I'm going to see Sen. Cruz speak on Saturday. If I get the chance, I'll ask him about his net neutrality stance.
Tell him that the de-regulation Republicans want will get us the Enron of the Internet.
President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
411–420 of 449 posts
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm betting "illegal content" will eventually come to include things like "bullying." Expect a much broader array of takedown notices once the FCC is granted content-level authority over the internet.
Great. Bullying should be illegal already, and internet bullies should be aggressively prosecuted. This is currently a law enforcement blind spot, but that needs to change. BTW, putting quotes around the world "bullying" isn't actually effective in mocking it as something actionable; it just communicates to us that you are perfectly ok with bullying.
The worry is that "bullying" can be redefined to mean almost anything. A scathing critique of a bad business or politician could be construed as bullying.
We should also be careful about criminalizing bullies, since a large portion of them are young (and quite possibly bullied or abused themselves). It's a problem, and it needs more attention, but rushing to criminalize it seems hasty to me.
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#413Here'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…
You are reading too much into this. Obama is merely adding this phrase to protect himself from those that will intentionally try to twist his words. When you hear anything Obama says, you must remember that there are literally thousands of hacks and an entire media empire out there carefully examining his words and thinking how they can twist them or misrepresent them to make him look bad. If he did not put that phra…
> You are reading too much into this. Obama is merely adding this phrase to protect himself from those that will intentionally try to twist his words.
Actually, much the same language has been in both the 2010 FCC Open Internet order and the draft for a new order earlier this year, its not something that was original in Obama's statement.
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usenet is a common carrier service. However, they do make content inaccessible if there's a takedown request for copyright. But they don't filter anything that gets uploaded or block your downloads.
i don't think usenet is a common carrier service. if it were, it would be illegal to block or prohibit access to it... and currently a lot of ISP's explicitly block access to usenet.
I've never seen an ISP block usenet. I've seen ISPs stop hosting their own free Usenet servers, but that's not blocking Usenet.
I'm searching for an adequate source for this information but I'm failing to find anything to stand on its own. It's definitely been treated like common carrier for many years, but as for an official classification... I'm struggling to find one.
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
Going from the court decisions, they would know that traffic is illegal if a court tells them it's illegal. Again, refer to People v. Brophy: the common carrier is not "authorized or required" to investigate. Probably meaning they can aid in investigation (e.g., supply information to police) but not perform an investigation (analyze said information themselves). In addition, Title II would probably put internet traff…
If a court decides it is illegal, they would need to tell an ISP to block... what? An IP address? Or the content? If the former, we have issues because IP addresses are transient. If the latter, we have issues because that would require deep packet inspection.
It would probably be a specific url. Or an entire domain for something like a site dedicated to illegal gambling. Though why they wouldn't just go after the website to take it down like they do currently eludes me.
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely none of this has any bearing on whether President Obama could call the NSA director into his office today and order him end all mass surveillance programs. Which he could, and his order would be obeyed. That he chooses not to is a practical political issue, not a legal one. [EDIT: Well, he couldn't literally call anyone into the Oval Office today, since he's in Beijing, but a phone call would work just as…
Ordering an end to all mass surveillance programs would require Congressional approval.
Why?
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#417He is not calling for a free and open internet. He is essentially bringing it under government control by painting ISPs as bad guys.
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#418Here'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…
No. The part that should bother you has nothing whatsoever to do with this directly. It is found in hundreds and thousands of speeches, press conferences, government meetings and laws. They are called "lies". And, because we keep tolerating them the governing class, itself mostly immune and isolated from the very decisions they make and laws they pass, is emboldened.
Every election is full of lies. Party divisions do not matter. They lie to get elected and then do as they please. They lie to pass laws, and then do as they please. Of course, Obamacare is a favorite punching back, and rightly so. The whole business of "an average savings of $2,500 per family", "if you like your plan you can keep it" and "if you like your doctor you can keep'em. Period" should be grounds for millions of people revolting. My family is going to have to pay $14,000 per year next year for health insurance. If we go to the cheapest crap plan we can find that number goes down to $12,000 per year. We were paying $5,000 per year before Obamacare and had fantastic health insurance with great providers. Un-fucking-believable.
Someone just sent me this today:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Frare.us%2Fstory...
So, in a nutshell: Worry about what lies you are being told.
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a court decides it is illegal, they would need to tell an ISP to block... what? An IP address? Or the content? If the former, we have issues because IP addresses are transient. If the latter, we have issues because that would require deep packet inspection.
It would probably be a specific url. Or an entire domain for something like a site dedicated to illegal gambling. Though why they wouldn't just go after the website to take it down like they do currently eludes me.
Pretty much. If it's hosted in the US, they'll take it down. If it's not, they'll do pretty much whatever they can ... which boils down to seizing the domain. Usually with the kinds of sites people are typically worried about USGOV taking down, they leave up ... and watch the traffic. It's like in The Wire - they don't want the criminal's site (cell phone) to go down when they're watching the connections it's making.
Title II combined with the 2nd amendment actually prevents things like The Great Firewall :)
Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
Going from the court decisions, they would know that traffic is illegal if a court tells them it's illegal. Again, refer to People v. Brophy: the common carrier is not "authorized or required" to investigate. Probably meaning they can aid in investigation (e.g., supply information to police) but not perform an investigation (analyze said information themselves). In addition, Title II would probably put internet traff…
If a court decides it is illegal, they would need to tell an ISP to block... what? An IP address? Or the content? If the former, we have issues because IP addresses are transient. If the latter, we have issues because that would require deep packet inspection.
And deep packet inspection is pretty easy to get around with some rudimentary encryption technologies.