Net Neutrality: Courts like NFL Home Field Advantage

Those of you that know I am from Atlanta and that I am a big time football fan probably could guess that my heart was smashed to tiny little pieces last week when the Green Bay Packers embarrassed my beloved 13-3 Atlanta Falcons in the NFL playoffs.  Those that follow professional football understand the significance of home field advantage in the NFL.  And while the winning percentage of the home team drops from roughly 70% to about 51% during the playoffs, the opportunity for a team to have home games and a friendly crowd on their march to the Super Bowl cannot be over looked.

My colleague James DeLong has an interesting piece up at Digital Society today regarding what amounts to NFL home field advantage in the court system.  Verizon has recently field the first suit against the FCC’s new Open Internet rules regulating Net Neutrality on privately owned networks.  DeLong explains the ins and outs of the importance of the forum in which a case is heard.  The quirks are funny, but DeLong breaks down the importance and discusses which Court may get to hear the appeal.

Free Press Under-Reported Lobbying Expenses

Really great article over at Daily Caller on the discovery that Free Press under-reported lobbying expenses for lobbying Congress, the FCC, and NTIA.  This is primarily a big deal because Free Press blatantly attacks the right on a daily basis on the grounds of transparency but routinely fails to open up about who is funding them along with much of their activities.

If you aren’t familiar with Free Press, you best get up to speed.  The organization is a socialist playground started by Robert McChesney, a hard core socialist, who famously stated in the socialist magazine Monthly Review,

“…gains will only be made through an enormous class struggle from below. If won, they will not, we underscore, eliminate the evils of capitalism, or the dangers it poses for the world and its people. In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles. This is something that the great majority of the population will undoubtedly learn in the course of their struggles for a more equal, more humane, more collective, and more sustainable world.”

So if you aren’t familiar with Free Press or their activities, I greatly encourage you to start watch dogging them, and the post on Daily Caller is a good start.

UPDATE: More on the issue from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.

-nick

Meet Mark Lloyd: FCC Chief Propaganda Officer

Watch this:

Catch that? Media is a powerful tool when used “independently”. By this, Mark Lloyd of course means having a neutral third party watch dogging how media is used. And that neutral third party is of course the FCC whose people were appointed by a socialist progressive regime running our current government.

Lloyd wants to make sure your political intake is “fair and balanced”, but not in the sort of way Fox News advertises. More in the CCCP has decided what you should hear from this radio station or this TV channel sort of way.

This is the new face of the Fairness Doctrine by any other name would smell as sweet. Memorize it.

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. -Sun Tzu

Does anyone know what comes after media control? What comes after the “authority” controls media, is thought control. Don’t think this is possible? Do you think people in the world were as reasonable and conscientious as you or I today back 73 years ago? You know who was successful in controlling thoughts and actions of a well educated, reasonable, and conscientious people? The Nazi’s. First through controlling media, radio and newspapers, then controlling the message and counter message, and then by controlling how they thought. Did you know the Nazi’s told the German’s that they couldn’t smoke or eat certain foods because the government had decided what was best for them? Heard anything like that lately?

Mark Lloyd is not your friend. He is not here to help you or to make sure that everyone is hearing “both sides of the story.” He is here to make sure you hear the administrations side of the story.

In the futuristic tales of society, I always thought that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was much more on task than that of the more often referenced 1984 by George Orwell. Along with Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World focuses on a society too busy to care. Their democratic system lays crumbled at their feet. But it wasn’t a war that forced government control and the creep of communism and fascism like in 1984. Society is simply too wrapped up in the glitz and glamor of the newest soap opera, automobile, celebrity, etc to care about the dilapidation of their liberty. Sort of the society of which one-third of the country will watch the Super Bowl, but only 119 million will vote in a presidential election.

He [Lloyd] wants them to regulate political advertising and commentary, the number of commercials these stations run, and ratings information about programs before they are broadcast. So basically he wants to takeover regulation of the entire operation of radio and television stations. -Seton Motley, 8/26/2009, Glenn Beck Show

This isn’t a recent phenomenon for Lloyd though. In 2007 (Strangely enough the time period in which Dems backed off the Fairness Doctrine to rename it. Which begs the question, is this a new Dem strategy? If something doesn’t pass the taste test with the American people, you just rename it and try again?) Lloyd wrote an article called Forget the Fairness Doctrine for the Center for American Progress. A well known fair and balanced think tank in DC. Which is an accurate statement as long as “fair and balanced” means “as far left as possible”. If there was a cliff where you could go no farther left, CAP would have fallen off of it. The article itself begs additional questions, like if you are trying to present a neutral case for fair media balance, why aren’t you publishing in a newspaper instead of on CAP’s blog?

But I digress…

In the article, Forget the Fairness Doctrine Lloyd presents the case for regulating free speech.? But he also makes the case not to regulate free speech. You read that correctly. It’s very clever. Watch:

From paragraph 2:

Only the most misinformed still believe that radio group owners such as Citadel Broadcasting Corp., which refuses to air popular progressive hosts like Ed Shultz, are only concerned about the bottom line. Few would agree that markets such as Philadelphia and Houston are well served with 100 percent conservative talk radio.

Here Lloyd says there isn’t a balance, something he would like to change forceably. But…wait for it…

But that doesn?t mean that the answer to this pervasive imbalance is the Fairness Doctrine.

Then he pretends that this action is not what the Fairness Doctrine is all about.

From paragraph 3:

In our report, we call for ownership rules that we think will create greater local diversity of programming, news, and commentary. And we call for more localism by putting teeth into the licensing rules.

And once again a call for enforcement of “balanced” media.

But we do not call for a return to the Fairness Doctrine.

Followed by the statement that what he is talking about isn’t the Fairness Doctrine.

You know what it’s called when someone tells you one thing but is attempting to do something else? Propaganda.

Maybe no one has told Lloyd what the Fairness Doctrine is? Because it sure sounds like he’s saying he doesn’t want the Fairness Doctrine, but he wants the ability to regulate local radio and television markets presentation of content. In fact, he couldn’t have been more clear.

By the way, this is the same guy that praised Chavez for taking over the media to execute his take over of the Venezuelan government.

I hope America has woken up in the last six months.? Because you are in for a long fight.? And we all have responsibility in the battle; both those of us who voted in this administration and those of us who didn’t do more to resist it.

The Obama administration is full of micro-presidents known as Czars that pull in the reigns of bureaucratic powers that have normally been separated from the Executive branch.? He has appointed self-confessing socialists and communists to places of power in our country, and the last six months has been an appetizer.

America, we’ve got 15 more months of this to go before we even have a shot at any recourse. Stimulus packages, cap-and-trade, and health care are just the tip of the spear. Steady your sights, and remain strong in your resolve.

-nick

More Gateway Neutrality

News outlets are reporting today that recipients of grant monies from the Broadband Expansion portion of the Stimulus Act will be forced to implement Net Neutrality regulation into networks built on these grants as ruled today by the Obama Administration.

I first divulged this in an article on OpenMarket.org back in January.? And to quote myself, I had stated that,

The issue here is that it doesn?t matter if the FCC or the Fed can regulate net neutrality on the grand scale right now, the recipient of these grant funds will be legally bound to adhere to the FCC policy statement implementing net neutrality and establishing open networks.? After that, the fix is in.? One or more publicly funded networks would exist running under regulated and enforced net neutrality principles.? A few years later, legislation will be introduced again to mandate net neutrality in all U.S. networks.?? Backers of the legislation will refer to the networks built under the stimulus plan pointing out how flawlessly they are running, and how neutrality principles have provided for that condition because the FCC can watch dog the network.

Furthermore, I reported in March that companies like Verizon and AT&T were potentially not going to apply for grants for this very reason,

This reluctance to accept government funding shows that major ISPs realize that acceptance of stimulus funds puts them squarely under the FCC Network Neutrality principles.?? These principles could bleed into the other networks?such as Verizon?s FiOS TV or AT&T?s U-Verse?that these large Internet players own. ? Meaning this policy would be the camel?s nose under the tent.

Adding that,

Molly Peterson of Bloomberg News confirms that big ISPs realize the danger associated with accepting recovery funds:

AT&T, Verizon and Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable provider, say the rules are unwarranted and would hinder their ability to manage congestion on networks they have spent billions to build.

So while this was bound to happen, I guess one could say that it’s a sure thing now.? With only $7.2 Billion available for broadband expansion and those monies being distributed in amounts that will be paltry in comparison to what telecoms generally spend in network expansion, there is a real possibility here that avoiding government funding will actually benefit their bottom line rather than helping improve them.? These gateway stimulus fund drugs will inevitably find their way into regulating their own private networks if these companies are not weary.

-nick

The Personal Democracy Forum Doesn’t Help Conservatives

Monday was a very long day here in New York City.? The Personal Democracy Forum Conference busted out of the gate bright and early and never seemed to slow.? The conference and its attendees are a cornucopia of ideas and innovation.? It certainly feels as if the applications built for and during the Obama campaign have spurred an entire new focus in the political realm.? I feel like I’m a fly on the wall of the office that invented grassroots mailers.? It certainly seems that we are witnessing the initial stages of a new era in politics.

Six month from now things will be very interesting.? The first campaigns since the 2008 presidential race will begin cranking their engines.? It will be the first big test as well.? Letting all of us evaluate who “got it” after the last go round.

One has to understand that when they attend these sorts of events that there is certainly a goal of objectivity.? The reason for attending is to discover the areas in which politics and technology are intersecting.? How is technology, or possibly more specifically, the Internet changing politics?? Are these changes creating the evaporation of results from the previous models?? If so, how do we incorporate these new tools into our area of politics to create new successful models?? That’s what we are hear to discover.

The reality though is that people that are passionate about anything can’t keep it from seeping out even when they are trying to hold back.? There is nothing wrong with this.? I take zero issue with individuals who wear their heart on their sleeve.? At least it’s out there.

But at some point a balance issue develops.? If panels are mostly chaired by a certain orientation of political enthusiast, the point of view is always the same.? If the audience to which they are speaking is of the same enthusiasm, then they are preaching to the choir.? The cheers and hardly applause comes because of political orientation and alignment and not because all political technology enthusiast share the same goals.

We don’t.

Case in point was the fine display of two sheep being led on stage for the final panel of the day.? The sheep, in the form of two teleco representatives, had their achille’s slit so that they couldn’t escape and then were promptly ritually massacred by the Picadores Josh Silver.? Silver, well known in tech policy circles for avoiding any concerns or facts outside of his own talking points was suburb in his beat down.? I honestly couldn’t tell if the teleco reps were ill prepared or just trying to play the saint for the audience, the obvious antagonist.

But why was this happening?? Silver has a particular motivation and a goal, and not one with which all parties in the tech policy community would agree.? Why was no one with a differing point of view sitting on this panal?? Not to defend the telecos, but to ask questions from a differing foundation, or to call Silver’s bluff.? Where was Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, or Adam Thierer who started Technology Liberation Front?? Where was Timothy B. Lee, CATO fellow and Ars Technica contributor? (Who in my humble opinion has hands down written the best scholarly explanation of network neutrality available.? Which is mighty humble of me, if I do say so, considering I’ve written on it myself.)

I did appreciate hearing the audience gleefully suck up every drop the FCC commissioner Blair Levin had to say; especially the part where he told us that they were creating a plan.? Really? The plan he is referring to of course is the National Broadband Strategy which comes due in February of 2010.? What hardly anyone knows though is that the US Department of Agriculture who has used the Rural Utilities Services (RUS) division to improve broadband distribution in the past has been awarded funds for distribution from the stimulus.? RUS plans to distribute its roughly $2.5 billion by September 30th, 2009.? The National Telecommunications and Information Administration?who received the bulk of the broadband stimulus funds?will hand out their dollars in three phases occurring Spring of 2009, Fall of 2009, and Spring of 2010.

Spend first, formulate your plan later, Mr. Levin?? Sort of seems counterproductive to planning at all.

Conservatives are boned at PDF 2009.? There is certainly not enough representation amongst panel members.? Some of this is absolutely not the fault of Personal Democracy Forum.? We are under a liberal Administration, and that administration appoints liberal bureaucrats.? An invite to Robert McDowell or Meredith Attwell Baker would have been nice.? Maybe they were invited, and turned it down.? This too is a possibility.? At least Cas Sunstein with his Fairness Doctrine-esque “electronic sidewalks” for the Internet isn’t present.

I’m not laying the wood to PDF.? Yes, from initial indications it doesn’t appear that the ideological sides are well balanced, and possibly they don’t know where to look.? The real trouble however is the attendees.

The Personal Democracy Forum doesn’t help conservatives.? Because conservatives aren’t there to be helped.

The numbers are simply overwhelming.? I’d guestimate that the attendance is somwhere close to one thousand.? I’d also venture to say that there are roughly five conservatives there.? And I’m incorporating the one libertarian I saw with a Ron Paul button.

I’m dismayed.

I know these folks are out there.? I’ve written about them.? So where are they?? After this past Fall why aren’t ogles of people from the right side of the aisle on Capitol Hill all over this event?? Did the speakers shy them away?? I don’t really think so.? I’m a strong conservative-libertarian, and have been for years.? And while there are a few people in the speaker list that irk me on the average day, I wouldn’t let them keep me from attending when the majority of lectures and panels are simply focused on an examination of content in some form, a discussion of getting content to an audience, or about tools to help you be more efficient and productive.

This is subject matter that conservatives need to hear.? Maybe PDF needs to market themselves more to conservative circles on the web?? Possibly all conservatives on the web are poor and couldn’t afford to attend?? It could be that conservatives don’t fit in with all the Apple fan boys present at the conference.? If there were more Dell owners then it might have been more balanced.

All thought provoking questions.

These are just initial reactions.? I’m sure I will be thinking more about it into the second day of the event as I look for reasons for the paltry representation.

Secretly though, I think the liberals in the crowd are ecstatic.? Why wouldn’t they be?? It’s like someone serving up a box of free gold to anyone who shows up at the box and takes the gold.? And only liberals are showing up, so they get to take home all the gold.

You can’t teach a dead dog new tricks.? And you certainly can’t expect to win a fight you don’t show up to.

Very much looking forward to Tuesday.

-nick

Broadband Stimulus Plan: Spend First, Ask Questions Later

As posted on openmarket.org:

There has been some noise in technology circles the last week over the FCC comment period or Notice of Inquiry (NOI) in regards to the broadband Internet portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act otherwise known as ?the stimulus.?

The NOI allows individuals, association groups, public policy organizations like CEI, and businesses to issue their comments, suggestions, advise?anything really?to the FCC. This allows ?the public? to describe how they feel like the funds should be spent and the best strategy to improve the state of broadband deployment in under-served an unserved areas.

The comment period is intended to help formulate the National Broadband Strategy which is required to be completed one year from the recovery act being signed in to law. This means that the strategy will come due around the 17th of February 2010.

There is a major problem with the process that is being used in this case. The majority of the funds will be distributed prior to the completion of this strategy that will decide how best to distribute and use them. Cart before the horse much?

The US Department of Agriculture who has used the Rural Utilities Services (RUS) division to improve broadband distribution in the past has been awarded funds for distribution from the stimulus. RUS plans to distribute its roughly $2.5 billion by September 30th, 2009. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration?who received the bulk of the broadband stimulus funds?will hand out their dollars in three phases occurring Spring of 2009, Fall of 2009, and Spring of 2010.

The bill writers recognized the need to give the issue a good deal of study to attempt to create a solid plan, but the process also seems to indicate that they felt to create new jobs fast, so the funds needed to be spent fairly quickly to provide stimulus to the economy. This creates a Catch-22 and certainly suggests that maybe these funds shouldn?t have been spent at all, or in the very least that they should not have been tied up in the stimulus.

A year-long strategy session is pointless if you hand out the money before the plan is even drafted, and there is a good chance that the strategy that comes out of the session won?t be implemented because the money will have been spent.

Most likely, the strategy will be proposed and written based on who has the funds, not who could best use them. So this broadband stimulus is almost certain to fall short of its goal of increasing broadband access for unserved and underserved areas.

But this is what we should expect from our new, ?smarter? government. The same old, dumb results.

-nick

Don’t Be Evil?

Four days ago I woke up to a Wall Street Journal article indicating that Google wanted to join forces with various telecomms to obtain a fast lane to their services.? Now, four days in Internet time is certainly akin to years in meatspace, to be sure.? But before I put my fingers to keyboard I decided to give the issue some careful thought.

My innitial impressions were reactionary and I was somewhat enraged.? I took it somewhat personally at first.? The reason being that a year ago, post-graduate school, I was denied a recommendation from a Google VP for a position in a technology fellowship they were hosting with various tech/Internet think-tanks across the nation because I “Did not share Google’s vision” on Net Neutrality.? The reason for this was because I had written several papers on the subject, which covered Net Neutrality policy across the gamut, from avoiding policy all together by using the precautionary principle, to my suggestions for appropriate regulatory options that would prevent destroying both corporate and garage scientists contributions and innovations to the medium.

I wanted to immediately throw Google under the bus.? This is the company that runs its own blog completely dedicated to public policy and focuses on the Net Neutrality issue a great deal.? The “Don’t be evil” company turning on its previous stance for its own benefit? I honestly wasn’t even surprised.

But here is the thing.? After giving the details of EdgeCaching a going over I don’t have a problem with this.? EdgeCaching, the technique Google is exploring using is a brilliant technology.? And it is something that should not be prevented by Net Neutrality policy.? It is something that should be embraced just like the possibility of fast lane tiers for users that want to pay more because they play time sensitive video games, or watch streaming high def movies.? Future technology and innovation should not be stymied by policy that is not future proof.? And anyone that joins me in a game of Gears of War 2, and gets pawned not by lack of skill, but because of incessant lag can appreciate this.

That being said, I still don’t find it appropriate for Google’s Richard Witt to try and swindle us on the fact that using EdgeCaching would not even possibly by-pass Net Neutrality principles.? Of course, we in the community still do not have a standard definition of Net Neutrality.? The versions of such definition alter depending on who you are talking to or citing.? But generally the definition includes some sort of case for everyone having the freedom or ability to connect equally.? And even these, freedom and ability, are two different things.? Freedom for one company to conduct services in the same way that another does them are certainly different than a company having the means to conduct business.? The point being is that when Witt explains that the implementation is “non-exclusive, meaning any other entity could employ similar arrangements,” does not mean that any other company could afford to go up against a deal penned with say AT&T and implement the same plan.

Now that may simply be capitalism.? It’s certainly not Google’s fault that they are successful and have the financial means to get certain arrangements and use advanced technology to their benefit.? But on the other hand wouldn’t allowing certainly technologies that give certain content providers a speed advantage over others by-pass our Net Neutrality principle of allowing each of us to connect equally?

The long and short of it is that the WSJ was probably somewhat off in their proposition.? But the longer I study Google’s pattern of behavior my face begins to facilitate the expression of two High Noon gun fighters, eyes focused, squinting in the sun, teeth clinched in cautious consideration of the next move.? Let us not forget this is the same company that blatantly mislead the FCC, and the public less than a year ago, with no real intention of placing a winning bid on the wireless spectrum auction for the sole purpose of forcing the spectrum to be open, thus allowing them the opportunity to benefit from the spectrum in the future without having to actually own it and incur any costs.

Google, Don’t Be Evil.

- nick