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President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

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Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#111

Post by DominikR »

colinramsay wrote: post #16
mvd366 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this mentality. If Obama comes out as against Net Neutrality, it's him being evil. If he comes out in favor of it, he's lying. I understand politicians often have ulterior motives but from the information provided, this is exactly what the majority of citizens were asking him (and the FCC) to do.

Sometimes people don't want a real discussion, they just want their existing views reinforced.

Sometimes people lie so often that you will never be able to trust them again.

I'd never trust a guy who signs secret kill lists, even targeting US citizens without having a trial. He even publicly joked about this, which is sign of insanity to me.

And then there's the case of a jailed journalist from Jemen (who reported about a drone bombardment in Jemen), where he personally called the president of Jemen to prevent him from releasing the journalist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulelah_Haider_Shaye

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#112

Post by 300bps »

king_jester wrote: post #101
300bps wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The President can nominate candidates for various positions, but these positions must be approved by Congress. President Obama was inaugurated January 20, 2009. At that time, his Democratic party controlled both houses of Congress decisively[1]. It was not until 2011 that his party lost the house. And in fact, his party still retains the Senate but will lose it in January 2015. But it is only the Senate that approves…

At no point since 2009 did the Democrats control 60 or more seats in the Senate, which would be a requriement to beat a filibuster from the opposing party. So no, the Democratic party did not have a free license for appointee approvals. EDIT: Came to my attention that Democrats did have a exactly 60 seats in the Senate for a brief period before Ted Kennedy passed away and his seat was won by Scott Brown in 2009. Howe…

They had 58 votes in 2009 which was darned close and they only needed one Republican to switch sides to stop a filibuster.

Other than that, I guess you don't follow the news much. Harry Reid changed the Senate Rules in 2013 to disallow filibusters of appointments.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limi...

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#113

Post by adventured »

pvnick wrote: post #95

Yes, let's give the government control to dictate how we may use the most powerful system for free-speech and keeping governments/corporations in check that has ever existed in all of human history. Despite the US government's insistence and profound ability to commandeer the internet for military/spying uses, I'm sure this time they will act in our best interests... And I know the control Obama's saying he wants the…

It was always inevitable that the US Government would crawl all over the Internet when it comes to regulation and controlling free speech. Such a thing cannot be allowed to continue to exist in the era of the rising police state. They'll leave the veneer in place.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#114

Post by crusso »

colinramsay wrote: post #16
mvd366 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this mentality. If Obama comes out as against Net Neutrality, it's him being evil. If he comes out in favor of it, he's lying. I understand politicians often have ulterior motives but from the information provided, this is exactly what the majority of citizens were asking him (and the FCC) to do.

Sometimes people don't want a real discussion, they just want their existing views reinforced.

In your own way, you're doing the exact same thing that you're accusing your grandparent poster of doing. You're implying/assuming that he has no foundation for his argument.

When you have no trust in an authority, it's perfectly reasonable to question good news and be paranoid about true intentions.

Even this morning, I saw this video referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI

It's an Obamacare architect admitting that they lied to obscure the tax/redistribution ramifications of the law. His direct message is that a lack of transparency is a weapon to get legislation passed.

And we should trust these people? Take them at their word? Why?

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#115

Post by mhluongo »

untog wrote: post #21
baldfat wrote: post #11

Have ZERO understanding how the Republicans are going to hold off on Anti-Net Neutrality. I am sure this is something that Libertarians will fight tooth and nail and well I would say over 12% of currently republicans labeled themselves as such. With 30 congressmen in the House Liberty Caucus things are not so easy for the G.O.P. I feel that there is a strong likely hood that G.O.P. will have a switch for Net Neutrali…

Why do you assume that Libertarians are pro-net neutrality? It's government regulation that limits what ISPs can do - hardly a free market philosophy.

Pro-neutrality libertarian here. I used to think my philosophy precluded net neutrality, then I looked into how these companies became entrenched- and it was by government support. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#116

Post by thecolorblue »

padobson wrote: post #56

I hope no one is getting excited about this. President Obama is a lame duck. His party just got tossed out of the Senate, relegating his political capital to basically 0. In the wake of this, he's decided to take maybe the most important economic issue of the next 20 years and politicize it. Neither the red team nor the blue team could say they owned this issue, but one of the most divisive voices in politics just st…

First, I believe we are all on the same team here.

Second, in-action on the part of any president is unacceptable. Presidencies are measured by the amount of positive change they can bring.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#117

Post by zaphar »

bko wrote: post #92

I don't think I fully understand the argument for net neutrality. I try to think about it from a few different perspectives: Broadband intensive services like Netflix: I think a problem that they face is that their connection is often slow, not only intentionally, but also because developing infrastructure is expensive. Why would an ISP bother building out the infrastructure if they can't extract a higher value from…

    Why would an ISP bother building out the infrastructure if
    they can't extract a higher value from those that it most
    benefits (Netflix)?
It's not only Netflix that benefits. It's also the consumer. Our family for instance watches almost all of their Video via Netflix, Amazon, and Youtube. We don't pay for a cable package. Saying it most benefits Netflix does a disservice to my family. I don't want Cable TV. I want Netflix. Comcast wants to deny me Netflix unless Netflix agrees to pay them more money.

Looking at it from my perspective. I'm paying Comcast for the ability to stream Netflix. They advertise to me as having the fastest speeds for streaming video. And yet when I request Netflix they refuse to do what's necessary to allow me to stream Netflix.

    Consumers that don't use broadband extensive services: Why 
    should those consumers be subsidizing those that use 
    broadband heavy services?
Why Indeed? If Comcast want's to offer less broadband intensive plans they have every right to. If they want to charge me higher prices for a more broadband intensive plan then more power to them. The issue is that they degrade my service so they can extract a price from Netflix when I purchased the right to stream from Netflix from them.

    I think a better solution to very little competition in 
    ISPs would be to decrease the barriers it takes to 
    compete. Further regulation would only increase the
    barriers.
It's almost impossible to decrease those barriers without regulation. Running wires to every home is expensive and the first one there almost always wins. The reasons why broadband is a natural monopoly have been discussed in depth on this site. Those reasons have not changed.

The real crux of the problem here is that large ISP's like comcast are selling one thing to their consumers: a certain amount of bandwidth to any site on the internet and then purposely failing to deliver that bandwidth to the customer and blaming it on someone else.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#118

Post by chasing »

ablesable wrote: post #73
chasing wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Stasi would be proud of the surveillance state that western countries have created with Obama at the helm. Spoken like someone with little sense of historical perspective. Or understanding of the DDR.

http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/05/stasi-vs-the-u-s-nsa-back-to...

I'm not sure comparing the size of the filing cabinets of the Stasi and the NSA is particularly helpful in understanding the differences between those two organizations.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#119

Post by LordKano »

wylee wrote: post #38
yc1010 wrote: post #6

I am not American (feel free to ignore my opinion) but this is just a bad joke from someone who seems to be an utmost failure. Especially in light of last week FBI/NSA/DHS undermining TOR and killing its utility for any dissidents and free speech in authoritarian states. Under his watch the surveillance state has expanded and has become downright creepy 25 years after the fall of the Berlin wall we should be saying "…

I'm not a huge fan of Obama, but do you really think the surveillance state was created during his presidency? This type of thing has been going on... well, probably forever. It's gotten more sophisticated in the Internet age, but that started before Obama too.

It's not something that began under Obama. When CALEA passed, people like me were complaining that it would be abused. When The USAPATRIOT ACT passed, people like me were complaining that it would be abused. Now, that there is undeniable proof that they are being abused, the retort is that it's been going on for decades.

I'm sorry but that's not good enough for me.

I am an ideologue, not a partisan. I'll complain about it when a Democrat steps over the line just as quickly as I'll complain about it when a Republican steps over the line.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#120

Post by revscat »

300bps wrote: post #90
revscat wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me explain a few things about the American government. The most important thing to understand is that the ability of the executive to influence the direction of the government is limited. The reasons for this are several, but I will try to elucidate a few here. First, it is commonly believed that because of the ability to hire/fire people the President can more or less do whatever he wants in regards to the direc…

The President can nominate candidates for various positions, but these positions must be approved by Congress. President Obama was inaugurated January 20, 2009. At that time, his Democratic party controlled both houses of Congress decisively[1]. It was not until 2011 that his party lost the house. And in fact, his party still retains the Senate but will lose it in January 2015. But it is only the Senate that approves…

> But it is only the Senate that approves appointments and his party has controlled it the entire time he has been President.

This is irrelevant, since the minority party can filibuster any nominations, and they have used done so extensively throughout Obama's tenure. In this regard, the party with the majority simply does not matter.

> The President is the Commander in Chief of the military. He exercises complete authority over them.

Again, I believe that this is an overly simplistic view of the Presidency. There are political realities around what Presidents can and cannot realistically do that contradict the "ultimate power" view of the Executive branch.

> All the heads of the other agencies you listed are appointed by the President including the Federal Reserve.

With Senate approval, and where no filibusters have been threatened or executed. And remember, there have been more filibusters during Obama's tenure than at any other time in history.

> The fact is the President does have substantial power and saying otherwise is merely attempting to excuse the performance of Obama that so many people are disappointed with.

Not at all. I am disappointed in the American government itself. I have never voted for Obama, and am merely stating my thoughts as an amateur observer. But if there is ever going to be any positive change in limiting Federal power viz. the military, intelligence agencies, or LEO, then clarity of causality is important.

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