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[FlipConstantine]

Undermining Net Neutrality has serious consequences (via PVP). 


Now that's pretty amusing, but in all seriousness, this is becoming a pretty serious issue, what with this COPE act and all.  I urge everyone to get involved.  But I thought I'd start this thread so people have a place to sound off about this issue, though I hope there will be basically a consensus that net neutrality is good because telecoms are big stupid doo-doo heads.

[AugustWest]

telecoms are big stupid doo-doo heads.

Surely you aren't talking about the same corporations who voluntarily gave our phone call records to the NSA?  Not those guys!  Why I have the utmost faith that they would only do what's best for each and every one of us.

[misterqueue]

Yes, and I'm certain there's a lot we can do when we have a majority government that is basically pretty happy with Corporations having the same rights as citizens even though they're not really.. you know.. people as such.

[CortJstr]

But hey, they're already charging $45/month for $1 worth of bandwidth. And only installing fiber-to-the-curb in the wealthiest neighborhoods. And artificially downthrottling upload speeds. What more do you want them to do?

Honestly I can't decide whose service is worse: Verizon or Comcast. Verizon has never met a deadline, had my phone ringing in another appartment, and cut my parent's cable line. Comcast refuses to admit that all the channels under 100 look like utter shit and have terrible ghosting, and made me pay $35 for "installation" (read as: screwing in the coax). Damn I wish I could get Starpower. fuck*ng monopolies.

[colmore]

By starpower do you mean like in Super Mario where you get a glowing power up and then run and go kick some ass?  Because otherwise I don't know what you're talking about but if so, then yes, that would probably help the situation.

[CortJstr]

Starpower is a small cable/phone/ISP company. In DC you can use either Starpower or Comcast and nobody in their right mind chooses Comcast. However I live in a monopoly county where Comcast is the only game in town.

[theinevitable]

MQ-- I got into this completely unintelligible argument with my AP Gov' teacher about this.

"BUT A COMPANY IS NOT A PERSON!"
"yes, but that's what a corporation is."
"a company that is called a corporation is still not a person! A person is a human being! can a corporation vote?"

also:
"how is "hey can we have a law that says we get 1 billion dollars" an example of a Petition for Redress of Grievances? Plus... they aren't citizens."
*insert argument above*
"and, daniel, just because you don't agree, doesn't mean they don't have the right to do it."
"Asking for money is not a petition for redress of grievances. That is not what that phrase means."

we had a lot of arguments like that.

my favorite is that I'll never get to laugh at the kid who kept defending the wiretapping program as "only on overseas calls" now that it's come out that domestic calls were also used. Although, apparently, the content was not used, only the info. on which parties were involved, etc.

[misterqueue]

Lots of things that were more reasonable in this discussion than I will be.

Yes.  Don't get me started.  I don't really want to be called names. 


However the entire setup makes no fuck*ng sense to me.

[theinevitable]

oh man, that class sucked in the blowjob sense and in the "it was bad" sense at the same time. I was the token Liberal kid, who had to do things like get all worked up about Affirmative Action so that everyone felt bad about disagreeing with me, and say that Pork is bad, etc. I had to take the liberal position just so that there would actually be some class discussion.

Ironically, Jack Abramoff does not like pork.

[jough]

"a company that is called a corporation is still not a person! A person is a human being! can a corporation vote?"

I forget sometimes how young the membership is here.

Not only can a corporation vote, Daniel, but corporations' votes are the only ones that actually count.

Discuss.

[Doc]

I live in australia where broadband is only reliably available in major cities (defined as the 7 capital cities) and even though I live within half an hour of one of these I cannot get broadband by adsl, cable or wireless. The mobile phone coverage at my place stinks too.
Luckily we have a reasonably powerful national (read: rural) party so things are slowly getting better but sure as hell the government privatising our major communication provider didn't help (yeah thats right, the major communications company used to be part of the public service. AND THEY SOLD IT!).

The worst part is the people down the road from me can get ADSL (literally four houses down) and the people up the road from us are in range of wifi so it's really just my house.
This makes me sad.

At least we don't have crazy laws like this being proposed though, mind you some people in the opposition have proposed mandatory filtering options at the ISP level, meaning you would need to apply to your isp to get access to all the smut and violence (for the 'won't somebody think of the children' reason rather than the 'lets give huge companies a way to make MORE money!' reason), I don't care for that one bit. It's cool though, they haven't been elected in over a decade and have gone through about three or four leaders in the last three years so we're in no danger from that front yet.

Actually now that I think about it your government does seem to go out of it's way to allow giant companies to make more and more money and the expense of the people with the, y'know, votes. I know this is because to be elected president you need a huge bundle of money and so on but I can't help thinking this wouldn't happen if the president wasn't so independant of their party. Over here the party just elects their leader internally and run as a party, so while there is exactly 0 chance of an independant being elected leader of our country that doesn't seem to be happening over there either.
To tangent totally (and probably piss people off) I've always thought there was something a bit weird about this artificial god-emperor position you guys have created, you have all the same levels of elected officials we do but then make it all moot by electing one guy (I was going to say person but hey, let's be realistic) who can just veto the whole shebang, seems messy. Makes it harder for one group to take total control I suppose but at the same time your congress (and senate and whatever else) seems to have proven itself either unwilling or unable to even challenge a leader commiting large scale international acts that are unpopular with (at best) a large minority of your citizenry.

I'm sorry what were we talking about again?

[smick]

To tangent totally (and probably piss people off) I've always thought there was something a bit weird about this artificial god-emperor position you guys have created, you have all the same levels of elected officials we do but then make it all moot by electing one guy (I was going to say person but hey, let's be realistic) who can just veto the whole shebang, seems messy. Makes it harder for one group to take total control I suppose but at the same time your congress (and senate and whatever else) seems to have proven itself either unwilling or unable to even challenge a leader commiting large scale international acts that are unpopular with (at best) a large minority of your citizenry.

It's not supposed to be like that.   Not at all.   While the president has veto power, his vetoes can be overturned by a super-majority of the congress.   Even if the veto doesn't get overturned the Supreme Court can have a say in the laws by ruling on their constitutionality.

Now... When all your pals are in the congress, and some judges die or resign, well... I guess that knocks the whole thing on its ear.

I truly believe that the problem with how we're being governed here, is that the government (read: The U.S. Citizens) aren't demanding more of their government (read: Themselves).    They're letting the people that represent them just go on and on.

At worst:
"A huge database of my phone records?  Well... if it helps fight the terrorists." 

At best:
"A huge database of my phone records?  I will impotently denounce this in my blog."

[AlohaDawg]

Corporations are created so that there is an entity that is legally and fiscally responsible mostly so that no individual or group of individuals can be personally sued for their assets if the shit hits the fan. In a sense, a corporation is a 'person' in that you can sue it or take other recourses against it.

As for corporations voting: what else would you call lobbying and special interest groups? Do you think invidual Americans contribute more to campaigns across the country than corporate entities? Or have more access to the politicians? How many congressman and cabinet members sit on boards of directors of corporations? Oh, they vote alright.

Although, apparently, the content was not used, only the info. on which parties were involved, etc.

If that's true, then it's not really an eavesdrop or a wiretap. I actually wonder whether what numbers you dial on a regular basis is actually protected by privacy laws...there's no real content there.  I'm sure it will work it's way through the courts. Interesting how it took almost 5 days for the phone companies originally  named in the USA Today story to respond - also interesting how the responses aren't entirely consistent. I personally have no opinion on this because, frankly, unless you shred your cellphone bills this info is to some degree out there anyhow for LD calls - and most of your calls are probably local, which most companies don't even track or log aside from the minutes the phone is used.

[FlipConstantine]

What's ominous to me about this NSA deal was the revelation that the gov't is tracking the numbers reporters call to catch leaks.  This is not a good thing.

[smick]

What's ominous to me about this NSA deal was the revelation that the gov't is tracking the numbers reporters call to catch leaks.  This is not a good thing.

Seriously.   Anyone have any carrier pidegons?