I believe there's an amendment to the bill they're considering, which will fully support and defend net neutrality, and it is highly likely to make it into the final bill.
Mop: Really? I seem to recall that amendment being rejected before the bill was passed.
As for "govt, leave us alone!", net neutrality is a govt intervention while abolishing it is "leaving us alone". Net neutrality is basically a government intervention to force ISPs to not discriminate against certain traffic. I'm not sure if this in turn abolishes the common carrier status for ISPs, which would make ISPs liable for any illegal material that can be accessed using their network.
"Fortunately, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (R-N.D.) have introduced a bipartisan measure, the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006" (S. 2917), that would provide meaningful protection for Net Neutrality. This excellent bill may be introduced as an amendment when the Senate takes up its own rewrite of the Telecommunications Act later this summer. The next key hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled for June 20."
[ QUOTE ] instead of beeing free, we are getting more enclausurated, what is the fuck wrong with the us ?!
It's called capitalism, there's a lot of money to be made with taking away people's freedom and selling it back for a high price.
[/ QUOTE ]
sad, but true.
Not only that, but locking away information that they don't want others to have access to is like book-burning of generations past. What's to stop them from restricting access to information about human rights violations. They're gonna make it a point to mention porn and filesharing, but what they really want to do away with is access to information that makes governments look bad.
I don't think it's really that, 8FtSpider. It's more that the internet will become imbalanced based on corporations, and who has the most money. If an ISP is being paid by a corporation to allow faster access, it's going to destabilise the infrastructure of the 'net, and almost certainly reduce the quality and access to free, unbiased sites. Or something.
I think it's fairly obvious that "standard" service will become completely useless, and that anyone who wants their website to load faster than 2400 baud will have to pay through the nose. Of course, the telcos will reserve the right to deny anyone they choose the high quality connection.
this is fcking rediculous... our government has been so fcking hijacked by corporations it's enough to make one become a goddamn militia freedom fighter. It seems like most of the bills passed these days are geared towards protecting companies and their profits instead fcking people. Sorry for the language but man... forefathers would be doing summersaults in their graves if they could see how willingly we give up our freedoms to the corporations that now control our country. Any presidential candidate that runs on the platform of making every single current politician homeless and powerless will get my vote. Democracy? Hello? By the people, for the people? Is it too late? Have we already been reduced to mindless money machines that serve no other purpose than to fatten the wallets of the inbred, insane upper crust of american society?
China has this very same concept in place with their internet, and yes it does censor any information that talks bad about the gov or in our case the the companys that are paying. So basicly this gets passed and say good by to freedom of information. I agree with Ferg on how fucked up and curupt the US gov has become its gotten to the point of being blatently and visualy currupt.
[ QUOTE ]
Corporations = The Combine
Government = Breen
Us = Gordon Freeman
I think that pretty much summarises all this crap.
[/ QUOTE ]
I demand a crowbar and HEV suit! I'm not suprised by this but it would really suck if the bill goes ahead. I've always thought one of the best things about the net is that everyone is more or less equal. At least more equal than real life anyway.
[ QUOTE ]
Hey, all this revolutionary talk will only get you put in camp xray without trial.
i can see the headlines
"Internet forum found to be breeding ground for terrorists"
Hehe
[/ QUOTE ]That's partly one of the rather surreptitious reasons behind the measure.
I *think* this wouldn't happen in the UK because the network carrier, BT, is the only network there is (aside from cable and satalite) so they may very well end up having the mononpolies and mergers commision on their backs if they tried it!
any sites you visit that are hosted in the USA would still be affected by the new laws even if they don't pass anything similar in the UK. These laws will be affecting the people who buy bandwidth for their servers just as much as they affect the people who will need to pay more to access some things.
They'll also affect connections between other countries that happen to be routed through a US network. And of course US-internal you'll run into trouble even if your own network provider doesn't do that as your packets may go through an "evil" net.
Oh lol... If you're not in the USA you can't sign the petition? Talk about being selfish and not thinking outside the box (America) in terms of how this will effect everyone to some extent (even if the USA is the only one to impliment this draconian law).
the USA isnt doing this, our corrupt ass government is. Please please please don't assume we're all ok with this shit. We do what we can (those of us that are intelligent and informed enough to care, that is) but we've got rigged elections and corrupt corporation-serving politicians standing between us and the freedom they're slowly taking away from us.
Unfortunately most of the american population, who should be outraged by this, are so misinformed and convinced that they are powerless that they do nothing. Even those of us that KNOW about this kind of stuff, and KNOW why it's wrong, and KNOW what should be done, we still do NOTHING besides sign online petitions and argue about it on message boards. The boycot thing never works because 99% of that company's consumer base wont know about the boycot, and even if they did, they'd probably rather be selfish and buy from them anyway rather than make a sacrifice for the future. For example, despite all this bullshit about gas, new SUV purchases in the US are increasing.
As we've seen, not living in the USA no longer exempts you from the US gov's insanity, as with iraq war, this new internet crap, and so many other things. How can we change it though? How do you beat a system of corruption and control that is so well-established and protected?
[ QUOTE ]
Even those of us that KNOW about this kind of stuff, and KNOW why it's wrong, and KNOW what should be done, we still do NOTHING besides sign online petitions and argue about it on message boards.
[/ QUOTE ]
That my friend is doing something. You have been taken in by the naysayers who would rather sideline critique and frankly be part of the problem. You also forget we have other corpoarations on our side in this battle whose profit line would suffer if this was instigated. Google for one. We are far from powerless. Stop listening to that crap.
What have we done? I signed a petition about this net neutrality ammendment months ago, thousands and thousands of other people signed it, and it did nothing. It's not like congress has to do something if a petition has a certain amount of signatures. We may have some corporations on our side but they're not the ones that control our government, they're interested in actually innovating and doing the things that a good company should do. And while that's great in many ways, it doesn't help us much on the government front. We have microsoft, google AND yahoo ALL lobbying congress in favor the neutrality ammendment, and it STILL got rejected. So, if signing petitions and arguing on message boards is "doing something" as you claim, what exactly did we do? Because we threw the full force of the internet community and the biggest tech companies at this and still fcking lost. We are not doing enough. If wanting to do more than we are to fight this shit is being "part of the problem" then I must be a very confused little boy. I'm not sideline critiquing, I'm doing everything you guys are, but I want to do more.
You have let your congress members know. You in finding out about this can spread the information to family and friends (which is how many forms of marketing work, if it didnt marketers wouldnt try to invade these spaces).
Knowledge and information is power. You have that to make a informed decision. Seriously it works both ways. If it works for marketers, it can work for us. Instead we are influnced to think we are powerless.
Your thinking illogical that such things can only have immediate and lasting physical actions to mean anything. Thats simply not the world works in such matters. Its all about communication and again information.
communication? I emailed (tried to call, couldnt get through) my congressman twice. Once about congress trying to ban the chemicals crucial to some promising hydrogen technology, and once about this net neutrality situation (both emails were sent a month or two ago). I never recieved a reply about the net neutrality email, and just today recieved one about my hydrogen email. (side note: my roommate sent a seperate email to the same congressman about the net neutrality issue, and has yet to hear anything back)
The hydrogen "response" email was fairly long, but was just a canned response to anyone who emailed him regarding gas prices or anything else energy related. Nowhere in "his" email did he actually address or reference anything contained in my original email to him. Bottom line: my congressman did not read or give a flying fudge about my email. What else can I do? I vote, I contact my congressman, I spread the information, I sign the petitions, and NOTHING changes. If anything, they continue to get worse. Which brings me back to my original point: those things that you think make a difference, that are part of how "the world works", are becoming more and more pointless symbols to make it easy for you to think you're making a difference, and so you never take the next steps of actually doing something.
And so I repeat my question: what can we do? Because we need to do more.
Your congressman wont even listen to you if you're not waving a big check under their nose.
I'm sorry if I'm being unrealistic, but I'm young and full of action and energy and I'm not content to sit by and trust that things will work themselves out. The people perpetrating these acts we're fighting, they don't wait for things to happen for them, they make them happen. I should probably join some legal action group or something who's actively lobbying congress against these things... or something. Meh. I get all excited about these things and have strong opinions, but the thought of changing my life significatly to make a difference still makes me hesitate. Does that make me a hypocrite?
No no, I meant unrealistic in that we are given an ideal that we should be able to immediately effect a change while in reality its a slower process. Let me ask do you think this congressman is not keeping tabs for people yea or nea to a cause? Its still made a difference.
If your really worried, the best thing I can suggest is actually mailing a letter to your congress person. That makes one of the largest impressions. The ones I sent locally about Bush's spying were replied to, though it took a month for any response to come.
I hope you're right, and I hope everything we've done will end up making a difference. Perhaps a letter is in order... either way, thanks for making me take another hard look at how I feel about all this. I'd still like to do more, but it's kinda foolish to dismiss all the things we've done as useless.
The thing I hate is that these corporations expect consumers to pay the same price for less product. I'm pretty sure Comcast doesn't plan on lowering my bill if they get their way. It's the same thing with DRM, if I'm buying something with less ownership rights I should pay less.
[ QUOTE ]
but it's kinda foolish to dismiss all the things we've done as useless...
...or is it?
[/ QUOTE ]
At least you tried and are informed of whats going on.
Reality check, though? There is nothing we can do. What good does it do to email a politician who's getting kickbacks from the people who encroach on our freedoms. Money talks and the powerful walk....all over our backs.
Reality check, though? There is nothing we can do. What good does it do to email a politician who's getting kickbacks from the people who encroach on our freedoms. Money talks and the powerful walk....all over our backs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thats absolute nonsense. Not everyone in congress is corrupt. Just people who sponsor such bills.
[ QUOTE ]
China has this very same concept in place with their internet
[/ QUOTE ]
yeah, and guess who helped them out? Yahoo has turned search/ip info etc. over to the Chinese government and got someone landed in prison for a very long time, and searching for "Tiananmen Square" in dear ol' Google in China won't give you the famous Tank Man image nor anything else about those historic protests.
So as much as I do believe net neutrality is something vitally important to uphold, it would be pretty awesome if Google practiced what it preached, so to speak.
I dunno how it is people are thinking they cant vote because they are outside the US, you can, and you should (if you feel so inclined). Whether it really will be counted is irrelevant, you get to send a cheeky comment, that some Senator may read.
Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns in regards to
government regulation of the Internet. I appreciate you taking the time
to write on such an important issue.
The Internet has been one of the leading technological advances of this
generation. The network created between computers has reached into every
part of our culture and changed the way we live, work, travel, shop, and
socialize. The Internet is also one of the greatest examples of the
ingenuity that has made the United States a perennial leader in
technological advancement that is improving the quality of our lives and
those around the world.
On May 1, 2006, Senator Stevens introduced the Communications, Consumer's
Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 that was referred to the
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for further
consideration. The major provisions of the measure deal with a wide range
of topics, including universal service reform; streamlining of the video
franchising process; requiring the FCC to report annually to Congress on
the net neutrality issue; interoperability of public safety communications
systems; interconnection; and municipal broadband ownership. The bill
also contains a number of provisions relating to broadcast issues such as
the digital television transition and provisions relating to protecting
children from child pornography.
Additionally, Representative Joe Barton introduced the Communications
Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006 (H.R.5252) that was
passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 8, 2006. Among other
things, H.R.5252 contains provisions that establish a national cable
franchising process; clarify the FCC's authority to enforce its network
neutrality principles; address voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) 911
interconnection and E911 requirements; and bar states from prohibiting
municipalities from providing their own broadband networks.
As a United States Senator, I believe I should help ensure that policies
are in place to foster timely deployment of broadband to all sectors and
geographical locations of American society. The current debate in the
U.S. Congress and across the nation is concentrated on whether additional
laws and regulations are needed to ensure the development of competition
and its subsequent consumer benefits (often referred to as "net
neutrality"), or conversely, whether more laws and regulations would be
overly burdensome and discourage investment and deployment of such
services. Congress should be careful in approving legislation without
first examining its ramifications on economic growth, innovation, and
market competition.
Please be assured that I will continue to work with my colleagues to help
solve many of the challenges facing the American society in the age of
continuing technological advances. I look forward to further debate
should this legislation reach the Senate floor.
Thank you for writing to share your concerns. I look forward to hearing
from you again. If you would like more information on issues important to
Colorado and the nation, please log on to my website at http://allard.senate.gov.
Actually, I'm glad this bumped back up - I just noticed this news story on the BBC, apparently the petitions so far have failed, Senators have backed the bill and the proposed amendments to prevent a two-tier, non-neutral internet setup were prevented.
John Kerry is going to try and block the bill. I really hope he succeeds. This whole thing is making me feel very sick.
Replies
http://www.videogamevoters.org/tyspreadtheword/?lobbyActionId=4563704&_requestid=9232#ActionForm
god damn! leave us the fuck alone, the government.
Signing the petition just in case, though.
As for "govt, leave us alone!", net neutrality is a govt intervention while abolishing it is "leaving us alone". Net neutrality is basically a government intervention to force ISPs to not discriminate against certain traffic. I'm not sure if this in turn abolishes the common carrier status for ISPs, which would make ISPs liable for any illegal material that can be accessed using their network.
"Fortunately, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (R-N.D.) have introduced a bipartisan measure, the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006" (S. 2917), that would provide meaningful protection for Net Neutrality. This excellent bill may be introduced as an amendment when the Senate takes up its own rewrite of the Telecommunications Act later this summer. The next key hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled for June 20."
It's called capitalism, there's a lot of money to be made with taking away people's freedom and selling it back for a high price.
instead of beeing free, we are getting more enclausurated, what is the fuck wrong with the us ?!
It's called capitalism, there's a lot of money to be made with taking away people's freedom and selling it back for a high price.
[/ QUOTE ]
sad, but true.
Not only that, but locking away information that they don't want others to have access to is like book-burning of generations past. What's to stop them from restricting access to information about human rights violations. They're gonna make it a point to mention porn and filesharing, but what they really want to do away with is access to information that makes governments look bad.
Ahahah... now this is how you start a monday
To skip this commercial, please consider upgrading your internet account.
Government = Breen
Us = Gordon Freeman
I think that pretty much summarises all this crap.
Corporations = The Combine
Government = Breen
Us = Gordon Freeman
I think that pretty much summarises all this crap.
[/ QUOTE ]
I demand a crowbar and HEV suit!
i can see the headlines
"Internet forum found to be breeding ground for terrorists"
Hehe
Hey, all this revolutionary talk will only get you put in camp xray without trial.
i can see the headlines
"Internet forum found to be breeding ground for terrorists"
Hehe
[/ QUOTE ]That's partly one of the rather surreptitious reasons behind the measure.
I *think* this wouldn't happen in the UK because the network carrier, BT, is the only network there is (aside from cable and satalite) so they may very well end up having the mononpolies and mergers commision on their backs if they tried it!
at least, that's how I understand it.
Sign that petition and put some righteous spam in your senator's mailbox. Takes less than a minute...you can doo eeet!
Unfortunately most of the american population, who should be outraged by this, are so misinformed and convinced that they are powerless that they do nothing. Even those of us that KNOW about this kind of stuff, and KNOW why it's wrong, and KNOW what should be done, we still do NOTHING besides sign online petitions and argue about it on message boards. The boycot thing never works because 99% of that company's consumer base wont know about the boycot, and even if they did, they'd probably rather be selfish and buy from them anyway rather than make a sacrifice for the future. For example, despite all this bullshit about gas, new SUV purchases in the US are increasing.
As we've seen, not living in the USA no longer exempts you from the US gov's insanity, as with iraq war, this new internet crap, and so many other things. How can we change it though? How do you beat a system of corruption and control that is so well-established and protected?
Even those of us that KNOW about this kind of stuff, and KNOW why it's wrong, and KNOW what should be done, we still do NOTHING besides sign online petitions and argue about it on message boards.
[/ QUOTE ]
That my friend is doing something. You have been taken in by the naysayers who would rather sideline critique and frankly be part of the problem. You also forget we have other corpoarations on our side in this battle whose profit line would suffer if this was instigated. Google for one. We are far from powerless. Stop listening to that crap.
Knowledge and information is power. You have that to make a informed decision. Seriously it works both ways. If it works for marketers, it can work for us. Instead we are influnced to think we are powerless.
Your thinking illogical that such things can only have immediate and lasting physical actions to mean anything. Thats simply not the world works in such matters. Its all about communication and again information.
The hydrogen "response" email was fairly long, but was just a canned response to anyone who emailed him regarding gas prices or anything else energy related. Nowhere in "his" email did he actually address or reference anything contained in my original email to him. Bottom line: my congressman did not read or give a flying fudge about my email. What else can I do? I vote, I contact my congressman, I spread the information, I sign the petitions, and NOTHING changes. If anything, they continue to get worse. Which brings me back to my original point: those things that you think make a difference, that are part of how "the world works", are becoming more and more pointless symbols to make it easy for you to think you're making a difference, and so you never take the next steps of actually doing something.
And so I repeat my question: what can we do? Because we need to do more.
Your congressman wont even listen to you if you're not waving a big check under their nose.
I'm sorry if I'm being unrealistic, but I'm young and full of action and energy and I'm not content to sit by and trust that things will work themselves out. The people perpetrating these acts we're fighting, they don't wait for things to happen for them, they make them happen. I should probably join some legal action group or something who's actively lobbying congress against these things... or something. Meh. I get all excited about these things and have strong opinions, but the thought of changing my life significatly to make a difference still makes me hesitate. Does that make me a hypocrite?
Oi, too much coffee today
If your really worried, the best thing I can suggest is actually mailing a letter to your congress person. That makes one of the largest impressions. The ones I sent locally about Bush's spying were replied to, though it took a month for any response to come.
...or is it?
but it's kinda foolish to dismiss all the things we've done as useless...
...or is it?
[/ QUOTE ]
At least you tried and are informed of whats going on.
Reality check, though? There is nothing we can do. What good does it do to email a politician who's getting kickbacks from the people who encroach on our freedoms. Money talks and the powerful walk....all over our backs.
http://www.comedycentral.com/help/questionsCC.jhtml
Reality check, though? There is nothing we can do. What good does it do to email a politician who's getting kickbacks from the people who encroach on our freedoms. Money talks and the powerful walk....all over our backs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thats absolute nonsense. Not everyone in congress is corrupt. Just people who sponsor such bills.
China has this very same concept in place with their internet
[/ QUOTE ]
yeah, and guess who helped them out? Yahoo has turned search/ip info etc. over to the Chinese government and got someone landed in prison for a very long time, and searching for "Tiananmen Square" in dear ol' Google in China won't give you the famous Tank Man image nor anything else about those historic protests.
So as much as I do believe net neutrality is something vitally important to uphold, it would be pretty awesome if Google practiced what it preached, so to speak.
June 29, 2006
Mr. Jason Sledge
******************
Dear Jason:
Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns in regards to
government regulation of the Internet. I appreciate you taking the time
to write on such an important issue.
The Internet has been one of the leading technological advances of this
generation. The network created between computers has reached into every
part of our culture and changed the way we live, work, travel, shop, and
socialize. The Internet is also one of the greatest examples of the
ingenuity that has made the United States a perennial leader in
technological advancement that is improving the quality of our lives and
those around the world.
On May 1, 2006, Senator Stevens introduced the Communications, Consumer's
Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 that was referred to the
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for further
consideration. The major provisions of the measure deal with a wide range
of topics, including universal service reform; streamlining of the video
franchising process; requiring the FCC to report annually to Congress on
the net neutrality issue; interoperability of public safety communications
systems; interconnection; and municipal broadband ownership. The bill
also contains a number of provisions relating to broadcast issues such as
the digital television transition and provisions relating to protecting
children from child pornography.
Additionally, Representative Joe Barton introduced the Communications
Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006 (H.R.5252) that was
passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 8, 2006. Among other
things, H.R.5252 contains provisions that establish a national cable
franchising process; clarify the FCC's authority to enforce its network
neutrality principles; address voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) 911
interconnection and E911 requirements; and bar states from prohibiting
municipalities from providing their own broadband networks.
As a United States Senator, I believe I should help ensure that policies
are in place to foster timely deployment of broadband to all sectors and
geographical locations of American society. The current debate in the
U.S. Congress and across the nation is concentrated on whether additional
laws and regulations are needed to ensure the development of competition
and its subsequent consumer benefits (often referred to as "net
neutrality"), or conversely, whether more laws and regulations would be
overly burdensome and discourage investment and deployment of such
services. Congress should be careful in approving legislation without
first examining its ramifications on economic growth, innovation, and
market competition.
Please be assured that I will continue to work with my colleagues to help
solve many of the challenges facing the American society in the age of
continuing technological advances. I look forward to further debate
should this legislation reach the Senate floor.
Thank you for writing to share your concerns. I look forward to hearing
from you again. If you would like more information on issues important to
Colorado and the nation, please log on to my website at
http://allard.senate.gov.
Sincerely,
A
Wayne Allard
United States Senator
John Kerry is going to try and block the bill. I really hope he succeeds. This whole thing is making me feel very sick.