Tag Archive: Government Control


FCC Chief Pressed To Release Net Neutrality Rules

 

 

 

 

” A key Republican lawmaker in Congress called for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to make proposed net neutrality regulations public before a planned Thursday vote on the measure.

  In the latest wrinkle in the Republicans’ battle to quash Wheeler’s proposals, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who’s also the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter today to Wheeler, questioning whether the FCC has been “independent, fair and transparent” in crafting the rules to protect content on the Internet.

” Although arguably one of the most sweeping new rules in the commission’s history, the process was conducted without using many of the tools at the chairman’s disposal to ensure transparency and public review,” he said.

  Chaffetz urged Wheeler to publicly release the 332-page draft order that was given to the other four commissioners nearly three weeks ago and appear at a House Oversight hearing Wednesday before a vote at the FCC’s monthly meeting Thursday.

  Also today, FCC commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly too asked for Wheeler to release the proposal to the public and postpone the Thursday vote to allow for 30 days of public comment.”

 

Read more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Internet Groups In Tricky Position Over US Net Neutrality

 

 

 

 

The problem comes with the form the rules will take. With heavy nudging from the White House, the FCC has opted to repurpose an authority it was given under an old telecoms law, known as Title II, to make it apply to the internet era.

  Like all deeply technical issues that become political footballs, it has not been hard for the rival camps to turn this into opposing talking points. Depending on where you stand, it is either bold action to protect an open internet or inappropriately sweeping, utility-style regulation.

  What is indisputable is that the legislation the FCC is relying on was designed for circuit-switched telephone networks in a different age. The only way to adapt it to modern times is to suppress certain parts of Title II and implement it piecemeal. The FCC promises a light touch: in particular, it says it will avoid price regulation or any requirements that might force operators to unbundle their networks.

  If history is any guide, a challenge in the courts will follow. There is simply too much at stake for the regulations not to be tested. And, as was the case with the last approach to net neutrality, it is not beyond the courts to reject the FCC’s compromise as unduly arbitrary.

  This is where things could become dicey for companies such as Google and Facebook. Who knows how some future FCC would interpret its new Title II powers, or whether a court would order a different implementation of the law. Price regulation of the internet’s interconnection agreements would always be a looming threat.

  It is not just the impact in the US itself that is at stake. There is also the question of what message US regulators are about to send to the rest of the world. The risk is that Washington will be seen to be giving a nod of approval to the idea of extending traditional telecoms rate regulations to the internet.”

 

 

Read the whole piece at Financial Times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FCC Chair Has All But Confirmed He’ll Side With Obama On Net Neutrality

 

 

 

 

 

 

” President Obama’s top telecom regulator just issued his strongest hints yet about a pending plan to regulate Internet providers, and judging by reports from the room, he’s leaning hard toward the most aggressive proposal on the table.

  Speaking Wednesday at CES, the world’s largest consumer electronics show, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler took aim at several industry arguments against the use of Title II of the Communications Act to regulate broadband providers. That’s the legal tool that President Obama and many consumer groups say would prevent broadband providers from unfairly discriminating against some Web sites.

  Wheeler also appeared to backtrack on one of his previous net neutrality proposals, saying it didn’t go far enough in protecting consumers, according to tweets from the audience.

  Now, analysts and policy experts from both sides of the net neutrality debate largely agree that Wheeler will seek to apply Title II to Internet providers after all, more than a year after a federal court tossed out the FCC’s previous net neutrality rules.”

 

Washington Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Food For Thought

 

 

 

 

 

 

    The government controls our water supplies  , food supplies , medical supplies , the media , our education system , the police and military and the most horrifying weapons on earth … this in the “Land Of Liberty” … See anything wrong ?

   The Founders would be appalled …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obama: Government Should Regulate Internet To Keep It Free

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” So President Obama has announced that the Internet should be regulated as a public utility. He’s asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reclassify internet service providers (ISPs) from “information services” under Title I as telecommunications providers under Title II regulatory guidelines. (See here for background on the distinction.)

  This is all being done in the name of “Net Neutrality,” keeping the Internet free and open, prohibiting “fast lanes” for certain services and sites, making sure no legal content is blocked, and all other horribles that…have failed to materialize in the absence of increased federal regulation.

  Reason contributor and Clemson University economic historian Thomas W. Hazlett defines Net Neutrality as “a set of rules…regulating the business model of your local ISP.” The definition gets to the heart of the matter. There are specific interests who are doing well by the current system—Netflix, for instance—and they want to maintain the status quo. That’s understandable but the idea that the government will do a good job of regulating the Internet (whether by blanket decrees or on a case-by-case basis) is unconvincing, to say the least. The most likely outcome is that regulators will freeze in place today’s business models, thereby slowing innovation and change. “

 

   More on this latest example of Orwellian State-Speak so commonly spewed by the current administration can be found here . Obama’s line is sure to be a classic right up there with “if you like your doctor…” and “we must pass the bill to see what’s in it . ” .

 One is forced to ask , are the progressives so dense as to be blissfully unaware of the ignorance of their statements , or are they inveterate liars ? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Chairman,Don’t Break The Internet!

 

 

 

 

 

Save The Internet

 Click pic to go to the petition

 

 

 

” ALLOWING THE GOVERNMENT TO RUN THE INTERNET LIKE A UTILITY OPENS THE DOOR TO ABUSE. WE NEED YOUR VOICE NOW TO OPPOSE TITLE II — PROTECT AN OPEN INTERNET! “

 

 

The Renewed Fight For An Open Internet

 

 

Cato Podcast Open Internet

 

 

 

” Applying old-school utility regulation to the Internet would be a disaster according to Berin Szoka, President of TechFreedom.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New York State Exposed: Is The SAFE Act Driving Businesses Out Of NY?

” Gun retailers and manufacturers say the SAFE Act is having a negative impact. 

Joseph Palumbo owns Albion Gun Shop in Albion. He says since the SAFE Act went into effect earlier this year, he has lost 40 to 50 percent of business.  He and his family have considered moving out of state.

Palumbo said, “I don’t want to leave, this is where I live, this is my home, but I have to do what I have to do to survive.”

Amanda Ciavarri asked, “What would you say to the hundreds of people who say hundreds, maybe thousands of jobs in upstate New York, have been lost because of the New York State SAFE Act? It’s driving gun retailers and gun manufacturers across the boarder to Pennsylvania.” 

Governor Cuomo said,  “I don’t think that’s correct on the facts.”

Cuomo’s main reason for the SAFE Act has been safety. But, is this the solution? A study from the  Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which aims at the reducing the threat of gun violence, says gun restrictions don’t necessarily prevent violence. The study suggests better policing and targeting certain areas works. The SAFE Act passed 43 to 18 in the New York Senate, but 52 counties including Monroe, Ontario, Wayne have passed resolutions opposing the SAFE Act. Ten counties have not.”

   As the above graph clearly shows , dangers of gun violence and murder in the New York is a myth . The crime rates have been plummeting even as gun ownership has skyrocketed , since Rudy Giuliani instituted the “broken windows” policy in the early nineties . The need for the government to ban legal firearms ownership is a misleading effort to consolidate power with the State and has nothing at all to do with “safety” .

 

Medicaid Expansion: Déjà Vu All Over Again

 

 

 

” Republican governors are following the script of Obama and Clinton in their campaign strategy for the Medicaid expansion that is needed to implement ObamaCare: The cast of earnest white coats and tearful upstanding, hard-working patients with hard-luck stories. Statements that sound as though they were written by the same PR firm. The same dire consequences of inaction.

“It’s just the right thing to do,” is a favorite concluding sentence.

What “it” basically means is to get the “free” federal money before somebody else does. Since it doesn’t cost “us” anything, at least not at first, it’s a “no brainer” to just grab it. It means billions of dollars, and thousands of jobs, for “us.

But if we exercise our brains for a minute, we see that in reality the billions go to “them,” not “us.” They are the ones in the expensive suits lurking in the background and attending the closed-door meetings. They are the million-dollar-a-year executives of managed-care companies or administrators in big hospital chains. They get the billions and trickle a portion down to people in scrubs and white coats who do real work, for the care of approved patients. They are the real players; the visible ones are props, shills, or camouflage. They are the decision-makers, who decide who is eligible for what.

They don’t think like doctors. Doctors ask, “What is the best way to help this patient with hepatitis c?” Rather, they ask, “Is this person with a certain set of social characteristics worth spending some of ‘our’ resources?” ”

 

 

 

 

 

Gun Owners Like Me Are Not The Problem And Taking Our Guns Away Won’t Reduce Gun Crime

 

 

 

” Of course, the well meaning, but naïve, people who believe the problem lies in the private ownership of firearms are out there beating the drum, while those whose purposes are not as noble are leading the way and self-serving politicians are coming out of the woodwork just itching to pass another meaningless piece of feel-good legislation that will mean about as much to illegal gun owners as the ones already on the books now.

Our problem is not a lack of gun laws; we have enough now to paper the south wall of the Grand Canyon. We just need to enforce them.

How about we start at the top by forcing Eric Holder to tell the truth about Fast and Furious?

How about we bust the people who deal guns out of the trunks of their cars on inner city street corners?

How about the Obama administration setting an example about how it should be done by cleaning up his hometown of Chicago, a city with some of the toughest gun laws in the nation and one of the highest murder rates. Where law-abiding citizens can’t buy a handgun for protection, but street thugs have no problem at all.

I will be the first to admit that, like in every other business, there are unscrupulous gun dealers who do things they know are wrong and put guns in the hands of people who will either use them offensively or sell them to others who will.

They should be identified and put out of business, period.

I am aware there are areas that need cleaning up, but another unenforced law is not going to make any difference. ”

 

 

 

What Do They Have In Common ?

 

   

  Basic Human Rights

 

the Right To Profit From Your Labors 

 the Right To Self-Defense

  the Right To Travel Freely 

       the Right To Freedom of Speech

      

        

 

 

 

They also just happen to be the targets of current UN attempts at anointing itself , along with it’s barbarian horde of un-elected , unaccountable bureaucrats as our overseers . 

They’ve been after control of the world economy through the global warming fraud , the right to bear arms with the small arms treaty , control of the ocean with LOST and now they are after the most liberating  force in human history and thus our right to free speech/assembly with this latest power/revenue  generating intrigue .

U.N. to Seek Control of the Internet

 

 

 

 ” Next week the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union will meet in Dubai to figure out how to control the Internet. ”

 

 

    Remember that the people seeking to regulate our means of communication aren’t voted into office by you and I and are certainly not going to be removed from office by us .

 

 

“Having the Internet rewired by bureaucrats would be like handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla. The Internet is made up of 40,000 networks that interconnect among 425,000 global routes, cheaply and efficiently delivering messages and other digital content among more than two billion people around the world, with some 500,000 new users a day. . ”

 

 

Can any thinking individual see anything positive for humanity coming out of this ?

 

 

 ” “The ITU is the wrong place to make decisions about the future of the Internet,” says Google. “Only governments have a voice at the ITU. This includes governments that do not support a free and open Internet. Engineers, companies, and people that build and use the web have no vote.”

“The ITU is also secretive. The treaty conference and proposals are confidential,” adds Google. ”

 

 

US OUT OF THE UN … NOW

 

 

” It doesn’t matter what Obama meant . Here’s why.”

  “Conservatives suspect that President Obama sees government as the solution to everything. Only someone who thinks government is the answer would describe a stimulus program that cost at least $185,000 per job as successful. I can’t think of a starker difference between the liberal and conservative worldviews than the Life of Julia slide show. Liberals look at that video and see a woman
aided by a social safety net. Conservatives look at it and are creeped out by the fact that liberals
think the very-capable-seeming Julia can’t do anything without government help.

That same sentiment comes through in the “You Didn’t Build That” speech. Obama’s words
contain an undertone that business owners are selfish, that they are ungrateful toward those teachers who helped them along the way. And that is where Obama’s misunderstanding of small business, real or perceived, shines
through.”