The American Spectator : Engulfing the Internet

Carol| 6.17.10 @ 6:25AM

Obama is defying the American people on a contintual basis.

Now he will defy a court ruling that has said the FCC has no right to impose regulations on the Internet.

Does anybody think the Muslim Marxist is going anywhere at the end of his term when he is voted out of office?

The Muslim Marxist and his goon squad are getting more dangerous as the days pass by. How are we to protect ourselves from this tyranny Obama is deliberately making us live under?

AMENBRO| 6.17.10 @ 8:45AM

WELL, WELL ,,WELL,,, WELL,,,, WELL ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,WELL

I certainly understand now why George Orwell is no longer 7th grade reading. Fahrenheit 451 an insipid musing of a DEAD WHITE GUY.

Well that said are all you troll liberals really on the side of this shit or are you just poseurs.

My real fear is you are the firemen in the movie. Complete with kerosene equipped fire engines, big brother on the screen.

If the unveiling of video-ography of Weather Underground FBI agent infiltration where SHOUT BAMMIE LAMMIE HUSSSSEIN OBAMA's acquaintance, Mr. BILL Ayers's Executive Committee meetings were cooling talking about eliminating 25 MILLION schmucks like most of us REAL PEOPLE posting here, nothing will ever convince you what deranged playmates you endear.

My Grandpa died damn near a MILLIONAIRE.

He had a 6th grade education.

He taught me not to argue with MORONS. I was born in HENRY COUNTY VA. Patrick & HENRY county in Virginia were named for him.

If you have a slightest grasp of American History your dumb asses know why these counties are named for Gov. Henry.

To further educate your liberal arts dumbed down poot00tskies.

QUOTE
I know not what other course some may take; but as for me.,GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH.

NO WONDER YOU IDIOTS , AND I MEAN THAT IN ALL SINCERITY, DON'T WANT DEAD WHITE GUY'S HISTORY TAUGHT IN SCHOOL ANYMORE. YOU RIDICULE THE JEWS FOR DEFENDING THEMSELVES.

You MF are playing with fire.

Question is are you pansy ass liberals up for the challenge?

Amenbro| 6.17.10 @ 8:55AM

In case you are wondering.

HAIL YEAH the cop had the right to punch thaT broad in the mouth.

IN CASE YOUR OBSERVATION SKILLS ARE LACKING HER PERSON WAS JUST AS DAMN BIG AS HE.

A MOMENTARILY DERANGED IDIOT THAT GRABS A GUN IN A TUSSLE IS A SHITPOT MORE THREATENING THAN A POLICE OFFICER DEFENDING HIMSELF.

.

Mel Torme| 6.17.10 @ 9:42AM

Ray Bradbury, NOT George Orwell, wrote Fahrenheit 451.

However, the stuff going on nowadays is already close to what Orwell describes in 1984, so you got the right guy anyway. The only difference that I can see between reality and that book right now is, the people are still armed. We will see how long that lasts. The statists will tread very carefully on this one and try to move slowly. Most people will be stupid and comply, because "it's for the children" and they are afraid of appearing to be an "extremist".

AMENBRO| 6.17.10 @ 9:51AM

Pardon me for not clearly delineating the fact that I was referencing two classic books.

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 11:08AM

Why are conservative so willing to surrender their constitutional right of free speech to BIG Business?

Bilwick| 6.17.10 @ 11:16AM

Care to elucidate "vtwin"? As far as I know Obama his FCC goons aren't "Big Business," despite "Il Dufe's" crony-capitalism connections.

Osamas Pajamas| 6.17.10 @ 10:07PM

On the nationalisation of the internet by the criminal dictatorship of Barak Hushpuppy OhBummer --- I'm not saying that these gangsters should be dragged kicking and screaming into the gutter to be horsewhipped within an inch of their lives, and set ablaze with gasoline and pixxed on to put the fire out. Oh. no. Not me. But there's no telling what I might say if we actually had freedom of speech and freedom of the press, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'll settle for now with a less methodologically-specific injunction --- destroy them --- outright, and permanently.

Mary Ann| 6.20.10 @ 7:34PM

I WOULD!!

Tarantula| 6.20.10 @ 11:03AM

This comment is moronic. What power does any business have to infringe on any rights?

ENOUGH ROPE| 6.17.10 @ 11:31AM

OBAMA, THE SMILING COBRA

Alan Brooks| 6.17.10 @ 1:29PM

But you want cooperation w/ law enforcement on CP, don't you?

Osamas Pajamas| 6.17.10 @ 10:08PM

On the nationalisation of the internet by the criminal dictatorship of Barak Hushpuppy OhBummer --- I'm not saying that these gangsters should be dragged kicking and screaming into the gutter to be horsewhipped within an inch of their lives, and set ablaze with gasoline and pixxed on to put the fire out. Oh. no. Not me. But there's no telling what I might say if we actually had freedom of speech and freedom of the press, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'll settle for now with a less methodologically-specific injunction --- destroy them --- outright, and permanently.

ken wood| 6.17.10 @ 1:55PM

The MM or M(2) is an "un-hung traitor"
Great reply...

USA Jim| 6.17.10 @ 9:07PM

Carol, I hope you are right, but my big fear is that obama intentionally let the Gulf Oil Spill keep pumping millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf before he started doing anything about it, including REFUSING the help of 13 countries with expertise & equipment in cleaning up spills. He has groomed a MAJOR CATASTROPHE, by allowing it to get this bad. At the same time, he has fueled the horrific illegal mexican scenario by defiantly not securing the border, and answering Arizona's lawful attempt with political bullying and threats of court action. The responsible public is at a breaking point, and I think he's orchestrated this volatile hotbed for a meltdown. Once that occurs, he's going to come in with Marshall Law, and he will suspend the elections. We won't have a chance to vote the bastards out. DEAR GOD, PLEASE SAVE OUR BELOVED COUNTRY. TAKE THESE CANCERS OUT OF OUR GOVERNMENT.

RCV| 6.19.10 @ 12:55AM

You can always move, Carol.

Mary Ann| 6.20.10 @ 7:32PM

Why don't you since you are one of these radical libturds---go to Iran or Iraq and live like a rebot because you will have no freedoms there---I knew you were a libturd by the answer you gave to Carol and those who want to prserve our freedoms and our constitution...Radicals like you make me sick to my stomach...And by the way on your way out pick up Odummy

Mary Ann| 6.20.10 @ 7:27PM

This is what socialism does, it takes over and controls people's lives...We cannot allow this to happen, if this POS gets his way what's next? What kind of car we can drive, what we can or cannot watch on television and what we listen to on radio......He may even decide what we can eat ot not eat, they already seem to be doing that by taking snack machines out of schools but it will then turn to public bldgs and even privately owned property ..But knowing that no-good piece of demcrap socialist,marxist Idiot, he will even try to take our property rights away...To say that I hate him is putting it mildly..

Shamus| 6.17.10 @ 6:37AM

Chances are that the courts will shoot this down.

Blackwatch| 6.17.10 @ 1:13PM

..and if they don't???

Brian Mc| 6.17.10 @ 6:54AM

I don't know why but while reading this article concerning the FCC, it caused me to remember scenes in which the wife of the mayor of River City, Iowa, (when she was handed the reins for the dance pageant in "The Music Man"), had all the girls stumbling about the stage.

I'll be humming "Rustle of Spring" the rest of the morning, now.

GregA| 6.17.10 @ 7:01AM

By any chance is that staffer named Goebbels? Sounds like he's attempting to rapidly advance through the ranks of these National Socialists.

Lee| 6.17.10 @ 7:06AM

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ..."

So how is this NOT in direct violation of the First Amendment? For those who don't see a problem because Obama is doing it, you are by definition saying you would not have a problem if Bush had done it.

Curly Smith| 6.17.10 @ 9:14AM

I'm sure the argument will go "you have the Constitutional right to speak but you don't have a Constitutional right to be heard". Unless, of course, your speech is pornographic, inflammatory toward Conservatives, or anti-religious where the Constitutional penumbras demand that your speech not just be heard but heeded.

But, as to your second point, the only people who'll argue are those who disagreed with Bush when he signed McCain-Feingold which, contrary to what the Supreme Court later said, unconstitutionally limited free speech. Nobody on the left would have argued if Bush had proposed taking over the internet because ultimately it would have been controlled by Big Government statists. McCain-Feingold is just another example of "moderates" advancing the leftist agenda.

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 9:58AM

BIG Business opposes "net neutrality" because it wants to control internet content the same way it controls radio content, it pushes pro BIG business garbage like Rush Limbaugh onto 650+ radio stations while limiting airtime to opposing points of view.

Petronius| 6.17.10 @ 10:16AM

Air time on Commercial radio stations is PAID FOR.
Rush has 2 things Al Franken doesn't, sponsors, and an audience. Liberals want to muzzle this blog and all the rest they don't control because they want control of the political food chain forever without having to compete. krammit!

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 10:58AM

“PAID FOR” That’s my point Business pays for the content. Example: The Mercury News in San Jose was running a series on auto dealerships, the dealerships viewed this reporting negatively and threaded to stop advertizing, the series was canceled.
I can’t speak for “liberal[s]” but I don’t want to “muzzle this blog” or any other blog.
Al Franken commenting on free speech and net neutrality:
"As far as I'm concerned, free speech limited or free speech delayed are the same thing as free speech denied,"

Bilwick1| 6.17.10 @ 11:17AM

And we all know the extent of Al Franken's commitment to individual liberty.

Curly Smith| 6.17.10 @ 11:56AM

vtwin, I'm afraid that you misunderstand the nature of capitalism. "Big Business" isn't paying for Talk Radio anymore than they pay taxes. The consumer pays for the broadcasts and the taxes. "Big Business" is merely an intermediary. Conservative Talk Radio succeeds because it produces a product that consumers, in this case listeners, want and they pay for it with their time and by purchasing the products that sponsors advertise. Liberal Talk Radio failed because it was overwhelming rejected by the consumers. Their "Beam of Dreams" (if you broadcast it they will listen) failed not because "Big Business" refused to advertise but because the consumer refused to listen.

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 1:08PM

The relationship between capitalist enterprise and the media is more complex than the simplistic view you’ve offered. Glen Beck has viewer but advertisers bailed. Why? Would BP more inclined to advertize on venues more or less critical BP handling of the spill? When I was young oil company A was only concern with convincing me its product was better buy than oil company B’s. But now oil companies are concern with how we view, global warming, alternative sources of energy, multinational corporation-ism tax policy, hell everything. BIG Business owns radio, tv, cable and they want the internet to control what we see, hear and think. Because its good for us or business?

blackwatch| 6.17.10 @ 1:22PM

"big business" is the goblin here? vtwin you are whack job. who the hell owns "big business" anyway? You do if you have any stock or mutual funds, or pay into a union pension, state teachers pension, state employees pension. Guess where they invest your money---in businesses!!!

Pull your head out of your ass and sit your butt on your v-twin and go for a ride. And see all of the beautiful commerce that occurs in America. From the mom & pop store or business rises the titans. Thank you lucky stars that you have Big Businesses to strive for a profit. They pay your salary and from which you are taxed by the non-product government.

the real bad actor here is out of control, over-reaching government.

Rush Limbaugh is living the American Dream becuase he works his ass off!!!

Don't be tool anymore. It's really not that hard to figure out.

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 2:50PM

Is Rush Limbaugh the reason modern conservatism is willing to accept BIG Business as being good and BIG Government being bad? Or, was it FOX? Did you ever consider BIG is bad period?

I ride at five!

Bilwick| 6.17.10 @ 3:45PM

"Did you ever consider BIG is bad period? "

Only to consider it a stupid remark. Want to take us through the logic of that statement, Captain Syllogism? And would it apply to government as well?

Curly Smith| 6.17.10 @ 4:18PM

vtwin, there is no difference between when you were young and now. At both times Oil Co. A was trying to convince you that it was better than Oil Co. B -> the only thing that changed are what they perceive to be your criteria for choosing a "better" company. They used to focus on gasoline additives and now some focus on... let's just say "other stuff".

In addition, your Glen Beck example of bailing advertisers disproves your point about "Big Business" owning radio, cable, tv and the internet. Because if they did, they would either force Glen Beck to charge or replace him. Glen Beck has an audience, so some sponsors will choose to associate with him and some won't. Ultimately, it's his audience that drives who chooses to advertise.

Lastly, "Big Business" isn't a problem as long as it's not a government sponsored or protected monopoly. As long as there's free enterprise then consumers are free to make -- or break -- any company. Consumers made Conservative Talk Radio and consumers are breaking the old liberal media dinosaurs.

Eric| 6.21.10 @ 2:16PM

VTWIN -
Let me explain how this works. See if you can keep up.
ALL commercial broadcast media, whether Radio or TV, serves a single function. To get an audience to tune in on order that the broadcaster can sell air time to advertisers. Those advertisers pay for the airtime WITH THE MONEY THEY GET FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS.
So no. It ISN'T big business that pays for it, it's US. It's us, spending our money at all sorts of retail establishments which in turn buy advertising time during regular programming. The PRICE of that airtime, in other words the MONEY that the broadcaster make, is DIRECTLY related to how many people want to listen to them. That's IT. End of story. If anyone actually wanted to listen to left wing broadcasting then THEY would be on 650 radio stations, not Rush.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 12:31PM

This may have escaped your attention, but anyone who can accuire a broadcast licences can me a radio broadcaster. There's nothing stopping you from creating your won radio station and broadcasting pretty much anything you like. All you need is a license and transmitter. people do it all the time. Three are thousand of small, privately owned and operated radio stations in America. That has nothing to do with "big business."

Also, a broadband provider is not like a radio station as that "broadband" provider grants you access to other people sites, other people's "broadcasts." It's similar to , say, a shopping mall in this respect. Shopping malls can restrict their customers access to products by not stocking them. They can also limit how much they will stock at any given time, which is equivalent to slowing down "broadband" data thransfer rates.

Why the need for government interference in "broadband" internet access? Why the need to regulate it as a utility? A shopping mall isn't a utility, so nether should be a "broadband" internet provider.

Just as a super market can, and does, compete with smaller, local, specialty store, A "big business" broadband internet provider competes with smaller, local providers. It's up to the customers to decide where they will shop, and what internet provider they will choose. When something becomes a utility that individual choice is eliminated and a monopoly occurs.

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 12:59PM

The internet is not like a shopping mall.
It is more like the road system.
The cable companies want to control this system so it can be used to sell media to you.
But the same system is used for a million other purposes - it is a vital service - it is more important than just a movie-delivery service.

It needs to be kept open. That is what net neutrality is for.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 1:36PM

Ok, Let's use that "road" comparison, shall we?

Why do cities LIMIT the number of broadband providers available to their citizens? Just like not building enough roads to meet demand and, in the process, creating traffic jams, the governments are not allowing enough broadband providers to meet demand. Traffic on the "net" is just as congested when restricted to a single carrier as it is on a single road that gives people access to a major interstate freeway.

Governments are the one who are CAUSING net congestion, which is CAUSING those transfer rate slow downs, by only allowing one or two broadband providers per locality when they should be allowing as many as demand requires. Just how is THAT the fault of the providers themselves?

Net Neutrality will NOT reduce net congestion. Only increasing provider competition by allowing people the ability to access numerous providers, by removing those government-mandated MONOPOLIES, will do that.

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 1:49PM

That is the first time I have heard of cities limiting number of suppliers.
Could you provide some evidence of that.

And I understood that there was in fact a great deal of black cable already available that has never been used - the problem being that nobody wants to spend the money needed to bring it the last mile to the user.

And it is not the government that is creating monopolies - it is the companies - like the proposed merger between comcast and NBC.
In fact the government broke up AT&T exactly to remove a monopoly did it not?
I think you are posting misinformation Ray.

Northright| 6.17.10 @ 4:37PM

Evidence: call your local municipal government and ask how many cable providers are allowed in the community. The answer in 99% of municipalities is "one."

mike.musculus| 6.18.10 @ 4:40PM

Shrewsbury, MA; Ithaca, NY; Trenton, Browns Mills, Wrightstown, NJ; Lakewood, WA; Olympia, WA....
I could go on & on, but you get the idea.
NB: Progressives own all those places, naturally.

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 2:28PM

Yes, “let's use that "road" comparison”
Adding bandwidth is like adding lanes to a road not a problem.
Information moves around the internet in pieces called packets. Similar to people traveling around on roads in cars, packets like cars are all equal (yes, police, fire… being the exception.)
“Net neutrality” is trying to preserve this equality. But big service providers looking for a new source of revenue want to impose a class system on packets moving around the internet. Without getting too technical by marking these packets with a priority tag. Paymore get higher priority payless ….
The experience for the user will be like DSL rates for some web site verses Dial-up rates to others.
Analogist to will maintained PUBLIC roads to retailers who pay poorly maintain PUBLIC roads that don’t.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 3:28PM

You've still haven't shown a NEED for net neutrality! You've given us an argument of why Net Neutrality s not needed, competition! Yes, cable is faster than dsl, which is faster than dileup, but is slower than fiber optics or wifi (microwave). What's the point?

With all the options available to deliver content to the consumer, and with all of those options being able to access the SAME sites over the "net," WHY do we need Net Neutrality?

Fairbanks99| 6.17.10 @ 6:12PM

The government will do for the internet with "net neturality" what it did for medicine with Medicare. ANYTHING the gov't "manages" will be grossly inferior to anything the free market provides. Not to mention tremendously more expensive. For a perfect example of government competence at management, see Gulf Oil Spill cleanup response.

JimE| 6.17.10 @ 7:21PM

vtwin, you are aliberal moron whinning about fairness and equality, your ignorance is amazing. I suspect you ride a segway and not a vtwin.

Eric| 6.21.10 @ 2:36PM

It's their system you twit. they can't do what they want with it. If you don't like it, you are free to buy yourself a modem and use a Free provider.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 1:42PM

"It needs to be kept open."

I didn't know anyone was closing it! Give me an example of where an American internet provider has REFUSED to let one of their customers access something on the internet.

Give me a single example where a vital service or message wasn't able due to the provider's malfeasance, because of "big business" interference. Give me a single example where someone died, or was hurt, because the provider restricted their access to the internet. Give me just ONE example of where ANY broadband internet provider has done anything like this. If you can't do that, then your argument is bogus, isn't it?

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 1:53PM

Here is an example - Comcast this year brought to court by the FCC for throttling bittorent content on it's servers.
They won the case. They are blocking content and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Always Question| 6.17.10 @ 2:29PM

So the provider of the service has a small group of users who basically co-opt the majority of the bandwidth so they can download videos? Why not meter it? Any constrained resource is handled this way, else the majority suffer for the benefit of the few band-width hogs. This was an example of a court case where the outcome was logically insupportable.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 2:34PM

"They won the case. They are blocking content and there is nothing anybody can do about it. "

Good, I', GLAD they won! That is a case of OWNER INDEPENDENCE!

You see, that provider network belongs to COMCAST, not bittorent ! If bittorent wants people to access their services without delays, then they can BUILD their own provider service! Why should Comcast be forced to provide access to bittorrent's servers or service?

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 3:35PM

So, if I buy a new car and the dealer tells me you can’t drive it to Church on Sundays that’s OK?
Shouldn’t the purchaser from Comcast of the bandwidth use it as one wants?
Why are conservative so willing to surrender their freedoms to BIG Business?

Always Question| 6.17.10 @ 4:20PM

Stupid analogy, vtwin. That's why services evolve. Think of it this way. You're a city. You have a park. In the park is a drinking fountain. All the people in the park enjoy the cool water from the fountain. Then, one day, a guy drives up in a water tanker, hooks it up to the drinking fountain, and all the fire hydrants in the surrounding area are suddenly down, a fire starts, and 10 people are killed. But hey - the bozo in the tanker is just taking his rightful due, eh? It's the same thing, slick. I work from home and need broadband access. If too many people on my internet segment are monopolizing all the bandwidth, I don't have fair and equal access to what should be a public service that I pay for. Therefore, it becomes a simple supply and demand issue, and the company should have the right to raise the rate for the abusers since they are restricting supply, rather than charging them the same rate as all other users. However, until they can deploy sufficient bandwidth to account for the increased load, they should have the right - nay, the obligation - to control usage.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 2:54PM

By the way, "throttling" something is NOT "blocking" it" So, tell me, did Comcast "throttle" a something or did they BLOCK access to it?

I asked your for an example of were someone was HURT due to Comcast's business practices, which was YOUR argument! You've yet to provide even a single example.

Eric| 6.21.10 @ 2:39PM

So what? It's their network.

And what you DON'T mention is that bittorrent is a HUGE bandwidth hog.

Bandwidth costs MONEY kid, and someone has to pay for it.

What you're advocating here is THEFT. Theft of private property. And want government to do your stealing FOR you.

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 1:57PM

here is another:

" FCC Carriage Complaint filed January 5, 2010, by the Tennis Channel against Comcast ... Comcast was caught blocking and slowing down competing video content on their broadband platform.. "

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 2:28PM

So, streaming vireo is now consider a "vital" function of our daily lives? You and the FCC may not understand this, But a internet provider has the RIGHT to slow transfer rates when necessary. The can even do that to any "website" they desire! No one has a "right" to force a provider to carry their content. It's the same as demanding that Fox carry CBS programming!

Here's an idea,: Let another provider in so THEY can compete and give people the services they like. For example, a provider that caters ONLY to streaming video, or file sharing, or the like. Instead of forcing ONE provident to carry everything, let many providers carry what ever they like. That way COMPETITION, the CONSUMERS, WE the People, will decide which provider best serves our needs instead of having the government, or "big business" make those decisions for us. That's what "freedom" is all about.

It's funny, you know! You keep complaining about "big business" and claim that we need to have the government control "big business" in order to keep things fair, you you ignore the basic, fundamental cause of that "unfairness." That is the unfairness of having a government mandated MONOPOLY provide a service to all of us. Instead of addressing the root cause (a government mandated monopoly if services), and implementing a plan to remove it (ending those policies which creates that monopoly), you suggestion is to let the very entities that CREATED the problem be the one's who will "correct" it. Yea, like that's going to wok.

The only "fix," the only "cure" that will work is to REMOVE the policies that CREATE those provider monopolies and let more business provide internet access to anyone who wants it. That way "big business" won't control it anymore. We, the People, will chose any smaller business we want and destroy the "influence " of Big Business altogether

You want Net Freedom? You want Net Neutrality? Fine, I suggest that you petition your local government to allow more broadband providers to serve you! If not, then what will you accomplish with this so-called "Net Neutrality?" Nothing!

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 3:39PM

Has it ever occurred to you that the Tennis Channel, who bargains with Comcast to carry their "tv" content, could also bargain with Comcast to carry their WEB content? And that Comcast foesn;t HAVE to ovverr access to tthe Tennis Channels website any more than they have to offer access to their TV signals?

I mean, really, what's different between accessing a TV channel or a website? They are both content sources, are they not?

If want Comcast to carry YOUR video feeds, you should enter into a contract, just like with TV!! Or do you believe that every single TV provider in the Country MUST provide every single customer access to every single channel in the country?

Wha, that sounds absurd? Well, that is what you're saying about the internet!

There's something you need to understand about the ":internet." It's NOT a public access point, tile a public library!! It is a collection of privatly owned and operated servers and computers linked together in various way!

People have RIGHT to limit access to their own servers and the content they provide. Some sites are "pay per view," some are "member's only, " and some are open to the public. They can limit who get's to see it and how fast they can access the data. They can even BAN people form accessing their content! Well, why can't Comcast do the same to the people who access THEIR network?

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 2:04PM

And it is not about people getting killed

It is about the little companies and ideas getting crushed before they can get started - killing the very best thing about the internet.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 2:37PM

What'"little people" are getting crushed? Name a SINGLE business that has been "crushed" due to the lack of Net Nutrality! Not even bittorrent has been "crushed!" The last time I looked, their network is busier than ever! So, put up or shut up! Give me ONE example of a business being "crushed" due to Comcast's business practices! I dare you! You';re not going to find any. Ad do you know why? Because none exists!

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 2:50PM

The problem is what comcast is TRYING to do - not what is has already done.

Streaming video IS vital if you are a startup that depends on it to run. If comcast sticks your content in the slow lane your company will fail.

You will never know what companies have been crushed because they never had a chance in the first place if comcast gets their way.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 3:00PM

What are they TRYING to do, other than to offer the best service to the majority of their customers? People can STILL stream videos over Comcast!

If people want something that Comcast doesn't offer, well, hay, ever hear of DSL? How about Hughesnet? What's the matter, crying because it takes longer to view a streaming video over a different broadband provider? B. O. O. H. O. O

Eric| 6.21.10 @ 2:41PM

If your business model depends on streaming video but doesn't produce enough revenue to PAY for it, then your business model sucks and you deserve to fail.

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 2:53PM

And you can't have every single company making their own cable network - the cities would be dug up all day long and clogged with too much cable.

They have to share it.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 3:09PM

BS! Yo cab set up a hundered, or a MILLION, small cable networks without making much of a dent in the environment! If you want to switch providers, you don;t replace your cable, they just switch who's broadcasting OVER that cable! A few strategically located switching stations, one that switch singles between providers, is all that is needed!

Besides, cable isn't the only broadband system. There's WIFI too, ya know! Cell-phone web access! Satellite access! Ten there's fiber optics, which is even faster than coaxial cable!!

There are a LOT of alternatives that can be, and are, available to us. WE DON"T NEED NET NEUTRALITY! It already exists!

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 5:02PM

Hey Ray, I see now that you don't understand the technical issue. You are confusing two different kinds of server. The servers you are talking about are the ones that host sites - they are there to provide content. Of course those belong to the owner there is no question of that.
The servers that Net neutrality is talking about are the ones that move packets of data around the network. When any web data is passed from the server to the user , it may pass through many other servers and networks to get there. The internet does not have fixed routes - it was designed to be robust and flexible - if the info cannot get thru one way - it tries another. In order for this to work the network as a whole has to allow data to pass freely across it. At the moment all packets of data are treated equally - they move at the same speed - but comcast wants to make their ones go faster than the others - and they are a big part of the network.

It is like some guy suddenly putting up a big fence that blocks your access to the road - he says - yeah but it's my yard.

The internet should not have fences and private roads on it - it cannot work properly that way.

Eric| 6.21.10 @ 2:32PM

a) The Internet doesn't HAVE Servers. It has Routers, Switches, Aggregators, a lot of other types of equipment that most people have never heard of and a LOT of Copper & Fiber cable.

b) Your fence analogy isn't even remotely applicable. A more APPROPRIATE analogy would be that you want to gain access to an Amusement Park, but you neither wish to pay the listed ticket price to enter, nor do you wish to follow the rules once you DO get access. The owner of the park, which is of course PRIVATE PROPERTY, has the right to tell you that if you don't want to buy a ticket at the going rate and obey the rules once you enter, that you can stay the out!

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 5:19PM

This picture says it better than words can:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi.....p_1024.jpg

T1brit| 6.18.10 @ 3:26AM

The truth:

http://www.wired.com/epicenter.....ules-isps/

Eric| 6.21.10 @ 2:22PM

"Vital Service"?

HORSE-PUCKY.

a) It's not "vital". The majority of the world's population doesn't have ANY internet access and they are doing just fine without it.

b) It's a PRIVATE service. The broadband providers built the internet and they get to decide who can access it and how they can access it because THEY OWN IT. It's PRIVATE PROPERTY.

c) If you don't want to pay for broadband, for WHATEVER reason, then I suggest you buy yourself a modem and dial in instead, INSTEAD OF TRYING TO GET THE GOVERNMENT TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE'S PRIVATE PROPERTY AND GIVE IT TO YOU FOR FREE!

Not fast enough for you? THEN PAY FOR BROADBAND YOU CHEAP BASTARD!

win| 6.17.10 @ 4:45PM

If you don't like Rush Limbaugh do not watch him, or listen to him, or whatever.

Apparently enough people do like listening to him that they watch the show. Myself I don't watch or listen to any of those "yellers", left or right.

In any case, the left is pro big business as long as it concedes everything and anything to the government. The left is against personal property rights, big business or otherwise, the left is against individual rights, because the left believes the "group" is the be all and end all of human existance. The thinking of the "left" is exactly why this country was founded on the principles of individual rights and property ownership.

Osamas Pajamas| 6.17.10 @ 10:11PM

On the nationalisation of the internet by the criminal dictatorship of Barak Hushpuppy OhBummer --- I'm not saying that these gangsters should be dragged kicking and screaming into the gutter to be horsewhipped within an inch of their lives, and set ablaze with gasoline and pixxed on to put the fire out. Oh. no. Not me. But there's no telling what I might say if we actually had freedom of speech and freedom of the press, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'll settle for now with a less methodologically-specific injunction --- destroy them --- outright, and permanently.

mike.musculus| 6.18.10 @ 4:42PM

mmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmmm....

Eric| 6.21.10 @ 2:08PM

OK, first of VTwin, you clearly aren't even aware that there IS a difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web, let alone understand what that difference is.
Second, Big Business doesn't want to control content, they want to control who can & how they can access THEIR NETWORKS, which THEY BUILT, because they want to get PAID. It's called RETURN ON INVESTMENT.
Third, if anyone actually wanted to LISTEN to "Left Wing Radio", then Randi Rhodes and all her wack-job friends would be on just as many stations as Rush/Hannity/etc. The problem though is that Left Wing Radio is not an economically viable business model, because NOBODY WANTS TO LISTEN TO IT.
Hell, if NPR had to actually give up the Govt subsidy and rely on their audience donations, they would have folded a LONG time ago.

Gr0w1er| 6.17.10 @ 10:11AM

Don't forget the atheists.

George| 6.17.10 @ 3:19PM

Lee, they don't care about the First Amendment or any other. The Constitution is irrelevant to them.
It's amazing how quickly this is happening!

Mike Rogers| 6.17.10 @ 7:10AM

There is only one way to protect ourselves and cast off the chains of tyranny before they become too heavy: Work like hell to convince everyone you know that survival of freedom in our country depends on a two-thirds majority in the house this November - then we can truly flip off "The One" with repeal of bad laws and passage of market solutions that are veto-proof, while convening a special investigation into the ways in which Obama has failed to uphold the constitution. Finally, upon proof of "high crimes and misdemeanours", we can move to impeach - such a stain on the nation is far more damaging than a stained dress, and the lies have been positively Orwellian.

Kitty| 6.17.10 @ 7:13AM

"Look at the Gulf oil spill, that's what happens when we let corporations just do their own thing without any accountability."

Say WHAT? When has the guv'ment allowed any corp to "do their own thing without any accountability"?

blackwatch| 6.17.10 @ 1:27PM

like there aren't mountains of paperwork and fees and inspections involved with off shore oil drilling.

It's one of the most regulated businesses in the world. That's becuase its a pot of black gold for the government. The government makes more money from oil than the oil companies. Look it up for yourself.

oil is a cash cow for the feds. that's why they govern it. follow the money.

Old Soldier | 6.17.10 @ 4:53PM

If corporations could "do thir own thing" they would be drilling for oil on land in Utah and in shallow water off our coasts. Instead they are restricted to drilling in the deepest and riskiest depths of the ocean.

Osamas Pajamas| 6.17.10 @ 10:14PM

You're an idiot, sport. No matter where you drill you have the right to pollute your own land and your own water and your own air --- but not anyone else's land, water and air --- so the venue or location is irrelevant --- as long as the government enforces property rights.

Brian| 6.17.10 @ 7:23AM

I think that newspapers need to be regulated along with the internet. Don't newspapers publish national secrets?
Don't newspapers affect the outcomes of elections?

martin j smith| 6.17.10 @ 7:27AM

The concept of Impeachment can be useful. Obama is getting more and more vulnerable by the day. I have heard it said that getting below 40% is crucial. He is getting there. It seems to me that the only avenue to deal with the misuse of federal organs that have not been elected by the voters are 1) the courts,2) elections and 3) even without the votes-talk of impeachment based on curruption,malfeasance,dereliction of duty, and not upholding the constitution. Thats for starters.

Melvin| 6.17.10 @ 7:36AM

People it struck me yesterday, and I can't really explain why all of a sudden that this though popped into my heard.
After Obama extorted 22 billion dollars from BP, it hit me that he has been ruling by two methods. Executive order, and regulatory bodies.
He has impacted our lives in a major, major way by bypassing the Constitution. Now before some of you legal scholars go, "Tut, tut" The only legisilation that has been moving through the Senate and House is legislation that basically deals with monetary or budget issue, with a smattering of other non money items.
But yesterday he demands money from BP be put into a shadowy escrow account somewhere, orders the EPA to impose draconian rules governing anything that takes or uses energy, and now if memory serves me correctly this INTERNET and FCC ruling that I think was already smacked down earlier legislatively.
Now if the Democrats lose the majority again, then all of a sudden when the Republicans try to undue this vile mess, they are going back to blocking all this with legislatively chicane.
This SOB in the White House is ruling like Hugo Chavez.
He and his followers are taking our freedoms away bit by bit and all we do including me is post angry, after angry post in how that jug-eared circus freak is destroying this Country.
I thought I would never despise a human being the way I despise Obama right now.

Ken (Old Texican)| 6.17.10 @ 8:13AM

Melvin,
I'm not sure you are acting in vain with your posts.

I spend some considerable time here, reflecting then posting. Why in the dickens do you think the communists, (pardon the shorthand), want so badly to control the internet?

Because they would love to squeeze out sites like TAS, and the angry responses it creates to their agenda.
Posting here is one of my small ways to contribute to our "push-back" on those jackals. Hopefully, from time to time our posts help many people clarify their objections to tyranny in their own minds.
Second, I hope our posts...and our $$ contributions to TAS encourage the editors in their aggressive peeling back of the curtains the communists, (again pardon the shorthand), want to keep closed.

Third, I hope our posts help the many lurkers with encouragement to get involved with their tea-parties and local conservative Republican organizations.

Finally, here is a place where we can encourage each other and know that we are not alone and lost in the wilderness. I personally always look forward to your insights.

Dan Hirsch| 6.17.10 @ 9:31AM

Mr. Texican,

You called them exactly what they are: communists. I'm trying a new approach with trolls, respond to their every outlandish and ridiculous point with a single question, 'Are you an unrepentant communist or just a useful idiot?'

If we show them for what they are, the sensible, lawful citizenry can begin to identify and isolate these people.

You can't shoot somethin' you can't see, mostly.

Don't tread on me!

O'Riley| 6.17.10 @ 10:00AM

"I hope our posts help the many lurkers ..."

They do, indeed.

win| 6.17.10 @ 4:48PM

Obama is a Socialist Democrat, like pretty much any of the "progessive" wing of the Democrats.

Obviously the news media failed us when it came to Obama, if anyone should be regulated it would be the mainstream news who constantly propagandize any and every issue to promote the views of the very few people that are far left in this country.

FTM| 6.17.10 @ 7:53AM

President Obama might have the ability to shut down the world wide web and that might be an intelligent thing to do, as a precursor to putting every man, woman and child in the US, all of Canada and Europe into a prison someplace. Pull the plug on the net dud, er dude and somebody'll pull your plug.

Blackwatch| 6.17.10 @ 1:36PM

Pull the plug on the internet and every business in America will shut down.

I would intrepret the shutting off of the internet to be an act of war against businesses and my personal freedom.

Tens of millions of people would be sent home or put on part time hours as businesses would grind to a halt. If you want to encourage growth of a citizens militia to physically take back our government, by all means shut off the internet.

JP| 6.17.10 @ 8:28AM

"Look at the Gulf oil spill, that's what happens when we let corporations just do their own thing without any accountability. We can't allow that to happen with the Internet. We won't allow it."

Nice strawman. The oil extraction business is one of the more regulated businesses out there. The very fact that they must go to the deep waters of the Gulf are a result over regulation and mandates from an entire host of state and federal bureaucracies, which bar them from drilling on land or more shallow waters.

win| 6.17.10 @ 4:53PM

To say nothing of the fact that the gulf oil spill would not have happened if those oh, so, buerocratic government regulators had done there job.

Then Obama comes along, decrees that he is stopping all the deep oil rigs and the panel of experts supported stopping them.
Then, come to find out, the panel of experts did not support shutting them down, instead they said just the opposite.
Obama lied and then expects everyone to pay for it. The big lie so he could push his cap™ agenda. Really odd that BP was a big member of one of those green groups and backs cap and trade...

So we have a government agency failing.
BP "errors" causing the well to blow up.
BP supporting cap & trade
And Obama pushing cap & trade and "green" because of the oil spill caused by the well blowing up.

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 8:39AM

Sure, the American people don’t need a voice through their elected representatives to decide who, what, and how of the internet, let BIG business decide. Who can argue with the success of BIG banking, BIG insurance, BIG oil…

Bilwick| 6.17.10 @ 11:44AM

What can you say of people who anathematize Big Business and yet love Der Staat?

Well, "as clueless when it comes to history as they are to economics and logic," for starts.

Maybe if Big Business murdered and plundered wholesale, the way the State has done throughout history, the State-fellators like some of those who post here would give it more love.

"vtwin" might even trade his Che t-shirt in for a t-shirt with a corporate CEO's face on it.

blackwatch| 6.17.10 @ 1:40PM

The douche does not realize that his "Che" t-shirts are made in a Communist chinese clothing factory by a BUSINESS who produces them to be sold by---shock---another BUSINESS!!

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 12:48PM

Where does "big business" get their money? They must get it form their customers, right? Well, if the customers are unsatisfied whit that a business is offering them , they'll take their business elsewhere and that "big business" will cease to exist.

The only time the customers can't take their business elsewhere is when a GOVERNMENT introduces legislation that monopolizes a business, like how cities monopolize broadband access by allowing only one broadband cable provider, for example, to serve a given area. If that government created monopoly didn't exist, there would be several small cable providers competing for a local market, just as you see with all other types of "providers" like food and clothing stores, gas stations, hotels, ect.

So, it's not "big business' that creating a problem . It's government itself that creating a problem by inhibiting "small" business.

win| 6.17.10 @ 4:55PM

You know you can always just not use the product if you do not like the way the business does it.

If you don't like the way the government does it, you do not have any options.

Osamas Pajamas| 6.17.10 @ 10:20PM

VTWIN ---- you repeat the word BIG many times --- but the biggest monopoly is the government itself, armed with guns and bombs and prisons. The key to keeping something like a noose around Uncle Sam;s neck is a riproaring freedom-of-speech and freedom of the press. And that means chopping off Uncle SDam's hands every time he reaches to control what I say. But maybe it would be better just to chop off Uncle Sam's head and get it over with.

NavyBrat | 6.17.10 @ 8:42AM

"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."...Joseph Goebbels

"The bourgeoisie is many times stronger than we. To give it the weapon of freedom of the press is to ease the enemy’s cause, to help the class enemy. We do not desire to end in suicide, so we will not do this."...Lenin

Nice to see that these lefites never change. Chilling, ain't it?

crookedwren| 6.17.10 @ 8:55AM

I can't keep up with these anti-liberty, a-Constitutional Marxists.

DonDuke | 6.17.10 @ 9:09AM

Is this a surprise to anyone? Is it understandable that those with power wish to have more? Is it a revelation that this unquestionably socialistic administration wants to control the voice of the populous? What is remarkable to me is that, as a nation, we have allowed this to come to be. Maybe we shouldn't allow our next election to be just another episode of American Idol. What do you think?

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 10:09AM

I think your misinformed.

Ken (Old Texican)| 6.17.10 @ 11:12AM

vtwin,
Not only are you stuck on stupid...Heh you are illiterate as well.

"your" heh DUH!

Jim O'Brien| 6.17.10 @ 9:18AM

Federal regulation of the internet is unnecessary and unwanted by the public. "Net neutrality" is a euphemism for socialist regulation which will dictate the way private companies do business and price bandwidth use. It will stop broadband firms from offering ultra-fast delivery for sites or users willing to pay extra, just as FedX, UPS, or the USPS accelerate deliveries for an extra fee.

"Net neutrality" is theft of private property: in this case, the theft of bandwidth. It will mean that the age of innovation in high speed internet access is just about over. What company is going to invest billions of dollars creating a high speed network just so others, who didn't invest those billions, can take advantage of it without paying?

For the Demo-Socialists, equal access to someone else's property is more important than innovation and a free market economy. Has anyone in Congress read the Constitution?

mike.musculus| 6.18.10 @ 4:45PM

"...Has anyone in Congress read the
Constitution?"
Yes, Jim... and they HATE it!

Since Wilson, they have plotted its destruction, and so here we are...

KyMouse| 6.17.10 @ 9:21AM

"Look at the Gulf oil spill, that's what happens when we let corporations just do their own thing without any accountability. We can't allow that to happen with the Internet. We won't allow it."

Hmmm...so any kind of "corporation" is fair game to these people, who won't let any crisis go to waste.

I know a lot of people who now use code to refer to Barry O'Bama negatively in their emails, so as not to be spotted by global email watchers. That has sounded kinda paranoid to me in the past, but now I'm not so sure. Perhaps we'll all have to do the same thing on Web sites such as this.

This kind of thing used to be found only in sci fi novels and movies. Life is now imitating art.

Joe D| 6.17.10 @ 9:29AM

This is unconstitutional. IMPEACH THIS DICTATOR NOW!!!!!!!!!! IGNORE THIS NEW RULE THAT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!!!!!!!

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 10:19AM

This is TOTAL BULLSHIT
Net neutrality is precisely to protect the free flow of information on the internet.
It is to prevent corporations from creating fast lanes for their own stuff whilst cramming all other traffic into the slow lane.
You are all deluded stooges for the big media companies. It has NOTHING to do with free speech.
You are using the very freedom that net neutrality is trying to protect by browsing this website.
Every one of you is an ill-informed dupe.

DonDuke | 6.17.10 @ 12:21PM

Have you ever noticed that libs can't sustain their arguments using logic and persuasion. All they can do is call you names. Too funny T1.... too funny.

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 12:49PM

I beg your pardon. Allow me to clarify:

Net neutrality is necessary to ensure that all users of the internet get given the same speed of service. That is all.
It has nothing to do with politics or free speech.
It is a regulation like the regulation of the water supply or the electricity supply.
The cable companies are trying to convince people like you that the government wants to spy on people and decide what is allowed on the net.
But it is exactly the other way round.

I am not a lib - I am a conservative Brit.
I just believe in calling things what they are - and the people on here are all being conned by the cable companies campaign.
That makes them dupes.

RCV| 6.19.10 @ 1:09AM

Thanks for the cogent technical information clarifying this issue and debunking the hyperbole. Unfortunately, for the crowd of regular bloggers on this site, EVERYTHING is a conspiratorial plot to take away their freedoms. They are the most uninformed alarmists I've ever encountered. Thanks for bringing some sanity to the topic.

Ray| 6.17.10 @ 1:18PM

"It is to prevent corporations from creating fast lanes for their own stuff whilst cramming all other traffic into the slow lane."

You mean like how a supermarket has "express" lanes and regular lanes depending upon how much a customer want to buy? Or how a "store" brand is cheaper and more accessible (have more in stock) than any given name brand?

Contrary to the propaganda of the people like google, who are not internet providers but DEMAND that everyone carry their content without any type of restrictions, something the providers don't have to do, broadband providers don't slow down date transfer rates based upon point of origin. They slow them down based upon net traffic.

Here's how it works: If you request a data "package" that is large, like streaming a two hour long video, or you have a lot of data requests, like "sharing" large amounts of files through napster, the providers are justified in changing the data transfer rates that you experiencing in order to to give OTHER PEOPLE access to a FIXED amount of bandwidth.

This is because bandwidth isn't infinite, there's only so much traffic a "provider" can can actually provide their customers. Why should a few dozens of people use of most of the bandwidth because they're streaming videos or sharing a hundred mp3 files when tthousands of others are trying to access their e-maill check out their friends, Facepage, twitter then next tweet, or look that at a picture of their new grandchild on their family web page on the same provider network?

You see, when you access a "broadband" internet provider, you have to SHARE that access with everyone. Since bandwidth is fixed, some compromises must be made when demand approaches total capacity.

Don't like it when you're provider slows down your Internet porn or You Tube video and you have to wait for it to buffer (oh, the horror!) because too many people are demanding too much from a fix amount of capacity? Well, then I suggest SWITCH PROVIDERS!

Can't switch broadband providers because your city allows only one or two? Well, that's not the fault of the provider now, is it? That's not the fault of "Big Business, is it?

Blackwatch| 6.17.10 @ 1:51PM

well explained. thank you.

Net neutrality is 19th century thinking. Create a resource, make it finite, then tax it.

The internet is a toll road--you pay to use it. It was not built by the state. It should not be controlled by the state. If the state want net neutrality then they should purchase packages of bandwith and sell them at cost to all of the Net Neutrality whiners who want to sit on their flabby asses at Starbucks and surf porn.

It's a business. If you don't like it compete with them. go mortgage your house and compete. if so many customers hate the cable company then you have a great customer base. otherwise STFU with your UBER-Government solutions to a non-problem. Wah my cable company is unfair!!! Wah!!! WAH!!!

win| 6.17.10 @ 4:56PM

There is no justification for telling a business that it cannot create fast lanes for its own content unless that business owns such a large share of the market that it is a monopoly.

That is not the case that is being dicussed by the FCC.

CalMark| 6.17.10 @ 9:33PM

Are you really a Brit?

If you are, go home. Get out of my country, whose laws and traditions you obviously don't understand.

Go back and tug your forelock to everyone "higher born" than you because "it's the right thing to do."

Tim Berners-Lee | 6.17.10 @ 10:20AM

When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA.

I blogged on net neutrality before, and so did a lot of other people. (see e.g. Danny Weitzner, SaveTheInternet.com, etc.) Since then, some telecommunications companies spent a lot of money on public relations and TV ads, and the US House seems to have wavered from the path of preserving net neutrality. There has been some misinformation spread about. So here are some clarifications. ( real video Mpegs to come)

Net neutrality is this:

If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.
That's all. Its up to the ISPs to make sure they interoperate so that that happens.

Net Neutrality is NOT asking for the internet for free.

Net Neutrality is NOT saying that one shouldn't pay more money for high quality of service. We always have, and we always will.

There have been suggestions that we don't need legislation because we haven't had it. These are nonsense, because in fact we have had net neutrality in the past -- it is only recently that real explicit threats have occurred.

Control of information is hugely powerful. In the US, the threat is that companies control what I can access for commercial reasons. (In China, control is by the government for political reasons.) There is a very strong short-term incentive for a company to grab control of TV distribution over the Internet even though it is against the long-term interests of the industry.

Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can't photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it.

Let's see whether the United States is capable as acting according to its important values, or whether it is, as so many people are saying, run by the misguided short-term interested of large corporations.

I hope that Congress can protect net neutrality, so I can continue to innovate in the internet space. I want to see the explosion of innovations happening out there on the Web, so diverse and so exciting, continue unabated.

Sam Vaughn| 6.17.10 @ 1:01PM

This administration is in the process of destroying everything they touch. That is the objection - they abrogated two hundred years of contract law and took over GM, they've destroyed the housing industry through the Frankenstein monsters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they subvert the free flow of capital, they're in the process of destroying oil production in the Gulf and the rest of the US. Sorry, can't trust those in charge not to abuse their power.

Sam Vaughn| 6.17.10 @ 1:01PM

This administration is in the process of destroying everything they touch. That is the objection - they abrogated two hundred years of contract law and took over GM, they've destroyed the housing industry through the Frankenstein monsters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they subvert the free flow of capital, they're in the process of destroying oil production in the Gulf and the rest of the US. Sorry, can't trust those in charge not to abuse their power.

owyheewine| 6.17.10 @ 10:25AM

Regulations passed by unelected, faceless bureaucrats are as much a threat to our democracy as the drug addled left wing congress, judiciary and executives. Instead of just venting about the liberties that thses "we know better" bureaucrats seem to dumpn us on A

owyheewine| 6.17.10 @ 10:29AM

oops, wrong key
I was about to suggest that we push a measure to sunset all independant government rules after a set number of years, subject to a reauthorization by a discreet vote by congress. That means no omnubus collection of rules being reauthorized. Good rules could stand, and the congrsss can be held responsible for the bad ones.

Louis Jenkins| 6.17.10 @ 10:35AM

Net Neutrality? Sounds like a fancy name to me. Sensorship is a better one. The Pretender n Chief has done an end around run when it comes to getting things done. Czars and special funds all smack of working outside the government, and in fact are. It's up to us to get a government in the District of Criminals that will pay attention to us, and put a stop to these secretive funds and czars. If Nov. comes up cold we'd better head for hills (so to speak) for it will not be pretty.

Jeffry Pages| 6.17.10 @ 10:39AM

The President is correct in getting a hold on the Internet. At the time Al Gore took the initiative and began the internet, he saw the need to regulate it. President Obama sees the need as well. Afterall, the Internet is a utility and it must be insured that all have fair access to it and at a fair price. Government MUST step in and correct the errors of the capitalist abortion we are saddled with today.

NavyBrat | 6.17.10 @ 10:46AM

"At the time Al Gore took the initiative and began the internet, he saw the need to regulate it."

So who gets custody of the 'net in the divorce?

"Government MUST step in and correct the errors of the capitalist abortion we are saddled with today."

Somewhere in North Korea, a famine starved village (the triumph of communism) is missing its idiot. Go back Mr. Pages. Your stand up routine is the only thing those poor folks have to look forward to.

Anthony| 6.17.10 @ 11:02AM

Mr. Pages, I'm hoping this is satire. If not, do you share a basement apartment with Purple Guy?
If, God forbid, you're serious, you need to follow NavyBrat's advise and get thee to North Korea, a true utopian paradise.
Take Purple Guy, Obama, the inventor of the Internet and Anthropogenic G.W., Algore, and a couple of hundred thousand fellow Marxists with you.

Albert| 6.17.10 @ 11:30AM

Excuse me, but AlGore did not invent the internet. This is a myth long ago debunked. And as for fair access to the internet, exactly where do you see restricted access? The internet is open and free as it is. Government will only restrict access to it as you say you want to avoid. This is nonsensical. And finally, capitalism is not an abortion. It is a natural economic system of freedom and prosperity. Socialism is artificial and destructive. Our economy suffers not from too much capitalism, but from too much government trying to micromanange what people in government have no competence in.

danny| 6.17.10 @ 10:47AM

Get real you republican pencilheads. The net has been governed by your ISP for years. When the big companies (ie cable, phone companies) got into the internet, you lost it. You guys screaming about free speech are only 20 years too late. The internet has been filtered, blocked, and your queries have been skewed for at least 10 years. When big money invaded the internet you heard it's last real gasp of freedom. Unlimited internet it seems is not unlimited. Downloading large files has been screwed with for at least 7 years. The more you download, the slower your connection becomes. At least the guys running the satellite internet connections are honest enough to tell you this.

The internet is perhaps the most important utility in the nation, except for the utility grid. Even the stoic telephone companies realize their days are numbered. How many of you have a cell, and no landline?

You guys tend to make me sick. I am not fond of government regulation, but look at what the companies of America have done in the last 50 years, and you see they need regulation. It is a generational thing. We are paying for the sins (0missions) of our grandfathers.

Get REAL here guys. Look at what the internet costs in other developed countries, and you see we are gouged.

Osamas Pajamas| 6.17.10 @ 11:07PM

Given a choice between increasing government power and overthrowing and killing the government, I would choose the latter as being the most obvious way to improve life for the privately-employed taxpayers of America --- as opposed to the bloodsxcking predatory humanitarian thugs [public employees, politicians and bureaucrats].

Anthony| 6.17.10 @ 10:51AM

Obama the Marxist and anti-corporatist and his goons in the bureaucracy are in a mad dash to get these things done before November.
Joe Lieberman is pushing legislation that would allow the Pretender-in-Chief to shut down the Internet in case of a "national emergency".
Wow!! Perhaps by the time the November elections come around, we'll need a civil war as opposed to ballots. These Marxists must be stopped NOW.

Tim| 6.17.10 @ 10:51AM

I actually have seen an actual copy of the Real Obama Birth Certificate.

It was first described in detail in the book 1-9-8-4

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 11:08AM

It is frightening to see how stupid and mis-informed the people posting here are.

You do not realise that it is your freedom that Net neutrality is trying to protect.

You all have it ass-backwards and deserve whatever you fucking get.

( Apart from Mr Berners-Lee, who actually invented the internet that you retards are now using )

vtwin| 6.17.10 @ 11:28AM

I agree it’s frightening and they are misinformed but they don’t deserve to lose their right of FREE SPEECH because they have been fooled by special interests seeking to control internet content.

Sam Vaughn| 6.17.10 @ 11:42AM

Have you read the legislation? "net neutrality" as it's written means that a politically controlled gov.t bureascrat will get to decide what can and can not be allowed. All they then have to do is label opposing speech "seditious" and off to jail you go. Read your history and the result's of sedition legislation, remember the Sedition Act?

Fairbanks99| 6.17.10 @ 6:31PM

Using logic and reason, two tools the Left abandoned long ago, I deduce that since Great Leader and the Democrats are for it and give it a euphemistic name, it is therefore bad, and will do exactly the opposite of what it is purported to do. Kind of like Cap and Tax disguised as the "American Power Act". If you invert what Obama is telling you, you will discover the truth.

Sam Vaughn| 6.17.10 @ 11:15AM

It is useful to remember what the Internet is and where it came from. I'm sure many here recall Darpanet. I'll oversimplify but the Internet or the World Wide Web as we used to call it is really just a set of standards that allow computers to speak to each other. Physically speaking it's hard to point at anything and say there's the Internet. Looking up at the telephone there is no wire labeled Internet, go downtown there is no Internet Building Hub, my laptop is not "the Internet" yet is in an integral component of information transformation, communication and dissemination. Go here for the Internet primer -

www.isoc.org/internet/.../2002.....Growth.ppt

Once more the ignorance of intellectual leftists is on full display. You can try to stamp out free speech on the Internet but I contend that will work out about as well as banning rock and roll in the 50's. The people who helped put this thing together and their students are still out there. If Democrat Party Communists want to play "whack-a-mole" they are the ones who will get whacked.

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 12:23PM

You have failed to even cut and paste properly Sam.

It was called the ARPAnet. And you are also wrong - there is actually a central location where all the addresses of the internet are indexed.
And there is a wire labelled 'internet' - it is inside your cable box and is only there because government told the phone companies to put it there a long time ago.
And NONE of this has anything to do with free speech - it is about equal rates of data transfer for all users.

It is you who is ignorant as a plank.

Mel Torme| 6.17.10 @ 3:53PM

ARPA and DARPA are the same organization. Be careful about showing your ignorance. I'm not sure why I should continue reading your posts after I see you put the ignorance on display like this. People tend to lose confidence in others when they see the spouting of BS.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Advanced Research Projects Agency

(around long before the internet)

Agreed. Glen Beck pointed this despotic legislation out about a year ago. He may not be the most educated guy, but he people to research these things for him, and he has a good sense of how many ways the American people are getting screwed out of their freedoms.

Ken (Old Texican)| 6.17.10 @ 11:19AM

T1Brit

Are you just stuck on Stupid, or are you an un-repentant communist?

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 12:16PM

Dear Ken - if you read up you will see that Tim Berners-lee - the man who really did invent the world wide web - has posted a comment here.
He says that net neutrality is the same as having basic laws like speed limits on the roads or making printing your own money illegal.
Without such basic controls we can't have freedom of any kind - the biggest and the strongest just lay down the law as they see fit.

The inventor of the internet as you know it thinks net neutrality is vital.
But an old Texan like you probably knows better right?

Ken (Old Texican)| 6.17.10 @ 12:34PM

TiBrit,
Jeffry,
et al. heh

Are you truly stuck on stupid...or are youall unrepentant communists?

Anyone can "invent" something. I personally have invented the best back-pain-aid in the universe. A fat shoestring with a slip-knot around each knee for sleeping....with a six or seven inch gap between the loops.

Stupids, NO ONE invented the internet as we know it today. Thousands of people invent it every day...with billions of dollars in private "risk capital" ...risked .....to develop the capabilities we see every day.

Your arguments are..... stuck on stupid.

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 1:09PM

Dear Ken - the page you are looking at is only possible because Tim Berners-Lee invented the method by which it is made and transmitted.
It is called HTTP.
Congatulations on the back-scratcher.

Diana| 6.17.10 @ 11:20AM

VOTE THEM OUT PEOPLE!!!! WHEN DO YOU SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! VOTE THEM OUT BEFORE THEY DESTROY THIS COUNTRY!!!!!

Albert| 6.17.10 @ 11:22AM

This statement is telling: The government wants "kind of oversight and control that we need". Needed for what? That is never explained. Then, "Look at the Gulf oil spill, that's what happens when we let corporations just do their own thing without any accountability. We can't allow that to happen with the Internet. We won't allow it." We have a government of liars. The gulf oil spill did not happen because corporations "do their own thing." Oil drilling is heavily regulated, particularly for safety. These liars in government want one thing: power. They crave it to satiate their own egos. They envision a World where the "elites" (themselves) rule with micromanagement over all aspects of life and prosperity, thus giving themselves purpose in life. Just as in Rome, where "panem et circenses" was a "policy" of rich, elite Roman politicians to buy votes for the acquisition of power to satiate their own egos, today Democrats use government to force dependency on government so that people will vote for Democrats. All this power grabbing by Democrats is for one purpose: ego. Nothing more. When President Bozo is on camera, or in front of an audience and he hears the cheers, and he fancies himself the "man in charge," his ego is satisfied for the moment, despite the fact that he is totally incompetent, even stupid. And his bozo subordinates can all share in the "great man's" glory. This is ego and ego worship, a cult of government, if you will. Democrats in general, and President Bozo in particular, have proven themselves to be the most base and vile of people; Ego-maniacal leeches who will take others' wealth and liberties to make themselves wealthy and admired. Democrats are the destroyers of liberty and prosperity, and they do it for the most worthless of motivations.

Sam Vaughn| 6.17.10 @ 11:27AM

the above link failed, try this -

Google - vinton cerf internet .ppt 1993

Bugler| 6.17.10 @ 11:56AM

I wonder if a black market internet will develop for those of us who are sick of government snooping.

T1Brit| 6.17.10 @ 12:29PM

You can't have a black market internet if it is all coming thru one single cable company !
- They will prevent anything they don't like from being passed thru the cables.

Amd it is the cable companies who are doing the snooping - not the government !

Do you understand?

Ken (Old Texican)| 6.17.10 @ 12:37PM

T1Brit
I understand.
I ask again.
Are you simply stuck on stupid, or are you an unrepentant communist?

...Cable companies don't use guns and IRS thugs.

Always Question | 6.17.10 @ 4:29PM

Are you so truly uninformed? I have at least a half dozen ISP's I can select from - that's called competition. The issue here is an abuse of internet bandwidth by a small number of users who want to pay regular subscriber fees for industrial rates, and would like Uncle Sugar - er, Sam, to enforce this for them. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Jimbeaux| 6.17.10 @ 1:17PM

"Farenheit 451" was written by Ray Bradbury, but otherwise, you're on target.

Jimbeaux| 6.17.10 @ 1:20PM

V-Twin - "Big Business" doesn't push a thing. Broadcasters put on the air personalities which attract audiences, and as we've seen with the humorously named "Air America" no one wants to listen to liberals. Liberals have most newspapers and magazines in their camp, but now that both are going by the wayside, they scream, "Control the internet!" Losers.

The telephone guy| 6.17.10 @ 4:54PM

It appears to me that everyone is confusing the issue. The Internet is a series of interconnected servers located usually in network endpoints on the AT&T Network Control Points No one has access to the internet. ISP's are internet service providers. Using the nations roads as an example, the internet is like our Interstate system. The managers of the system monitor traffic volume to determine the number of trunks needed to carry the volume. The ISP are like the local road system and the connection are like the interchanges. The ISP's do not control content. They manage the conection from your access point to the "interchange". Throughput is how this is monitered. I am paying my ISP for a specific speed and in some cases, I pay for a specific throughput for a month. If I exceed the speed, I get slowed down, something like a traffic cop. I have options in that I can pay for hight speed and through put or move to a different ISP that will give me a better deal. Don't confuse this with Comcast and the Tennis Channel as mentioned earlier. Comcast is offering a product or series of products like supermarket. If I don't like the product mix at Comcast, I vote with my money. I move to someone else. This is the Private market at work, Government always messes this up, and will really destroy what is the best communications system in the world.
AT&T breakup involved a full vertical monopoly. It would be like AT&T owned all the computers in the US and we would have to rent them.

gene hauber| 6.17.10 @ 5:21PM

kudos to AMENBRO,
WE NEED TO PUT A STOP TO THIS UNCONTROLLED USURPATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF, BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE BY THESE ENEMIES OF THE STATE IN CONGRESS AND IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE THE FCC.

SHORT OF KILLING THESE UN-AMERICAN BASTARDS, WE MUST ELIMINATE THEM IN NOVEMBER WITH OUR BALLOTS.

VOTE-VOTE-VOTE AND THEN REPEAL-REPEAL-REPEAL

AND THEN GET RID OF THE RAGHEAD IN THE WHITEHOUSE
WHAT A WASTE OF OXYGEN HE IS.

csi| 6.17.10 @ 5:22PM

This will be terrible, just like when the government interfered with AT&T, forcing all that unwanted competition into the market place. Dang it, if I wanted to be able to have a choice in how I use the internet I wouldn't have had the government send all those subsidies and special right of way building permits to the telecoms.

csx| 6.17.10 @ 5:32PM

I'm still looking for a good analogy.
Do the telecoms want to A)meter access ($/gigabyte) like electricity; B) charge more for higher speed, like a ticket on the concord; C) charge more to high value users, like a mafia protection racket?

qwerty| 6.17.10 @ 5:37PM

The telecoms aren't looking to jack up rates on little guy users. The telecoms want to charge a place like Amazon more per gigabyte because amazon is popular, whereas Joe's discount lobster is charged less per gigabyte because Joe is near broke.
It isn't about metering but market segmentation, classic monopoly behavior.

bluecollarbytes| 6.17.10 @ 7:18PM

With govt control over the internet comes govt spying, on Corporations and individuals so Obamabots can make sure we're acting and thinking in accordance with their demands.

USA Jim| 6.17.10 @ 8:55PM

This G.D. M-Fing muslim terrorist communist has got to be stopped. It might be already too late. I don't want to live in a communist state.

RCV| 6.19.10 @ 1:15AM

You are certifiably insane, my friend.

Osamas Pajamas| 6.17.10 @ 10:05PM

On the nationalisation of the internet by the criminal dictatorship of Barak Hushpuppy OhBummer --- I'm not saying t5hat these gansters should be dragged kicking and screaming into the gutter to be horsewhipped within an inche of their lives, and set ablze with gasoline and pixxed on to put the fire out. Oh. no. Not me. But there's no telling what I might say if we actually had freedom of speech and freedom of the press, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'll settle for now with a less methodologically-specific injunction --- destroy them --- outright, and permanently.

Osamas Pajamas| 6.17.10 @ 10:06PM

On the nationalisation of the internet by the criminal dictatorship of Barak Hushpuppy OhBummer --- I'm not saying that these gangsters should be dragged kicking and screaming into the gutter to be horsewhipped within an inch of their lives, and set ablaze with gasoline and pixxed on to put the fire out. Oh. no. Not me. But there's no telling what I might say if we actually had freedom of speech and freedom of the press, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'll settle for now with a less methodologically-specific injunction --- destroy them --- outright, and permanently.

Yosemeti Sam| 6.18.10 @ 1:32AM

"... The American public really has no idea how devastating these policies are going to have on free speech and the Internet," says a Republican Senate staffer. "If they are able to impose these regulations, they would be able to impose a host of different regulations that would limit free speech online and essentially give the left the upper hand. First the auto industry, then health care and the financial services industry, now this."

What say you - George Washington?

What say you - Thomas Jefferson?

What say you - Abraham Lincoln?

Are we in a crucible - or not?

Ahab| 6.18.10 @ 1:58AM

Only a few people on here get it. Net Neutrality as is being pushed by the FCC isn't about controlling bandwidth. It's about control, period. This administration and president are being shown up for what they are, and they don't like it. They can't control the internet, they can't control bloggers, they can't control the individual who e-mails his/her negative opinion of them, and they're becoming afraid.

They're afraid the country is waking up to the scam. They're afraid they'll lose the ability to pass legislation that the majority of "we the people" don't want come November. They only have a short window left with which to get their agenda passed into law, and broadcasters like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and many others are exposing the leftist agenda more and more, which frightens them still more.

Soon, it'll be too late for the progressive movement to turn America into a socialist state if they don't get control of this vast expanse of media called the internet. They have to be able to shut it down before too many people are awakened to the peril this country is in.

The progressive left elitists already control the MSM; but, they do not control the internet. This president wants the power to throw a switch to turn it off, intermittently, or permanently, at his discretion, and he will invent a crisis to do exactly that when he needs it. If you give him the power to do it, he will do it. The only thing standing in his way right now are those conservative radio personalities like Beck and Limbaugh, and conservative bloggers on the web.

I repeat, this isn't about bandwidth, and it's not about regulating a utility, it's about controlling the pathways of communications. It's the control of free speech when that freedom interferes with the designs of the tyrants.

T1Brit| 6.18.10 @ 8:15AM

The proposed regulations contain no provision for government doing anything of the sort.
They are there to ensure that all internet traffic is treated equally. That is all.
You have not the faintest idea what you are talking about.

Ahab| 6.18.10 @ 12:35PM

No, they don't have provision to do that, yet! But, another provision in a companion bill will. Besides, who the hell are you to tell anyone what's right, or what's wrong? You have an opinion, good for you. I have an opinion, good for me. They're like a$$holes, everybody has one. You don't like mine? Tough! And, who invited you, Brit, into American politics? You want to talk technical, have at it. You want to talk politics, stay on your side of the pond. You have even worse problems with leftists on your little island than we have here. Fix your own mess, and stay out of ours!

Ahab| 6.18.10 @ 1:13PM

Is Obama getting Web 'kill switch'?
Plan cites security to ramp up government control over Internet
________________________________________
Posted: June 17, 2010
8:37 pm Eastern
By Michael Carl
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
Congress is proposing a tighter grip by the government on the Internet, with a new "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010" that would, among other things, give the president a "kill switch" on the Web, critics charge.
Officials with Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group that investigates and prosecutes government misbehavior, said the plan simply is "keeping with the big government script" of the Obama administration.
The organization said the bill would grant the federal government "absolute power" to shut down Internet activity and allow the president to take it over in the name of "national security."
The proposal essentially would require broadband providers, search engines and software firms to "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" within the Department of Homeland Security.
Punishment would await offenders.
Judicial Watch said the alarming plan would give the government the power to force private companies to participate in "information sharing" with the government and allow authorities to monitor the "security status" of private websites and others.
"Yet another new government agency (National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications – NCCC) will be created to police the industry and any company that 'relies on' the Internet, the telephone system or any other component of the 'information infrastructure' will be subject to its command," the organization said.
"The new NCCC will have no less than two deputy directors and liaison officers to the Defense, Justice and Commerce departments as well as the director of national intelligence."
Judicial Watch also said arming the president with an Internet "kill switch" easily could be misused to silence free speech "under the pretext of a national emergency."
There already is an organization set up to manage such situations and it includes personnel from the National Security Agency, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and policymakers (politicians), according to a report from WND columnist Andrew Shea King.
The administration agency, dubbed CYBERCOM, is set up within the Department of Defense and reports it is both a defense and an offense in that it can engage in preemptive "strikes" intended to disrupt threats, she reported.
At a site called "Tech 1984 - Where Technology and Big Brother Collide," a commentator suggested: "Even though the primary purpose of CYBERCOM is to protect government and military networks, there is incredible pressure to extend that 'protection' to civilian and business networks as well. In fact, the second-highest official at the Pentagon, William Lynn III, deputy secretary of defense, recently announced that the Department of Defense might start a protective program for civilian networks. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated the same thing in June 2009."
The new legislative proposal comes at the same time the Federal Communications Commission still is attempting to act on a policy called "Net Neutrality." C-Net reported in April that a federal court ruled that the FCC could not act on net neutrality, but the court decision hasn't stopped the push for that agenda as the FCC is still attempting to regulate the Internet using federal rules used to control phone lines.
A government systems analyst who publishes the Tech 1984 site and prefers to use the pseudonym Winston, a name borrowed from Winston Smith from George Orwell's "1984," said the newly activated Cyber Command was proposed last year by Defense Secretary William Gates as a means to protect the military's vast Internet network from attacks by outside or hostile forces.
"Winston" is a confidential source with connections to the cyber security industry.
Director Maj. General Steven Smith said in a statement posted on the Army's site that the new agency will be responsible for defending Army information networks from threats around the globe.
"The mission for (the Cyber Command) is to direct the operation and defense of all Army networks, and, on order, conduct full-spectrum operations in support of our combatant commanders and coalition partners," Smith said.
Smith said the new unit will use existing Army and Defense resources and bring together parts of the 9th Signal Command, the First Information Operations Command and the Intelligence and Security Command.
However, Winston, the analyst, believes the new move will be aimed at civilian computer networks. Winston bases his assessment on a recent statement made by Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn.
"The best-laid defenses on military networks will matter little unless our civilian critical infrastructure is also protected. Critical infrastructure will certainly be targeted in a military conflict," Lynn stated.
"The Department of Homeland Security appropriately has the lead to protect the dot-gov and dot-mil domains. The Defense Department plays an important supporting role in this mission, and has direct responsibility for securing defense industry networks," Lynn added.
The Defense Daily Network site lists corporations such as Northrop-Grumman, BAE Systems, Inc., and other private corporations as defense corporations that would likely come under the Cyber Command umbrella.
The newly operational status of the Cyber Command also is driving concern about the federal government's interest in taking control of the Internet. C-Net News reported last August concern over a federal takeover of the Internet was fueled by the introduction of a Senate bill that would give President Obama the authority to take command of the system – or prevent private computers from having access.
The fury over possible federal control of the Internet has not abated, according to a report by Federal News Radio's Tom Temin and Amy Morris.
Temin and Norris say the bill proposed by Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Delaware Sen. Tom Carper would give the president authority to shut down the Internet in the event of a cyber attack. The shutdown actions would be done through the Department of Homeland Security.
Center for Strategic and International technology scholar James Lewis said the bill is misguided.
"I've never understood this shut-down-the-internet stuff. It wouldn't be easy, may not be possible, and in any case is not in our interest – we depend on it more than others," Lewis observed.
Lewis added there are legitimate concerns about securing the military Internet, but he sees no sign that the Cyber Command would have the authority to intervene in the civilian Internet.
"There is a capability to monitor and intercept malware, but so far there are no decisions or policies to let Cyber Command do this, either solo or in partnership with the Tier 1 service providers," Lewis said.
"Most Tier 1 providers already do some monitoring for QOS purposes, but they don't work together and they don't work with Cyber Command or DHS. As a nation, we prefer a disaggregated point defense, even though it makes us vulnerable, as it offers some protections for civil liberties. Other countries will act differently and may get an advantage over us," Lewis explained.
WND reported in November 2009 that the National Security Agency is building two new facilities for storing all communications intercepts. The connection to the NSA is the basis for Winston's concerns.
"CYBERCOM is commanded by Gen. Keith B. Alexander who is also the head of the NSA. Alexander was promoted to general on May 21, 2010. The official purpose is: 'Plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes, and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries,'” Winston explained.
"The previous official responsible for cyber security in the United States, Rod Beckstrom, director of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), resigned his post in protest over the fact that NSA had too much control and would not cooperate with NCSC," Winston detailed.
Winston said the new structure could be used to infringe on American's constitutional liberties.
"This would violate the 4th Amendment to our Constitution. Warrants are required to seize any private property. It can also be argued that this is a violation of the 4th Amendment’s provision against illegal searches as well. Warrants can only be obtained from a court or magistrate and would typically be the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court," Winston explained.

slingshot| 6.19.10 @ 2:14AM

If this were not so serious a subject, it has a certain comical aspect. I am envisioning a nation "kicking - cold turkey" their favorite pastime. It is like the FCC flattening the tires of the Good Humor Truck.

I am not in favor of anything tinged with the bitter taste of Obamanomics, but to use the First Amendment as an argument is a far reach to me.

When the Constitution was written Free Speech was pretty much confined to folks giving vent to their emotions or politics in the town hall or public square or in writing tracts, as Thomas Paine did, mostly at his own expense - which was not "free" - at least to him.

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, no one was ranting around about FREE SPEECH in connection with it.

For 75 years we paid highway bandit fees for long distance - now we can call most anywhere on our cell phones without even feeling it That's what I call Free Speech!

If you want to advertise your business or product in the newspaper, on the radio or TV, it is going to cost you - and you are not even free to word it as you please.

You can still "go tell it on a mountain" or, if you have paid your internet server, you can -and I can - ramble on forever about what the FCC can and cannot do. Meanwhile go look at your phone bill . They can add all those taxes, can't they? What is their justification? The FCC made me do it! Have you had any success in getting them to reverse any of the levies on it? Have ou ever gone to a Public Utilities meeting and raised so much hell they backed down on their proposed rate increase?

The internet is new to them. they will figure a way. Build it and the come and tax it.

One last comment on Free Speeeh, what are you going to do when Obama puts forth his bail-out for foundering newspapers? Tax revolt or will you just pay for it? Let me guess.

lamplight| 6.19.10 @ 7:00PM

If we had government control, there would be a cost. If we had a cost would we have Pingback? Or, at least as much of it?

In fact, if we had to find a dollar bill that was not too wrinkled to slip into a slot at the side of our computer every time we had something profound to share with the world - -never mind, this is not profound enough.

bornorange| 6.20.10 @ 7:15AM

"Look at the Gulf oil spill, that's what happens when we let corporations just do their own thing without any accountability. We can't allow that to happen with the Internet. We won't allow it." says an FCC staffer with ties to another Democrat commissioner.

This is just an arrogant czar "In Training"! Fear, Marxism, and disdain for the constitution and the people. Disgraceful...

al mac| 6.20.10 @ 7:59AM

Hmmm.........martial law, cancel elections, confiscate guns(for the children), Internet "kill switch". MSM castigates BP's Hayward for yahting, but gives Obama a pass while going to a baseball game and golfing during oil spill. Would it be the Dept. of Homeland security that monitors dangerous websites..........such as this one? Hey Big Sis!!!!

WAKE UP| 6.20.10 @ 10:25PM

In one sentence: if there's one thing Obama should not get his hands on, it's the Internet.

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