Let's Just Boot - Not Reboot - the FCC! Watch the Net Neutrality Meeting Live at 10.30AM ET

The Federal Communication Commission will vote today on a Net Neutrality system that it may not have the right to enforce. Champions of the new regs say the point is to make sure the Internet keeps functioning like it has.

Are such rules necessary? And do we want the same folks who fine wardrobe malfunctions and fleeting expletives on broadast TV defining how the most-transformative communications technology in our lifetimes calling any of these shots.

Watch the video above for a primer on Net Neutrality and the case against it.

Then go to Reboot FCC, the government's official website, to watch the hearing live at 10.30AM ET.

Other Reason.tv vids related to Net Neutrality:

Net Neutrality for Dummies

3 Reasons the FCC Shouldn't "Touch" the Internets

Nick Gillespie On Net Neutrality, Teen Mags, & More

Comments

[Jeffersonian]

Maybe the lame-ducks in Congress should just pass an Enabling Act, ala the Chavistas in Venzeuela, so Barack and his minions can just set things right as they see fit for the next two years.

[P B]

ssshhhhh! Don't give them any ideas.

[TheOherSomeGuy]

They've already been ordered by a Federal judge not to do this. If these people vote to bring us net neutrality, why aren't they immediately arrested? Seriously, have the cops standing right outside the door, cuffs a-waitin'.

That' what happens to everyone else that violats a court order. Child molester caught at a school? Arrested. Felon with a gun? Arrested.

Why not FCC bureaucrat voting for net neutrality?

[Mr Whipple]

Funny thing about monopolies. You "need" the government to control them, because it was the government that created them.

What's that Dr Frankenstein...?

[Mr Whipple]

*Insert appropriate punctuation*

"What's that, Dr Frankenstein...?"

[Brian from Texas]

FCC - Federal Censorship Commissars.

[Fiscal Meth]

Catchy. Stealin that

[Brian from Texas]

I think I stole it from Howard Stern.

[cynical]

Fox in Chicken Coop... warning us about how hungrily the dogs (ISPs) are looking at those poor hens.

[wylie]

Let's Just Boot - Not Reboot - the FCC

Taking a scissor to the power cord not an option?

[Rob McMillin]

I don't get Reason's anti-net-neutrality stance at all. These are state-created monopolies, after all, and what we are discussing is whether some traffic should be preferred over others. This sounds like a recipe for censorship at the nexus of the public and private, a la the sort of thing that Amazon did to WikiLeaks. Codifying that represents a step backwards.

[Pip]

Amazon didn't censor wikileaks, asscunt.

[Rob McMillin]

So, they weren't kicked off Amazon's servers at the request of Sen. Joe Lieberman (Self-Conn.)? Good to know.

[Mr Whipple]

It is exactly the monopoly issue (deregulation) which should be addressed, not net neutrality. NN is a side, or distraction issue. However, with more and more 4G Wimaxx services available, it may all be for nothing. Free and fair competition is the solution to the problem, not more regulation.

If there were less regulations for start-ups to have to deal with, there would be more providers in the market.

[R C Dean]

How is Amazon the nexus of public and private, again?

[wylie]

The same way a private business becomes public property when people don't want you smoking there...

[Brother Wolf]

Libertarians don't want the FCC between the user and content on the internet. It's that simple. Once the FCC has regulatory power, it will naturally expand to shut down unlawful activities. This would likely include wikileaks.

To really understand the libertarian position, you have to get that governments are much more likely to fuck you over than companies.

[P B]

We don't have to give any business our money. Governments take our money under threat of force, loss of property on jail time.

[Wind Rider]

If you don't understand the reluctance, or even opposition to the increase of governmental control and regulation into a situation that has enjoyed beneficial explosive growth without it, over what is basically a temporary marketplace squabble that is likely to be overcome by events (the continued increase of capability and capacity) within the next few years, then the list of things you don't understand must be a long one, indeed.

As an example, let's go back to the early days of 'the internet'. You, a provate consumer, went out and bought the new technological shiny thing, a computer. It likely came with all sorts of hooks and chutes to direct you to use something called AOL to 'connect to the internet'. But you quickly realized that you weren't actually connecting to 'the internet', but to AOL's 'universe of apps'. Which you eventually began to be possibly upset with. Particularly as you noticed that AOL was structured to make it easy to use their stuff, a bit harder to access just about everything else. And then you began to notice that during peak times, it was a crap shoot getting ahold of an open connection line at all.

Now, possible solutions to address this problem come to mind. 1) Ditch AOL, and go with another service provider that offered better service, better price, less crap, or all of the above -or- whine and cry and insist that the government step in and "do something" about "the problems", which were in fact the limitations of a new technology, not a shortfall of the rules and regulations in spiffy matching binders in some beauracrat's office in DC.

In those terms - what is your choice in the matter? Keeping in mind that one of these choices will most likely limit your choices in the future - and if you don't understand which one that is, well, then I can simply take comfort that I've wasted a few moments of your clueless life. Thanks for playing.

[Paul]

Oh, and this with highly polished brass knobs on.

[Paul]

But you quickly realized that you weren't actually connecting to 'the internet', but to AOL's 'universe of apps'. Which you eventually began to be possibly upset with. Particularly as you noticed that AOL was structured to make it easy to use their stuff, a bit harder to access just about everything else

I'm fascinated by the more recent example that many people overlook. The Apple's iPhone only lets users connect to Apple's Universe of apps, and is frustratingly stubbong in letting users out of that universe.

In response, there's been an explosion of competition in the Smart phone industry.

It is the very restrictions that companies put on their customers that creates the competition. Not the other way around.

[Wind Rider]

Ed Zachary

[Betamax]

The hell you say! Exclusivity is da shit, yo.

[Paul]

a la the sort of thing that Amazon did to WikiLeaks. Codifying that represents a step backwards.

Amazon didn't do anything to Wikileaks. One business deciding to not do business with another is not censorship. Any more than than your local indie record store deciding not to carry Kenny G. CDs is "censorship".

[Pip]

A grateful nation thanks them.

[cynical]

There are a lot of solutions, particularly technological, that are focused on expanding competition -- giving the federal censors more power over the internet is the worst possible solution.

[Nick]

+ forever and ever, Amen.

[Fiscal Meth]

"Champions of the new regs say the point is to make sure the Internet keeps functioning like it has."

They have no intention of keeping it functioning as it has. If they passed it, the first thing they would say would be something like "We need to curb the derisiveness in politics because we are too polarized". Some "we have to sacrifice free speech in order to save it" bullshit, ala George Doubleyah

[Paul]

*sigh*

[Jim]

One quibble: I don't know what kind of neighborhood other Reason readers inhabit, but there's no mansion down the street from me. A meth house, maybe, but a mansion, no way.

[Paul]

The houses on to the north of me have all devolved into rentals. Something about a housing crisis. Police activity trending upward in those houses over the last couple of years.

To the south of me still mostly owned. My house is essentially the furthest foxhole on the front line of homes turning into rentals... so to speak.

[Vaccine]

Brief summary of FCC's argument sent to me by a telecom lawyer friend:

"To keep the Internet working the way it has always worked we must completely supplant the regulatory structure that has ensured it works that way. This step is necessary to promote investment by VCs, who have invested $250 billion in Internet-related services since 1995. And mandates not only are completely necessary, but also should be no problem for the ISPs, because the principles reflect how they have always operated, and because it is in their interest to continue to act that way so that consumers will continue to use broadband service. We have always been at war with Eastasia."

[wylie]

Nice and succinct.

[R C Dean]

I don't know what kind of neighborhood other Reason readers inhabit, but there's no mansion down the street from me.

Reason readers live in the mansion down the street. Its a set with the top hat, monocle, and cane.

[R C Dean]

Once the FCC has regulatory power, it will naturally expand to shut down unlawful activities. This would likely include wikileaks.

Publishing leaked documents is not an unlawful activity.

Yet.

[R C Dean]

If they passed it, the first thing they would say would be something like "We need to curb the derisiveness in politics because we are too polarized".

Well, if they set out to curb the derisiveness in politics, Hit 'n' Run will be the first up against the wall.

[Nick]

How is net neutrality enforceable? How can they possibly monitor it all by passing a rule that has no funds attached?

[Rich]

"Ultimately that means that the human capital in the United States that's currently on the shelf?the people who don't have digital opportunity?will become participants in the digital economy"

", and have their personal information compromised like the rest of us."