Did Grassroots Power Push FCC in Right Direction on Net Neutrality?

No, internet giants like Google and Facebook did. People with as much money than the telecom giants did it~jef.

 

Monday, February 02, 2015

by Common Dreams

Wheeler likely to support strict net neutrality protections after backing off from pro-industry initiatives

by Nadia Prupis, staff writer

 

 

Following a months-long campaign by consumer advocacy groups that pushed for strict protection of the internet, Federal Communications Commissioner Tom Wheeler appears to be ready to introduce some of the strongest regulations possible on Thursday ahead of the FCC's final net neutrality vote on February 26, according to reports.

Those regulations include redefining broadband as a public utility under Title II of the Communications Act, a policy change that has been touted by internet watchdog groups as one of the most important net neutrality protections available.

Once a lobbyist for the cable and telecommunications industries, Wheeler initially supported lax regulations that critics said would open the door to controversial paid-prioritization policies, known as "fast lanes," allowing internet service providers to charge higher fees for speedier website loading times.

According to reporting by Politico on Monday, "interviews with FCC officials, industry executives and representatives of public interest groups reveal the origins of his dramatic pivot on this issue: an intense and relatively brief grass-roots lobbying campaign that targeted two people — him and President Barack Obama."

Pressure from digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Press, which galvanized support from consumers and progressive media figures, saw Wheeler steadily backpedaling on his initiatives last year. His shift appeared near-complete after President Barack Obama spoke out in favor of strict net neutrality regulations on November 10.

Wheeler proposed in April new rules that would allow ISPs to create fast lane deals with internet companies as long as they were "commercially reasonable."

In response, a coalition of internet watchdogs and consumer advocacy groups launched a months-long series of campaigns against the chairman's proposals, while protesters camped out in front of FCC headquarters.

On June 1, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver ridiculed Wheeler and his proposed rules in a segment that quickly went viral, sending hundreds of thousands of consumers to the FCC website to comment in favor of stronger net neutrality regulations. Within months, four million emails and comments had come in, breaking FCC records.

Wheeler then moved towards a hybrid proposal that would impose Title II rules on parts of the internet, but not all of it. That, too, was met with disapproval by watchdogs and tech companies alike.

Meanwhile, Obama had also been under pressure from internet advocacy groups, who urged him to speak out in favor of stricter regulations. On November 10, he did just that, issuing a statement that called for using a Title II reclassification to safeguard the internet, "one of the most significant democratizing influences the world has ever known."

Earlier this month, Wheeler indicated support for reclassification of the internet as a public utility under Title II, bringing praise from Free Press president and CEO Craig Aaron who said, "Chairman Wheeler appears to have heard the demands of the millions of Internet users who have called for real net neutrality protections."

The Police State Is Upon Us

Paul Craig Roberts 

Anyone paying attention knows that 9/11 has been used to create a police/warfare state. Years ago NSA official William Binney warned Americans about the universal spying by the National Security Agency, to little effect. Recently Edward Snowden proved the all-inclusive NSA spying by releasing spy documents, enough of which have been made available by Glenn Greenwald to establish the fact of NSA illegal and unconstitutional spying, spying that has no legal, constitutional, or “national security” reasons.Yet Americans are not up in arms. Americans have accepted the government’s offenses against them as necessary protection against “terrorists.”

Neither Congress, the White House, or the Judiciary has done anything about the wrongful spying, because the spying serves the government. Law and the Constitution are expendable when the few who control the government have their “more important agendas.”

Bradley Manning warned us of the militarization of US foreign policy and the murderous consequences, and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks posted leaked documents proving it.

Were these whistleblowers and honest journalists, who alerted us to the determined attack on our civil liberty, rewarded with invitations to the White House and given medals of honor in recognition of their service to American liberty?

No. Bradley Manning is in federal prison, and so would be Julian Assange and Edward Snowden if Washington could get its hands on them.

Binney escaped the Police State’s clutches, because he did not take any documents with which to prove his allegations, and thus could be dismissed as “disgruntled” and as a “conspiracy kook,” but not arrested as a “spy” who stole “national secrets.”

Greenwald, so far, is too prominent to be hung for reporting the truth. But he is in the crosshairs, and the Police State is using other cases to close in on him.

These are only five of the many people who have provided absolute total proof that the Bill of Rights has been overthrown. Washington continues to present itself to the world as the “home of the free,” the owner of the White Hat, while Washington demonstrates its lack of mercy by invading or bombing seven countries on false pretenses during the past 14 years, displacing, killing, and maiming millions of Muslims who never raised a fist against the US.

Many commentators have written articles and given interviews about government’s ever expanding police powers. The totality of the American Police State is demonstrated by its monument in Utah, where an enormous complex has been constructed in which to store every communication of every American.

Somehow a son or daughter checking on an aged parent, a working mother checking on her children’s child care, a family ordering a pizza, and sweethearts planning a date are important matters of national security.
Some educated and intelligent people understand the consequences, but most Americans perceive no threat as they “have nothing to hide.”

The Founding Fathers who wrote the Bill of Rights and attached it to the US Constitution did not have anything to hide, but they clearly understood, unlike modern day Americans, that freedom depended completely on strictly limiting the ability of government to intrude upon the person.

Those limits provided by the Founding Fathers are gone. The hoax “war on terror” demolished them.
Today not even the relationships between husband and wife and parents and children have any protection from arbitrary intrusions by the state.

Essentially, government has destroyed the family along with civil liberty.

Those insouciant Americans who do not fear the police state because they “have nothing to hide” desperately need to read: Home-schooled Children Seized By Authorities Still In State Custody.

In Police State America, authorities can enter your home on the basis of an anonymous “tip” that you are, or might be, somehow, abusing your children, or exposing them to medicines that are not in containers with child-proof caps or to household bleach that is not under lock and key, and seize your children into state custody on the grounds that you present a danger to your children.

The government does not have to tell you who your accuser is. It can be your worst enemy or a disgruntled employee, but the tipster is protected. However, you and your family are not.

The authorities who receive these tips treat them as if they are valid. A multi-member goon squad shows up at your house. This is when the utterly stupid “I have nothing to hide” Americans discover that they have no rights, regardless of whether they have anything to hide.

We owe this police power over parents and children to “child advocates” who lobbied for laws based on their fantasies that all parents are serial rapists of children, and if not, are medieval torturers, trained by the CIA, who physically and psychologically abuse their children.

In the opinion of “child advocates,” children are brought into the world in order to be abused by parents. Dogs and cats and the fish in the fishbowl are not enough. Parents need children to abuse, too, just as the Police and the Police State need people to abuse.

Of course, sometimes real child abuse occurs. But it is not the routine event that the Child Protective Services Police assume. A sincere investigation, such as was missing in the report on the home-schooled children, would have had one polite person appear at the door to explain to the parents that there had been a complaint that their children were being exposed to a poisonous substance in the home. The person should have listened to the parents, had a look at the children, and if there was any doubt about the water purifier, ask that its use be discontinued until its safety could be verified.

But nothing sensible happened, because the Police State does not have to be sensible.

Instead, a half dozen goon thugs show up. The parents are put outside in the snow for 5 hours while the children are scared to death with questions and then carried away from their home, mother, and father.
In Police State America, this is called Protecting Children. We owe this tyranny to the idiot “child advocates.”

It is no longer important to protect children from homosexuals, unless the homosexuals are Catholic child pedophiles. But it is absolutely necessary to protect children from their parents.

So, yes, dear insouciant American fool, whether you have anything to hide or not, you are in grave danger, and so are your children, in Police State America.

You can no longer rely on the Constitution to protect you.

This is the only way that you can protect yourself: grovel before your neighbors, your co-workers, your employees and employers, and, most definitely, before “public authority” and your children, as your children can report you. Don’t complain about anything. Do not get involved in protests. Don’t make critical comments on the Internet or on your telephone calls. Don’t homeschool. Don’t resist vaccines. Turn your backs to leaders who could liberate you as it is too dangerous to risk the failure of liberation. Be an abject, cowardly, obedient, servile member of the enserfed, enslaved American population. Above all, be thankful to Big Brother who protects you from terrorists and Russians.

You, dear insouciant, stupid, American are back on the Plantation. Perhaps that is your natural home. In his masterful A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn documents that despite their best efforts the exploited and abused American people have never been able to prevail against the powerful private interests that control the government. Whenever in American history the people rise up they are struck down by brute force.

Zinn makes totally clear that “American freedom, democracy, liberty, blah-blah” are nothing but a disguise for the rule over America by money.

Wave the flag, sing patriot songs, see enemies where the government tells you to see them, and above all, never think. Just listen. The government and its presstitute media will tell you what you must believe.

More evidence of Police State America.