Obama FCC Caves on Net Neutrality -- Tuesday Betrayal Assured

[SugarShack]

Obama FCC Caves on Net Neutrality -- Tuesday Betrayal Assured

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/obama-fcc-ca...

Timothy Karr

Campaign Director, Free Press and SavetheInternet.com
Posted: December 20, 2010 06:53 PM

Late Monday, a majority of the FCC's commissioners indicated that they're going to vote with Chairman Julius Genachowski for a toothless Net Neutrality rule.

According to all reports, the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow's FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet.

The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it's become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users.

Welcome to AT&T's Internet

For the first time in history of telecommunications law the FCC has given its stamp of approval to online discrimination.

Instead of a rule to protect Internet users' freedom to choose, the Commission has opened the door for broadband payola - letting phone and cable companies charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

Instead of protecting openness on wireless Internet devices like the iPhone and Droid, the Commission has exempted the mobile Internet from Net Neutrality protections. This move enshrines Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the expanding world of mobile Internet access, allowing them to favor their own applications while blocking, degrading or de-prioritizing others.

Instead of re-establishing the FCC's authority to act as a consumer watchdog over the Internet, it places the agency's authority on a shaky and indefensible legal footing -- giving ultimate control over the Internet to a small handful of carriers.

[dkf]

1. We are going to pay their outrageous rates to have our content restricted as they see fit?

I am really pissed now.

We need a citizens free and open mobile network. I am so freaking disgusted. Aaarrrgh.

[onenote]

2. How exactly is this Obama's betrayal?

Is the concept of an independent agency beyond the grasp of some here? The Chairman of the FCC and the four other Commissioners are appointed by the President, but do not report to the President in the way that a Cabinet head does. A cabinet level official can be removed by the President. An FCC Commissioner (or other independent agency officials cannot). I've been practicing Communications law in DC for three decades and this is neither the first nor will it be the last time that an FCC Chairman has made a decision that was contrary to the wishes of many in the Chairman's party. Indeed, the previous Chairman, Kevin Martin, needed Democratic support for some of his initiatives because he could not convince his fellow repubs to support him. At least Genachowski has the support of both other Democrats.

In the end I suspect Obama, like Kerry and other Democrats, are willing to live with the rules that Genachowski is pushing, but that's because there isn't much that they could about them.

[truedelphi]

4. So he is a weak President then.

Obviously one of the budget saving mechanisms the American Public should consider over the next couple of years is saving a several hundred thousand a year -the position of President doesn't ever seem to allow Mr Obama any ability whatsoever to do anything at all about anything (usually).

And the step up to the bully pulpit is so slippery that Obama avoided using that perch during the Health Care reform debate.

Although he did manage to use his bully pulpit for the Tax Breaks for the Rich, he probably will be too tired out from that effort to step up and speak out on the internet greatness that he recently bragged about to the leaders of China.

[ThomCat]

3. If this really happens tomorrow, this will be be huge proof

irrefutable proof that the Obama administration is all corporatist, primarily aimed at appeasing corporations and maximizing their profits, instead of being concerned with protecting people's rights.

As if we need another example with:

1. Despite claiming that getting out of Iraq would be a priority, and despite accepting (and undeserved) peace prize, Obama is still keeping us in 2 wars, and escalating one of them into an adjoining country. He is also taking acts of war into 1 other sovereign nations (Yemen) and threatening to take war into another (Iran). Control of oil and minerals rights for US corporations, is still the well known long-term goal.
   
   
2. Started health care negotiations with the republican proposal, and then gave repeated additional concessions to republicans and lobbyists in closed door and secret meetings. Excluded progressive reps from meetings and negotiations, advocates for the poor, advocates for the public option, advocates for public health care, and advocates for health care professionals from negotiating even while insurance company and private health care corporation lobbyists were "at the table" from the very beginning and were allowed to help write the legislation.
   
   
3. Obama not only failed to keep his promise to renegotiate NAFTA and other free trade agreements to add environmental and labor protections, First he appointed a republican free trade advocate as his chief negotiator (one of his very first acts as President, and a clear indicator of bad things to come), and then his administration negotiated additional free trade agreements based on NAFTA that do not include any of the labor and environmental protections Obama promised.
   
   
4. Over half of the HIV preventions money that the US provides in many areas is now used to pay for circumcizions, which do not do anything to reduce or prevent HIV transmission. This is wasting money based on pseudo-science policy. Instead of paying for safe-sex counseling, which really does reduce HIV transmission rates by convincing people to use condoms, the government pays vast amounts of money to health care corporations to perform large numbers of unnecessary surgeries that have no positive effect whatsoever. According to government thinking, giving money to people is apparently bad, even if it works. Giving money to corporations is good, even if it doesn't work.
   

If you look at this administrations history of decisions that limit our rights, or take our rights away, that's a very, very long list. So if you combine this administration's pro-corporate leanings with their attitude that we don't really deserve rights... it doesn't look good.

If this administration decides tomorrow that the internet needs to be regulated, and that corporations know best how to regulate the internet, and that corporations should be able to slice up the internet and control what we are able to access based on how much we pay, and what they want us to be able to access, would you really be surprised?

I wouldn't.

[Mojorabbit]

5. Email addys of fcc

How to Contact the FCC

To Contact the Commissioners via E-mail

Chairman Julius Genachowski: [e-mail]
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: [e-mail]
Commissioner Robert McDowell: [e-mail]
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: [e-mail]
Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker: [e-mail]

[Scurrilous]

6. Kick

:kick: