lobbyists were hired), there was this plan by the big telecoms that they had recently announced.
They were going to slow down internet traffic to sites, especially big ones like Google, unless those people gave them money. There was no talk about infrastructure, just a naked money grab, and this was in a speech to others in the telecom industry that I don't think they expected so many people to hear about. After that, there was mass outrage from everyone from the ACLU to the Christian Coalition. Everyone was united: this was naked extortion.
Then people banded together and started calling it "Net Neutrality." And the lobbyists were hired.
The unraveling began when they started questioning what people would do about it. The debate changed from "this is horrible! how can the telcos do that!" to "there needs to be a law!" vs. "we can't trust the government to regulate the internet!"
Sadly, I think both positions are correct, but for different reasons. But by creating a rift and pitting people--people who were all outraged by this horrible plan--they've kept us from doing much of anything at all to stop them. The free market won't do much good against a natural monopoly, but we really, truly cannot trust the government with too much power.
So, in spite of the fact that pretty much everyone was outraged by these plans for middlemen to hobble our internet connections, we've been pitted against each other by lobbyists.
Lovely, huh?
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#74Extra Credit: Why aren't the senators' party affiliations listed?
Because it doesn't matter. Quite often, those parties are two sides of the same coin. If they didn't list party affiliation on ballots, people would instead vote based on what? The names they like most? That's about how informed some voters are, unfortunately. It takes effort to get informed, and the entities that should inform them, often fail to do so.
> If they didn't list party affiliation on ballots, people would instead vote based on what?
Honestly, that's the best idea I've heard in a long time.
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#75Would this system block websites at the IP level or at the DNS level?
Doing it at the DNS level would mean you could roll your own DNS or use a non-US DNS provider.
Doing it at the IP level would mean the ISP reverse-lookups IP addresses back into domain names and checking against a list of banned addresses. This one could only be bypassed through proxies.
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#76The linked article is a bit biased. Although I'm still vehemently against the item in question, the real bill in question is the "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" ( http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20023238-38.html?tag=cnetR... ) which involves with maintaining a blacklist for domains associated with piracy. Although this is still clearly censorship, it isn't what the title led me to believe (acr…
I don't think there's ever been a blacklist that wasn't abused and if there is, I haven't even heard of it. For reference, look to the Australian blacklist, wherein they banned all sorts of sites that had nothing to do with the alleged purpose of the blacklist.
By all rights, this should be stricken down as being in conflict with the 1st Amendment, but I don't know if the current crop of Supreme Court Justices would be amenable to that or not.
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#77I'm gonna start doing stuff to prevent these 19 people from being elected. For a start, I'm gonna make a website, I'm a coder, any designers here who'd be interested in making a site dissing these 19?
I'm in. Send me an email at no.no.I.am.Spartacus[[at]]gmail[[dot]]com.
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#78I'm extremely surprised to see Franken on this list. Wasn't he outspoken against this sort of thing?
If I hold several billion (or whatever absurdly high amount you want) dollars in front of your face, you'd vote against your beliefs as well.
It was 800000$ that Franken got from media companies, so not even one single billion. What are you implying!
Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N0002... via: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/e8bh8/guys_this_...
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I hold several billion (or whatever absurdly high amount you want) dollars in front of your face, you'd vote against your beliefs as well.
This assumes that politicians actually have beliefs. While I'm sure that some do, I'm also sure that some of them -- especially after years of being bribed with money -- vote in ways that're indistinguishable from how they would vote if they were trying to maximise their wealth and power.
I agree with you, but I want to add a tempering thought: in many cases (not all, but probably most), voting to "maximize their wealth and power" ends up looking a whole lot like voting to do what their constituents want. You can get away with doing the will of the lobbyists against the will of your constituents in cases that don't garner much attention, or that your constituents are indifferent to, but if it's an issue your constituents care about, all of the special interest money in the world isn't going to save you from their wrath at the ballot box.
When my cynicism starts to get the better of me, this is the thought that keeps me sane: whether by accident or design, the system we have keeps naked self-interest somewhat in check by correlating (at least moderately) the fortunes of the representative to the desires of the people.
Re: The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet
#80The bill in question is COICA – "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" EFF has this to say: The main mechanism of the bill is to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS), which translates names like "www.eff.org" or "www.nytimes.com" into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate. The bill creates a blacklist of censored domains; the Attorney General can ask a court to place any…
I'm shocked and ashamed that California's own Feinstein appears on this list.
I'm shocked and ashamed that anyone would be shocked and ashamed at Feinstein's support of this. Have you been paying attention?