Losing our freedom

 

Good point.

Fascism attacks education

 

MAGA!

Fascists on steroids

 

Is this fascist enough for you?

 

UPDATE 07/26/2025:

And there's the payoff

 

Trump 2.0 (and all dictatorships) - Control the airwaves

Trump purge

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Something up his ass

He's going to be nastier than ever from here on out because the midterms didn't show him any love.







Petty whiner is such a good look for a president.  (Not that I feel sorry for Ajit Pai, killer of net neutrality.)

How long before Old Lardass just quits giving a damn at all and blurts out all the nastiness in public that he does in (semi-) private?

And, hey, Whinger in Chief is doing a great job:



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



UPDATE 12/3/18:

Net neutrality not gone yet

Using an obscure procedural tactic [the Congressional Review Act], the Democrats are moving to force a floor vote on a resolution that would block the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from repealing net neutrality rules. Those rules, passed under former President Obama, required internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally.

The FCC’s decision last month to roll back the rules sparked a massive uproar, creating an issue that Democrats believe could prove politically potent in November.

By forcing a roll call vote on protecting the rules, Democrats are hoping to redirect public outrage — especially among young voters — toward congressional Republicans.

  The Hill

What? You don't think they're doing it because it's the right thing to do? Because they realize how important net neutrality is? Because they work for Americans' instead of mega donor corporations? How cynical.

“Millennials were born into a world with a free and open internet,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference on Tuesday.

“It’s as integral to their daily lives as a morning cup of coffee,” he said. “So when the administration rips it from their hands and hands it over to the big [internet service providers] on a silver platter, millennials will know that Republicans were responsible — you can bet Democrats are going to make sure of that.”

And while you're at it, it's way past time to vote Schumer out of office, millennials.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The FCC watchdog is watching...porn

Since 2015, internal affairs investigators have alleged that at least six FCC employees have accessed porn using work devices, according to IG reports. One investigation last year found “images appearing to be child pornography” on an employee’s FCC-issued computer as well as other pornographic material. The agency contacted the FBI in that case.

[...]

Two of the FCC employees in the alleged porn incidents have been terminated, but one of those is appealing the termination, according to the IG’s office. FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield said the agency has proposed removal of all six employees identified by IG investigators. He declined to name them.

The FCC believes viewing pornography in the workplace is "completely unacceptable," Wigfield said.

  Politico

Other federal agencies have also faced problems with porn-watching employees in recent years, including two EPA staffers who were caught watching hours of pornography at work — along with a third who was sent to prison after using an agency loaner laptop to view obscene images of children.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Net neutrality attack by fraud

In April 2017, the FCC announced that it would issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking concerning repeal of its existing net neutrality rules. Federal law requires the FCC and all federal agencies to take public comments on proposed rules into account — so it is important that the public comment process actually enable the voices of the millions of individuals and businesses who will be affected to be heard. That’s important no matter one’s position on net neutrality, environmental rules, and so many other areas in which federal agencies regulate.

In May 2017, researchers and reporters discovered that the FCC’s public comment process was being corrupted by the submission of enormous numbers of fake comments concerning the possible repeal of net neutrality rules. In doing so, the perpetrator or perpetrators attacked what is supposed to be an open public process by attempting to drown out and negate the views of the real people, businesses, and others who honestly commented on this important issue. Worse, while some of these fake comments used made up names and addresses, many misused the real names and addresses of actual people as part of the effort to undermine the integrity of the comment process. That’s akin to identity theft, and it happened on a massive scale.

My office analyzed the fake comments and found that tens of thousands of New Yorkers may have had their identities misused in this way. (Indeed, analysis showed that, in all, hundreds of thousands of Americans likely were victimized in the same way, including tens of thousands per state in California, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and possibly others.) Impersonation and other misuse of a person’s identity violates New York law, so my office launched an investigation.

[...]

Yet we have received no substantive response to our investigative requests.

[...]

This investigation isn’t about the substantive issues concerning net neutrality. [...] It’s about the right to control one’s own identity and prevent the corruption of a process designed to solicit the opinion of real people and institutions.

[...]

I encourage the FCC to reconsider its refusal to assist in my office’s law enforcement investigation to identify and hold accountable those who illegally misused so many New Yorkers’ identities to corrupt the public comment process.

  New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Net Neutrality Under Attack Again

Former Verizon lawyer and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wants to reverse hard-won protections that cover millions of internet users’ access to a free and open web. Several years ago the ACLU helped win those network neutrality protections. Now, unfortunately, we need to fight the battle again.

[...]

“Network neutrality” is based on a simple premise: that the company that provides your Internet connection can't interfere with how you communicate over that connection. An Internet carrier’s job is to deliver data from its origin to its destination — not to block, slow down, or de-prioritize information because they don't like its content.

If the government abdicates its oversight responsibility, internet service providers like Time Warner, AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon could arbitrarily privilege some content and assign painfully slow connections to other. In other words, giant internet companies would have the power to prioritize what we read, watch, and explore online.

The internet service providers’ history of attempting to do such things is already well established.

[...]

Pai’s plan [...] would likely mean the creation of pay-to-play data “fast lanes” for those who can afford it — and slower connections for everyone else. This could give these mega-corporations the role of gatekeepers over the information we consume every day.

  ACLU

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Score One for the People

The internet has been reclassified as telecommunications. That’s a good thing. If the FCC doesn’t get stocked with board members from media conglomerates, that is. (Which, is not something we can rule out in the future.)

[O]nly a year ago, prospects for protecting net neutrality seemed doomed. The Internet service provider industry, including companies such as Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner Cable, had lobbied furiously against the rule, spending tens of millions on lobbying and on so-called “astroturf” efforts to pay third party groups to support their position. In January of 2014, a federal court struck down a previous iteration of the open Internet rules after Verizon filed suit. And shortly thereafter, the newly installed FCC chair Tom Wheeler, a former cable and cell phone lobbyist, began moving forward with a plan that would allow broadband providers to create Internet fast lanes and slow lanes.

[...]

This morning, the Federal Communications Commission voted to guarantee the open Internet through so-called net neutrality rules, and with it, forged ahead with one of the biggest policy accomplishments of the Obama administration.

[...]

The credit for such a seachange, say activists who agitated for the decision, belongs to a mix of online and traditional activism.

[...]

Malkia Cyril, the executive director of the Center for Media Justice, stresses that the strength of the net neutrality movement relied on the diversity of its coalition. She says Color of Change, National Hispanic Media Coalition, immigrant rights’ groups, activists from Black Lives Matter and communities of color “took it to the streets, to the doorstep of the ISPs.”

  The Intercept

Poor people. Maybe we ought to get together more often.

Other developments also helped shift the debate. HBO host John Oliver mobilized his viewers to flood the FCC with more than 45,000 comments in support of reclassification. A number of websites also participated in the “Internet Slowdown Day,” a protest to call attention to what might happen under paid prioritization without strong net neutrality.

[...]

[Tim Karr, campaign director for Free Press], who has worked on net neutrality advocacy for over a decade, also emphasized the role of a large coalition, “from librarians to free speech advocates,” with a shared interest in Internet freedom

Librarians are awesome. They aren’t beholden to corporations, and they don’t seem to be afraid of  the Feds.

To be sure, telephone and Internet companies are likely to try to undermine the rules that were voted on today. Earlier this week, former FCC chair and current cable industry lobbyist Michael Powell pledged legal action against reclassification. Another route would be for congressional allies of the industry to try to revoke FCC authority through the appropriations process or through a major rewrite of the Telecommunications Act.

It’s not over. But it’s a great win against the forces of commercial megabucks. Congratulations to the people. From a Demand Progress email:

The FCC just passed Title II Net Neutrality rules thanks to your work and that of a broad coalition of activists. It’s a challenge to describe just how unlikely this victory appeared as recently as a few months ago.

As we told the Huffington Post (in an article that’s at the top of their front page as we send this email): Popular victories like today's are so unusual that three Congressional committees are investigating how this happened.

[...]

We thank the millions of Americans who spoke up and gave the FCC the courage to do the right thing. They include the hundreds of thousands of Demand Progress members who have spoken out on this issue more than four million times.

[...]

In a political system in which progress can seem nearly impossible, the victory for Net Neutrality is a reminder to us that when we organize and fight for what is just, good things can still happen.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Love those cagey librarians....

Status Quo

President Obama has picked a former telecommunications lobbyist and campaign fund-raiser [Tom Wheeler] to serve as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, raising serious questions about his 2007 pledge that corporate lobbyists would not finance his campaign or run his administration.

  NYT

Raising questions? I thought we’d pretty much shown that pledge to be a crock of shit already:

 

 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Free WiFi?

The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month. The proposal from the Federal Communications Commission has rattled the $178 billion wireless industry, which has launched a fierce lobbying effort to persuade policymakers to reconsider the idea, analysts say. That has been countered by an equally intense campaign from Google, Microsoft and other tech giants who say a free-for-all WiFi service would spark an explosion of innovations and devices that would benefit most Americans, especially the poor.

  WaPo

Oh, I don't think we can have THAT.

When the U.S. government made a limited amount of unlicensed airwaves available in 1985, an unexpected explosion in innovation followed. Baby monitors, garage door openers and wireless stage microphones were created.

[...]

The airwaves that FCC officials want to hand over to the public would be much more powerful than existing WiFi networks that have become common in households. They could penetrate thick concrete walls and travel over hills and around trees.

[...]

The new WiFi networks would also have much farther reach, allowing for a driverless car to communicate with another vehicle a mile away or a patient’s heart monitor to connect to a hospital on the other side of town.

If approved by the FCC, the free networks would still take several years to set up. And, with no one actively managing them, con­nections could easily become jammed in major cities.

[...]

The major wireless carriers own much more spectrum than what is being proposed for public WiFi, making their networks more robust, experts say.

[...]

The FCC’s plan is part of a broader strategy to repurpose entire swaths of the nation’s airwaves to accomplish a number of goals, including bolstering cellular networks and creating a dedicated channel for emergency responders.

There isn't already a dedicated channel for emergency responders? WTF?

The proposal would require local television stations and other broadcasters to sell a chunk of airwaves to the government that would be used for the public WiFi networks.

Wait, wait, wait. SELL airwaves to the government? I thought the airwaves were already owned by the public, and broadcasters leased them. Apparently I thought wrong. Again, WTF?

As you can guess, internet access carriers are against this idea, as well as “some Republican lawmakers.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.