Leftist Agenda Behind FCC Net Neutrality

John R. Houk

© March 19, 2015

In case you live under an Internet rock the Dem majority on the FCC voted in favor 3-2 for a policy dubbed Net Neutrality on February 26, 2015. As much as the term “Net Neutrality” sounds like a good thing for We the American People, it is actually Obama-Government-Speak to regulate the Internet apart from the real neutrality involved with a Market Economy.

The commission, following a contentious meeting, voted 3-2 to adopt its so-called net neutrality plan -- a proposal that remained secret in the run-up to the final vote.

On its surface, the plan is aimed at barring service providers from creating paid "fast lanes" on the Internet, which consumer advocates and Internet companies worry would edge out cash-strapped startups and smaller Internet-based businesses. Chairman Tom Wheeler said it would ensure an "open, unfettered network."

But the rules, more broadly, would put the Internet in the same regulatory camp as the telephone by classifying it like a public utility, meaning providers like Comcast or Verizon would have to act in the "public interest" when providing a mobile connection to your home or phone. (FCC approves sweeping Internet regulation plan, Obama accused of meddling; By FoxNews.com with contribution by AP; Fox News – Politics; 2/26/15)

For all the promises from the Dems and Left Wing Dem proponents of Net Neutrality rules made by a bureaucracy rather than Congress of freer and fairer usage by consumers, the reality is now the government can control what is read or seen by rules and regulations. Does that sound lie Net Neutrality and Internet Freedom?

Newsmax shares the wisdom of Founding Father President George Washington on government regulation:

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it."

Here’s a tidbit of info that should reveal to you exactly the untrustworthiness of Obama, the Dems and any Left Wing agenda in general. Leftist New World Order dreamer George Soros has used nearly $200 MILLION bucks in contributions to Net Neutrality government-speak Leftist groups lobbying the FCC to basically usurp the Internet from a Free Market operated Internet.

Unless Congress gets involved, the FCC just made laws without Congressional enactment or oversight in the form of regulation rules. This is what an Obama/Dem controlled government now is capable of even though FCC Net Neutrality promoters deny such government tentacles will come into effect:

* Regulations give power to lobbyists and give rise to ‘regulatory capture’ as each corporation will ‘game’ the hundreds of pages of regulations to their pecuniary benefit

* Regulations will chill competition and make it harder, not easier for new entrants, who will face daunting regulatory compliance costs

* Regulations open a Pandora’s Box. The FCC can regulate pricing, access, limit the ability of new innovative services to try different business models

* FCC could impose a ‘fairness doctrine’ on the internet (as they once did on radio) and regulate content.

* FCC could impose price regimes and pricing controls as well as controls on terms of service, as title II allows, adding to overall costs on business

* FCC would likely end up putting more taxes and fees on consumers, just as you get on phone bills (Derived from: Internet Freedom Comes from Markets Not Government; By Freedoms Truth (Diary); Red State; 2/26/15 02:17 PM)

The Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) has a fund raising email that is actually quite informative. I like to make sure you are aware of the fund raising intent of these cross posts to save you a bit of time if you really don’t to donate or would like to but your budget prevents such a donation. So just be aware that the links that say something “Fax Blast” should be utilized if you decide that you are capable of a donation. The CFIF email is about the involvement of George Soros’ money in this fake Net Neutrality rule making by the FCC.

Ergo be cognizant that a man - George Soros - who hates the American Liberties derived from the Bill of Rights (1^st ten Amendments of the U.S. Constitution) is spending a portion of his billions of dollars on promoting the Leftist agenda behind the FCC regulation rules.

Further Reading:

FCC Approves Socialism for Broadband – Townhall.com 2/27/15

GOP Blasts New FCC Rules as 'Trojan Horse' for Internet Takeover – Newsmax 2/26/15

Obama Helps FCC Pass Net Neutrality… Find Out What that Could Do to Freedom on the Internet – American Prosperity News Network

Could Net Neutrality Ruin the Internet? – Tom’s Guide: Tech for Real Life 2/25/15

FCC Member Blasts Upcoming Net Neutrality Vote and WH Influence – Newsmax 2/25/15

VIDEO: FCC's Ajit Pai: Net Neutrality is a "Solution That Won't Work to a Problem That Doesn't Exist"

Published by ReasonTV

Published on Feb 25, 2015

Net Neutrality is "a solution that won't work to a problem that doesn't exist," says Ajit Pai, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Pai is an outspoken (sic) opponent of expanding government control of the internet, including FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's plan to regulate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) under the same Title II rules that are used to govern telephone-service providers as public utilities. Under current FCC regulations, ISPs are considered providers of "information services" and subject to essentially no federal regulation.

He is also sharply critical of President Barack Obama's very public push to influence policy at the FCC, which is technically an independent agency. Last year, it was widely believed that Wheeler, a former head of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, would not push for Title II. Pai calls the president's actions—which included "creating a YouTube video of with very specific prescriptions as to what this agency should do"—unprecedented in his experience. Coupled with the fact that "the agency suddenly chang[ed] course from where it was to mimic the president’s plan," says Pai, "suggests that the independence of the agency has been compromised to some extent."

The FCC is scheduled to vote Thursday, February 26 on Wheeler's plan.

Pai explains his opposition to Title II reclassifcation (sic) to Reason's Nick Gillespie. Citing independent studies of American competitiveness and booming investment in telecommunications infrastructure compared to Europe, Pai argues that consumers are thriving and the market is doing its job.

Regulating the internet like a utility company, says Pai, will threaten the kind of innovation we've taken for granted over the past 20 years. "Do you trust the federal government to make the Internet ecosystem more vibrant than it is today?" Pai asks. "Can you think of any regulated utility like the electric company or water company that is as innovative as the Internet?"

Runs about 30 minutes.

Produced by Todd Krainin. Cameras by Meredith Bragg and Krainin.

Go to http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/02/25/fccs-ajit-pai-on-net-neutrality-a-soluti for downloadable versions and interview transcript. Subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube Channel to receive notifications when new material goes live.

JRH 3/19/15

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George Soros Tells Obama to Take Over the Internet

By Jeffrey L. Mazzella

Sent: 3/17/2015 8:38 PM

Sent via GOP USA as an ad

Sponsored ad sent by CFIF

"New Internet Regulations Finally Released By The Federal Communications Commission Make 46 References To A Group Funded By Billionaire George Soros And Co-Founded By A Neo-Marxist." -The Daily Caller

But please... keep reading... because what you're about to see may be the most shocking thing that you've read in years. Almost two weeks after voting on secret regulations to facilitate Barack Hussein Obama's takeover of the Internet, Barack Obama's FCC finally released 400 pages of these so-called Net Neutrality regulations to the public and it's far worse than we could have ever imagined.

Based on references in the regulations alone, it is clear that Barack Obama's takeover of the Internet was actually written -- in large part -- by radical Marxist-leaning organizations; and it has also come to light that radical socialist-leaning organizations funded by Billionaire Socialist George Soros and others have spent approximately 200 MILLION DOLLARS ($200,000,000.00) to make Barack Obama's tyrannical and dictatorial takeover of the Internet a reality.

And we have only one hope of stopping this master plan to transform the United States into a socialist utopia. As of this writing, Representative Marsha Blackburn and 43 other Republicans have signed onto legislation (H.R. 1212: The Internet Freedom Act) that will totally reverse this dictatorial Obama-FCC dictate... but this legislation is stalled in committee because John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are in no rush to bring it to the floor of the House and the Senate for a vote... and that needs to change right now.                                        

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Member of the Republican Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. Or alternatively, send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Republican Member of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.
Send My Blast Faxes

 Millions of dollars of funding from Socialist Billionaire George Soros? ... Neo-Marxists calling the shots? ... While it may sound like a conspiracy theory, it is all, unfortunately, true... As a matter of fact, it's actually much worse than you may think.

The organization whose net neutrality arguments are cited at least 46 times in the Obama-FCC dictatorial regulations is ironically named Free Press. Free Press is funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundation and other left-wing groups like the Ford Foundation; and it was founded by Robert McChesney, an avowed Socialist who is presently a communications professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

And to McChesney so-called Net Neutrality is simply a means to an end. Specifically, it's the first step to be taken to fundamentally transform the United States into a socialist tyranny.

Don't take our word for it. Read what McChesney says about it for yourself:

   According to DiscovertheNetworks.org, McChesney "told the website SocialistProject that 'unless you make significant changes in the media, it will be vastly more difficult to have a revolution.'"

       Back in 2009, McChesney wrote that "any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself... to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles... We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it."

       DiscovertheNetworks.org again: "In a November 2000 Monthly Review article titled 'Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle,' he [McChesney] wrote: 'Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.'"

       Phil Kerpen, president of the free-market group American Commitment says that Chesney's goal is "to empower the federal government to ration and apportion Internet bandwidth as it sees fit, and to thereby control the Internet's content."

       And McChesney said, back in 2009, when the concept of Net Neutrality was focused on more traditional means of communication: "At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control." 

Make no mistake, so-called Net Neutrality was always about giving the government total control over the media and there's only one way to stop it now that Barack Obama's FCC has essentially decreed it -- by dictatorial fiat -- to be the law of the land. The Republican-controlled Congress must bring H.R. 1212 to the floor of the House of the Senate and pass it TODAY.

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Member of the Republican Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. Or alternatively, send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Republican Member of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.
Send My Blast Faxes

What Would You Say If The Government Had The Authority To Order Your Local AM Radio Station To Stop Broadcasting The Rush Limbaugh Show?

If everything we have said thus far sounds far-fetched, consider just one example of what is in these 400 pages of Obama-FCC regulations.

Here's what the FCC says about First Amendment rights in Section 544:

"The rules we adopt today do not curtail broadband providers' free speech rights. When engaged in broadband Internet access services, broadband providers are not speakers, but rather serve as conduits for the speech of others."

Here's a question: Do local AM radio stations not "serve as conduits for the speech of others." Come to think of it, is your radio not a "conduit" for the speech of others?

Now, let's be clear. These 400 pages of Obama-FCC regulations only apply to the Internet (at least for now), but the analogy should serve to illustrate EXACTLY what Barack Obama, George Soros and the FCC are thinking when it comes to your First Amendment rights.

If you're not a "speaker," the First Amendments doesn't apply to you. And who determines whether or not you're a "speaker" Why... none other than Barack Hussein Obama.

The thinking is straight out of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Barack Obama doesn't need to control your speech if he can control the "conduits" of your speech.

And that's exactly what he intends to do. If you like your Internet, you can keep your Internet and if you like your First Amendment rights, you can keep your First Amendment rights... You can say whatever you want but lots of luck when it comes to anyone actually hearing what you have to say or you hearing what others have to say to you because Barack Obama will control the "conduits" of speech.

Rush Limbaugh perhaps said it best:

"[D]o you want the people who gave you ObamaCare running your Internet service? Do you want them in charge of what you can get and when you can get it and how much it's gonna cost you?"

If you want the United States to remain a free country, the time to take action is now.                                   

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Member of the Republican Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. Or alternatively, send your urgent Blast Faxes to each and every Republican Member of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.
Send My Blast Faxes

Yours In Freedom

Jeffrey L. Mazzella

Center for Individual Freedom
815 King Street
Suite 303
Alexandria, VA 22314
Phone: 703-535-5836
Fax: 703-535-5838
_____________________________

Leftist Agenda Behind FCC Net Neutrality

John R. Houk

© March 19, 2015

_____________________________

George Soros Tells Obama to Take Over the Internet

© 2015 Center for Individual Freedom. All rights reserved.

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The Center seeks to focus public, legislative and judicial attention on the rule of law as embodied in the federal and state constitutions. Those fundamental documents both express and safeguard society’s commitment to individual freedom, not only through specific protections such as the Bill of Rights, but also through structural protections that constrain and disperse governmental authority.

In addition, the Center seeks to foster intellectual discourse by bringing together independent thinkers to examine broad-ranging issues of individual freedom in our global society. While the Center is decidedly for individual freedom, scholars and legal authorities who share that same basic philosophy differ as to the application of those principles in the complex world in which we live. The Center strives for balanced debate that encourages conflict resolution where there is tension between the rights of individuals and the requirements of government, as well as between individuals.

The Center engages in three distinct but complementary activities: … READ THE REST

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Government Regulation of Net Neutrality Can’t be Good

John R. Houk

© December 3, 2010

The concept of Net Neutrality at face value is something that any Internet addict as I am would embrace as the last frontier of freedom in the 21^st century.

The difficulty I have run into recently is that there appears to be a huge chunk of deception around the term “Net Neutrality”. There are the people that say Net Neutrality is an unregulated Internet free of government tentacles governed by the principles of Free Market competition. The idea of Free Market competition would be that Internet Service Providers (ISP) will charge based on the concept of supply and demand. The supply would be the Internet and the demand would be the consumers wanting availability to the Internet. In the days when the demand was smaller there was not a lot of options in creating markets to create diverse kinds of demand. Because of this the Internet has been neutral treating all users with equal access. The only market creation dial-up and broadband access to the Internet. Dial-up is typically slower and broadband is typically faster. The greater the demand for faster broadband became the first hurdle of ISPs to raise the price in a static market available to all.

At broadband’s first arrival its cost was a bit more than most consumers were willing to pay. However, the problems inherent in dial-up were more than just a slower speed. Dial-up encounter situations in which connections were dropped from the increasing growth of users on a dial-up line. Users were getting bumped from their connection because of the number of people online. As music and movie downloads became more popular (Does anyone remember Napster freedom?) it was discovered that slow dial-up was inadequate for downloading. Something might take a half-hour, an hour or hours to download. In some cases the download was interrupted by the evil of being bumped off line.

Demand then became greater for broadband. The increasing popularity of broadband made it affordable to many relegating dial-up to dirt cheap as the dial-up became less and less in demand. Then other market possibilities were developed by ISPs. High speed Internet began to be divided into slower high speed to faster high speed brackets. ISPs began to exclude competitors from what might take away from money making projects personal to an individual ISP.

This kind of market creation is the very thing that has made the term Net Neutrality a stinker.

The Obama Administration and BHO’s appointed Chairman of the FCC Julius Genachowski believe that the Internet should be regulated to keep Net Neutrality. Is government regulation good for Internet Net Neutrality? The best neutral analysis I have read about Genachowski’s Net Neutrality rules he wishes to implement have pluses and minuses:

Today, the FCC's chairman will deliver a speech essentially outlining the agency's stance on net neutrality—and making an exciting push in its favor. The news isn't entirely positive though—net neutrality might be preserved, but it'll be expensive.

FCC chief Julius Genachowski plans to back new government rules that would prohibit your ISP from blocking legal content. That means that Comcast, for example, couldn't block Netflix, in an attempt to bolster its own streaming video offerings. The Washington Post is also reporting that Genachowski's proposal would block Comcast from even slowing down Netflix. So, basically, these are the prime tenets of net neutrality. So this is good news! No anti-competitive behavior from ISPs.

But.

In what appears to be a pretty major concession to the companies carrying your data, Genachowski's speech will give the thumbs up to tiered internet service, establishing cheap-o plans for those leaning most on email and other data-light activities—and potentially gouging bandwidth-hungry users. Under this rule, ISPs would be able to restructure their business along the lines of cell carriers—buy more to get more.

Interestingly (and to some, disappointingly), the FCC has chosen not to throw down and impose its sole authority to regulate the internet by reclassifying its legal status as something similar to telephone lines. It's a weaker approach—surely one easier to swallow for the ISPs—and one that'll open up the push to attacks from courts and an anti-regulatory lawmakers.

As well, Genachowski will support separate, non-public internet channels—what many feared would become "second internets"—but says they must be justified to the FCC and shown to not undermine the real internet.

For wireless broadband—the frontier of the speedy net—things are a bit murkier. Genachowski says there are "differences between fixed and mobile broadband," and will "address anticompetitive or anticonsumer behavior as appropriate." Whatever "differences" and "as appropriate" means remains to be seen, although he's still promising a basic ban against wireless broadband providers blocking rival content entirely. But weasel terms in policy making are never good news.

… (The FCC's Net Neutrality Announcement: The Good, The Bad, and What It Means for You, Sam Biddle)

The neutral analysis seems to point out that FCC regulation is not so neutral for the Internet. The “preserved by expensive” explanation should be read more like, ‘preserved with some qualifications and expensive.’

Biddle’s explanation of preserved is that an ISP will be prohibited from blocking content from a rival ISP or a rival ISP’s subsidiary. However, data equality comes with broadband impositions of tiers that relate to how slow or how fast data is streamed to your connection. It sounds a bit like a compromise of equal access for Internet users but the users have to pay more for faster data such as data downloads or perhaps gaming. From a market stand point that really doesn’t bug me since I am a Net surfer for information more than downloading data or a data streams. I can see how gamers or those dependent on Entertainment downloads such as movies might be a bit disgruntled with institutionalizing higher priced tiers to effectively acquire the desired result.

My greatest concern with Government regulation of the Internet is the end of real Net Neutrality. Leftists and Democrats have been trying for a decade to end Conservative editorializing via Conservative blogging and Conservative Internet News. The Left has a near stranglehold on the Mainstream Media (MSM) of the traditional sort: Newspapers and Television. The Left realizes that Conservative resistance on the Internet has become a major cog in exposing Left Wing transformation that alters American society from its Christian/Founding Father roots by chipping away at the Original Intent of the U.S. Constitution. Silencing the Right greatly slows down the Left Wing agenda of making Biblical Christianity irrelevant and making the State the focal point of every American citizen’s life rather than allowing individuals to be involved in the decisions of their life.

The irony for me is that it seems that the Left is the prime mover against Government regulation within the concept of Net Neutrality.

Here are a couple Net Neutrality articles that I sense express my concerns of the entrance of Government regulation into the Internet: EDITORIAL: Wave goodbye to Internet freedom and "Fake Net Neutrality" Scheme Threatens Internet Freedom.

JRH 12/3/10