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Ear to the Ground

FCC Set to Vote on Net Neutrality

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Posted on Dec 20, 2010
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Wikimedia Commons / Jonathunder

He’s not buying it, folks: Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., sees some fundamental flaws in the FCC’s proposed net neutrality policy.

It may seem as though the Federal Communications Commission might be onto something with the set of guidelines its members will probably approve Tuesday, but do these rules actually add up to what Sen. Al Franken and other skeptics are calling “fake net neutrality”?

The New York Times:

As it stands now, the order would prohibit the blocking of any Web sites, applications or devices by fixed-line broadband Internet providers like Comcast and EarthLink, essentially forbidding the providers from picking winners and losers on behalf of consumers, F.C.C. officials said Monday.

[...] “Maybe you like Google Maps. Well, tough,” Mr. Franken said on the Senate floor on Saturday. “If the F.C.C. passes this weak rule, Verizon will be able to cut off access to the Google Maps app on your phone and force you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it is not as good. And even if they charge money, when Google Maps is free.”

He continued, “If corporations are allowed to prioritize content on the Internet, or they are allowed to block applications you access on your iPhone, there is nothing to prevent those same corporations from censoring political speech.”

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By gerard, December 21, 2010 at 5:04 pm Link to this comment

Suspicions of FCC foot-dragging on net neutrality seem to be fully justified by the passing of these recent rulings favoring corporate “freedom of money” over citizens’ freedom of speech.
  Not surprisingly, this may be an attempt to lash out at the recent WikiLeaks releases. There is a petition to sign at Bold Progressives.org:
http://act.boldprogressives.org/sign/sign_netneutrality_3things/)

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By diamond, December 21, 2010 at 4:51 pm Link to this comment

Verizon has links to the Pentagon. No surprise that they are seen as ‘trustworthy’ by the military/industrial complex.

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By gerard, December 21, 2010 at 1:58 pm Link to this comment

Regarding “net neutrality” and all other questions of keeping the net open and free, in all fairness TD should be publishing Julian Assange’s long and important interview headlined today (12/21)in the London Guardian.  Questions are answered frankly and some misinterpretations are corrected.
  In conclusion the interviewer asks:
Q: “You want to change the world?”  Assange’s answer:

JA: “Absolutely. The world has a lot of problems and they need to be reformed. And we only live once. Every person who has some ability to do something about it, if they are a person of good character, has the duty to try and fix the problems in the environment which they’re in.
  “That is a value, that, yes, comes partly from my temperament. There is also a value that comes from my father, which is that capable, generous men don’t create victims, they try and save people from becoming victims. That is what they are tasked to do. If they do not do that they are not worthy of respect or they are not capable.”
  Which is it with us?

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By Michael Cavlan RN, December 21, 2010 at 1:38 pm Link to this comment

Here is a thought from Minnesot-ah

Senator Al “Stewart Smalley” Franken is a fake progressive.

Or did I imagine that Big Al did not carry water for president Oily Bomber and clap
and cheer him when Oily Bomber came and spoke at the Gopher Stadium in
Minneapolis a few months ago.

Never mind his initial support of the war in Iraq, support of corporate healthcare
or the latest betrayal in the continued Bush era tax cuts to the very wealthy..

After which, he sobs and writes an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about
just how “tough it was” to vote Aye for it..

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By Robert Beal, December 21, 2010 at 12:18 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Beltway bandit trying to make good.

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By NYCartist, December 21, 2010 at 9:02 am Link to this comment

DemocracyNow has a good segment this morning on the not really net neutrality being done by Dems. http://www.democracynow.org  We are about to be screwed again by the corporatist Obama.  I won’t vote for him again.  The question is: whose name do I write in on the ballot in 2012?  For good criticism of Obama (for years), http://www.blackagendareport.com

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