Does the Net Neutrality rule violate the Bill of Rights?

C

Cancel8

Canceled
"Just what is "net neutrality"? Simply put, up to now the Internet has been equally available to all who use it. The FCC wants to limit and channel net resources allowing corporations such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon to become "gatekeepers," reducing bandwidth to some while increasing it to others—a totally commercial approach to what was formerly a fair-access-for-all system.

Netizen Steve Wozniak explained in The Atlantic that net neutrality is "...the reason web information nowadays is: 1. distributed in an unbiased manner, and, accordingly, 2. accessible to everyone (with a computer) in a designated area for the same cost."

Woz went on to write, "When young, I remember clearly how my father told me why our country was so great, mainly based on the constitution and Bill of Rights. Over my lifetime, I've seen those rights disregarded at every step. Loopholes abound. It's sad. For example, my (Eisenhower Republican) father explained the sanctity of your home and how it could not easily be entered. It was your own private abode. And you had a right to listen to any radio signals that came because the air was free and if it came into your home you had a right to listen to it. That principle went away with a ban on radios that could tune in cell phone frequencies in the days of analog cell phones. Nobody but myself seemed to treat this as a core principle that was too much to give up."

Even though Al Gore "invented the Internet," it's generally been the Democratic side of the aisle that has tried to put the clamps down on web freedom, going as far back as the Clinton administration. Even President Obama, who has supported neutrality in the past, is staying hush on it now.

"The open Internet is a crucial American marketplace, and I believe that it is appropriate for the FCC to safeguard it by adopting an order that will establish clear rules to protect consumers' access," Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, said in a statement quoted in The Huffington Post.

"The actions by the Federal Communications Commission fall far short of what they could have been," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. "Instead of strong, firm rules providing clear protections, the commission, created a vague and shifting landscape open to interpretation."

And you know how much we love those "vague interpretations" when it comes to government.

As one might expect, Internet-based companies including Netflix Inc., Skype and Amazon.com Inc., aren't happy about the potential change, which to many now looks to be a foregone conclusion. But the biggest hit will be against—you guessed it—the average net user. Tomorrow may bring a substantially different web than the one we've known."


http://www.examiner.com/media-insid...ity-gatekeepers-and-the-taming-of-free-speech
 
We need net neutrality.

Net neutrality mean piddly small sites will be as fast as big corporate sites.

Corporations want to be able to buy up all the bandwidth and squeeze out the little guy.
 
Figures you two would be soul-mates.

"...mandatory network neutrality is bad for business. Unlike the narrowband phone lines of the twentieth century, broadband pipes are being built with billions of dollars of unsubsidized investment in a competitive environment. ISPs make this investment on the assumption they can recover the costs and profit. As such, broadband lines are not the “public resource” that monopoly networks were in the past. Companies that own high-speed lines have a right to recover the costs that other parties impose when they wish to use those lines to transmit high-bandwidth, revenue-rich services of their own. If network neutrality is enacted, ISPs will have no incentive to build new pipes. Consumers will therefore get less choice.

Network neutrality also is bad for competition. Differential pricing of content allows competition among ISPs. If a company wants to adopt a policy of network neutrality, it is free to do so and win market share from consumers who find this attractive. If a company wants to favor video or voice content, it can find consumers and applications providers who use the Internet primarily for this purpose.

Niche companies that want to offer only a small fraction of the Internet can flourish, too. Imagine, for example, a company that allowed cell phone users to access sports scores and only sports scores through its Internet portal. If that company were upfront about restricting its service to a limited part of the Internet, this would not be a nefarious idea. Many people would find it quite convenient. But it would nonetheless be banned if network neutrality legislation were passed. Network neutrality will destroy many entrepreneurial ideas like this one.

Network neutrality would constitute a major government initiative to regulate how the Internet as a commercial vehicle operates. Today, in America, Congress has virtually no power over how the Internet is run. Network neutrality is a sweeping and intrusive restriction. It would set a horrible precedent in terms of the government’s ability to meddle with the architecture and operation of the Internet. It also would create a spider web of laws and restrictions that generate uncertainty and open the floodgates for bureaucrats and lawyers to exploit semantic loopholes. We have done well enough without the government’s intrusion in the Internet, there’s no reason to start now.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that the government shouldn’t create rules that preemptively close off technological and business evolution. Doing so will lead to unintended consequences ... usually bad ones.

Equality is nice in theory, but when we have the “equality” of a monopoly, that’s not so great, is it? At the end of the day, let consumers decide. Part of letting consumers decide is letting businesses experiment with new technological and pricing models, which is exactly what network neutrality forbids."

http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/the-problem-with-network-neutrality
 
Mojo said:
Figures you two would be soul-mates.

"...mandatory network neutrality is bad for business. Unlike the narrowband phone lines of the twentieth century, broadband pipes are being built with billions of dollars of unsubsidized investment in a competitive environment. ISPs make this investment on the assumption they can recover the costs and profit. As such, broadband lines are not the “public resource” that monopoly networks were in the past. Companies that own high-speed lines have a right to recover the costs that other parties impose when they wish to use those lines to transmit high-bandwidth, revenue-rich services of their own. If network neutrality is enacted, ISPs will have no incentive to build new pipes. Consumers will therefore get less choice.

Network neutrality also is bad for competition. Differential pricing of content allows competition among ISPs. If a company wants to adopt a policy of network neutrality, it is free to do so and win market share from consumers who find this attractive. If a company wants to favor video or voice content, it can find consumers and applications providers who use the Internet primarily for this purpose.

Niche companies that want to offer only a small fraction of the Internet can flourish, too. Imagine, for example, a company that allowed cell phone users to access sports scores and only sports scores through its Internet portal. If that company were upfront about restricting its service to a limited part of the Internet, this would not be a nefarious idea. Many people would find it quite convenient. But it would nonetheless be banned if network neutrality legislation were passed. Network neutrality will destroy many entrepreneurial ideas like this one.

Network neutrality would constitute a major government initiative to regulate how the Internet as a commercial vehicle operates. Today, in America, Congress has virtually no power over how the Internet is run. Network neutrality is a sweeping and intrusive restriction. It would set a horrible precedent in terms of the government’s ability to meddle with the architecture and operation of the Internet. It also would create a spider web of laws and restrictions that generate uncertainty and open the floodgates for bureaucrats and lawyers to exploit semantic loopholes. We have done well enough without the government’s intrusion in the Internet, there’s no reason to start now.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that the government shouldn’t create rules that preemptively close off technological and business evolution. Doing so will lead to unintended consequences ... usually bad ones.

Equality is nice in theory, but when we have the “equality” of a monopoly, that’s not so great, is it? At the end of the day, let consumers decide. Part of letting consumers decide is letting businesses experiment with new technological and pricing models, which is exactly what network neutrality forbids."

http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/the-problem-with-network-neutrality
Click to expand...

It should be considered a utility.

Big corporations want to eliminate net neutrality so they keep out the little guy. And that's an anti competitive practice, which is bad for the consumer.
 
mojo is a troll and his mom should regulate his keyboard :D

your stance in this thread is indefensible and has no foundation in law, logic, intelligence etc....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top