“When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.” (Pearl Buck)
You and I have fallen asleep at the wheel lately. While we were busy making fun of liberals, looking into the McCarthy mess, and wailing about immigration reform, Congress and the giant telecom companies have temporarily put one over on us.
They’re trying to steal the internet right from underneath our noses.
Let me explain. The way our internet currently works is pretty straightforward and, to give you the buzzword of the day, “net neutral.” That is, if you want to visit this site, you click your mouse over a link and presto! You’re magically transferred to my little slice of nuttiness. If you have a broadband connection, you’re whisked here in nothing flat. And with DSL or dial-up, the resources allocated by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to find the quickest route to the House and to load this page are exactly the same as those allocated if you are trying to access Daily Kos. In short, your ISP is simply providing access – they don’t have the right to act as a “gatekeeper” by giving priority in the allocation of net resources to one site over another.
That’s not to say the technology that could change net neutrality doesn’t exist because it does. And wouldn’t you know it, the giant telecom companies want to use that technology for what else? To make more money:
The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all.They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.
These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.
Last night while we were enjoying our dinner, the enemies of a net neutral internet scored a significant victory in the House Energy and Commerce Committee with the passage of a Telecommunications Reform proposal that would allow large corporations to take control of the net in ways that would harm free speech and free commerce:
The bill passed 42-12, but not before AT&T got off its final counterattack, just before passage around 7 p.m. In the empty room, right before final passage, Gonzales, from the home town of AT&T, San Antonio, offered an amendment to require the FCC to make a study “competition in the Internet world,” particularly what he called “special arrangements” between Web sites and other companies. It would be similar, he said, to the type of tie-in arrangements that proponents of Net Neutrality said will exist with telephone companies favoring content. Such arrangements between Web sites and others, Gonzales says, would make it hard for a “garage-bases startup” to make a go of it. Citing an article from Southwest Airlines’ magazine, he noted that Google gets revenue from ads tied to searches and that Yahoo is “fighting for deals.”Democrats were flabbergasted. Eshoo, who represents Silicon Valley, said she was “baffled by the amendment, because Gonzales, who earlier said he was opposed to regulating the Internet. This, she said, “is about regulating search engines.” Markey said he was preparing an amendment to expand the study to include the top five telephone companies and top five cable operators, but didn’t get to offer it. The Gonzales amendment was defeated 11-43, but Google, and Yahoo! and the others should be on notice. This isn’t over. They are squarely in the gunsights.
We’ve been hearing about the promise of broadband for more than a decade, a potential life altering technology that will integrate our entire homes so that all of our communications will be part of one, seamless whole. Television, phone service, internet access, and anything else we choose to include would be controllable through the magic of a broadband connection. Access to thousands of movies, songs, TV shows, news, and blogs, as well as interactivity on a scale never previously seen will change commerce, culture, and radically affect the everyday lives of citizens.
When I first heard of this vision, I couldn’t imagine it. Growing up in a world with three networks and where newspapers were still an impactful part of society, even the advent of the computer revolution didn’t faze me that much. That is, until I got my broadband connection from Comcast last year. The amount of on demand content on my television is pretty extraordinary – much of it available for no extra charge. And while I am currently resisting switching our phone service to Comcast, it is probably just a matter of time before I give in there as well. It goes without saying that the speed of my internet connection – the ability to download A/V as well as flitting from site to site almost instantaneously, makes me wonder how I ever lived with a dial up connection.
I can now see the vision of those broadband pioneers. The outlines of this brave new world are just starting to take shape. But all of these dreams will be meaningless if we allow the large telecom companies and their toadies in Congress to set themselves up as traffic cops on this information highway, the final arbiters of taste, politics, and perhaps even speech itself. Their brazenness in attempting this coup d’etat has been made possible because people like you and me fell asleep. We forgot that vigilance is the price we pay for living in a democracy. We neglected out duties as citizens and the rich, the powerful, and the greedy took full advantage.
I am sorry to say that most of us on the right either ignored this issue or failed to warn people adequately. This must change. There is a website devoted to defeating this attempt at internet regulation called Save The Internet.Com. I urge you to go to this site and join the coalition to protect the internet from the machinations of giant corporations who wish to impose their own, narrow vision of what the internet should be on the rest of us.
The fight is just beginning. And the stakes couldn’t be higher.
7:20 am
Rick:
Much of your column is way over my head, and I’m no techno idiot, I’ve tried to keep up with the technology explosion but changes in the art have wizzed by me at break neck speed. Consequently I have not so much fallen asleep as I have scrambled to keep up. When the race began it’s uphill leg, I had to let it go. Thus my point, I’ve had to trust my elected officials to stand guard for me. It’s America for God’s sake, since when in this Represented Democracy have we had to stand vigilant day and night to protect ourselves from them.
As for the corporate side of the equation, we should have learned by now, that we have a market driven economy, that means the rich get richer and the poor suffer the consequences. Hence Enron, Exon-Mobil, Global Crossing,Viacom and the list goes on have impunity because they make their shareholders money. They can lobby and succeed because the office holders want to stay in office. Sometimes I think the fact that the world is tending toward socialism is the result of excesses in our market driven economy. People may be asleep but they are not that stupid.
If I remember my economics correctly the definition of Capitalism is allowing business to govern itself and let no government intervene. That would be our gatekeeper, competition. It would cause businesses to be vigilant so that their goods would outsell the other guy. And as a result, we wouldn’t have to sleep with one eye open to watch them, they would naturally have to watch each other. Unfortunately that is not the case. The sad but true reality is that we not only have to watch the mega-corporations, we have to watch our own government. Is it any wonder that most of us have gone to sleep? If Congress wants to pass a bill they can do it in the wee hours just as they do when they pass on their compensation packages.
Regardless of what the talk show people say, calling our elected officials does little or nothing to sway their opinions.
I for one find some modicum of consolation in staying off the caffein and dozing whenever I get the chance, if just to avoid going mad.
8:05 am
Oh no… they want to make money?? How dare they!!
Seriously, what? What’s supposed to happen if the telecoms win? What’s their narrow vision?
I think you’ve been reading too many left-wing blogs.
8:16 am
[...] Rick at RWNH points out that some of our elected officials are trying to pull a fast one over us once again. Take some action on this. Follow the link to Save The Internet.com, sign up to make some noise about this. [...]
8:54 am
Says the CosmoReaxer: “Oh No! They want to make money. How Dare they”
First off. I am what many of my peers call, an extreme right winger. Just to the right of Atilla and just left of King Solomon. (I don’t cut babies in half.) However there is a limit to what I call making money. A bank robber makes money. Those officials involved in the BCI scandal made money. Marc Rich made money. Lee Raymond of Exxon made money.
So just justifying inequity by scoffing “Making Money” is perjorative. It doesn’t make picking the pockets of American wage earners right. However: Methinks you missed the point. It matters not to me who makes money and who doesn’t, my red wagon is complicit elected officials. Those wolves in sheep’s clothing that make a pretense of guarding the nation are themselves the ones we should be watching. If you see a right or left issue in this argument, you’re shortsighted and not a little bit sophomoric.
Just as the leaking of CIA secrets is not about the data leaked, it is about honor and integrity and the violation of an oath. Just as Ex-President Clinton took an oath to protect the Country from outside evil. The giving of one’s word is inviolable. That’s what I’m talking about. Our members of Congress have a sacred duty to do what’s right by the populace and not to side with the lobbies lining their pockets so that they remain in power.
9:27 am
All they have to do to take over the internet is spread a few million around to the criminals in Congress. We know from recent activity that, what? Forty two of the democratic senators were on one man’s payroll along with several Republicans. (The democrats blather that the republicans were a party of corruption backfired on them) Do any of you people trust any politician? We have reached the point where we have to decide who is the less criminal, not who is honest. The criminals remain in power because the citizens always support their local politician because he’s honest and all the others are criminals. BS, your locals are as criminal as any other. An honest person could not possibly get elected today. If they are in office, they should be voted out, do it this year and wake them up.
10:26 am
Tony, gimme a break, dude. If you’re such a hardcore right-winger, what’s with this “people vs. the powerful” rhetoric?
Not that the powerful should be allowed to screw the people, of course… but that you, like Rick, have jumped to the conclusion that
This has been covered for weeks on Digg, and it’s pretty clear if you take a moment to read more: This is the cable and telcos vs. the online content providers like Amazon and Yahoo. It’s not about the corporations trying to keep the little guy down, it’s about the corporations fighting with other corporations about whether to move certain packets (basically, video and VoIP) over the net faster than other packets (less intense, non-streaming info, i.e. e-mail and the web).
That’s it. This is what you’re shrieking like an anti-capitalist street protester about?
Left-wing bloggers are up in arms, making fools out of themselves, calling this the “end of the internet,” and I am disappointed to see the conservative blogosphere fall for the doomsday hype.
10:51 am
I can’t believe that we are seeing hard right wingers attacking THEIR Congress AND the free enterprise system. Tony, the point of big business has always been to make big money – where are your complaints about other industries picking the pockets of wage earners? Cars or energy, for example? Spin as you will, your conservative birds are coming home to roost right on your fiber optic lines. Enjoy.
11:38 am
Tony writes,
“Those wolves in sheep’s clothing that make a pretense of guarding the nation are themselves the ones we should be watching. If you see a right or left issue in this argument, you’re shortsighted and not a little bit sophomoric.
...Our members of Congress have a sacred duty to do what’s right by the populace and not to side with the lobbies lining their pockets so that they remain in power.”
Well, at the risk of alienating an ally (on this issue) let me just point out that the problem here is that you are probably a far more decent and rational human being than you realize. For some (very strange) reason, you seem to have glommed onto conservative ideology, and now you see what it leads to. I commend you for the courage to recognize this sleaziness, and the underlying force that drives it (the relentless greed of the already-wealthy and powerful). Heres wishing that this experience will open your eyes to the countless other manifestations of this attitude on issues that may not so immediatly affect you personally.
11:47 am
Tano:
Your theory would fall apart if Democrats were in control of Congress.
This isn’t about ideology, it is pure power politics played out by a powerful lobby and with pressure applied against the party in power.
Yes, there are corporate flunkies in the Republican party as there are in the Democratic party. The statists from both parties love this bill. The point is, it’s a hell of a lot easier for the telecoms to bribe the E & C committee than the whole Congress which is why this bill is ticketed either for oblivion or defeat.
Stop trying to draw broad lessons from such narrow examples. It’s ridiculous. Most congressmen don’t even know what the heck they’re voting on half the time. Conservatism doesn’t “lead” to anything anymore than liberalism “leads” to treason.
You should have seen the corporate hogs feeding on Democratic largesse in the 1980’s. You’d be singing a different tune if you did.
12:02 pm
Thank you, Rick.
The for-profit media has trained us all too well to approach each issue from one of two preformulated stances.
Your article on RWNH is not only proof the internet provides a functioning alternative for more independent thought, it is itself an example of what needs to be defended.
It’s no wonder the telecoms want to control the internet. -Marketing to a diverse culture is complex and not cost effective.
GoogleAds allows for such a diverse marketplace and diminishes the relevance of conglomerate advertising agencies.
2:06 pm
Done!
3:26 pm
THE OTHER NEWS
Right Wing Nut House warns us: While we were busy making fun of liberals, looking into the McCarthy mess, and wailing about immigration reform, Congress and the giant telecom companies have temporarily put one over on us. They’re trying to steal the …
6:24 pm
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear, I repeat this is not a left or right issue. This is merely an issue of trust, (I think I used the word honor)I didn’t mean to upset the blogosphere, what I believe is that no matter which party is in power and what the issue, I have lost trust in their capacity to do what’s right. Since E. Markey broke up the Bell system (God knows why)we have had pedagogic elected officials tampering with the system for personal gain. That I mentioned Exxon. or Global Crossing or even Enron, must not be misconstrued as the only foxes in the henhouse. There are others I’m sure. For example: Tyson Foods; but make no mistake gentlemen and ladies, no matter what party is in power, they are all privy to corporate largesse. A modified spoils system.
As far as the telecom companies wanting to control the internet, so too did the UN and understandably so,its a great source of revenue. I wouldn’t mind a piece myself. To quote a somewhat hackneyed commercial message, “Try to think outside the box”
Aside To CosmoReaxer: “This is what you’re shreiking like an anti-capitalist street protester about.” If this had any merit at all, you would be the anti-capitalist. Can’t you see that invoking members of the government in a free market grab would inhibit competition and un- level the playing field? In Pol Sci class we called it Fascism. The proof is in the pudding, with government controls, can we expect the cable industry to stop raking in those obscene profits and reduce prices to the consumer? The answer is emphatically no. Why should they? They have a metaphoric human shield. So too would the internet providers (if protected by congress)grab all they could for as long as they could.
10:53 pm
Not to change the subject, but I am in a way…
Has anyone wondered why there was all that hullabalu about global warming and without any proof a ban was initiated against freon in the 1990’s?
Seemed innocent enough. Regular scapegoat with almost no-one complaining.
Reality check…
A few independent entrepeneurs and scientific types had this idea based on the fact that freon has what is known in chemistry as a flash point of 84 degrees. In other words it goes from a liquid state to a gas with explosive force at temperatures above 84 degrees.
Anyway one of these guys mortgaged his home after initial tests proved positive and after burning out three generators a working prototype was built.
It produced enough electricity to supply the needs of six homes.
Think of the damage such a device would inflict upon the status quo.
The only thing between hydrogen cars in the lab and those on the streets is the enormous amounts of electricity needed to produce it from water.
Now if you could do it at home free…
Until a way can be found to make the rich reap huge rewards there will be no advancement in alternative energy.
10:53 pm
Rick, you’ve been conned.
There are some applications for which success falls from 100% to 0% at a particular latency and packet-loss threshold. The only way the service provider can assure that these applications will work when the net is under load is to provide differentiated services.
This is a technical issue, not a political one. Dont be conned – get informed.
11:24 pm
A couple of minor things I forgot to mention…
The average attic in North America in the summer is well above 84 degrees.
The average ground temperature a few feet down is 53 degrees.
One of the people involved is hiding out and the rest are dead.
The prototype has been somehow lost.
Conclusion: I give up.
11:35 pm
Ps…It goes back to a liquid state well above 53 degrees.
3:32 am
THIEVES IN THE NIGHT Right Wing Nuthouse
They’re trying to steal the internet right from underneath our noses.
...
1:00 pm
Oops…darn those fat fingers. What I meant to finish with was that net neutral proponents are trying to pretend that all apllications on the internet are the same, and they aren’t. VoIP and real-time video require higher levels of service to function properly, not just bandwidth, than other apps like browsing or file downloads. Somebody is going to pay for that. If all I want to do is browse, why should I have to pay for someone else’s high quality streaming video? Or am I missing something here?
12:39 am
I have posted a like blog, and referenced this.
http://blogresponder.blogspot.com/2006/04/internet-freedom-at-risk.html
9:30 am
This is a real threat and it is dead serious.
Click my sig for a detailed (but non-technical) description of the hardware the telcos want to install… how Internet2 demonstrates their so-called reasons for tiering the Internet are unnecessary… what the inventors of the Internet have to say about the carriers’ brain-damaged plans… and what the ramifications are for US national security and technological leadership.
As some of you may know, I am anything but a shill for moonbat interests. Neither are the Gun Owners of America (GOA) – and they’re getting the word out about this threat as well.
Get involved and get your a** over to SaveTheInternet now!
9:35 am
Dave@19, your missive is fabulously incorrect. The high-speed second-generation net backbone called Internet2 delivers multiple HDTV-quality streams and other live teleconferencing feeds to individual workstations perfectly. Guess how many tiers of service it has? Hint: it’s less than two.
12:03 pm
A profound blog on this topic can be found at http://www.safesearching.com/alyssamilano/blog/
4:54 pm
The lefties are putting one over on you, guys. Come on, we are way too smart for this. The neutrality proponents are asking for more legislation on the ‘net. Even it’s well-intended, the result is an Internet with more gov’t involvement, not less.
Look, the idea that the big, bad corporations are out to get us is obviated when there is competition. Let’s let the market develop.
Or, put another way, neutrality legislation is a punishment in search of a crime. You don’t need to like the telcos. Just vote with your $$. It is 100x better than asking the FCC to figure out what’s right.
Think about their approach to “decency”, then apply it to private bits on private networks. That’s “neutrality”. You don’t want it.
More here: http://www.onlyrepublican.com/orinsf/net_neutrality_and_municipal_wifi/
12:41 am
You guys have me in stitches. Everytime an issue is either allowed to come to the fore or is pushed to the fore it gums up the works, ties up the bain cells and covers something really bad.
Something smells really rotten…
2:56 pm
Matt@22 – all you need do is take a look at the hardware that Cisco is pitching the carriers to see that the threat is real and ominous. That hardware appears suited to impede, filter, monitor, and other interfere with unapproved traffic.
What the telcos and cable companies have spent tens of millions of dollars on (the best Congress money can buy?) is to change from the current state of FCC-enforced neutrality to no neutrality.
This will result in three tiers of service:
1) Those content-providers (say, Google) who won’t pay extra tarriffs running super-slow or, perhaps, altogether blocked
2) Content-providers (say, Yahoo) who decide to pay the packet-protection money who run with some quality-of-service guaranteed
3) Applications created by the carriers (“AT&T’s SuperSearch!”) to compete with money-making applications that they feel they can cherry-pick.
I’d rather trust the inventors of the Internet (no, not Al Gore: Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf) on this one: and they are dead-set against the carriers’ odious plans. Or would you rather trust the telco lobbyists?
Go to Save The Internet now. And help… before it’s too late.
8:02 pm
Hey there directorblue, I understand all of that. I’m a web developer by day and I know I don’t want the FCC describing what protocols are allowed and which ones aren’t.
The current legislation (COPE) doesn’t not grant or take away neutrality. It does not empower the telcos with anything or take anything away. It does not address it pro or con. Educate yourself.
You’d be better served by forming your own opinion instead of repeating others. You should also realize that this is big corporations (telcos) vs. big corproations (content providers). It is not “of the people”, unless, again, you simply parrot others.
You don’t need to trust the telcos. Your supermarket can offer any product it wants, ditto the PC companies, ad infinitum, and these industries are serving consumers extremely well. The only place where customers are not served well are regulated utilities. That is exactly the model that the neutrality proponents are advocating.
Form your own opinion. The net has developed because of an absence of bureacratic involvement. I, for one, love that fact and would prefer that it continue.
Also, since I am ranting, go on record with your predictions and revisit them in five years. Are you predicting that, without neutrality, performance and variety of content on the web will be less than it is now? A lot of people predicited we’d run out of food in 1970, too.
11:59 am
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9:13 pm
Good for you, rightwingnuthouse for coming down on the side of us ordinary people who use the net. Those people who apparently think the free market is a governmental system, like democracy (which it is not) or a religion, or the answer to all economic problems, are misguided.
Capitalism needs regulation in order to work well and to benefit everyone, otherwise it is just teeth and claws in a free market jungle.
We need Congress to regulate the companies who would impose a fast lane and a slow lane on the net and give the fast lane to the boys with the big bucks and leave the rest of us in the dust. The internet playing field should be level for everyone.
4:00 pm
[...] I’ve found myself doing a lot of reading about this whole net neutrality thing. An article in Forbes, which was basically pro-neutrality, and also pointed out the “hands off the internet” quality of the brochure’s language, characterized Net Neutrality supporters as “A noisy coalition of mainly Democratic groups and Internet companies” which just plain isn’t true, since most of the Banking Industry is in support of Neutrality, as are most independent business people not to mention organizations on both the left and the right as anyone reading the list of Save the Internet supporters will readily see. I find myself reading articles from blogs that are definitely to the right of center as often as I am those left of center or middle of the road, blogs like The Doug Ross Journal and Right Wing Nuthouse, to name just a couple. Though it’s true that in the House and Senate this issue has split, for the most part, down party lines, this is very far from the truth when you look at who’s supporting Network Neutrality outside of Congress. I expect better from Forbes Magazine. [...]
10:04 am
[...] Q:Act fast another slam of US rights see: http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/20… Not meant to be partisan. [...]
3:21 pm
We all need to see the bigger picture also. The Illuminati, the Bildergerg Group, the Grove meetings all are these rich greedy fallen angel types who have elevated themselves to controllers of the world.
As previously and frequently pointed out they care mainly for profit and have no concern for the consequences of other inhabitants of this earth. What needs to be understood is that they run NATO and want wars forever-of course at the travail of the massses.
This is no minor group but with the giant bucks being approved overseas, including the percent that gets ‘lost’, I would say they are well on their way of grouping forces and influential figures. That includes those para-military guys who showed up at Katrina, as a patrol. Could that be a fore-boding of what the 800+ detention camps here in US might have in store. They are already staffed.
Where are our tax-payer & SSI funds going? Not to injured Vets, Border Protection, job provision, healthcare or improved infrastructure. Likely to the ‘enlightened’ few about to rule the masses, the Illuminati. Check you currency for Latin words meaning ‘New World Order’ just a few yrs ago.