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The president wants to overturn state laws that restrict cities from building their own Internet networks.


January 13, 2015 President Obama will travel to Cedar Falls, Iowa, on Wednesday to tout the ability of local governments to provide high-speed Internet to their residents.

And he will urge the Federal Communications Commission to strike down state laws around the country that restrict the ability of cities to build their own broadband networks. The move is likely to draw fire from Republicans, who argue that states should be free to set their own policies—including restrictions on local governments.


"Laws in 19 states—some specifically written by special interests trying to stifle new competitors—have held back broadband access and, with it, economic opportunity," the White House wrote in a fact sheet. "Today, President Obama is announcing a new effort to support local choice in broadband, formally opposing measures that limit the range of options available to communities to spur expanded local broadband infrastructure, including ownership of networks."

Telecom and cable companies have been lobbying for the state laws, arguing that it's not fair for them to have to compete with government-owned Internet providers. The companies claim the city projects discourage private investment and are often expensive failures. House Republicans passed legislation last year to protect the state laws from FCC action.

But the White House argues that many Americans lack any option for fast, affordable Internet service from private providers. Some cities have built their own networks offering speeds 100 times faster than the national average.

In a video released Tuesday, Obama explains that Cedar Falls, a city of just 40,000 people, provides broadband speeds that rival what is available in Seoul, Hong Kong, and Paris.

"The reason they can compete with these other cities is citizens got together and made the investment to bring competition in and make sure Internet speeds were just as fast there as anywhere else," Obama said. "That gives them a huge competitive advantage. It means a business can come in and locate there knowing that they can hook into world markets, products, services, anywhere around the globe."

Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C., filed petitions last year asking the FCC to nullify their states' laws limiting municipal broadband projects. The Obama administration plans to file a letter urging the FCC to side with the local governments.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has already indicated he is likely to strike down the state limitations. "I believe that it is in the best interests of consumers and competition that the FCC exercises its power to preempt state laws that ban or restrict competition from community broadband," he said last year.

It's not the first time that Obama has waded into a debate at the FCC, an independent agency that is not bound to comply with his wishes. In November, he urged the agency to enact the "strongest possible" net-neutrality regulations to ensure users can access whatever online content they choose.

In addition to asking the FCC to strike down the state limits, the White House plans to host a summit of mayors and county commissioners who want to build their own broadband projects. And the Commerce Department will provide resources and tools to help local officials get the projects off the ground.

The White House also plans to create a Broadband Opportunity Council to examine government regulations that may be holding back broadband deployment. The Agriculture Department plans to relaunch a program to provide loans to rural broadband providers.


http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/obama-backs-government-run-internet-20150113




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While being top economy the US sure has a shit Internet infrastructure, maybe with some competition from the government providers start providing a better service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds

Just like with 0bamacare does?

Don't know how that works.

In my country there are lots of villages or places in big towns with free Internet access, and we rank pretty good on that wikipedia list.

I don't live in one of those places, but where I live we have connections up to 400 mbps and they are very stable.

The Net is more than a luxury, it will become a right. :)

So you mean you need a government body of unelected shadowy bureaucrats to give you that right, until some other unelected shadowy bureaucrats will negotiate the fine tuning of that right in the future, for your own good?

You've heard of project loon from google and other similar project from facebook: free internet for the whole globe via flying drones or balloons. Those are US companies. Now would you need to give up your (wherever you live) rights to the US government so you could be monitored online for your own good because you will be using a US utility service?

That is why I included that giant trojan horse image. We may not agree on much but... Look at the big picture. What cameron is pushing for, for example. Nothing is done in a vacuum at that level.

:)

Dude, I'm not from US, I don't really care.

But I pay taxes, it's not just for some "shadowy bureaucrats" have nice vacations, we must have some good services in return...

How adorable you think you're not already being monitored! And you realize they're talking about local (city) networks, not some ISP run by the federal government, right? Because in your haste to make another anti-0b4m4 post, your representation of what is happening and what is actually happening are not the same.

Aren't r3publ1c4ns about local authority? Cuz you're actually arguing against local authority. The laws in question that have been enacted at the state level restrict the rights of people at an even more local level (city government) to band together and create their own network. How droll!

They already have a government run internet. It's called .gov.

:)

No questions asked. Not my problem. Vacations are good.

I understand.

0b4m4
Zero x b x 4 x m x 4 = Zero. Yep. That sums him perfectly  ;)

You can freely go back in time and scan all my posts regarding the lack of freedom (total monitoring of the internet, security). I am not a C3PObl1c4ns.

Some people believe, maybe you, that everything needs to be heavily centralized for progress to flourish. Only a few chosen intellectuals should allow the mass to be creative, under strict supervision. That is the vision of that failed equation, also called 0b4m4. Nothing should be done without a heavy dose of a big gov magic dust.

I do not.

Decentralization and a bubbling of super creative minds is what push people forward. It is the same phenomenon that pushes Nature forward and adapt.

0b4m4 is by definition an evolution dead end. Zero.

On a personal level I think the dude looks charming and he is maybe a great dad. I am not a big fan of his socialistic egocentric narcissistic narrow minded vision, that is all...

 :)

Locally-run internet providers might provide better service and quality at lower prices then centralized corporations.

Obviously, that is evil and every freedom-loving citizen must rally to the support of laws that ban such horrible abominations.

US "Libertarianism" in a nutshell.

It's worse in Canada we have a few companies and they monopolize it and charge premiums
Combined with cell phone service and you have a giant rip off.
However unlike the US some cities and municipalities do make their own lines and get fast internet O-Net etc.
Newmount in the USA
So this seems like a good enough idea (Subject name had me thinking of some sort of Skynet though)

That's a great response to nothing I said. Let me simplify it for you so you don't get distracted by all the deprecating leet-speak. You're advocating for laws that restrict freedom by opposing the president on this one. That's quite contrary to conservative values, so you're selling out your self-proclaimed identity and values just to oppose the president.

I'm pretty libertarian, and I think this is a great idea...

This won't remove your ability to retain your current ISP, but it will open the door to allow private networks to be created...

I imagine what you're concerned about is the local government having the ability to inspect or record each packet of data you transmit as they would then be the "ISP." It's not quite like that, this will allow private companies to build new networks and the local government network won't be the only game in town...

Nah, he just doesn't like it cuz it came from Obama, even though it's an action in defense of the traditional conservative value of local autonomy.

Did the GOP cave on net neutrality?


http://hotair.com/archives/2015/01/16/did-the-gop-cave-on-net-neutrality/


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I hope you'll give me the authorization of spamming my own thread with unrelated C3POBL1C4NS links? I take it as a yes!

 :D ;D :D

Permission granted.

Naturally, 1 world, 1 government and 1 internet!

Thank you!  :)

remember when liberals were pro freedom yeah I do

I do.

Anyone else?

Raise your hand if you remember how cool it felt to fight for the good cause of free speech and defenseless people around the world, as a liberal.

Now: "Hey! We can't do that anymore, because booooosh!

 :D

Well if you look at liberals of the 1800/1700 hundreds you will see they were more pro freedom then now. maybe open up a history book buddy. ;)

Exactly. Thank you for making my point even clearer.

Although, if you define liberals of the 21st century as the legitimate children of the democrats of the 1700s, I don't believe they would want to accept such a heavy inheritance. Like the invention of the KKK, or more recently defending "Birth of a Nation" as one of Hollywood's best picture. Ever.





On the evening of March 21, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson attended a special screening at the White House of THE BIRTH OF A NATION, a film directed by D.W. Griffith and based on THE CLANSMAN, a novel written by Wilson's good friend Thomas Dixon. The film presented a distorted portrait of the South after the Civil War, glorifying the Ku Klux Klan and denigrating blacks. It falsified the period of Reconstruction by presenting blacks as dominating Southern whites (almost all of whom are noble in the film) and sexually forcing themselves upon white women. The Klan was portrayed as the South's savior from this alleged tyranny. Not only was this portrayal untrue, it was the opposite of what actually happened. During Reconstruction, whites dominated blacks and assaulted black women. The Klan was primarily a white terrorist organization that carried out hundreds of murders.

After seeing the film, an enthusiastic Wilson reportedly remarked: "It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." African-American audiences openly wept at the film's malicious portrayal of blacks, while Northern white audiences cheered. The film swept the nation. Riots broke out in major cities (Boston and Philadelphia, among others), and it was denied release in many other places (Chicago, Ohio, Denver, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Minneapolis). Gangs of whites roamed city streets attacking blacks. In Lafayette, Indiana, a white man killed a black teenager after seeing the movie. Thomas Dixon reveled in its triumph. "The real purpose of my film," he confessed gleefully, "was to revolutionize Northern audiences that would transform every man into a Southern partisan for life."

As the NAACP fought against the film and tried unsuccessfully to get it banned, the Ku Klux Klan successfully used it to launch a massive recruiting campaign that would bring in millions of members. Griffith later regretted the racial prejudice that his film promoted. He tried to make amends by making INTOLERANCE, a film attacking race prejudice. But INTOLERANCE never approached the success of THE BIRTH OF A NATION.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_birth.html


 * * * * * * * *

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States from 1913 to 1921 and leader of the Progressive Movement. To date the only U.S. President to have held a Ph.D., he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910. He was Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913, and led his Democratic Party to win control of both the White House and Congress in 1912.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson



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Who needs to open up a history book made out of dead trees in 2015 when knowledge is but one google/bing/duck search away  ;)

FCC chief prepares to overrule state Web laws



The head of the Federal Communications Commissionis urging his fellow commissioners to block state laws that would prevent cities and towns from building out their own government-run Internet services.

Chairman Tom Wheeler this week will circulate a draft decision to nullify laws in Tennessee and North Carolina, after receiving a request from towns in each of those states.

Cities across the country “should be able to make their own decisions about building the networks they need to thrive,” Wheeler said in a statement on Monday.

“After looking carefully at petitions by two community broadband providers asking the FCC to preempt provisions of state laws preventing expansion of their very successful networks, I recommend approval by the commission so that these two forward-thinking cities can serve the many citizens clamoring for a better broadband future.”
The move to preempt state laws limiting municipal broadband was long expected, and comes amid a broader effort by Wheeler to exert federal authority over people’s access to the Internet.



http://thehill.com/policy/technology/231422-fcc-will-move-to-block-state-laws

A victory for local autonomy. States want to be free of federal government restrictions in the same way local governments want to be free from state government restrictions.

The fine print my friend. Always the fine print. I remember how amazing 0bamacare was supposed to be one day, how those billions for shovel ready jobs would boost the economy, not oil or shale gas, how all those billions in green energy would brighten our future, etc. Let's see how many pages of new rules will liberate the local autonomy first. Rules written by unknown faceless bureaucrats once more.

I'll have a wait and see approach, as everything this government and its henchmen say has been lies or full scale doublespeak, dangling a shining object in the face of the gullible 0bomatons, until the next crisis...

 :)

FEC latest front in Democrats’ multi-pronged assault on internet freedom



The internet is under assault. At the Federal Communications Commission, regulators are hard at work crafting a plan that would turn the internet into a taxable utility. In Congress, lawmakers are determining whether and how best to tax the sales that occur on the internet. And over at the Federal Election Commission, the regulation of political speech that takes place on the internet is back on the table.

In October, then FEC Vice Chairwoman Ann M. Ravel promised that she would renew a push to regulate online political speech following a deadlocked commission vote that would have subjected political videos and blog posts to the reporting and disclosure requirements placed on political advertisers who broadcast on television. On Wednesday, she will begin to make good on that promise.

“Some of my colleagues seem to believe that the same political message that would require disclosure if run on television should be categorically exempt from the same requirements when placed in the Internet alone,” Ravel said in an October statement. “As a matter of policy, this simply does not make sense.”

“In the past, the Commission has specifically exempted certain types of Internet communications from campaign finance regulations,” she lamented. “In doing so, the Commission turned a blind eye to the Internet’s growing force in the political arena.”

On Wednesday, the FEC will hold a public hearing on a variety of rules that are subject to amendment so that they can comport with the Supreme Court’s ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC. On that docket will be issues relating to disclosure requirements, earmarking, and a variety of other rules. But the FEC will also hear comments regarding now FEC Chairwoman Ravel’s preference that the commission revisit a 2006 rule that exempts blogs and other online political speech from regulation.


Under a 2006 FEC rule, free political videos and advocacy sites have been free of regulation in a bid to boost voter participation in politics. Only Internet videos that are placed for a fee on websites, such as the Washington Examiner, are regulated just like normal TV ads.

Ravel’s statement suggests that she would regulate right-leaning groups like America Rising that posts anti-Democrat YouTube videos on its website.

FEC Chairman Lee E. Goodman, a Republican, said if regulation extends that far, then anybody who writes a political blog, runs a politically active news site or even chat room could be regulated. He added that funny internet campaigns like “Obama Girl,” and “Jib Jab” would also face regulations.


“Regulation of the internet has not gone away inside the commission, it has just gone underground,” FEC Commissioner and former Chairman Lee Goodman told HotAir. “Three Democratic commissioners continue to vote to maintain regulatory authority over internet commentary in a case-by-case basis in the enforcement process. That’s not very transparent to the American people. That’s why I have an obligation to call them out.”

If this sounds alarmist to you, it should. Some fear that subjecting online posts or videos that mention a candidate’s name and remain accessible to the public 60 days out from an election to the disclosure requirements imposed on political advertisers would effectively censor political speech.

Even those who cannot imagine this constitutionally dubious attack on free speech moving forward are leery of Ravel and her priorities.

“Before Ms. Ravel became chairwoman, the California commissioners investigated whether there was a problem with so-called dark money on the Internet,” Ronald Rotunda wrote in The Wall Street Journal in November. “We held hearings, and the bipartisan group of commissioners found nothing warranting regulation. But Ms. Ravel insisted that there was a problem, and claimed that bloggers admitted to her that they receive undisclosed funding from partisan interests.”

“That sounded ominous, and reporters asked her who these bloggers were. She refused to identify them but asserted, ‘I suspect it is fairly common,’” he continued.


If it is so common, why was the commission unable to discover these bloggers? If these people told Ms. Ravel that they are accepting bribes from others interested in issues or candidates, why did she withhold the information from the rest of the commission? In the end Democrats and Republicans on the FPPC objected to her proposal, and it never came to a vote.

The regulation Ms. Ravel first proposed in California is dangerous on many levels. Dictators in Iran, China, North Korea and elsewhere want to censor the Internet. If California or the FEC regulate Internet political speech, we can be sure that these dictators would justify their own political censorship by pointing to the United States. This would cripple U.S. efforts to protect Internet freedom.



In a response, Ravel insisted that Rotunda’s accusations were a “distorted mischaracterization” of her earlier statement. She added that having a public hearing on this matter, like that which will occur tomorrow, is the one of the FEC’s responsibilities to the public.

Ravel has promised that she would lead a review of the guidelines that exempt internet posts and videos from FEC regulation, and it is probably prudent to take her at her word.


http://hotair.com/archives/2015/02/10/fec-latest-front-in-democrats-multi-pronged-assault-on-internet-freedom/



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VPN services will be next, "for the children". Then the logical conclusion... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument)

Right, I forgot conservatives are only in favor of local autonomy when the issue is right, not as a blanket rule in favor of freedom.

Right, I do not forget liberalism is only in favor of a massive control of local economies, micro managing the issues the free thinkers have left, always under a stealth blanket of rules so the peasants can't see or vote against them until it's too late.

Exactly what is happening with this so called "net neutrality", doublespeak 101. Just like using the word "freedom", not knowing its true meaning...

 :)

How is the federal government stopping the state government from restricting city-level local autonomy "massive control of local economies?" Cities build local networks, cable companies lobby state governments to ban them because they compete with cable monopolies in the area, state governments do, thus instituting massive control of local economies. Feds pass a law saying states can't restrict the freedom of cities to build their own networks, fixing a problem the state governments created in the first place, and yet it's the feds who are massively controlling local economies? How?