Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

whitehouse.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 449 posts

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#331

Post by crazy1van »

_greim_ wrote: post #313
therealdrag0 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What innovation could be done for basic utilities? I understand your concern and sympathize with it. But it seems like there is a difference. Everyone wants faster more reliable internet (Personally I'm more concerned about reliability at peak times at this point; >10mbps is plenty otherwise). But when is the last time you heard someone complain about the reliability of their power/water/sewage? Maybe I'm spoiled, bu…

The electrical grid is (supposedly) badly in need of an overhaul. I don't know if this is correlated to electrical being a utility however.

Why would power companies upgrade? Their monopoly status has taken away all financial incentive to improve things. And their monopoly status is given by the federal government. That makes them far more interested in keeping the government happy instead of keeping me, the consumer, happy.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#333

Post by cypher0x99 »

wahsd wrote: post #191
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…

There are those of us that swore and reswore an oath to defend those principals, some of us continue to uphold that oath personally, even though we have taken off the uniform, that doesn't mean we have taken off the oath. For me, It seemed obvious, I had to become a cypherpunk, or at least support and defend them. I agree with your assessment, and have concluded that I am not willing to let others give my and mine posterity's rights.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#334

Post by dang »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #41
jordanmessina wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks kyro. Also, here's the link to whitehouse.gov page: http://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality

I'm 99% sure when I first clicked this link it was the whitehouse.gov one. Why did it get changed to techcrunch?

I took a quick look at the logs and it seems to always have been techcrunch.com until we changed it a minute ago.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#335

Post by dragontamer »

tracker1 wrote: post #234
dragontamer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to learn American History... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_an... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton When the FBI start assassinating American Citizens in their sleep after an agent drugs their food to silence African American Political movements... THEN we can start talking about…

I'm not forgiving any past sins of the government. As for Hiroshima, that was during an active-combat war with an actual declaration of war that was against a set of countries and their allies not some conceptual enemy whose definition is completely flexible and often distorted. The surveillance tools being used today far exceed what was used even in the 60's.

Then Vietnam / Korean War, the Iranian Civilian Plane the US blew up in 1988, Iran-Contra, and the platitude of covert ops that pissed off South America.

There is a platitude of terrible wars that the US has partaken in through the years. At least Bush's war started with 5000+ US Citizens dying. The war of our generation was the first American blood spilled on American Soil since Pearl Harbor.

Osama Bin Laden was the first successful attack on New York City by a foreign entity since the War of 1812. Keep that in mind.

The legitimacy of Bush's war is far more than any of the other massive mistakes of foreign policy the US has done over the recent decades.

Come on, the US actually has had its best run of Foreign Policy in decades, mostly because US Citizens these past few years are actually keenly aware of US mistakes abroad. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s, US Citizens routinely ignored American aggression worldwide.

As bad as Obama's / Bush's wars were, they didn't drop Agent Orange across a country and poison the population for decades to come.

>>> The surveillance tools being used today far exceed what was used even in the 60's.

Compare COINTELPRO, which allowed warrantless surveillance against American Citizens for decades before being disassembled in the 80s.

Contrast that with the NSA leaks, which are about metadata collection.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#336

Post by ablesable »

jobposter1234 wrote: post #312
ablesable wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. The mindsets of spy masters never changes, no matter the era or country.

Then how do you explain how the Stasi kidnapped and killed lots of German citizens, while the NSA has yet to do the like? I can understand if you're saying you fear the NSA's power grab because of similarities with the Stasi. I have trouble believing that you think there is literally no difference between the Stasi and the current NSA, given their body of work has significant differences.

The NSA spies on far more people than the Stasi could have ever hoped to. The NSA is just the intel branch of a government that has killed and imprisoned more people than the East German government did.

Arguing about the niceties of barbaric practices is fruitless anyway, but we can argue about the size of the weapons wielded by the barbarians.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#337

Post by dragontamer »

lotharbot wrote: post #249
dragontamer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to learn American History... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_an... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton When the FBI start assassinating American Citizens in their sleep after an agent drugs their food to silence African American Political movements... THEN we can start talking about…

> "Someone needs to learn American History" Personal attacks like this add nothing to your comment. It would have been better to leave that sentence out, or replace it with something less personal like "there are examples of worse behavior in American History". ----- "Not the absolute worst US presidential administration of all time" isn't really a compelling argument for why we shouldn't criticize this one.

Oh, he can be critical if he wants. Open Criticism of presidents is what makes Americans strong.

But when he says stuff like "like no other president before him" he needs to be ready for a historical counter-argument. I happen to know the history of several presidents ya see, and can see what Obama and Bush have done in context.

These recent Presidents are actually quite good historically, despite their disapproval ratings. Movies and stories romanticize the past, forgetting major details like Blacks illegally sitting in the front of busses... or illegally drinking out of certain water fountains.

"The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this and every country but his own." --- W. S. Gilbert

If you are such a person, I will call you out on it. Criticize the president, for it is good. But if you start invoking history, be prepared for my counter-arguments.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#338

Post by quakershake »

Why should we care about what the POTUS has to say about internet freedom? It's not like the POTUS or politicians in general have a good track record of trustworthiness.

IMO, anytime officials are talking about it, they are guaranteed to screw it up.

I am actually surprised that they aren't talking more about having it be $Free and under government control. Maybe that is step 2.

Either way, the less authority the ISPs and the Government have over your network traffic the better.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#339

Post by dragontamer »

enraged_camel wrote: post #215
dragontamer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to learn American History... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_an... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton When the FBI start assassinating American Citizens in their sleep after an agent drugs their food to silence African American Political movements... THEN we can start talking about…

>>When the FBI start assassinating American Citizens in their sleep after an agent drugs their food to silence African American Political movements... THEN we can start talking about a "police state". You do realize that the USA committed extrajudicial murder of an American citizen during the current president's term, right? Or are you just ignoring it because it's inconvenient to your narrative? >>Today's laws make…

>>> And yet we have the entire population under surveillance. Compared to that, spying on a handful of civil leaders is nothing.

You didn't read the Fred Hampton article.

The spying done under COINTELPRO allowed the FBI to assassinate US citizens on US soil extra-judiciously. Fred Hampton's cold dead body is historical proof of that.

King was just spied upon. But other civil rights leaders like Fred Hampton were straight up assassinated.

US Police power is _weaker_ today than it was in the 60s.

Re: President Obama Calls for a Free and Open Internet

#340

Post by rhino369 »

smileysteve wrote: post #329
rhino369 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net Neutrality isn't, but Title II regulation is definitely the Obamacare of the internet. Title II gives the FCC broad powers over regulating the internet. You just have to look at the what the BushII-era FCC did about policing broadcast media to see the potential dangers in letting the FCC heavily regulate every ISP in America. Title II will heavily disincentivize investment into faster networks because of the unce…

> I'd only support that if the ISPs started fucking up the internet massively. So, say they propose a fast lane for the internet. Or don't invest in the connections to level 3 to be able to provide Netflix to users.

I don't think a fast lane would necessarily fuck the internet. In fact, with proper management it might actually be beneficial. For example, I'd love it if my work VPN could be prioritized over someones pron torrent during internet rush hour.

Net neutrality wouldn't fix the Level3/ Verizon&Comcast issues. Net neutrality doesn't force free peering.

When I mean fucking the internet up, I mean significant degrading of service to extort huge payments.

The internet hasn't had net neutrality most of it's history and it's grown up just fine.

If the choice is no net neutrality or net neutrality and Title II, I'd take the former.

Title II in the wrong hands could be devastating.

Post reply on HN