|
|
|
|
|
Net neutrality is the democratic ideal of the information age.
The first amendment cannot be subject to bandwidth or host restrictions.
beyond that….
The internet is a global platform and as such must be treated as one.
The unrestricted open exchange of information free from the self-interested hands of corporate greed powers the global innovation that the United States has leveraged to pursue and create the most popular internet applications in the world.
To undermine this is to slowly choke the very nature of curiosity and intellect which has placed us at the crossroads we are considering today.
The United States cannot presume to dictate or restrict its citizens access to an unfettered global platform, this is at the heart of the democracy that separates us from the stifling nature of political structures like communism or dictatorships.
This is the modern fight for freedom, and it will not be fought on the streets, it will be fought with packet requests pulsing through the pipes that surround us and encase us in the informational electromagnetic cage we subsist within.
The revolution WILL be youtubed.
|
|
|
STAND UP FOR INTERNET NEUTRALITY! Corporate control is bad for democracy.
|
|
|
As an Americans for Prosperity activist, I am submitting the following comment regarding the matter of preserving the open Internet. GN Docket No, 09-191, WC Docket No. 07-52:
The Internet is highly competitive. Traditional “phone” and traditional “cable” companies have been locked in an intense struggle to win customers, and wireless is rapidly becoming another viable alternative to wired broadband connections. If a private company blocked or censored Internet traffic maliciously it would lose its customers. If government exercised control over the Internet, there would be no place to turn.
The envisioned burden of proof for requiring network management practices is unreasonably restrictive and will prevent business models that may be economically efficient. This will impose uncertainty and create litigation risks. Such restrictions would lower the rate of return on investments in building network capacity to the point that some of those investments would no longer make economic sense.
The Internet would then either remain crippled or be “rescued” with taxpayer subsidies, which would inevitably bring government control and politicization along with government ownership. Indeed, this “public utility” model is the desired outcome of many proponents of regulation, including former White House adviser Susan Crawford and Free Press founder Robert McChesney.
Such a transformation of the Internet into a government-controlled public utility is a major policy change that should be debated in Congress, the legitimately elected legislative branch of government. The Commission should not on its own set into motion regulatory changes that will force us down this path.
I am especially concerned that the Commission is already contemplating Internet content restrictions, such as the suggestion under paragraph 77 of the NPRM that the Commission may ultimately be the arbiter of which competing interests should be prioritized.
Advocates of so-called “net neutrality” have been ringing alarm bells now for so many years (starting with the November 19, 2002 letter to the Commission from the so-called “Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators”) that their claims should be heavily discounted. In the absence of concrete evidence of discriminatory or anti-competitive behavior, there is simply no rationale for imposing new regulations that could have the effect of slowing down the great engine of innovation, growth, and expression that the lightly regulated, competitive Internet has become.
|
|
|
IDEA TITLE: Open, free, accessible internet is critical in re: climate change
IDEA PREMISE: An open, free and non-commercially controlled internet goes hand-in-hand with access to un-skewed factual information, which is an absolute necessity as our current level of civilization enters another of our ancient Earth’s episodic global upheavals.
IDEA ARGUMENT: Just as fighting disease epidemics or terrorism require fast, clear, reliable and salient information flows, so does Climate Change / Global Warming. Historically however there have been some similar public issues which are subverted by actions that control information. These can come from private enterprise (tiered access, monopoly, etc.) or from government (constraining unfair and inequitable rules and the like).
Witness what has happened through history when major communication pathways have fallen under the control of governments (e.g. the Soviet union, Nazi Germany, South Africa under de Klerk, Chinese 2008 report of space “launch” Shenzhou 7 et al). The United States has almost always stood as a bastion of true democratic and humanistic principle in this regard, even America has had lapses (e.g. “Remember the Maine”, Rwanda genocide, etc.).
Look at when it falls under control by "Big Business" (smoking and cancer; Corvair and other auto safety dangers, etc.).
And recall what happens when these two are in bed together and/or conspiring together, or they are just ducking their heads into the sand and "playing it safe" in their own self-interests of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours...). Examples abound:
- then we get global climate change deniers;
- Fox News’ fabricated “news”;
- selling of arms across national borders to destabilize conditions that interfere with "business as usual";
- human slavery (for child or indentured cheap labor, for sex for pay business, et al, un-publicized and poorly regulated;
- the mistaken premise that petroleum is the only life-blood of a healthy economy.
CLIMATE CHANGE (CC) will require the cooperation of every sector of the world, at every level from global to local.
1) If you are not among the vast majority of well-informed global citizens you surely know that idea-sharing empowers more efficient business practices, a nice side effect of which is that should CC prove to exist over time then such benefit is multiplied.
HOW CAN WE SHARE NEW EFFICIENCY IDEAS if they are “owned” via a controlled internet?
2) Even if not substantively human-influenced yet still growing, CC will cause physical change to virtually every single eco-system in the world. So when salt-marsh wetlands are diminished and if nations refuse to create agreements, then various levels of government and private business require new ways of adapting, but ONLY IF THE DEEPLY INTERDEPENDENT DYNAMICS OF LIVING SYSTEMS ARE KNOWN to all.
3) If we acknowledge CC as heavily human-driven, then it will require a GLOBAL LEVEL of URGENCY and of accurate information to make effective decisions for human behavior.
In any and all of these cases, the very nature of human civilization will depend hugely on the cooperative, unbiased availability of information.
|
|
|
Keep the Internet a free public utility not dominated by corporate interests.
I believe the free flow of information is vital to a democracy. Please limit the role of Internet service providers to communications services and please assure that those services are delivered in a way that protects free and anonymous speech (except spam), free access to information and freedom from unwarranted surveillance and tracking. Society is best served when the provision of information and "content" is truly free which means that it not be controlled by those who own the communications medium itself. Moreover, the bundling of content and communications services operates to the disadvantage of other ISPs, content providers and the general public. ISPs should be purely a public utility.
|
|
|
100113 WJM “new idea” for the Open Internet petition
________________
IDEA TITLE: Open internet critical in re: climate change
IDEA PREMISE: An open, free and non-commercial internet goes hand-in-hand with access to un-skewed factual information, which is an absolute necessity as our current level of civilization enters another of our ancient Earth’s episodic global upheavals.
IDEA ARGUMENT: Just as fighting disease epidemics or terrorism require fast, clear, reliable and salient information flows, so does Climate Change / Global Warming. Historically however there have been some similar public issues which are subverted by actions that control information.
Witness what has happened through history when major communication pathways have fallen under the control of governments (e.g. the Soviet union, Nazi Germany, South Africa under de Klerk, Chinese 2008 report of space “launch” Shenzhou 7 et al). The United States has almost always stood as a bastion of true democratic and humanistic principle in this regard, even America has had lapses (e.g. “Remember the Maine”, Rwanda genocide, etc.).
Look at when it falls under control by "Big Business" (smoking and cancer; Corvair and other auto safety dangers, etc.).
And recall what happens when these two are in bed together and/or conspiring together, or they are just ducking their heads into the sand and "playing it safe" in their own self-interests of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours...). Examples abound:
- then we get global climate change deniers;
- Fox News’ fabricated “news”;
- selling of arms across national borders to destabilize conditions that interfere with "business as usual";
- human slavery (for child or indentured cheap labor, for sex for pay business, et al, un-publicized and poorly regulated;
- the mistaken premise that petroleum is the only life-blood of a healthy economy.
CLIMATE CHANGE (CC) will require the cooperation of every sector of the world, at every level from global to local.
1) If you are not among the vast majority of well-informed global citizens you surely know that idea-sharing empowers more efficient business practices, a nice side effect of which is that should CC prove to exist over time then such benefit is multiplied.
HOW CAN WE SHARE NEW EFFICIENCY IDEAS if they are “owned” via a controlled internet?
2) Even if not substantively human-influenced yet still growing, CC will cause physical change to virtually every single eco-system in the world. So when salt-marsh wetlands are diminished and if nations refuse to create agreements, then various levels of government and private business require new ways of adapting, but ONLY IF THE DEEPLY INTERDEPENDENT DYNAMICS OF LIVING SYSTEMS ARE KNOWN to all.
3) If we acknowledge CC as heavily human-driven, then it will require a GLOBAL LEVEL of URGENCY and of accurate information to make effective decisions for human behavior.
In any and all of these cases, the very nature of human civilization will depend hugely on the cooperative, unbiased availability of information.
|
|
|
In its present form, the internet enables open communication for the common person. It is affordable and accessible to everyone including my 80 year old parents living on a meager fixed income. I see no justification for government intrusion in this area. It is not broken, it doesn't need to be fixed. Leave it alone.
|
|
|
The internet should remain an open system accessible by all and controlled by no-one. It should be accessible by all in both directions—both to consumers of content and to content providers. The internet should not become the property only of those with the financial resources or political power to inflict their will and viewpoint on others. The internet is too critical to our freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and our economy to let it be controlled by any entity or entities. The internet really has become our last bastion of freedom as well as our best means of economic recovery and stability. Don’t let that change. Keep the internet open for everyone. No censorship and No blocking. People should only be able to censor and block internet access for themselves and their families. There should be no other form of censorship
|
|
|
That's all we need now is for the Big Brother Government to limit what we can and cannot do on the internet.
|
|
|
Giving the government control over anything is giving control to a big gang of babies who live in a world where the rest of us do not. The current government has spent record breaking amounts of money that it doesn't have, blamed it on previous governments, then is expanding it's control over every aspect of American's lives. That is not a democracy and this isn't either. No matter what you think of the current government, giving the government this much power will be the end of the US by one administration or another because none of them will give it up.
|
|
|
The problem is not the isp's!! Lets forget about McCain he is big government and run by special interests!! Where does government end?? Where does the Federal Government stop in their regulatory control? Our Government has to much control its to big. The FCC should not have the power to regulate at will regarding the internet. I trust companies that produce wealth and have to balance their budgets!! There is no problem with the internet. Is there?? I say to Internet providers " dont take government money" Dont get sucked in!!!
|
|
|
"An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications." Bureaucrats, stay out of business - internet or otherwise - because you have shown your complete incompetence in every area you've forced your way into uninvited. We have enough tyranny from our current administration already. We should treat our czars (internet and all the rest) just like Russia sensibly did theirs. That's my 2 cents.
|
|
|
I join Philly For Change in calling on FCC to support strong net neutrality and thus to
a) Stop big cable and phone companies from blocking or discriminating against chosen content.
Net discrimination will disproportionally impact the poor, communities of color, women, and all other groups for whom the digital divide is already a barrier.
b) Stop big cable and phone companies from creating an Internet where access to information is only for the privileged.
|
|
|
The Constitution does not give the government power to regulate the internet. There are many bills that have passed the house and senate in the last century. These bills like most are unconstitutional and have regulated power to are federal government. I am not collage educated and you can see that in my writing and i apologize. I read a lot of our founding fathers and our American history. I do not deny that we have made grave mistakes, but those mistakes have been at the hand of government reaching outside their power. Government is no longer protecting our rights, its stealing theme from us. For those who would say that the government is protecting the internet just realize the government never protects in controls!! Please let capitalism work on its own. Please allow America to be free of tyranny that we fought so hard to escape 200 years ago. God bless America and Long live the President!!!
|
|
|
I also remember the head of the Patent Office wanted to close Patents in the 1890's because "anything of value has been invented already." Typical governmental bureaucratic short-sightedness that stymies growth and opportunity. And we don't need the government doing this for free expression of data, information, ideas and thought, and the expression thereof.
Sincerely,
Lance M Hillier Sr
De Leon, TX
|
|
|
I would argue that net neutrality is already guaranteed under the first amendment right to free speech and freedom of the press! If you restrict the Internet then you are in violation of the constitution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
|
|
|
ISPs are a private enterprise and as such are subject to competitive forces. They own the infrastructure and have an absolute right to determine what services are provided by that infrastructure. If someone doesn't like what's being offered, he has the option of not subscribing to that ISP or finding an alternate way to get the service he does need. If the service doesn't exist, it represents a new market opportunity for someone to exploit. The only gov't involvement should be restricted to assuring the various ISPs compete fairly within the existing laws of the country.
|
|
|
An open Internet gives me freedom of expression - freedom to write and share my views and the freedom to find alternative viewpoints;
I want other, smarter people to come up with the next Google, the next YouTube, the next Web application that I can't even imagine;
I want to read about people and cultures that are different from me;
Mainstream media make me scream expletives, and I use the Internet to find alternative sources of news and information;
I want to e-mail my boyfriend a link to a picture that reminds me of our last vacation;
Net Neutrality means I don't need anyone's permission to create my own videos, and media execs aren't determining what's funny - we are;
I come up with potential million-dollar ideas all the time, and some day, I just might start my own business;
An open Internet feeds the activist in me, allowing me to engage with my community and organize for social change online;
It's winter and I'd rather shop online, only I still want to support a local business;
I needed advice on how to prime and paint a room, and found a video online that taught me how to do it; and,
I don't want to be censored.
|
|
|
Leave the Internet alone and let it grow through the private sector as designed, for the people, by the people you morons... NO GOVT INTERFERENCE from the Socialist LEFT !!!!
|
|
|
The Internet is free and open infrastructure that provides almost unlimited support for free speech, free enterprise and free assembly. Nothing in human history, with the possible exception of movable type -- has done more to encourage all those freedoms. We need to be very careful about how we regulate it, especially since it bears only superficial resemblances to the many well-regulated forms of infrastructure it alters or subsumes.
Take radio and TV, for example. Spectrum -- the original "bandwidth" -- is scarce. You need a license to broadcast, and can only do so over limited distances. There are also restrictions on what you can say. Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1464, prohibits "any obscene, indecent or profane language by means of radio communication." Courts have upheld the prohibition.
Yet, as broadcasters and the "content industry" embrace the Net as a "medium," there is a natural temptation by Congress and the FCC to regulate it as one. In fact, this has been going on since the dawn of the browser. The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act (DPRSA) came along in 1995. The No Electronic Theft Act followed in 1997. And -- most importantly -- there was (and still is) Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998.
Thanks to the DMCA, Internet radio got off to a long and very slow start, and is still severely restricted. Online stations face payment requirements to music copyright holders are much higher than those for broadcasters -- so high that making serious money by webcasting music is nearly impossible. There are also tight restrictions on what music can be played, when, and how often. Music on podcasts is essentially prohibited, because podcasters need to "clear rights" for every piece of copyrighted music they play. That's why, except for "podsafe" music, podcasting today is almost all talk.
There is also a risk that we will regulate the Net as a form of telephony or television, because most of us are sold Internet service as gravy on top of our telephone or cable TV service -- as the third act in a "triple play." Needless to say, phone and cable companies would like to press whatever advantages they have with Congress, the FCC and other regulatory bodies.
It doesn't help that most of us barely know what the Internet actually is. Look up "The Internet is" on Google and see what happens: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22The+Internet+is%22 There is little consensus to be found. Worse, there are huge conflicts between different ways of conceiving the Net, and talking about it.
For example, when we say the Net consists of "sites," with "domains" and "locations" that we "architect," "design," "build" and "visit," we are saying the Internet is a place. (Where, presumably, you can have free speech, enterprise and assembly.)
But if we say the Net is a "medium" for the "distribution" of "content" to "consumers," we're talking about something more like broadcasting or the shipping industry, where those kinds of freedoms are more restricted.
These two ways of seeing the Net are both true, both real, and both commonly used, to the degree that we mix their metaphors constantly. They also suggest two very different regulatory approaches.
Right now most of us think about regulation in terms of the latter. That is, we want to regulate the Net as a shipping system for content. This makes sense because most of us still go on the Net through connections supplied by phone or cable companies. We also do lots of "downloading" and "uploading" -- and both are shipping terms.
Yet voice and video are just two among countless applications that can run on the Net -- and there are no limits on the number and variety of those applications. Nor should there be.
So, what's the right approach?
We need to start by recognizing that the Net is infrastructure, in the sense that it is a real thing that we can build on, and depend on. It is also public in the sense that nobody owns it and everybody can use it. We need to recognize that the Net is defined mostly by a collection of protocols for moving data -- and most of those protocols are open to improvement by anybody. These protocols may be limited in some ways by the wired or wireless connections over which they run, but they are nor reducible to those connections. You can run Internet protocols over barbed wire if you like.
This is a very different kind of infrastructure than anything civilization has ever seen before, or attempted to regulate. It's not "hard" infrastructure, like we have with roads, bridges, water and waste treatment plants. Yet it's solid. We can build on it.
In thinking about regulation, we need to maximize ways that the Net can be improved and minimize ways it can be throttled or shut down. This means we need to respect the good stuff every player brings to the table, and to keep narrow but powerful interests from control our common agenda. That agenda is to keep the Net free, open and supportive of everybody.
Specifically, we need to thank the cable and phone companies for doing the good work they've already done, and to encourage them to keep increasing data speeds while also not favoring their own "content" subsidiaries and partners. We also need to encourage them to stop working to shut down alternatives to their duopolies (which they have a long history of doing at both the state and federal levels).
We also need to thank and support the small operators -- the ISPs and Wireless ISPs (WISPs) -- who should be able to keep building out connections and offering services without needing to hire lawyers so they can fight monopolists (or duopolists) as well as state and federal regulators.
And we need to be able to build out our own Internet connections, in our homes and neighborhoods -- especially if our local Internet service providers don't provide what we need.
We can only do all this if we start by recognizing the Net as a place rather than just another medium -- a place that nobody owns, everybody can use and anybody can improve.
Doc Searls
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard University
|
|
|
No cost. All done with software.
|
|
|
As an Americans for Prosperity activist, I am submitting the following comment regarding the matter of preserving the open Internet. GN Docket No, 09-191, WC Docket No. 07-52:
The Internet is highly competitive. Traditional “phone” and traditional “cable” companies have been locked in an intense struggle to win customers, and wireless is rapidly becoming another viable alternative to wired broadband connections. If a private company blocked or censored Internet traffic maliciously it would lose its customers. If government exercised control over the Internet, there would be no place to turn.
The envisioned burden of proof for requiring network management practices is unreasonably restrictive and will prevent business models that may be economically efficient. This will impose uncertainty and create litigation risks. Such restrictions would lower the rate of return on investments in building network capacity to the point that some of those investments would no longer make economic sense.
The Internet would then either remain crippled or be “rescued” with taxpayer subsidies, which would inevitably bring government control and politicization along with government ownership. Indeed, this “public utility” model is the desired outcome of many proponents of regulation, including former White House adviser Susan Crawford and Free Press founder Robert McChesney.
Such a transformation of the Internet into a government-controlled public utility is a major policy change that should be debated in Congress, the legitimately elected legislative branch of government. The Commission should not on its own set into motion regulatory changes that will force us down this path.
I am especially concerned that the Commission is already contemplating Internet content restrictions, such as the suggestion under paragraph 77 of the NPRM that the Commission may ultimately be the arbiter of which competing interests should be prioritized.
Advocates of so-called “net neutrality” have been ringing alarm bells now for so many years (starting with the November 19, 2002 letter to the Commission from the so-called “Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators”) that their claims should be heavily discounted. In the absence of concrete evidence of discriminatory or anti-competitive behavior, there is simply no rationale for imposing new regulations that could have the effect of slowing down the great engine of innovation, growth, and expression that the lightly regulated, competitive Internet has become.
My apologies to real dogs, everywhere.
|
|
|
If I were a Medical Doctor performing surgery on a patient with a very rare complicated problem and needed technical advice from another Doctor who happened to live in some small town in Russia, I should not have my request nor should he have his reply to my question held up by my ISP because Bank of America paid more for a priority line to transfer their data on. No corprate entity should ever be given the power to determine who or what has priority. The internet must be free and open.
|
|
|
The internet is already free & open. If you guys do not like your ISP, then why dont you all become your own ISP & invest in the infrastructure like other internet providers have done? That way you can get access to whatever you want, at the bandwidth you want. But if you don't want to spend the thousands of dollars a month to do that, why do you think that another business who was willing to do that should cede the rights on how they want to run their business to you? If you don't like the ball & bat you are given, then go find your own ball and bat or go home. Don't steal someone else's.
|
|
|
This is a load of crap and completely unconstitutional!
|
| Displaying 51 - 75 of 313 Ideas |
|
|
|
Vote Up
Vote Down
TTY: 1-888-TELL FCC (1-888-835-5322)
Close