Net neutrality appeal hearing Friday

A panel of federal appeals court judges will hear oral arguments Friday in a lawsuit challenging the FCC’s deregulation of the broadband industry. The court date comes more than a year after the agency voted to roll back the rules requiring internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally.

  The Hill

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:

Whatever happened to the GOP 's demands for states' rights?

The Justice Department is suing California to block a recently signed law restoring net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission discarded last year, setting up a high-stakes legal bout between the Trump administration and the nation's most populous state.

[...]

“The Justice Department should not have to spend valuable time and resources to file this suit today, but we have a duty to defend the prerogatives of the federal government and protect our Constitutional order,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement unveiling the action Sunday. “We will do so with vigor. We are confident that we will prevail in this case —because the facts are on our side.”

  Politico

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

Go, Jerry

As long as I can remember, California has been ahead of the curve. We'll miss it when the ocean swallows it.

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

UPDATE:

There's more!

States rights

States are pushing their own net neutrality laws and rules in defiance of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) repeal, heightening the possibility that supporters will be waging another legal battle over the popular Obama-era regulations.

Washington and Oregon have already passed their own laws to fill the void left by the FCC’s repeal, and California appears to be close behind after the state Senate passed a net neutrality bill on Wednesday.

A total of 29 states have proposed their own open internet legislation, according to Gigi Sohn, a fellow at Georgetown Law who’s been tracking the initiatives.

  The Hill

Let me guess - they're all in the northern half of the country.

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

Charter provides a positive data point for Libertarians and deregulators

Charter is raising the minimum wage for its 95,000 employees to $15 per hour, including target commissions, the company announced in a blog post Friday. The telecom giant is crediting "the general deregulatory environment" in Washington for allowing it to increase its workforce and capital investments.

  Axios

I'm feeling skeptical. Why?

Charter says the regulatory environment will allow the company to invest in more than just employees, but also its high-speed broadband network in rural areas.

Re-elect Trump.

I'm glad to hear about the pay raise. I'd be even happier if they raised it to an actual living wage. But now I wonder what they want deregulated aside from their win on net netrality.

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

Net neutrality and States' rights

Lawmakers in at least six state governments have introduced legislation to preserve the rules, and legislators in other states are in the process of considering their own net neutrality bills.

[...]

As of Friday, California, Washington, New York, Rhode Island, Nebraska and Massachusetts have all introduced net neutrality. North Carolina and Illinois are mulling similar legislation.

[...]

The push comes after the FCC voted in December in favor of Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to roll back the regulations, which prevented internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon from slowing down certain content or requiring websites to pay for faster speeds.

[...]

Lawmakers in these states say the bills have been inspired by frustration at an FCC that they feel has ignored the public, which overwhelmingly supports net neutrality.

[...]

Despite the groundswell of support for net neutrality in state legislatures, though, the legislation still faces obstacles.

Pai’s order rolling back net neutrality includes language that specifically preempts any attempts that states could make to create their own net neutrality regulations.

"A state can only regulate communication within its state," said Roslyn Layton, a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank.

  The Hill

So...sites can already be slowed down if the servers pushing them are in states without net neutrality? I'm not sure how this works.

“The FCC’s attempt to preempt state rules appears questionable,” said Pantelis Michalopoulos, a telecommunications lawyer at the firm Steptoe and Johnson.

Michalopoulos noted that while the legality of the situation is not completely clear yet, federal agencies generally have to offer some type of regulation to preempt state regulation. In this case, there are almost no rules, because the FCC got rid of them.

[...]

Some state lawmakers are trying to dodge legal disputes completely by introducing “side door” legislation that doesn’t regulate tech firms directly, but would prevent telecommunications companies who violate net neutrality principles from getting contracts in the state.

The best I'm getting from this is that net neutrality isn't dead yet.

What's obvious is that the Trump administration is going to hand everything to corporations, no matter what the public wants. That's not new, it's just really, really obvious.

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

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.

New hope for net neutrality

She needs to redeem herself after that shameful show in the tax bill.

And there goes Washington

I don't think he'll be alone among governors.

And there goes net neutrality

In a decision dreaded by advocates of a free and open Internet, the Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to overturn regulations mandating net neutrality. The move represented a major victory for Ajit Pai, the former Jeff Sessions staffer and Verizon lawyer who was appointed chairman of the FCC by President Donald Trump, and has long crusaded against what he calls "heavy-handed" regulation of the telecommunications industry.

[...]

The [repealed] regulations, put into place by Pai's predecessor Tom Wheeler in 2015, codified longstanding Internet practice by explicitly requiring ISPs to treat all Internet traffic equally. In contrast to a cable provider, which can decide exactly what networks or services customers get for their monthly fee, ISPs [were] forbidden from discriminating among their customers. When you pay your fee to get online, you get everything. But under the new regime, a handful of the most powerful telecommunication companies in the U.S. – Comcast, Verizon, AT&T – will have unlimited freedom to slice and dice the Internet ecology as they please.

The most likely outcome, say net neutrality advocates, is that prices will go up, variety and diversity will go down and the largest, best-capitalized Internet companies will gain a significant advantage over upstart competitors. It's a punishing blow to believers in the founding dream of the Internet as a great equalizer, a network that grants everyone free rein to do anything.

[...]

"As a consumer, that means some of your favorite websites are going to load more slowly, and it also may mean some of your favorite content goes away because the provider just can't pay the fee."

[...]

"You are no longer going to be the one in control," says Sohn. "Comcast, AT&T and Verizon will pick and choose the winners and losers, instead of you choosing winners and losers."

  Rollingstone

I'm expecting a big lawsuit.

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

Jesus, did they shut down RT altogether?

UPDATE: Apparently, the RT problem - whatever it was - was resolved.

____________________

I'll check back later.

And while we're on the subject of internet access...

It's inevitable — this week, the Federal Communications Commission will drive a stake in net neutrality.

On December 14, the agency will vote to repeal the net neutrality rules it put in place in 2015. With Republicans commissioners who oppose the rules outnumbering Democrats who favor them three to two, the outcome of the vote isn't in any doubt. Your protests and #netneutrality tweets will do nothing — this is really happening.

  Business Insider

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

Net nuetrality protests

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to vote on its plan to kill net neutrality on December 14. People from across the political spectrum are outraged, so we’re planning to protest at Verizon retail stores across the country on December 7, one week before the vote and at the peak of the busy Holiday shopping season. We'll demand that our members of Congress take action to stop Verizon's puppet FCC from killing net neutrality.

And if you need a little extra motivation, recently, Trump’s FCC Chair Ajit Pai – a former top Verizon lawyer – gave us another great reason to protest his plan to kill net neutrality outside Verizon stores. Pai recently spoke at Verizon headquarters in DC. That’s right. One week before the FCC votes on a massive giveaway to Verizon and Big Cable, Ajit Pai decided to go to their headquarters to brag about his plan to throw millions of internet users under the bus. But we can stop the FCC's scheme.

[...]

--Presente Action team

Even after Trump is gone

This is what we have to look forward to.

...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.

Internet development - net neutrality via a new internet?

Here's an interesting development.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom says he will help facilitate an unobstructed internet, free from prying eyes, through MegaNet, which will operate without IP addresses. The German entrepreneur is currently resisting extradition to the US from New Zealand over alleged copyright infringement.

[...]

“The current corporate internet will be replaced by a better Internet, running on the idle capacity of hundreds of millions of mobile devices,” Dotcom said. “Run by the people for the people. Breaking net-neutrality will only accelerate the adoption of a new network.”

  RT

He's going to launch himself up to public enemy #1 in the US.

Careful is not a word with which The Most Notable Loser is familiar.

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

Meanwhile in internet news

Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, says the company will “engineer” specific algorithms for RT and Sputnik to make their articles less prominent on the search engine’s news delivery services.

“We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of site."

  RT

What are "those kinds of sites"? Something that propagandizes news? Something like Fox News?

"[I]t’s basically RT and Sputnik,” Schmidt said.

Oh, I see. Russian-affiliated sites.

“We are well of aware of it, and we are trying to engineer the systems to prevent that [the content being delivered to wide audiences]. But we don’t want to ban the sites – that’s not how we operate.”

We just virtually ban sites.

Another reason net neutrality is so important, yet on its way out.

“Good to have Google on record as defying all logic and reason: facts aren’t allowed if they come from RT, ‘because Russia’ – even if we have Google on Congressional record saying they've found no manipulation of their platform or policy violations by RT,” Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said in a statement.

Indeed.

During the discussion, Schmidt claimed that he was “very strongly not in favor of censorship,” but said that he has faith in “ranking” without acknowledging if the system might serve the same function. Schmidt, who joined Google in 2001, said that the company’s algorithm was capable of detecting “repetitive, exploitative, false, and weaponized” info, but did not elaborate on how these qualities were determined.

Let me guess: Russia.

The Alphabet chief, who has been referred to by Hillary Clinton as a “longtime friend,” added that the experience of “the last year” showed that audiences could not be trusted to distinguish fake and real news for themselves.

[...]

RT America registered under FARA [as a foreign agent] earlier this month, after being threatened by the US Department of Justice with arrests and confiscations of property if it failed to comply. The broadcaster is fighting the order in court.

Big Brother is alive and well.

Amazon announced it has launched a “Secret Region” on its cloud computing service for use by US intelligence and other government agencies. The provider is now able to store government information classified as “Top Secret.”

[...]

“The U.S. Intelligence Community can now execute their missions with a common set of tools, a constant flow of the latest technology and the flexibility to rapidly scale with the mission. The AWS Top Secret Region was launched three years ago as the first air-gapped commercial cloud and customers across the U.S. Intelligence Community have made it a resounding success. Ultimately, this capability allows more agency collaboration, helps get critical information to decision makers faster, and enables an increase in our Nation’s Security.”

  RT

So, is Amazon a government agency now? This strikes me as quite the coup.

It is separate from the existing $600 million contract signed with the Central Intelligence Agency in 2013 that provided cloud services to all 17 intelligence agencies. The new Secret Region agreement makes the technology available to all government agencies with sufficient clearance.

And a one-stop shopping center for anyone with a key.

This comes after it was revealed that the US Defense Department left a massive data collection on an Amazon cloud server, which could have been accessed by anyone with a free account. The data included billions of social media posts from Facebook, Twitter and news sites.

Nice.

But not to be outdone, Microsoft has its own version.

The computing giant Microsoft made a similar announcement in October when it said its government cloud program, called “Azure Government Secret” would support US government agencies working with data classified as “secret.”

RT

How will they compete? What will each offer to the government to get its contract?

While it is unknown what new security measures the AWS Secret Region will include, hackers have previously utilized what is known as “east-west” traffic to move around the servers in the cloud network while avoiding detection for long periods of time.

[...]

This means one breach could potentially put all of the data and applications being stored on the AWS Secret Region at risk of being stolen, manipulated, or held for ransom.

Nice.

 ...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.

So Here's Really Why Your Hillbilly GOP Cousins Opposed the Net Neutrality Deal

They figured this was coming.  Any time the federal government gets control of anything, they give away stuff to poor people - and worse yet in the GOP eyes, poor black people.

The Federal Communications Commission plans to soon begin working on a proposal to subsidize Internet service for low-income consumers by expanding its Lifeline program, which is mocked by conservatives as the "Obamaphone" program.

[...]

All three Democrats on the five-member commission have publicly said they want to use federal money to help ensure that all Americans can afford to get online. Lifeline—which despite the Obamaphone nickname was created during the Reagan administration—currently only subsidizes phone service.

[...]

The money for Lifeline comes from government fees on consumers' monthly phone bills.

[...]

Lifeline subsidizes about $10 of phone service per month for qualifying consumers.

  National Journal

And, dammit, they should be thankful. But no, the undeserving poor always want more.

Under Clyburn's plan, that amount wouldn't necessarily increase, but consumers could choose to have it cover the data on their smartphone or their home broadband connection.

Smartphones?! They can afford smartphones?! Then they don’t need government handouts, do they?

Yes, you’re right. I have lived amongst the hillbilly GOP too long. I can talk their talk.

Ten whole dollars. Enough to make a Republican apoplectic, but not enough to make unaffordable broadband affordable.

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....