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President Trump's Supreme Court nominee argued last year that net neutrality rules violate the First Amendment rights of Internet service providers by preventing them from "exercising editorial control" over Internet content.
Trump's pick is Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The DC Circuit twice upheld the net neutrality rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, despite Kavanaugh's dissent. (In another tech-related case, Kavanaugh ruled that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone metadata is legal.)
While current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai eliminated the net neutrality rules, Kavanaugh could help restrict the FCC's authority to regulate Internet providers as a member of the Supreme Court. Broadband industry lobby groups have continued to seek Supreme Court review of the legality of Wheeler's net neutrality rules even after Pai's repeal.
[...] Consumers generally expect ISPs to deliver Internet content in un-altered form. But Kavanaugh argued that ISPs are like cable TV operators—since cable TV companies can choose not to carry certain channels, Internet providers should be able to choose not to allow access to a certain website, he wrote.
"Internet service providers may not necessarily generate much content of their own, but they may decide what content they will transmit, just as cable operators decide what content they will transmit," Kavanaugh wrote. "Deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN and deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN.com are not meaningfully different for First Amendment purposes."
Kavanaugh's argument did not address the business differences between cable TV and Internet service.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @05:24AM (38 children)
For telling the truth? ISPs absolutely do and should have that right. And I have the right to not give them my custom for being assholes. That's how freedom and liberty work, you authoritarian dickweed.
The real problem is the monopoly/duopoly bullshit that regulatory capture and other shady practices have landed us with. Deal with that problem and all the others go the fuck away out of necessity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @05:33AM (16 children)
Utility is a natural monopoly. No need for regulatory capture.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @05:41AM (15 children)
What's this on the bottom of my back? Why, it's my ass.
If you genuinely believe that, you have not a fucking clue the efforts major ISPs go through to make sure they have nothing resembling competition.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:05AM (7 children)
God damn, even for a netizen youre a piece of shit. Citizens united needs to be overturned because you crazy fucks are starting to believe the bullshit. I knew you were a bit of a clueless person, but wow. Now you're just openly an advocate of censorship. Doubtful you have the brain cells to comprehend, and i realize you will argue this as a 1st amendment right. Moron of the 13th degree.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:07AM (6 children)
I openly advocate liberty. Without the right to be an asshole, you have none.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:22AM (3 children)
You're not capable of understanding liberty. You start from some very simple premises and then stop. You are a low grade useful idiot and you are helping push forth a fascist society. This is made more tragic by the fact you believe you are supporting liberty. Sorry cuck, the elites have seeded you with their antichrist baby and left you at the altar.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:54AM (2 children)
You try so hard only to fail so miserably. Poor little AC, you have my pity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @07:27AM
Aww, you're such a sweet guy. I'm glad I've gotten to know you over these past few years. If only the country had more true patriots like you! I will sleep well tonight knowing that TMB is looking over me.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:34PM
You don't have to try at all.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @02:24PM (1 child)
No you don't. You openly advocate for fascism. Honestly, I don't get why people as ignorant as you are even allowed to vote, you just fuck things up for those of us that actually do value freedom. Corporations are not now nor have they ever been people. Texas doesn't execute them and in no state in the union are they ever sent to prison for engaging in criminal activities. Every once in a very long while one of their executives will be sent to prison, but the penalties they're assessed are pretty small.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 16 2018, @05:40PM
I think you need to look that word up. It most certainly does not mean "individual liberty, even for people you don't like".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:42AM (4 children)
I hated economics, too much bullshit, but it also has some basic sensible notions.
Certain sectors of economy, like utilities, is dominated by scale, leading to monopoly/cartels.
You are an ignorant doofus. Adam Smith warned of monpoly/cartel hundreds of years ago.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:57AM (3 children)
Honey, sweety, darlin, we are quite capable of creating infrastructure that removes that issue. All we have to do is require it and eliminate all contracts and legislation that have gone into creating or strengthening monopoly status.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @07:31AM (2 children)
So, a series of voluntary contracts? Mediation will be done through a variety of free-market enforcers?
GENIUS!
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 15 2018, @02:17PM
LOL, you nailed it. He insists he's not Mr. Vim but I've told him on several occasions his economic "theories" reduce to the same kind of wild-eyed, staring-at-your-left-ear-and-twitching dogmatism.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 16 2018, @05:44PM
You did see the bit where I specifically said do away with exclusive contracts, yes? Rand would hate me for saying that but it's a key part of any well oiled capitalist system.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by exaeta on Sunday July 15 2018, @04:46PM (1 child)
ISPs use techniques like 12 month contracts, arbitration agreements, and hidden fees to displace competition.
We should start by banning long internet contracts and arbitration agreements. (this improves liberty, since we reduce state involvement in enforcing contracts)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 16 2018, @05:45PM
Without real competition it wouldn't help much.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:08AM (12 children)
"ISPs absolutely do and should have that right. And I have the right to not give them my custom for being assholes. That's how freedom and liberty work, you authoritarian dickweed."
So the ISPs should have the right to block stuff, and you should have the right not to give them your business. However, for all practical purposes, no, you don't have that right. Unless you want to stop using the internet or move to another country. Where at best you most likely will get another one to two more ISPs who will fail to live up to your expectations and you are back to nothing.
"The real problem is the monopoly/duopoly bullshit that regulatory capture and other shady practices have landed us with."
This is the correct solution. ISPs IMO should be broken up into common carrier data transit companies, and content/services/hosting providers. The former doesnt anything and doesn't block anything, and is a natural monopoly on last mile. And the latter can be a plethora of competing companies, with low barriers to market entry.
But that isn't what we have, and its not happening anytime soon.
So in the meantime, we have to deal with what we have. And right now what we have is massive vertical telecom oligopoly. And as long as that is what we are stuck with it is wrong to also give them the right to block stuff; while the public has no practical recourse.
"Deal with that problem and all the others go the fuck away out of necessity."
How do we deal with that problem? And how do we solve it without doing something A LOT MORE authoritarian to bring your solution to pass?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:21AM (7 children)
Naw. You don't achieve good ends by doing even more evil; you just make shit even worse. We've got two hundred and change years of fine examples of that ourselves and thousands more outside our borders going back.
If you have a problem, fix that problem instead of piling even more complexity on. Say you have a bugged shared library that's widely used. You can either go around to all the packages that use it and either send out pull requests for a workaround, build packages with a workaround for every package yourself, or you can just fix the module so that nobody has to worry about it ever again. Similar situation here.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:35AM (5 children)
Ah yes, ignore the massive control the oligarchy has over every aspect of your life and believe in some small grassroots campaign! Oh right, they tried that and municipal broadband was struck down over and over. And people such as yourself applauded as you thought a government agency providing a public service was *GASP* socialism! and would bring about the end times.
Fuck you ya jackass, you don't deserve to even post on this site under the guise of a libertarian. You are no libertarian, and if you truly think you are one then you are truly fucking stupid. Like really dumb, you can't get beyond the most simple premises of your ideology.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:48AM (2 children)
You troll so enthusiastically but so weakly. It makes me sad for you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @07:36AM
Well at least it made you sad if not ashamed to be yourself. We'll keep trying but I don't see much hope for you.
I get what is going on, you're riding the outrage wave and trying to spin your own politics inside justified anger. You are the worst but apparently there are enough dissatisfied people around here that will rally to anyone willing to "tell it like it is". You are the Trump if SoylentNews, be proud in your douchery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @02:27PM
You're quite possibly the most ignorant person in the internet if you think that was trolling. Those of us that have the intelligence of actual adults know perfectly well that what you're pushing doesn't work, never has and never will. People are not rational actors and market forces depend upon customers having multiple options, the time to research those options and the ability to switch to a different option that varies from the other available options.
In short, definitely not when it comes to the internet. I only have 1 option for wired broad band because the building I live in only has 1 option. Moving just to get another ISP is absolutely ridiculous.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @05:21PM
For someone who actually trolls with a good % of your posts it is amusing that you apparently dont quite have the definition locked down. It is ok though, nobidy expects much from a jackass. You will never get that gold jacket! Ya jackass
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @07:05PM
Well, a socialist revolution must have a grassroots origin. However, as you seem to imply, we must always be cautious of how the oligarchy will subvert grassroots movements using COINTELPRO techniques. Examples of successful COINTELPRO deployments include Occupy Wall Street and the TEA Party (be sure to understand the early history and involvement of small l libertarians, the kind of believe all immigrants should be welcomed without arbitrary constructs the create classes of illegal immigration ["big government"], before knee-jerking).
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) may in fact be such a COINTELPRO effort deployed against the growing awareness of the inherent contradictions of capitalism and growing sympathy for socialism. (This supports the theory of massive control on the part of the oligarchy.)
Above all else, we need a grassroots movement to at least update our voting system to ensure its democratic execution. This is a goal that the Libertarian Party and the Green Party seem to support, and I would hope that as a practical matter, the Socialist Equality Party would also support. Once we have reasserted democracy, then we will be in a position of power to begin to really fix things.
(Score: 3, Funny) by coolgopher on Sunday July 15 2018, @09:41AM
Except a) some bastards will have linked statically, b) more bastards won't bother to upgrade, and c) poor bastards are stuck with a Docker container they can't upgrade...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:47AM (3 children)
My bad, didn't answer your last question. There are plenty of ways you could go about it; some absolutely vile, some less so. For starters, there are plenty of anti-trust laws on the books that could easily be used to claim authority or you could use the Commerce Clause for something that actually is interstate commerce for a change. Myself, were I Grand High Dictator, I'd forbid and invalidate exclusive contracts, exclusive laws, and exclusive architecture (all architecture going forward should be designed in such a way that multiple providers could easily operate on the same hardware in the area). I'd also require anyone who'd already engaged in such foot the bill for revamping the architecture where needed if they cared to continue operating there. Their option entirely.
You might think this sounds very anti-libertarian but it's really not. Libertarians are not anarchists. There are plenty of laws we're peachy keen with. If what you're doing is no-debate-about-it intended to harm others for your own gain, pretty much nobody is going to say we shouldn't have a law against it. And that's exactly what exclusive contracts and regulatory capture are both designed to do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Sunday July 15 2018, @03:57PM (2 children)
I don't think you can do that - one of the things the Constitution is pretty clear about is that you can't pass a law with consequences for actions in the pass.
Do you want to be a fucking king? Well I suppose the statement Grand High Dictator indicates you aren't saying this is suitable for something like POTUS. But then also it isn't even suitable for the US at all since no retroactive bill would be legal.
What do we do in the US to unfuck it?
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:01PM
That only applies to criminal laws (see Cader v. Bull [wikipedia.org]). And even in criminal cases, it's not absolute.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 16 2018, @05:53PM
Not remotely. I don't even want to admin the site here. I'm sick to death of having responsibility that isn't absolutely necessary for me to take on. That was a "for the sake of argument" clause.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fritsd on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:53AM (2 children)
That's a good point. However:
You are assuming, that you TMB can somehow find out when they're censoring a certain website i.e. are assholes, and choose another ISP when they are not delivering.
If the existing University of Manitoba server with the free downloadable copy of "The Authoritarians" disappears(*) from the Internet (from your ISP's perspective), how would you ever find out?
Better still: if someone makes a new website or web service, say something like "yfitops: better than Spotify and shares more revenue with the artists".
Your ISP blocks it because it is innovative and a competitor to services that pay your ISP. Now monopoly has been locked-in and you'd have to find out by word of mouth that it even exists.
(*) http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ [umanitoba.ca]
(Score: 2) by jcross on Sunday July 15 2018, @01:41PM (1 child)
The way the law is going is probably bad, I won't deny that, but all the handwringing is based on the assumption that the internet has no proper privacy layer. And it doesn't yet (e.g. standard DNS is still travelling in the clear), but it's already a giant stack of protocols and what's one more? This has been needed for a long time, and I think the incipient legal/commercial landscape might be the push required to get mainstream traction for it. Until we deploy a technical solution, we're just taking someone's word for it that our communications are uncensored and private. I doubt anyone here buys that, but I think the general public will assume it until shown otherwise. Why should we stop the law from showing them otherwise?
Here are two of the proposed networking layers I've heard of, there are probably more:
https://www.zerotier.com/ [zerotier.com]
https://www.orchid.com/ [orchid.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @04:19PM
i tend to agree with this notion. the only practical way to deal with the corrupt nature of the world's businesses and governments is to use technology to make these fucks obsolete. it's probably our only hope. to do it faster than the systems of slavery they are building with all their slave trade money, we need to use tech to organize a global effort.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday July 15 2018, @02:30PM (1 child)
Here's the problem with your solution: It in no way matches reality.
Where you live, odds are you have about 2-5 options for Internet connectivity. The players are likely to be (a) a major cable company such as Comcast or Spectrum, (b) a major telecom such as AT&T, and (c) a satellite provider or two with a slow-as-heck uplink.
Now, let's say the government wants to censor a website you like. So they call up their buddies at AT&T, Comcast, Spectrum, and a half-dozen other big ISPs and say "Hey, can you block all traffic to the IPs pointed to by this domain name? We'll give you $X for your trouble. And don't tell anybody you did it." The ISPs will likely say "Sure!", because:
(a) The website in question may not be popular enough that they could even potentially lose more than $X in revenue for blocking that website.
(b) Lots of customers will be pissed, but not pissed enough to leave.
(c) If the ISP I work for censors xyz.com, odds are the other ISPs are also censoring xyz.com. So the pissed off customers who leave my service will be balanced out by the pissed off customers leaving my competitors' service to try me out.
(d) If the ISP doesn't do it, somebody is sure to say, in public, "Pure-As-Snow ISP, Inc is allowing TERRORISTS to get their message out!" which will be a big PR hassle at best.
So, even if you decide that you're really going to change ISPs, and go through the time, hassle, and expense of doing so, you'll find that your favorite website is still blocked.
And of course after a few dozen rounds of this, I'm sure folks at both the government and the ISPs will make efforts to automate this exchange, to save time and valuable staff resources. So now at the press of a button, some boffin can decide on a whim what you can't see (not "aren't allowed to see", but "cannot see", and you can be certain that workarounds like Tor are first on their blocklist). And with no regulatory changes and nobody acting against their self-interest and no public knowledge beyond "Hey I can't see my favorite website anymore!", you've now built a Great Firewall of America.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @08:13PM
VPN
That's enterprise, and will always be excluded from manipulation. You have execs (1st class citizens) that require business connections in residential areas. Nothing new about it.
The ISPs can't see jack diddly shit to block anything, without hugely expensive realtime deep packet inspection on heavily encrypted connections with multiple layers involved.
Only drawback is that you pay more for the connection, but freedom these days is only available to the upper classes anyways.
All of my packets leaving my residence exit my office before going on the Internet, and that is a direct tap not monitored or manipulated. All the really interesting activity exits northern Europe, and is sent back to me across two VPNs.
Comcast can burn in hell and they will never succeed in controlling my packets. They are forced to be a common carrier.
-- ediii
(Score: 5, Insightful) by srobert on Sunday July 15 2018, @02:42PM
Competition for ISP's sounds great. Now I'll go to the website of my ISP's competitor to see what kind of deal I can get ...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday July 15 2018, @03:43PM (1 child)
Maybe ISPs should have the right to censor. But they better be very careful about exercising it. For an example why, consider Prodigy. They censored content, ostensibly to keep everyone safe from the naughty bits of the Internet. Then when little Johnny saw something inappropriate, his mommy sued Prodigy, and won. Prodigy tried to argue that they were just a common carrier, not responsible for the content. Everyone was reminded that they had made themselves responsible, and they had no good answer.
However, you took the discussion off track. The Right to Free Speech does not include or imply the Right to Censor! That is a totally upsidedown interpretation. Whatever rights censorship is based on, it's _not_ Free Speech. And this Supreme Court nominee showed what a bad choice he is by using such nutty pretzel logic to claim otherwise. Not that we didn't already know that, but every additional bit of evidence could help sway a few more Congress critters against him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @08:02PM
you misunderstood what the First Amendment means. The Government doesn't have the Right to Censor. The People can censor each other all they want, if they manage to. And since for some reason (*cough* money *cough*) companies are now People and are in a position where they can censor...