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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

#191

Post by wahsd »

AndrewHampton wrote: post #9

Here's the thing that bothers me the most about a lot of the talk about net neutrality by government officials: > If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. Specifically "and the content is legal" is what raises a flag for me. I've seen similar phrases in nearly everything I've read coming from any government official regarding net ne…

The problem is that society has been sitting on its laurels and even though the default should have been that the inherent spirit of the Constitution be extended into the digital world, instead, we have allowed and been complicit in allowing government to not only become authoritarian on the internet, but even to subvert and pervert the very fundamental concepts that set parameters on our whole existence.

People, the world is cruel, savage, sadistic, perverse, and brutish without social agreement on fundamental principles. If the underlying concepts that the Constitution is based on are eroded further and further the way they have been for years now, we will, with guarantee, find ourselves in the same predicament as all other people who wake up one day and are dominated by a totalitarian regime.

Some may see that as hyperbole, but too often humans take privilege, safety, and security for granted and squander away what their ancestors had to pay with their lives and livelihoods for to achieve.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#193

Post by Shivetya »

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…

as they passed the ACA, they simply changed to rules to use the reconciliation process to pass what they wanted without the Republicans being able to say a word.

Reid was pro at changing the rules to prevent opposing views, people need to understand just how much of the problems in th Senate were his doing and his doing alone. Mister Nuclear just got nuked by the electorate

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#194

Post by noobermin »

revscat wrote: post #55
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 "…

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…

While I've suspected that the "deep state" as you and your source calls it are "behind the scenes", Obama did come out in support of the intelligence community after the Snowden leaks, so he certainly did not oppose them completely. [1]

While I'm happy Obama is supporting net neutrality, I don't find him blameless.

[1] You didn't explicitly say that Obama really desired to reign in this "deep state," just that any attempt to do so would be difficult. If you did not mean that, I apologize.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#195

Post by aeturnum »

SergeyB wrote: post #186
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…

That`s what it supposed to be like and we wish it was. In reality, starting with Iraq war, Patriot Act, Health Care, Bailouts and much more, didnt have time for debates in Congress. President pushed it, Congress approved. President is Executive branch of government, therefore can pass a new law just by signing it without approval of Congress. Example Executive Order 13233 (signed by Bush, makes President an exception…

I think you're way too easy on congress (and they will happily pass the buck for unpopular decisions to the president). They could have done more, but chose not to. This is not a case of the president "pushing" their agenda through, but of the president's agent coinciding with the agendas of congress.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#196

Post by tracker1 »

DigitalSea wrote: post #154

As per usual with all politicians, these are just words. Nice words, but until a bill is passed and there is movement in the senate to make something like this closer to a reality, words are meaningless. My question to Obama is: why now? This whole net neutrality debate has been going on long before Obama started his first term of presidency, why wait until you are almost out of the White House to act upon something…

Obama already has a legacy that we can talk about... Expanding a police surveillance state, and raining hell-fire down upon our "enemies" like no other president before him.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#198

Post by pdeuchler »

DigitalSea wrote: post #154

As per usual with all politicians, these are just words. Nice words, but until a bill is passed and there is movement in the senate to make something like this closer to a reality, words are meaningless. My question to Obama is: why now? This whole net neutrality debate has been going on long before Obama started his first term of presidency, why wait until you are almost out of the White House to act upon something…

Not to be overly cynical, but now that he's a lame duck president without any support whatsoever from the legislative branch he can try to repair his legacy with grandiose speeches like this and blame the Republican dominated Senate/House for blocking all of the good he had planned for these last two years

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#199

Post by KobaQ »

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 "…

> this is just a bad joke

Would you prefer Obama to call for a closed internet?

You are confusing different things. Just because someone might be wrong with a lot of things doesn't mean he's not allowed to be right with something else.

As other's said: The world wide wrongdoing by the secret agencies is no invention of Obama. Not even an invention of the US. I'm German and even the BND did whatever it could to gain for it's purpose useful information. They did under governments of all kind of political orientation.

And then you're confusing things again. The downvotes most likely come from your indifferentiated opinion about net neutrality and spying activities. Not from your dislike of Obama.

> I am not American (feel free to ignore my opinion)

Why did you post it?

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#200

Post by misingnoglic »

I know nothing about politics, but my guess is that this is a reaction to the majority republican house/senate. There's no way in hell a bill like this can be passed through congress (with all the special interests and whatnot), so by being at the front of this movement which is important to so many people, they'll opt to blame the republicans (who are now in charge).
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