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Washington Prowler
Seizing the Internet
The Obama FCC’s last ditch effort to ram through “net neutrality” — amid some dubious Democrat lobbying.
Staffers at the Federal Communications Commission with ties to the commission’s chairman, Julius Genachowski, coordinated media and strategy planning with senior Free Press and MoveOn.org officials in the run up to Genachowski’s announcement that he would be seeking an FCC vote on imposing so-called “net neutrality” rules on broadband and the Internet, and doing so when Congress is out of session during the Thanksgiving and Christmas recesses.
“Net neutrality” is a policy proposal that would essentially strip the control and traffic management of broadband networks from those companies that deployed them and make them run properly, and transfer much of that oversight to the federal government. Under the proposal rumored to be under consideration by the FCC, network operators such as AT&T and Comcast would not be allowed to offer consumers prioritized service or quality of service guarantees for such things as movie downloads and video streaming.
“It essentially turns the networks into dumb pipes, so you have billions of people going online and no one is really managing the traffic in a way so that consumers have a good experience,” says an FCC staffer for a Republican commission member. “People don’t realize how much video and communications comes over their broadband lines. This is the left’s attempt to rein in things like Fox News, Pajamas Media, Internet radio broadcasts for Limbaugh and Levin — anything that is data-related or video-related that requires some high-tech network management would be degraded or limited by the imposition of net neutrality.”
Congressional Republicans (and even some Democrats) have stated that they do not believe the FCC has the statutory standing to impose such rules — which would reclassify broadband and Internet services as “telecommunications services” and bring them under rules that were developed for the rotary phone back in the 1930s — without guidance from Congress. More than 100 members from both parties formally requested that the FCC take no action until the House and Senate had had a chance to weigh in on the matter.
But with the Obama Administration quickly losing its own standing with its radical base as it prepares to surrender to Republicans on the Bush tax cut renewals and possible budget cuts, “We need to give our people a win, and right now, [net neutrality] is the only win we will probably be able to give them for at least the next six to eight months,” says a White House official.
About a week ago it appeared that nothing would be done at the FCC, and Free Press, the leftist group founded by Marxist Robert McChesney and financed by George Soros, was due to host a media call to demand FCC action. But that call was canceled without explanation and rescheduled for Monday, November 22, at which point Free Press was able to tout news to its membership that the FCC appeared prepared to act on the neutrality policy.
“We were told [last week] to hold our fire and reschedule our call,” says a Free Press media aide, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “We have friends inside the FCC and they told us that if we just waited a few days, there would be good news for us to announce to our membership. More senior people knew what was happening over there and even had the dates for the ruling circulation and the FCC meeting schedule so we could plan events to support Genachowski and the Democratic commissioners.”
Speaking with outside public interest groups or industry officials is not forbidden at the FCC, though in the case of an issue like “net neutrality,” FCC staff involved at any level with the decision making process are required to publicly file an ex parte notice about any discussions related to the policy issue they have with outside groups. To date, no ex parte filings have been filed related to any contact a senior FCC official might have had with senior officials at Free Press. A number of current FCC officials have ties to Free Press, including Jen Howard, currently spokesperson for Genachowski, who formerly was a spokesperson for Free Press.
In the past year, Free Press has been caught in several ethics missteps related to its claims of not lobbying Democrats on Capitol Hill or at the FCC. In one instance, the group was caught drafting letters to be published under the names of liberal Democrats addressed to the FCC and intended to influence that decision-making body. Republicans on Capitol Hill have already made it clear that oversight of the FCC will be a priority for the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
As it stands, the FCC will release the planned rulemaking for net neutrality while Congress is out of town on Thanksgiving recess, and would vote on the rules on December 21, when Congress is on Christmas recess. “In short, they are doing this in such a way that it is rubbing our noses in it,” says a Republican staffer on House Energy and Commerce. “Unless folks just rise up and make noise about this, there isn’t much we can do until after the new year when we get back and have control of the committee.”
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Shamus| 11.24.10 @ 6:39AM
This is an exercise in futility. Court decisions say the FCC lacks authority for this effort.
David W| 11.24.10 @ 12:18PM
and that has stopped the current adminstration how? They were told by the court that the drilling moratorium was crap, yet they kept on. They won't obey any court ruling in this case either.
Carol| 11.24.10 @ 7:07AM
These Soros' leftists don't realize if they takeover the net - the people who pay to use it won't use it.
You think decent people are going to like Obama and Soros taking over the Internet? Indecent people may like it because they are evil just like the aboveforementioned.
GOP: Impeach Obama (obviously nothing will happen with the Commiecrats still in control of the Senate) but this will be a sign that you ARE not willing to work with the SOB.
T1Brit| 11.24.10 @ 8:59AM
Dear Carol
Why don't you try finding out what Net Neutrality actually is, before making comments about something that you clearly don't understand.
Alan R| 11.24.10 @ 10:48AM
Brit - please specify exactly which part of Carol's argument is wrong. Also clearly explain why that part demonstrates a lack of understanding. Or was yours merely a gratuitious attack in lieu of an argument?
Carol| 11.24.10 @ 12:54PM
Thanks Alan R.
To the naive T1Brit:
Net neutrality is a ruse. A federal court said the FCC cannot touch the Internet. But do you think Obama and his fellow goons care?
Wake up liberal - the country is being destroyed right in front of your eyes and you think the FCC tinkering with the Internet isn't part of the destruction?
I have a feeling you are a willing accomplice.
Hawk Yoho | 11.25.10 @ 5:42PM
T1Brit
You are a Communist .
daddio| 11.24.10 @ 1:13PM
"These Soros' leftists don't realize if they takeover the net - the people who pay to use it won't use it."
Me thinks this is the point.
Miked| 11.24.10 @ 2:31PM
I totally agree with your position and your anger; but WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT??? Soros and his merry band of criminal socialists don't give one damn about what the majority thinks because ole George has the money and barry the muslim in his pocket. About the only thing that has EVER slowed these people down has been a complete revolutionary uprising; and those things neither start easily or end the way they were planned. The best hope for them is the deaths of thousands of the lefties who started it all by miscalculating the anger of the populace.
Why do you think they are doing everything they can to strip us of our guns? How long will the 'average' Americans put up with the steady theft of our lives, liberty, and freedoms. The soros/obama/reid/pelosi gang push just hard enough every day; just stopping short of total provocation that could start the violence. I am in no way advocating violence, but sometimes it is the only answer and it starts spontaneously when decent people have had enough of the arrogance of power. Read history; the thugs always over-reach and end up causing bloodshed until their's is the blood that gets shed....after thousands of innocent people's. We're getting THAT close...
jo blo| 11.24.10 @ 4:11PM
What can we do? If these bastards push this through, it's time to raise holy high hell with the incoming GOP congress to defund the FCC. I'm dead serious. If these POS get this done and nothing happens as a result, we're through. The internet is how we've organized, been informed and acted for the last 2 years. That's why they want to cut it off. And that's why we must be willing to see even the legitimate functions of the FCC (if indeed there be any) stopped in a defunding. It's that important.
Publius| 11.26.10 @ 8:02PM
The lame duck congress will not be able to pass continuing funding past next February. The FCC could be without funding by March.
As for the FCC, the network providers could ignore them or file suit for injuctions to stop any new rules where FC does not have jurisdiction.
Dawg| 11.27.10 @ 6:37PM
Say it again brother, this time at thr top of your voice, " we are with you "......
Lock and load and keep your powder dry, we don't advocate violence, but we damn sure aren't
afraid of anything in between ......
SC Mike| 11.24.10 @ 7:13AM
If the FCC does move as this story indicates, the first symptoms to appear will be degraded VOIP service because the network providers will no longer be able to assign a higher priority to those packets. Individuals and businesses will complain to their VOIP providers who will be powerless to assist.
Try calling your representatives to complain…
T1Brit| 11.24.10 @ 8:57AM
My Skype VOIP works just fine under the current Neutrality system thank you very much.
The FCC will ensure that it continues to do so.
Enjoy your ignorance. They say it is bliss.
JP| 11.24.10 @ 11:50AM
T1Brit,
You expose your ignorance with your posts. The FCC currently does not ensure anything. That's our point. Internet backbones are managed by private firms. Traffic flow is determined by QOS standards, in which pay-for-service PVCs (permanent virtual circuits) have priority. MPLS circuits (multi-protocol-lable-switching) can transmit both voice and data, as well as video confrencing across the internet. Paying customers (usually private businesses) get higher prioirty than say the Skype packets (or YouTube). MPLS is gridded mesh technology that is used by internet backbones to give paying customers guarenteed bandwidth 24x7. Only expensive MPLS circuits can deliver this. Skype does not have QoS (Quality of Service).
What the FCC proposes is tatamount to forcing airlines to give First Class accomadations to everyone regardless of how much they pay.
Get your facts straignt. The FCC would destroy the tens of billions of dollars internet backbones have invested in expensive communications technology.
Donna| 11.27.10 @ 7:51AM
Packet switching segments digital communications traffic into separate units referred to as packets. These packets are then routed over networks and to their final destination. Packets are segmented and labeled before they are sent, which means if all of the packets happen to take different routes to their destination the message can still be retrieved and reconstructed. This removes the need for a dedicated path for the data to travel, and also allows routers to queue data during high traffic without harming the transmission. This is the key to the Internet. http://www.velocityguide.com/i.....ernet.html
So what’s the issue the FCC has and why in the hell would they call this Net Neutrality???? The issue is that China diverted some of these packets for 18 minutes (yes DoD, Homeland Security data) through State owned China Telecom b/c they can when you have uninformed Federal Government Officials and elected representatives who are only lawyers or community activist running the most progressive Country in the world.
Vote for representatives who know what it is they are doing!
JP| 11.24.10 @ 11:50AM
T1Brit,
You expose your ignorance with your posts. The FCC currently does not ensure anything. That's our point. Internet backbones are managed by private firms. Traffic flow is determined by QOS standards, in which pay-for-service PVCs (permanent virtual circuits) have priority. MPLS circuits (multi-protocol-lable-switching) can transmit both voice and data, as well as video confrencing across the internet. Paying customers (usually private businesses) get higher prioirty than say the Skype packets (or YouTube). MPLS is gridded mesh technology that is used by internet backbones to give paying customers guarenteed bandwidth 24x7. Only expensive MPLS circuits can deliver this. Skype does not have QoS (Quality of Service).
What the FCC proposes is tatamount to forcing airlines to give First Class accomadations to everyone regardless of how much they pay.
Get your facts straignt. The FCC would destroy the tens of billions of dollars internet backbones have invested in expensive communications technology.
Tenn Slim| 11.24.10 @ 8:37AM
This has been brewing for some time. Fairness doctrine, etc.
FCC Rules are imposed via vote. The Structure controls the direction. Leftist now, Conservative after Jan.
Meanwhile. the entrails are cast. While the USA Electorate is finding Congress rooms to live in, the Left continues unabated.
The LOOOOONG hard slog is upon us. Education, Networks, FTC, SEC regs, EPA regs, 2nd and 3rd level Civil Service appointees, all active.
Watch your six folks.
Semper FI
end
T1Brit| 11.24.10 @ 8:54AM
'Seizing the Internet' ?
The fact that the American Spectator propagates this deliberate falsehood has been duly noted.
I enjoy reading some of the articles - and some spin is to be expected from political writing.
But this is deliberate misinformation about a deadly serious matter that will affect the future of all online startups, including mine.
You are liars.
I will be sharing that fact from now on.
big bob| 11.24.10 @ 9:24AM
Wow. I thought this sort of liberal rhetoric was emasculated with the 11/2 election!! Gees, I thought it was a flashback there..."misinformation", "spin", "deliberate falsehood"...etc. Got that liberal thesaurus out, eh? The sign of good liberal drivel is to stream at least 3 epithets in a paragraph, you know, stack 'em up, before you have completed a "thought". But now that the libs are so passe', that dog don't hunt no more. Your ignorance is a blatant as Gloria Allred going through a body scanner on Thanksgiving Day. I found nothing to support your empty claims about the FCC and/or the internet to be believable, and certainly none that are valid. I would suggest that you when you share these "facts", you make sure that you are speaking with those who are as equally uninformed as you are, or you will be terribly embarrassed. Long gone are the Alinsky type slurs that are baseless, and ultimately, meaningless. Happy Thanksgiving!!
little robert| 11.24.10 @ 9:42AM
Is it possible to be any more incoherent than big bob?
Steve A| 11.24.10 @ 9:49AM
Big Bob, Reading your post is the equivalent of treading water 20 yards offshore a topless beach while simultaneously trying to eat a baloney sandwich watching a shark circle with a Cindy Lauper CD playing for background music.
big bob| 11.24.10 @ 6:43PM
Ooh, ooh, that's so cogent!! And substantial! Wait, let me think of a clever retort....On the other hand, I think I'll just pull out my even cleverer "Rules for Radicals" by that truly genius communist, Saul Alinsky. Now THERE was a clever fellow. And true to form, you libs have no creativity in your thought process!! So just review his 5th rule, "ridicule is man's most potent weapon", and you will find that even your approach is without creativity.
There is nothing in this article that is untrue. There is plenty in your accusations consisting of pure junk. Now that makes you incoherent, and irrelevant, to boot.
Anita| 11.24.10 @ 9:51AM
not on the net you won't
bomb brits| 11.24.10 @ 10:42AM
your foreign accent is showing....jus like all the foreigners on news poisoning the news with their slant. Bet you work at cnn. Got ya!
Alan R| 11.24.10 @ 10:51AM
Ah, yes, it's all so much better when the government controls communications, Herr Goebbels. Just look at the BBC, where intellectual diversity runs the full gamut from A to B.
RacerJim| 11.27.10 @ 9:54AM
I trust you also duly noted recent acknowledgments by liberal msm political pundits that Obamacare does in fact embody "death panels."
Talk about a deadly serious matter that Obama, the msm, you and your ilk propagated a deliberate falsehood about...
Obama, you and your ilk are the proven liars.
He and you make that more obvious every time you open your respective mouths.
hardcard| 11.24.10 @ 9:25AM
the soros funded trolls will be out in force.
russel| 11.24.10 @ 9:52AM
I've heard that the Constitution has been ammended to stop lame duck gerrymandering . It was said this will be the " last year " . Can anyone give details ? .
RonL| 11.24.10 @ 10:05AM
Demcoms no different than the Chicoms. Communists all.
rongordo | 11.24.10 @ 10:25AM
T1BRIT, you can spew all you like, but the FACT that the FCC is trying to change vocabulary to suit their needs, and doing so to hurry thru a last ditch lame duck congress speaks volumes.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.24.10 @ 11:21AM
Hey, Brit,
I thought we threw your sheeple asses out of here in 1779.
Quit contaminating our water.
ANY TIME these communists, (pardon the shorthand), touch ANY of our free speech mechanisms, they are going to have to deal with a problem.
Their primary problem is the SECOND ammendment...which as a subject sheeple you do not have.
Enough of us Americans will die for our individual "sovereignty" along with our freedom to speak...and we will not die quietly.
The best of your forebears left merry olde a long time ago, so squat in your Eurabian hut and tug on your forelock to your Muslim betters.
falcon | 11.24.10 @ 12:17PM
Amen to that, Ken. I'll be right there with you under the Lone Star flag.
Ret. Marine| 11.25.10 @ 6:56AM
I'll second that. I am one of those people your government never told you about. You can tell them for me that I'll be coming and bringing hell with me. I seen enough already to know they are basically cowards and this move only proves to me, at least, they would rather go out in their glory, ( supposed) than to realize there are dangerous military (Ret.) career men out here who will have plenty to say in this regard. I took an Oath to the Constitution, not the enemies of it. God save the Republic.
T1Brit| 11.25.10 @ 2:41PM
You idiots are barking up the wrong tree.
Net Neutrality has nothing whatever to do with speech of any kind.
It is a technical issue concerned with speed of data, and nothing more.
RacerJim| 11.27.10 @ 10:52AM
You ignoramouses don't know what you're talking about.
My younger brother is Foreign Sales Manager for a major U.S. OEM of telecommunications broadcasting transmitters -- he works hand-in-hand with internet, telephone, television, etc, etc service providers...over the air, cable and satellite...government and private industry.
Don't you even try to tell me my brother doesn't know what he's talking about.
LiveAboard| 11.24.10 @ 1:01PM
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with having the internet operated as a DUMB PIPE. There is everything wrong with ANYONE trying to dictate what goes through the pipe!
This is purely a power and control battle with one side fighting the other over who gets to control content, and the user loses no matter which way the battle is decided.
DaveS| 11.24.10 @ 7:11PM
There is zero clamor for this action among the public.
Ret. Marine| 11.25.10 @ 6:40AM
Thats because they are too busy watching the newest arrival of the fantasy results of the palin debacle. Wait till they can't get their usual pipe daily dream fix available to them, do you think then they will get a clue that somethings not right in Dodge City? Me I don't, once ignorant always ignorant.
Ernie| 11.25.10 @ 12:00PM
It will take quite some time to undo all the damage being done by this administration. It's simply amazing how much harm they've been able to do in two short years. And there are still two more to go. God help us.
ratsofred | 11.26.10 @ 7:51PM
Mr Brit , you are long on opinions and short on the facts , just like the rest of your lizard kind .
mark| 11.26.10 @ 10:02PM
The way I understand it net neutral means the pipe is the "Pipe". Not to be sliced and diced into 26 different packaged plans by the telecom company's, tiered pricing system. But of course I believe everything I read......ah huh. All I'm saying is I think this issue is a little more complicated and that just maybe its not all a left wing conspiracy but has more to do with money, greed and control.
Will| 11.27.10 @ 2:34AM
I'll take Comcast running the pipe over the government any day.
RacerJim| 11.27.10 @ 11:01AM
Although I'd also take Comcast running the pipe vs the government any day, Comcast has been running its pipe from the left for quite some time now...not only directly via its "news" sources (ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the HuffingtonPost) but also indirectly via its sub-contracted "Forums".
Speedypete| 11.28.10 @ 12:32PM
So far we have 7,000 pages of legislation in just a few bills in 2 years and this "Net Neutrality" is bent on taking away the 1st Amendment like the McCain Feingold Bill did to campaign contributions. THE CONGRESS CAN NOT CONTROL OR ELIMINATE SPEECH (OR CAMPAIGN MONEY) FROM FLOWING FROM SOME SOURCES TO PROP UP OTHERS!!!!!!
michaelle| 11.28.10 @ 4:18PM
Hurry up and impeach Obama and dump Soros(sorry butt on his sorry rear) before our freedoms are gone by these tyrrants.
michaelle| 11.28.10 @ 4:19PM
Those soviet style knuckleheads.
Chicke_Shitte| 11.29.10 @ 12:53AM
This is proof the government knows what it is talking about.
The internet is not a big truck it is a series of tubes...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE
Dead Stevens| 11.29.10 @ 1:45AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE
Agent| 11.29.10 @ 4:44PM
This is what you are fighting for.
http://www.fiberevolution.com/.....arden.html
Yeah, its over simplifying it a bit, but that's what the future will look like.