FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Is Leading An Incoherent, Facts-Optional Last Minute War On Net Neutrality...For The American People
from the revolving-door-dysfunction dept
Over the last few months we've discussed how FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai has been waging a one man war on net neutrality and Title II using what can only be described as an increasingly aggressive barrage of total nonsense. Back in January Pai tried to claim that Netflix was a horrible neutrality hypocrite because the company uses relatively ordinary content delivery networks. Earlier this month Pai one-upped himself by trying to claim that meaningful neutrality consumer protections would encourage countries like Iran and North Korea to censor the Internet.Now on the surface, it appears that Pai just doesn't understand technology very well. Of course, once you understand that he was once a regulatory lawyer for Verizon, you realize he's simply dressing broadband duopoly profit protection up as some kind of deeper, meaningful ethos. As such, lamenting that Title II is "Obamacare for the Internet," is just political theater designed to rile up the base to the benefit of the broadband industry.
With net neutrality set for a vote this week, Pai has accelerated his master plan to make the largest number of inaccurate net neutrality statements in the shortest amount of time possible. For example, Pai co-wrote an editorial in the Chicago Tribune last week that tries to use Obamacare fears to insist Americans will lose the right to choose their own wireless plans if Title II based rules come to pass:
"If you like your wireless plan, you should be able to keep it. But new federal regulations may take away your freedom to choose the best broadband plan for you. It's all part of the federal government's 332-page plan to regulate the Internet like a public utility...take T-Mobile's Music Freedom program, which the Internet conduct rule puts on the chopping block. The "Un-carrier" allows consumers to stream as much online music as they want without charging it against their monthly data allowance."Except as we've noted recently, classifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II absolutely does not involve "regulating ISPs like utilities." In fact, Wheeler's stripping away many of the tougher aspects of Title II, something you'll see immeasurably annoy consumer advocates when the full rules are released later this week. And while I personally think zero rated apps like T-Mobile's Music Freedom plan set a horrible precedent and should be reined in by the rules, the FCC's made every indication that they see usage caps and zero rated apps as "creative" pricing models that won't be touched.
Meanwhile, both Sprint's and T-Mobile's COOs have said absolutely nothing should change with their wireless plans under the new rules. Are we noticing a disconnect between Pai's rhetoric and reality yet?
At the heart of Pai's assault on net neutrality has been an absolute flood of press releases and public speeches in which Pai insists that he's aggressively fighting consumer protections because he cares so very much about the little guy. His February 6 press release, for example, throws around his love of the "American People" and "small, independent businesses and entrepreneurs" like so much disingenuous digital confetti. Yet when you actually bother to ask said entrepreneurs -- like this letter (pdf) from 100 companies including Yelp, Etsy, Kickstarter, Tumblr and GitHub -- they unequivocally make it clear Commissioner Pai doesn't speak for them:
"We are the “small, independent businesses and entrepreneurs” that Commissioner Pai referenced in his February 6, 2015 press release about the FCC’s impending net neutrality rulemaking, and we write to say unequivocally that his release does not represent our views on net neutrality. Quite the opposite, entrepreneurs and startups throughout the country have consistently supported Chairman Wheeler’s call for strong net neutrality rules enacted through Title II."One marginally clever thing Pai's been doing is that he's been raising an absolute hysterical media shitstorm for weeks over the fact the FCC hasn't released the proposed rules ahead of Thursday's vote. And it's impossible to claim he's wrong: FCC restrictions bar the agency from publicizing drafts ahead of a vote, no matter which party is in power. That's something that's been the bane of telecom reporters (and public discourse) for years.
That said, as a former Verizon lawyer, Pai doesn't really give a damn about transparency. Phone and cable companies absolutely adore the lack of transparency that allows them craft abysmal anti-consumer regulations on the state and federal level every day. Similarly, were Pai's party in office pushing an agenda he liked (like oh, letting Verizon do effectively whatever it likes, no matter how anti-competitive) you can be fairly sure his love of transparency would be notably absent from the conversation. Still, Pai's attempting a futile Hail Mary attempt to delay this week's vote because he just loves transparency so much it hurts.
In short, you've got a former Verizon regulatory lawyer claiming to represent the interests of everybody except the companies he's actually busy looking out for. Layered on to that is a media that pretends it's not just a little bit absurd that a living, breathing example of revolving door regulation is claiming to be a champion of the American public. Pai knows the rules will be approved on Thursday; he's just hoping his theatrical performance wins him a chance to lead the FCC (and the likely destruction of these very same rules) should we see a 2016 party shift.
If those ambitions are unattainable, perhaps Pai can rejoin Verizon and contribute to the industry's legal assault on consumers and the rules more directly -- to the great and immeasurable benefit of puppies and school children everywhere.
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Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, net neutrality, open internet
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Almost funny
'former Verizon lawyer'... 'former Verizon regulatory lawyer'... 'perhaps Pai can rejoin Verizon'
You say all these things as though he's not currently working for them. He may not be directly employed by them at the moment, but his actions leave little doubt who he believes he's working for, and it's not the public.
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Re: Almost funny
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You'll be claiming there's a free market next!
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Should be...
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Is Leading An Incoherent, Facts-Optional Last Minute War On Net Neutrality... For His Future Seven Figure Salary
Because that's the truth
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Does anyone know if that is also part of the story, or if, aside from Techdirt, does the rest of the media not care?
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Finally, an answer to that age-old question - "What shall we do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning?"
Why, you make him an FCC Commissioner.
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Too many laws
However, as a citizen of this country, I'm just sick of so many regulations that a guy can write a book how every one of us is committing "Three Felonies a Day."
Why can't we just clear out the hundreds of thousands of regulations and laws that are slowly killing this country before we start piling more onto the list?
Or am I just being too libertarian?
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Re: Too many laws
Unfortunately, with large corporations, having near monopolies, you can only hope for decent government regulations.
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Re: Too many laws
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Re: Too many laws
Then the choice ends up being: if we're going to have to have regulations: which would you rather have? Regulations that protect the greatest number of people and companies possible, or regulations protecting AT&T, Verizon and Comcast's competitive stranglehold over vast swaths of the country?
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Re: Re: Too many laws
Competition would keep the big guys in check more faster than any of the restrictions will. Just look how they're acting in Google Fiber towns. You would've never seen AT&T and others say they are going to adopt Gigabit speeds as fast, under any government regulations, if not for the Google Fiber competition. Granted, they are still lying about their "Gigabit-but-actually-300Mbps-but-actually-it's-30-dollars-more-if-you-don't-want-to-be-spied-on" deal.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation_of_the_Texas_electricity_market
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$40 would get you the quad play with cellular included.
Right now 20 euros will get you started on a triple play.
https://www.bouyguestelecom.fr/offres-internet
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Due to heavy pressure from the major telecoms, the law included a disastrous provision that declared internet service as an "information service" rather than a communications service. This is not only logically untenable, but meant that the rules that were keeping the ISP business competitive no longer applied. The result is the near-monopoly situation we have now that allows the abusive practices we see.
The correct thing to do is to reverse that portion of the '96 law. However, the telecoms paid big bucks for that and they aren't exactly going to sit by and let it get fixed. I think that the stranglehold these companies have on the lawmaking process is such that they can hold their ground for many years to come.
So fixing the problem in the obvious way isn't feasible.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Too many laws
Part of the problem here is that regulation can be a two-edged sword. It's supposed to fight anti-competitive and abusive behavior but far too often it becomes the tool of the incumbent to prevent a larger barrier to entry for new competitors. The fear at the time was that small ISPs would be so encumbered with additional expense due to government regulation that their viability would become untenable which was a real possibility. Of course all of that expensive regulation came out of the anti-competitive actions of the big telcos in the first place but that was after they were already established enough to weather it.
Had ISPs had to be encumbered with the expense of the regulation that was in place for telcos at the time, either two things would have happened:
1. The telcos would have moved in to become the only ISPs available which would have at best left us at the same place we are today but with the strong possibility that broadband doesn't emerge as there would be no incentive for them to develop that technology. or...
2. The technology would have died as it would have been too expensive for anyone else to offer and again with no incentive to adjust their business, telcos would have simply gone on making their money selling POTS service.
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Re: Too many laws
Because the major corporations love the vast majority of those regulations and laws (that's why they pay so much to get them).
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Given Time Warner and Comcast's current customer service scores, it seems like a no-brainer that they are anti-consumer monopolies and need to be broken into a company that owns the lines and a company that owns the content. (Hey, didn't we used to have laws preventing the ownership of both FOR EXACTLY THIS REASON?)
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Re: Too many laws
I agree, too many laws, too many regulations, too many policies.......whats it gonna be like ONLY 50 years from now.........were gonna end up being fined for letting one go in public .....criminal
Its clear today that those behind the constitution understood the danger of this, in how and what and how much or how little they included in it........i think the leaders of the past were still in the mists of the END of an imperialistic reign, they understood freedom better, everybody was in the mist of a mature imperialistic reign, i think today, we have leaders that have lived in a world that holds no unavoidable hardships you'd find in a mature tyranny, neither thinks along those lines, nor associates the possible consequences of current actions to similar actions and its same consequences in the past
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Re: Re: Too many laws
It's just too easy to spend a lot of money to "save the victims" and "protect the little guy" (you know, from the big faceless corporations that we created).
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* Corporations are people, too.
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I hope I never work for a corporation headed by Jehovah Witnesses. My health insurance will be worthless. :(
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Actually, given the poor state of medical care in this country where people die from infections because some patient-pusher can't wash after going to the bathroom, you might be better off with just the prayers.
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Everybody repeat after me: "Conflation is our enemy's best friend".
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A New Mantra in the Net Neutrality War....
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Which, exactly, of those major websites is a small, independent business again?
Just saying...
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Tumblr - 304 employees
Kickstarter - 109 employees
Etsy - less than 500 employees
Yelp - 2711 employees (OK, they're bigger than I thought)
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We are being hoodwinked
As with Obamacare it is going to have to be passed before we know what is in it and probably will not know until we see the effects.
What Obama means with Net Nuetrality in not what we think as Net Neutrality.
We are all being howdwinked.
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Re: We are being hoodwinked
"What Obama means with Net Nuetrality in not what we think as Net Neutrality."
Since, as you admit, we don't have the text of the proposed rules, you have no way of knowing this.
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Re: Re: We are being hoodwinked
Just like TPP this is being passed in secret with no public input. We will not know what is in this till it is already implemented.
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Re: Re: Re: We are being hoodwinked
This is not a partisan issue. Wake up!
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But of course, because none of the people who disagree with the arrogant blowhards on this site could possibly be doing so in good faith. It must necessarily be related to some nefarious underlying profit motive.
In regard to the corruptocrats on the FCC pushing this bullshit, that sentence could just as easily read "Once you understand he is a lifelong government bureaucrat, you realize he's simply dressing up burdensome government regulation and overreach as some sort of deeper meaningful ethos".
When it comes to the issue of "net neutrality", the "authors" at this site may as well be wearing tin-foil hats, because that is how asinine some of the bullshit sounds. It's every bit as ludicrous as the conspiratorial nonsense John Oliver was spouting about tobacco companies that this site found to be so fucking profound. If the "debate" goes on long enough, it will only be a matter of time before the Illuminati replaces Verizon as the bad guys in all this.
I hesitate to call this a debate because, in breach of the law, the FCC refuses to make public its proposed rule changes for public comment, yet I have read nary a fucking word of complaint from the very people who usually claim such an offense is the worst threat to American democracy, whenever some other unelected federal bureaucracy does it, of course. Refusing to abide by the rules is clearly A-OK as long it is in the service of "net neutrality". Meanwhile, anyone and everyone who criticizes FCC overreach and its usurpation of authority it simply was never given by any legislative body is accused of being on Verizon's payroll. It has become a fucking farce. Evidently a large percentage of the people commenting on this issue are being secretly reimbursed by Verizon, as if Nick Gillespie, for instance, is somehow analogous to Clarence Beaks and Verizon is Duke & Duke. But he, and everyone else opposed to "net neutrality", must be on Verizon's payroll. How do I know? Because, clearly, disagreeing with the snide pricks who run this site is evidence enough.
It is hard to say which is more pathetic: the casual smears directed at anyone who dares disagree with the fuckwits who run this site, or the absolutely fucking hilarious belief that increased government regulation, regardless of how it is dressed up, is somehow not going to be burdensome and stifling. Because I know that when I think of increased government oversight and regulation, I immediately think innovation and efficiency.
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I think of the European situation of where they have competition resulting in lower prices, better services due to government regulations.
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Regulation is not evil
We just need to find ways to slow or regularly reform function creep and regulatory capture.
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And we all know what happened to them, right?
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Then let's engage in a dialogue: what about this piece do you disagree with? Just calling it "garbage" without saying why is entirely devoid of meaning.
Oh, also, this is a commentary site, not a news site. It does commentary.
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Government in Internet is bad... PERIOD... End of Story
The government is good for things like national security where the great hulking behemoth is slow to move but large and intimidating. It has NO ability to turn on a dime... something absolutely REQUIRED for something as highly evolving as the internet.
Sure... it starts with the promises of equality and savings but ends in cost increases and less choice. ObamaCare is the PERFECT example... I pay more now for my insurance than I did before... MUCH more... and I have a higher deductible. Why? Because if my employeer hadn't have stripped down our plan, they would have been taxed for offering their employees a "cadillac" plan. And my mom was dropped from her insurance (she's 63) and currently has NO INSURANCE, because any plan close to what she had is twice as much money with twice the deductible. Yah... the government screws things up. PERIOD. No matter what they say or promise now, remember, that can all be changed once it's implemented - just like ObamaCare. Remember... if you like your plan you can keep it and you like your doctor you can keep them? All BS.
Don't give me any of this benevolent government BS. I trust the government as far as I can throw them... which I can't, otherwise I'd throw them out.
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Re: Government in Internet is bad... PERIOD... End of Story
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Re: Government in Internet is bad... PERIOD... End of Story
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Re: Government in Internet is bad... PERIOD... End of Story
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Re: Government in Internet is bad... PERIOD... End of Story
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Yeah, no gummint has problems too.
I like having clean water and clean meat, and a cause for someone to think twice before killing me and taking my home.
I like protection from fires, and response to hurricanes, and protection from joblessness and financial hardship.
Or consistent communications encryption standards that aren't dependent on trusting Microsoft or Google or Apple, or that some expert is willing to volunteer his time to making it. I like that too. And I'm really pissed off that the NSA sabotaged that, due to funtion creep and conflicting interests.
Government can serve some good uses. But it's also susceptible to certain ailments, and a drift toward a feudal dictatorship.
I say we should have some ideas as to what we want to implement in the next iteration before we tear this one down.
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Re: Yeah, no gummint has problems too.
Also, people forget that "the government" as a unified, monolithic entity doesn't exist. "The government" is more like the biomass in your gut: a collection of a large number of distinct entities, each with their own agendas, that coexist. Just like the fact that statements that include absolutes like "everyone", "always", or "never" are rarely correct, referring to "the government" as if it were an entity with a unified purpose or ability is rarely correct.
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Coming soon, to an FCC near you...
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No one does anything in Washington "for the American People"
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Corrupt or clueless?
Can anyone believe that he is promoting his anti-network neutrality stance because he fully understands the issue and honestly believes that he is right on the subject?
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Besides, he happens to be correct. Title II regulation would be horrible for the Net and would harm Net users worldwide by paving the way for nations to block, throttle, censor, and overcharge.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Spect (just a little bit)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Spect (just a little bit)
How would it do that? It's an odd thing to claim since companies are paving that road right now. The whole point is to stop that. So, even if your speculation is correct, it doesn't really make things worse.
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www.wsj.com/articles/robert-m-mcdowell-and-gordon-goldstein-dictators-love-the-fccs-plan-to- regulate-the-internet-1424219652
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First They Came...
Because Comcast sucks.
Then they came for the guy who warned us, and I did not speak out,
Because he used to work for Verizon.
Then they came for internet freedom, and I did not speak out,
Because I fell for their ploy that it's just about net neutrality.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
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