For Obama, Control of the Internet is in the Cards

[longknife]

by Douglas V. Gibbs

President Barack Obama pulled it off - he won reelection. He did this despite the fake unemployment rate being above 8%throughout his first term. The real unemployment rate was 14.7%when people went to the polls, and it was oh so much universally worse than just that.

All of this added up to a fairly terrible economy - and somehow a squeaker election win. Can President Obama now take this terrible-ness - and make it worse? Yes, He Can.

The Tech sector is now 1/6th of the economy - and a serious victim of President Obama first term. He illegally imposed price controls on the wireless Internet. Before that, heillegally imposed Network Neutrality. The result?

Tech (sector) layoffs hit 3-year high in first half of 2012; 260% more than first half 2011.

The Net Neutrality power grab will most likely be thrown out early next year by the DC Circuit Court. Will this chasten President Obama? No - there’s an even worse way for him to skin the Internet cat.

The President’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has zero authority to regulate the Internet - because the Internet exists in law at the FCC under Title I. Meaning the Commission can’t touch it.

So what does President Obama have waiting in the wings for when his Net Neutrality power grab is thrown out?

FCC Boss...May Push for Title II ISP Reclassification if Rules Overturned

Meaning - again, without any legal authority whatsoever - President Obama will move the Internet from Title I to Title II. Title II is how the FCC over-regulates landline telephone lines - you know, that bastion of innovation lo these last seventy-plus years. Title II opens up the Pandora’s Box of uber-regulation of the Internet. But wait - there’s more.

Under Title II, President Obama can also begin to tax the Internet

Breitbart: Will Obama Tax the Internet?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary with links at Political Pistachio: For Obama, Control of the Internet is in the Cards

 

[Politicskid]

If Obama regulates the Internet, I don't care if he and his fellow communists were elected democratically, we need to militarily overthrow them and re-institute the Constitution. The thing I'm most worried about is the fact Obama will likely get to appoint two liberal Supreme Court justices. If they vote politically, like they always do, then the Consitution has lost purpose.

 

[waltky]

Granny says dey try to take her internet an' dey liable to draw back a bloody nub...

Ambassador: US working ‘day and night’ to keep Internet rules out of UN treaty
12/06/12 - Ambassador Terry Kramer on Thursday said the United States will be working "day and night" to ensure new Internet regulations are kept out of a United Nations treaty.

"Fundamentally the conference, to us, should not be dealing with the Internet sector," Kramer told reporters on a conference call from Dubai, where the treaty is being negotiated at a conference hosted by the United Nations International Telecommunications Union. He is leading the U.S. delegation at the conference. Kramer shot down a report that the U.S. and Canada failed to win backing from other countries for a proposal to keep the Internet out of the treaty. The two countries are pushing to keep the focus of the negotiations on telecommunications networks, so that the updated rules would only apply to major operators like AT&T and Verizon.

Discussions about the scope of the treaty are expected to pick up on Friday, so the pressure is on the U.S. to drum up support for their plan. Kramer said it's gaining traction with countries in Europe, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region. He said the U.S. opposed a Russian proposal that calls for national governments to assume greater authority over key Internet functions, such as assigning domain names. The U.S. believes the Internet should continue to be governed by various public and private organizations, and not overseen by a single entity. "We've looked at the proposal, but we're not keen to get into a discussion about [it] because we believe it's out of scope for the conference," Kramer said.

Member countries of the ITU are updating an international telecommunications treaty for the first time since 1988. The treaty conference has drawn scrutiny because only governments are allowed to participate in the negotiations. Google has argued that some of governments are using the treaty conference to clamp down on online speech they disagree with and to gain more authority over the Web.

The ITU confirmed that its website was inaccessible for parts of Wednesday. A Twitter account that appears to be associated with the hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the outage on the ITU site. "The incident blocked civil society, media and other interested parties from following the proceedings, and prevented access to the wealth of online information," the ITU said in a statement. "Some delegates were frustrated at being unable to access some of the online working documents that were being considered by the meeting."

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[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's the gubamint fer ya - dey `bout to declare war onna internet...

FCC to End Net Neutrality
April 26, 2014 — The Federal Communications Commission may be about to put an end to net neutrality.

In a set of new rules, the FCC will propose allowing telecommunication companies to offer high speed "fast lane" connections to content providers willing to pay for them. This would allow companies like Netflix, Google and Amazon to negotiate for more bandwidth at the expense of their competitors. It would apply to any form of content over the Internet, including video streaming, software downloads and online games as well as web pages.

This represents a near total reversal of position for the agency, which has twice banned precisely this sort of preferential treatment. Both sets of rules have been overturned in recent years by federal courts. The idea that telecommunication companies must treat all sources of content equally is called "net neutrality" and is one of the greatest political battlegrounds of the digital age. Industry lobbyists have long pushed for the right to charge content providers for premium access to their customers, while neutrality proponents argue that doing so would kill the openness and innovation that continues to build the Internet.

What will happen to the next video sharing service, neutrality supporters argue, if YouTube can ensure that it always has better performance regardless of whether it has better ideas? New services could die in the cradle while users could see connection speeds throttled based on the contracts that different companies have with their given broadband provider.

Although the new rule seems only to allow accelerated access, this does not necessarily address the baseline against which those packages would be. Without neutrality laws, telecommunication companies could not only offer preferential treatment but could also reduce the standard connection speed that they offer to all other sites.

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