Blackburn Bill Attempts To Gut New Net Neutrality Rules. You Know, For Freedom.
from the freedom-lovers-incorporated dept
During the last election cycle, Representative Marsha Blackburn received $15,000 from a Verizon PAC, $25,000 from an AT&T PAC, $20,000 from a Comcast PAC, and $20,000 from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Surely that funding is only coincidentally related to Blackburn's recent decision to rush to the defense of awful state protectionist law written by the likes of AT&T and Comcast, preventing towns and cities from doing absolutely anything about their local lack of broadband competition.That money surely is also only tangentially related to the fact that Blackburn has also just introduced the "Internet Freedom Act" (pdf), aimed at gutting the FCC's recently unveiled Title II-based net neutrality rules and prohibiting the agency from trying to make new ones. Whereas most of us thought net neutrality is about protecting consumers and smaller competitors from the incumbent ISP stranglehold over the last mile, Blackburn's website informs readers that net neutrality rules harm innovators, jobs, and err -- freedom:
"Once the federal government establishes a foothold into managing how Internet service providers run their networks they will essentially be deciding which content goes first, second, third, or not at all," Blackburn said in an announcement yesterday. "My legislation will put the brakes on this FCC overreach and protect our innovators from these job-killing regulations."And here I was thinking that the FCC was responding to unprecedented public support for some of the rules aimed at keeping AT&T, Comcast and Verizon on their best behavior. Blackburn makes sure to lean heavily on that thoroughly discredited report by the Progressive Policy Institute claiming consumers will all suffer from "billions" in new taxes, and again tosses out the well-worn trope about how Title II is bad because it originated in the 1930s (because old laws are always bad, get it?).
Again though, the fact that Blackburn has received $66,750 from AT&T, $59,650 from Verizon, $56,000 from the NCTA, and $36,000 from Comcast over the last decade surely has nothing to do with her suddenly scurrying on multiple fronts to protect those companies' stranglehold over the U.S. broadband market. For freedom.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: congress, fcc, marsha blackburn, net neutrality, title ii
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
But she's good with the buzzwords - I guess just throwing "job-killing" into everything will get some people on your side.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Clearly "job" means "profits" in their lingo.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"Job-killing" = "Profit reducing"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
According to Barney Stinson...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's all for a good cause
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
When multi-billion dollar companies can buy legislation for a a few $10,000 why wouldn't they.
It would be foolish of them not too!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bribery, like crypanalysis, should be expensive.
I wonder if you could apply this to pretty much all less-than-honorable methods of business and statecraft, e.g. assassination, torture, lying to the public and so on.
I think the trick would be finding a way to make these methods intrinsically costly, e.g. not put a high penalty on bribes (or high tax on them, if we legalized them), but some logistical element is particularly dear.
In those days that we hired shades-wearing hit-men with breakdown rifles and scopes big enough to find extrasolar planets, assassinations were so dear. Something to ponder.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What state is she from
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: What state is she from
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
All I can suggest
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1212/cosponsors
If they are, write them and express your displeasure. And if they're not, write them and express your desire that they vote against H.R.1212.
You may not be contributing $$$ towards their election campaign funds, but you are a vote and if they see enough voters reacting to these blatant attempts to screw us over, they will vote in the manner that lets them keep their jobs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Vickie Wallace Wilson
Neal Wiseman
Mind, only 3 out of 25 postings are approving (Neal made 2 postings). But that just goes to show that there are still some fools out there.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That's almost as bad as pretending to be a representative of "the people."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Question
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This should mean arrests for perverting the democratic process. But no, this just means a raise in campaign funds.
Sickening.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A product of districts
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
FIFY, Ms. Blackburn
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You sheep really dont see the trees thru the forest do you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Citation needed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
For most morons out there the only thing they really know about the FCC is that they enforce the rules against swearing on broadcast television and terrestrial radio and they assume that is what the FCC will do concerning the internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think maybe who Gwiz is talking about are the relatively uninformed members of the public, not the powerful vested interests. And he may have put his finger on it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That may be true. But, I have often found that those who push their moral agendas on others are usually hypocrites who don't live up to what they are advocating.
They may yell pretty loud about some dirty words on TV, but interfering with their porn access is a different matter all together.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nobody is talking about anything like "internet licenses".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
10K? 20K? Geez. Talk about selling yourself short.
The politicians have the power here. Why don't they ask for millions? Make it incredibly costly on the companies bribing to the point that they may not think it's worth it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
That's why. Plus supply and demand. If there's some other legislator willing to sell out for $10K, Blackburn is not going to be able to charge $10M.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Taken from FCC website.
2. No Blocking: That no legal content may be blocked
What you sheep are missing here is the interpretation of "Legal Content".
The Govt has shown over and over again to interpret laws/rules/regulations how they see fit regardless of the plain English or true intent of what the law/rule/reg was trying to enforce.
What is going to happen is the enforcement of "legal content" will be left to corporate entities responsible for the last mile. This means blocking of any website considered potentially "illegal" but not proven illegal in a court of law.
That website you purchased T-shirts at a discount? Well its blocked now because they didn't prove to Comcast that all of their licensing agreements include that IP address you are ordering from. Oh but allow us to route you to is Nike.com.
Dont you people see the implications?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Her District
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Her District
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Blackburn is a cheap crack whore.
What a pity treason isn't a crime anymore where the ruling class are concerned.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]