[MLB-WIRELESS] Fw: Lizard replies to ACLU demanding more Internet regulation
Clae
clae at tpg.com.au
Fri Jul 19 06:24:52 EST 2002
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan at well.com>
>To: <politech at politechbot.com>
>Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 4:11 PM
>Subject: FC: Lizard replies to ACLU demanding more Internet regulation
> > [Original ACLU press release follows. --Declan]
Worth a read.
> >
>> ---
>>
>> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 09:44:05 -0700
> > From: lizard <lizard at mrlizard.com>
> > To: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
>>
>> Well, first off, the Internet always HAS been under (mostly) private
>> control. The vast majority of the computers which compose the Internet are
>> privately owned, and the owners of those systems have always been able to
>> bounce traffic, censor traffic, read traffic, etc.
But what is being discussed under proposed US legislation affects
content control on the last mile, in other words the pipe in and out
of the house. This leg has always in the past been covered by
telecommunications legislation, which stops the phone company from
having any say in what traffic does or does not go down the phone
line. How would you feel, for example, if Telstra (Australian telco)
or your local Baby Bell, told you who you could and could not ring?
If they had a proprietary weather line, and blocked all connections
to a third party weather service?
The proposal to exempt cable suppliers from telco rules allows them
exactly this kind of leverage.
See Salon's article
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/06/07/broadband/index.html?x
> >
>> >"Second, citizens and community groups must play an
>> >aggressive role in shaping the future of the high-speed Internet,
>> >especially ensuring that local networks offer a diversity of
>> >broadband content and services."
>>
>> Scary stuff.
>>
>> The value of the Internet has always been in the fact anyone can post
>> content. The idea that someone must mandate "diverse content" is rather
>> terrifying. What it means, in reality, is that the ACLU is unhappy with
>> what people CHOOSE to put on the net, thus, someone (i.e, you and me)
>> should be required to fund content which the ACLU finds more pleasing.
This is absolute garbage. The ACLU's suggestions are designed to
*prevent* content control by anyone. The ACLU presumably wants to
make sure that people *can* still CHOOSE what goes out onto the net,
and what comes in to the user. Hand over exclusive control over the
last mile to a monopoly - even if it is only a local monopoly - allow
them to get their hands into the datastream, and the only choice is
*their* choice. Then it isn't the internet anymore. It's cable
television.
And competing delivery tech won't cut it - in most areas, for most
incomes, there won't be any competing streams. See the Salon article.
> >
>> For all their pretenses of populism and democracy, the left is extremely
>> elitist. When confronted with the raw truth of what the masses WANT to
>> read, see, or listen to, they fall back in terror, squeaking piteously of
>> 'the public interest', all the while ignoring the fact that no one in the
>> public is interested.
Specious, straw boogey man. This is the kind of poo throwing
scare-mongering you'd expect from a frightened little w/right boy.
Oh, reasoned argument, sorry. Since when was free speech a "left"
issue? I remember the days when the parties of the right stood up
for the public interest. Now I'm really showing my age, aren't I?
> >
>> Anyone who claims that there's nothing but predigested corporate pap on
>the
>> net need only go to http://www.yamara.com/junk/xl970512.html to see what
>> true diversity is all about. You'll never, not in a million years, have
>> anyone on NPR or PBS tell you how to say "Oh my god, there's an axe in my
>> head" in Klingon.
Yeah. Diversity. Free speech. Klingon. *pfeh*
Moron.
Klingon is a product. Consume away, obedient slave.
> >
>> ---
>>
>> ACLU Warns of Threat to Online Free Speech From Cable Monopolies
>>
>> Technical Report Shows How Cable Operators Can Interfere With Internet
>> Access
>>
>> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>> Wednesday, July 10, 2002
>>
>> Contact: Barry Steinhardt, ACLU, 917.349.4893 (on 7/10) or
>> 212.549.2508 (after 7/10);
>> Jay Stanley, ACLU, 202.715.0818;
>> Jeffrey Chester, CDD, 202.452.9898
>>
>> WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today called on the
>> government to protect the Internet from the power of monopolistic
>> cable providers and issued twin reports examining the technical and
>> policy sides of the issue.
>>
>> "Many people don't realize that if current policies continue, a
> > handful of big monopolies will gain power over information flowing
> > through the Internet," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's
> > Technology and Liberty Program. "Freedom of speech doesn't mean much
>> if the forums where that speech takes place are not free."
>>
>> The first report issued today is a 78-page technical study
>> commissioned by the ACLU -
>> http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/broadband_report.pdf - and prepared
>> by a Maryland-based telecommunications engineering consulting firm,
>> the Columbia Telecommunications Corporation (CTC). The second report
>> is a brief ACLU policy analysis -
>> http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/NoCompetition.pdf
>>
>> At issue is the ongoing conversion by consumers from a dial-up
>> Internet (based on slow modem connections over phone lines) to far
>> faster "broadband" connections (mostly using cable modems). With
>> dial-up, Internet access is provided over a medium that provides
>> open, equal access to all: the telephone system. But with the shift
>> to cable, Internet access must be adapted to a medium that has been
>> far more subject to centralized control. The danger, the ACLU said,
>> is that the Internet will come under private control.
>>
>> "The path out of this predicament is clear," said Jeff Chester,
>> Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which
>> collaborated in preparation of the reports. "First, the FCC must act
>> to preserve the Internet's open, common-carrier status in the cable
>> context. Second, citizens and community groups must play an
>> aggressive role in shaping the future of the high-speed Internet,
>> especially ensuring that local networks offer a diversity of
>> broadband content and services."
>>
>> The report by CTC includes an in-depth examination of two cable
>> systems (in Portland, OR and Tacoma, WA) and interviews with
>> officials at two Internet Service Providers that have been excluded
>> from many cable broadband systems.
>>
>> Among the report's findings and recommendations:
>>
>> - There are no insurmountable technical barriers to open access on
>> most U.S. cable systems;
>>
>> - Broadband cable companies should adopt a "public interest
>> architecture" based on principles such as maximizing consumer choice
>> and competition among ISPs;
>>
>> - The dominant emerging technique for allowing multiple ISPs on cable
>> Internet networks, which CTC calls "rebranding and resale of
>> wholesale services," actually leaves the cable operator in control of
>> the product. As a result, it creates only the illusion of real
>> competition and consumer choice, and is not true open access.
>>
>> "Our finding is that there are no technical reasons why the policies
>> backed by the ACLU and other advocates cannot be adopted," said Dr.
>> Andrew Afflerbach, Vice President of CTC and an author of the report.
>>
>> The ACLU's policy analysis explains how the government is failing to
>> extend to the broadband Internet crucial regulatory protections that
>> help keep today's Internet free and open to all. Unless the
>> government changes course, the ACLU warns, a handful of large
>> corporations will have both the incentive and the ability to
>> interfere with the free flow of information across the network.
>>
>> "Protecting free expression on the Internet is a high priority for
>> the ACLU," said Steinhardt. "In the same way that we have battled
>> Internet censorship by the government, we will also fight to make
> > sure that private corporations aren't allowed to get into a position
>> where they can dictate what we read and say online."
>>
>> The ACLU policy analysis and the CTC report are online at
>> http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/broadband.html
>> The Center for Digital Democracy is online at
>> http://www.democraticmedia.org
>>
>>
> >
> >
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>
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--
David Clae Gason
Secretary, Melbourne Wireless
mailto:secretary at wireless.org.au
http://wireless.org.au
i hate anarchists. i think there should be a law against them -tahl
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