-FCC Refuses to Testify Before Congress Ahead of Internet Takeover
-Why ‘Net Neutrality’ is a Trojan Horse For Obama’s Web Takeover
February 24th, 2015 By: Neil Stevens (Diary)
I think many of us knew that Barack Obama would go further than previous Presidents in his extremism, when it came to regulator. However I never expected he’d go so far, he’d create a tremendous backlash from normally quiet, ‘technocratic’ regulators.
I put technocratic in quotes because while left-wing Democrat regulators have long been activist ideologues, the Republicans tended to be more modest. Not anymore. Guys like Ajit Pai at FCC and Joshua Wright at FTC are taking a stand for right and wrong, and bringing needed sunshine to runaway regulators.
At FCC, Ajit Pai humiliated the Obama administration by exposing how it’s gone far from the promises of transparency the President once made. The President’s Internet regulation plan numbers in the hundreds of pages, and is kept secret from the American people until after the FCC votes on it, defying the people who spoke during FCC’s comment period, as well as when they spoke and elected a Republican Congress.
He’s not alone, either. At FTC, Joshua Wright has taken a stands. In a pair of Tweets, he’s come out plainly to say that FTC is acting against the Sysco / US Foods deal with no violation of the Clayton Act in question.
I think that apart from a few egregious examples like EPA and NLRB, even conservative have tended to think positive thoughts about bland, technocratic regulators. But the truth is, they’re all overreaching under Barack Obama. They’re all doing it. They’re all expanding government, defying the law, picking winners and losers, and doing everything else Democrats have been doing all along.
So it’s about time we had some regulators willing to blow the whistle. Cheers to Ajit Pai and Joshua Wright. I hope more like them are on the way. We need regulators like them to shine a light on abuses and overreach. They are the new model going forward.
http://www.redstate.com/2015/02/24/ajit-pai-joshua-wright-models-new-reformist-regulator/
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Ex-FCC Chief “Shocked” by Feds’ Attempt to Regulate Internet
“The order goes far beyond protecting net neutrality”
February 24, 2015 by Paul Joseph Watson
Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell told CNBC today that he was shocked by the federal agency’s rush to regulate the Internet as a vote looms on a 332 page plan that remains secret.
“The order goes far beyond protecting net neutrality which was the original purpose and in fact introduces a new regulatory regime for the Internet,” said Powell, adding “I think it’s fair to say we are shocked.”
Powell downplayed concerns made by net neutrality advocates about ISPs blocking or throttling content, asserting, “They’ve never done any of the things that net neutrality purports to be protecting.”
“For three decades we’ve been retreating from this regulatory model in virtually every space of communication and we’re gonna now apply that regime to the most dynamic, innovative, free willing network in world history,” added Powell, explaining his shock at President Obama appearing in a YouTube video to direct the FCC to implement the new regulatory measures.
The heart of the net neutrality issue boils down to growing opposition over current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to place broadband providers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, turning the Internet into a utility and potentially opening the door for onerous government regulation and censorship.
Critics fear the move would put unaccountable bureaucrats in control of the web, a “federal takeover” that would suffocate competition, innovation and investment.
The 332 page plan to do this remains secret just two days before a vote which is widely expected to green light the proposal. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, as well as FCC commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly have called for the public release of the plan.
Billionaire Mark Cuban spoke even more plainly in opposition to net neutrality last week, telling a conference that federal efforts to reclassify the Internet under Title II will “fuck everything up”.
Cuban asserted that handing a group of “political appointees at the FCC” control over the Internet was a frightening prospect.
“Having them overseeing the Internet scares the shit out of me,” he said.
According to Cuban and other net neutrality opponents, the supposed need to restrict Internet providers from throttling access to certain websites which use more bandwidth isn’t even an issue anymore and has been amicably resolved between the companies themselves.
Michael Powell said that the FCC ruling was likely to be appealed as part of a process that could take two to five years to be resolved, adding that Congress should be called upon to fix the issue instead and that Republicans have already introduced measures to do so.
http://www.infowars.com/ex-fcc-chief-shocked-by-feds-attempt-to-regulate-internet/
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Eleventh-hour drama for net neutrality
02/24/15 By Julian Hattem
A Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission wants to see changes that could narrow the scope of new net neutrality rules set for a vote on Thursday.
Mignon Clyburn, one of three Democrats on the FCC, has asked Chairman Tom Wheeler to roll back some of his provisions before the full commission votes on them, FCC officials said.
The request — which Wheeler has yet to respond to — puts the chairman in the awkward position of having to either roll back his proposals, or defend the tough rules and convince Clyburn to back down.
It’s an ironic spot for Wheeler, who for months was considered to be favoring weaker rules than those pushed for by his fellow Democrats, before he reversed himself and backed tougher restrictions on Internet service providers.
Clyburn’s objections complicate the highly anticipated vote and add an extra bit of drama to the already high tensions on the five-member commission.
Wheeler will need the votes of both Clyburn and Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to pass the rules, since the two Republicans on the commission are expected to vote against anything he proposes.
Clyburn’s changes would leave in place the central and most controversial component of Wheeler’s rules — the notion that broadband Internet service should be reclassified so that it can be treated as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act, similar to utilities like phone lines.
Proponents of net neutrality have said such a move is the surest way to prevent Internet service providers from interfering with people’s access to the Web.
However, she wants to eliminate a new legal category of “broadband subscriber access services,” created as an additional point of legal authority for the FCC to monitor the ways companies hand off traffic on the back end of the Internet.
Those deals, known as “interconnection” arrangements, became a point of contention last year, when Netflix accused Comcast and other companies of erecting “Internet tolls” before easily passing Web traffic from one network to another.
The initial plan sought by Wheeler would allow the FCC to investigate and take action against deals that are “not just and reasonable,” according to a fact sheet released by the commission earlier this month.
Eliminating the new legal category could make it trickier for the FCC to police those arrangements, said officials with the agency, who were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about the ongoing negotiations.
Other FCC officials have previously said that the broader act of reclassifying broadband Internet service would, in and of itself, give the commission enough power to oversee interconnection deals. That opinion has been backed up by lawyers at Google, among others, who made the argument to FCC officials last week.
Matt Wood, the policy director at the pro-net neutrality organization Free Press, disagreed with officials who thought the change could weaken the rule. Clyburn’s edit might actually make the rules stronger by getting rid of “unnecessary baggage” in Wheeler’s early draft, he said.
Clyburn’s changes also would replace a new standard for Internet service providers’ conduct, which was meant to act as a catchall rule for any future behavior that might abuse consumers. That standard would be swapped out with potentially narrower language from 2010 rules that prevented “unreasonable discrimination.” A federal court tossed out those 2010 rules early last year, setting the stage for the FCC to write new rules.
The full text of the rules will not be revealed to the public until after the FCC’s vote on Thursday morning.
Clyburn declined to discuss specific changes she was supporting on Tuesday.
“This is a process that is an interaction with all five members of the commission and their offices,” she said after remarks at a policy forum hosted by Comptel, a trade group.
“I will just say that I am attempting to strike a balance and whatever you hear, whether it’s accurate or not, is a reflection of my enthusiastic willingness to do so.”
In a speech at the Federal Communications Bar Association last week, the commissioner said that she was “pleased” with the initial draft but also hinted that she might need some fixes to strike that balance between “strong” protections for consumers and “clarity” for investors.
“Some have expressed concerns about allowing private rights of action in court, failing to consider the impact on smaller [Internet service providers], that including interconnection goes too far or that the case-by-case approach does not go far enough, and that the new conduct rule may not be as strong as the previous unreasonable discrimination rule,” she said.
The requested changes come as FCC lawyers are spending hours poring over the text of the rules.
In keeping with FCC procedural rules, the four other commissioners got their first look at the rules just two and a half weeks ago outside of Wheeler’s office. Now they are scrambling to make edits ahead of the vote on Thursday morning.
Related
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/233349-chaffetz-wants-unredacted-emails-from-fcc
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/02/fcc_net_neutrality_sens_leahy_blumenthal_on_the_plan_to_protect_the_internet.html
http://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9c857ed7-dd75-49db-9101-5aa429f91689
http://www2.itif.org/2015-cross-border-data-flows.pdf
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/232617-tech-rallies-around-trade-push
http://polis.house.gov/uploadedfiles/tpa_internet_economy_letter.pdf
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF16/20150225/103018/HHRG-114-IF16-20150225-SD002-U1.pdf
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/233626-fcc-dem-wants-last-minute-changes-to-net-neutrality-rules
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FCC Refuses to Testify Before Congress Ahead of Internet Takeover
Agency also refuses to publicly release proposed regulations
February 25, 2015
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is refusing to appear before Congress as the FCC prepares a regulatory Internet takeover.
Not only that, but Wheeler has also refused to publicly release the FCC’s 332-page draft of the Internet regulations.
“So long as the chairman continues to insist on secrecy, we will continue calling for more transparency and accountability at the commission,” House Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in a statement. “Chairman Wheeler and the FCC are not above Congress.”
The FCC is expected to vote on its new regulations Thursday, which would allow the agency to expand government control over the Internet, such as regulating service providers like a public utility.
“Do you trust the federal government to make the Internet ecosystem more vibrant than it is today?” FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai stated, who broke rank to oppose the proposed regulations. “Can you think of any regulated utility like the electric company or water company that is as innovative as the Internet?”
http://www.infowars.com/fcc-refuses-to-testify-before-congress-ahead-of-internet-takeover/
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Why ‘Net Neutrality’ is a Trojan Horse For Obama’s Web Takeover
Secret plan to grease skids for censorship & licensing to operate a website
February 25, 2015 by Paul Joseph Watson
The federal government is about to seize control of the Internet and most Americans don’t even know about it.
Send your complaints to the FCC via this link: http://www.fcc.gov/comments
http://www.infowars.com/why-net-neutrality-is-a-trojan-horse-for-obamas-web-takeover/
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