Net Neutrality = End to Internet as We Know It!

Google-Verizon Pact: It Gets Worse

So Google and Verizon went public today with their 'policy framework' - better known as the pact to end the Internet as we know it.

News of this deal broke this week, sparking a public outcry that's seen hundreds of thousands of Internet users calling on Google to live up to its "Don't Be Evil" pledge.

But cut through the platitudes the two companies (Googizon, anyone?) offered on today's press call, and you'll find this deal is even worse than advertised.

The proposal is one massive loophole that sets the stage for the corporate takeover of the Internet.

Real Net Neutrality means that Internet service providers can't discriminate between different kinds of online content and applications. It guarantees a level playing field for all Web sites and Internet technologies. It's what makes sure the next Google, out there in a garage somewhere, has just as good a chance as any giant corporate behemoth to find its audience and thrive online.

What Google and Verizon are proposing is fake Net Neutrality. You can read their framework for yourself here or go here to see Google twisting itself in knots about this suddenly 'thorny issue'. But here are the basics of what the two companies are proposing:

1. Under their proposal, there would be no Net Neutrality on wireless networks - meaning anything goes, from blocking websites and applications to pay-for-priority treatment.

2. Their proposed standard for 'non-discrimination' on wired networks is so weak that actions like Comcast's widely denounced blocking of BitTorrent would be allowed.

3. The deal would let ISPs like Verizon - instead of Internet users like you - decide which applications deserve the best quality of service. That's not the way the Internet has ever worked, and it threatens to close the door on tomorrow's innovative applications. (If RealPlayer had been favored a few years ago, would we ever have gotten YouTube?)

4. The deal would allow ISPs to effectively split the Internet into "two pipes" -- one of which would be reserved for "managed services," a pay-for-play platform for content and applications. This is the proverbial toll road on the information superhighway, a fast lane reserved for the select few, while the rest of us are stuck on the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

5. The pact proposes to turn the Federal Communications Commission into a toothless watchdog, left fruitlessly chasing consumer complaints but unable to make rules of its own. Instead, it would leave it up to unaccountable (and almost surely industry-controlled) third parties to decide what the rules should be.

If there's a silver lining in this whole fiasco it's that, last I checked anyway, it wasn't up to Google and Verizon to write the rules. That's why we have Congress and the FCC.

Certainly by now we should have learned - from AIG, Massey Energy, BP, you name it - what happens when we let big companies regulate themselves or hope they'll do the right thing.

We need the FCC - with the backing of Congress and President Obama - to step and do the hard work of governing. That means restoring the FCC's authority to protect Internet users and safeguarding real Net Neutrality once and for all.

Such a move might not be popular on Wall Street or even in certain corners of Silicon Valley, but it's the kind of leadership the public needs right now.

If you haven't yet told the FCC why we need Net Neutrality, please do it now.

Follow Craig Aaron on Twitter:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-aaron/google-verizon-pact-it-ge_b_676194.html

Net Neutrality Threatened
By Stephen Lendman
8-12-10

This article follows two previous ones, accessed through the following links: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/11/struggle-for-net-neutrality.html http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/07/under-threat-free-and-open-internet.html Free Press.net is a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working for media reform through education, organizing and advocacy - Net Neutrality its defining issue, keeping it free and open, letting users access all content without restrictions, limitations, or discrimination, an online level playing field for everyone, the essence of democratic free speech. Without it, consumer choice will be lost, stolen by corporate predators, making the Internet look like cable TV, letting them decide what web sites, content and applications are available at what cost. On August 4, New York Times writer Edward Wyatt headlined, "Google and Verizon Near Deal on Web Pay Tiers," saying: These giants "are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content's creators are willing to pay for the privilege." Content producers would pay more for preferential service, but consumers will also be affected, paying higher fees or losing out, sacrificing Net Neutrality, a "sacred tenet ... in which no form of content is favored over another." On August 5, Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires Scott Morrison headlined "2nd Google, Verizon Deny Tiered-Web Deal Report," saying: Today, the two firms "denied a report saying (they) were to close an agreement that would allow the carrier to speed up the delivery of online content to Internet users if content creators paid for the privilege," subverting Net Neutrality in which all content is equally treated. Verizon issued a statement saying: "Our goal is an Internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect." Google also denied The Times story saying: "We remain as committed as we always have been to an open Internet ... We have not had any conversations with Verizon about paying for carriage of Google or YouTube traffic." An earlier Wall Street Journal article said the two companies may soon announce an agreement they hope could be a model for legislation aimed to prevent telephone or cable companies from delaying or blocking Internet traffic. The Times, however, stands by its report. Broadband companies want maximum customer revenue. Internet ones have long opposed prioritized traffic because it'll cost more, especially for popular sites like YouTube. An August 6 freepress.com article by its Media Coordinator Jenn Ettinger headlined, "Company (Google) Claims to Support Open Internet but Remains Dodgy About Details of Deal with Verizon," saying: "Google's 'denial' ... leaves out many important details about the policy agreement being negotiated with Verizon ... the company (falls short of openness) about its position on fundamental issues like 'managed services,' and how the Internet will be treated on wireless networks. Google has already entered into a lucrative partnership with Verizon to push its Android operating system for mobile phones." S. Derek Turner, Free Press' Research Director added: "Google's denial is just damage control, a sleight-of-hand-designed to deflect the growing public outcry against a company that once pledged 'don't be evil.' " Turner said reports about Google and Verizon are worrisome. They're not denying their wireless network arrangement. "This means (not) only will pay-for priority be allowed, but (also) that companies like Verizon will be permitted to outright block websites that compete with it or its partners like Google." Google/Verizon 'Policy Framework' Announced Now revealed, the deal is "worse than feared," according to Free Press' Communications Director Liz Rose and Jenn Ettinger, saying in a joint statement with MoveOn.Org Civic Action, Credo Action, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and ColorofChange.org, all members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition: "The Google-Verizon pact isn't just as bad as we feared - it's much worse. They are attacking the Internet while claiming to preserve it. Google users won't be fooled." Here's their scheme - partial Net Neutrality, what "they'll likely stop investing in," in lieu of a new, deregulated, corporate-controlled Internet via fiber and wireless phones, where they "can pick and choose which sites people can easily view on their phones or any other Internet device using these networks." It will let them block applications and "divide the information superhighway, creating new private fast lanes for the big players while leaving the little guy stranded on a winding dirt road." Worse still, it will turn the FCC into a "toothless watchdog, left fruitlessly chasing complaints and unable to make rules of its own." Net Neutrality will be destroyed, removing the last free and open space, why it's crucial that the administration, Congress and the FCC reject the deal outright. The alternative is too grim to imagine. Again, it will create two Internets, put two big players in charge, and pave the way for other giants to follow, the public left out entirely. Free Press CEO/co-founder Josh Silver highlighted the threat in his August 5 article headlined, "Google-Verizon Deal: The End of the Internet as We Know It," asking: "How did this happen? We have (an FCC) that has been denied authority by the courts to police (Internet service provider) activities ... because of a bad (Bush-era FCC) decision." As a result, we have a 'pro-industry' chairman cutting back room deals, a president who promised Net Neutrality now silently capitulating, and a Democrat-controlled Congress little more than corporate occupied territory, pushing sweeping, across-the-board-pro-business measures, stiff-arming their constituents. The stakes are enormous. Digital democracy (the last media frontier) is on the line. If Google, phone and cable companies prevail, it's lost. They'll be self-regulating, able to charge what they wish, and block content freely. Combined, telecom, broadcast and cable giants have lobbied fiercely for control - to establish online toll roads, or premium lanes, for users wanting speed and access. Others will get slower (and for some no) service, will have to pay for formerly free sites, and whatever corporate interests dislike will be censored or suppressed. Ahead, all video, radio, phone and other services will be delivered online. Without Net Neutrality, thought control will replace free expression, corporate interests more than ever in control, a nightmarish vision essential to prevent, what only mass public outrage can and must do. Net Neutrality is the defining issue of our time, preserving it a battle vital to win to maintain corporate-free space, crucial to defend at all costs. The stakes are that high. After Wall Street, media giants already get more government handouts than any other industry, including: - monopoly licenses for radio, TV, satellite TV spectrum, cable TV and telephone, worth hundreds of billions of dollars combined; - free industrial spectrum TV, cable and telephone for internal use, worth many billions more; - lucrative postal subsidies; - federal, state and local film and TV production subsidies; - all levels of government advertising worth billions annually; - advertising expenditures as a business deductible expense; - electoral political advertising amounting to about 10% of TV ad revenue, and in depressed economic times even more; - government lobbying for media giants overseas for deregulated markets and subsidies diverted to them and other US companies; and - their largest handout - government-created/enforced copyrights, giving media giants monopoly power to consolidate to too-big-to fail status, the trend author Ben Bagdikian documented since 1983 in new editions of his landmark book, The Media Monopoly, explaining how dozens of media companies combined into a handful of communication giants, controlling television, radio, newspapers, magazines, publishing, films, music, and more, the public be damned for profits. Now the Internet is up for grabs, the last free expression space, threatened by profiteering predators partnered with a Capitol Hill/administration criminal class. Highlighting the danger on Free Press, Silver explains that: "phone and cable monopolies (controlling nearly) all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest," besides controlling what's published and what's not. They want unregulated power "to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can't pay," shutting down the last free and open space, stealing it for themselves, a mass-awakening needed to stop them before it's too late. A Final Comment Under Title II of the 1934 Telecommunications Act, FCC officials can stop this piracy, using its delegated authority to write rules, not pass the buck to Congress or let industry giants self-regulate. With digital democracy on the line, it's high time public outrage demanded nothing less. The stakes are that high. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/. Source: http://www.rense.com/general91/neut.htm

Big Brother: Obama Demands Access to Internet Records, in Secret, and Without Court Review
by Tom Burghardt

The Obama administration is seeking authority from Congress that would compel internet service providers (ISPs) to turn over records of an individual's internet activity for use in secretive FBI probes.

In another instance where Americans are urged to trust their political minders, The Washington Post reported last month that "the administration wants to add just four words - 'electronic communication transactional records' - to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval."

Under cover of coughing-up information deemed relevant to espionage or terrorism investigations, proposed changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) would greatly expand the volume of private records that can be seized through National Security Letters (NSLs).

Constitution-shredding lettres de cachet, NSLs are administrative subpoenas that can be executed by agencies such as the FBI, CIA or Defense Department, solely on the say so of supervisory agents.

The noxious warrants are not subject to court review, nor can a recipient even disclose they have received one. Because of their secretive nature, they are extremely difficult to challenge.

Issued by unaccountable Executive Branch agents hiding behind a façade of top secret classifications and much-ballyhooed 'sources and methods', NSLs clearly violate our constitutional rights.

The fourth amendment unambiguously states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

However, in 'new normal' America constitutional guarantees and civil rights are mere technicalities, cynical propaganda exercises jettisoned under the flimsiest of pretexts: the endless 'War on Terror' where the corporate state's praetorian guards work the 'dark side'.

Once served, firms such as telecommunication providers, banks, credit card companies, airlines, health insurers, video rental services, even booksellers and libraries, are compelled to turn over what the secret state deem relevant records on targets of FBI fishing expeditions.

If burdensome NSL restrictions are breeched for any reason, that person can be fined or even jailed if gag orders built into the draconian USA Patriot Act are violated.

However, even the Patriot Act's abysmally lowered threshold for seizing private records specify that NSLs cannot be issued "solely on the basis of activities protected by the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States."

Despite these loose standards, congressional investigators, journalists and civil liberties watchdogs found that the FBI violated the rules of the road, such as they are, thousands of times. Between 2003-2006, the Bureau issued 192,499 NSLs, according to current estimates, the FBI continues to hand out tens of thousands more each year.

According to a May 2009 Justice Department letter sent to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, "in 2007, the FBI made 16,804 NSL requests" and followed-up the next year by issuing some "24,744 NSL requests ... to 7,225 United States persons."

The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a 2007 report which concluded that the Bureau had systematically abused the process and exceeded their authority. A follow-up report published by the OIG in January found that serious civil liberties breeches continue under President Obama.

This is hardly surprising given the track record of the Obama administration.

'Reform', Obama-Style

The latest White House proposal would hand the secret state unprecedented access to the personal communications of every American.

What Bushist war criminals did secretly, Obama intends to do openly and with the blessings of a supine Congress. As constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald points out, "not only has Obama ... blocked any reforms, he has taken multiple steps to further expand unaccountable and unchecked surveillance power."

Nowhere is this more apparent than by administration moves to 'reform' ECPA.

While the Justice Department claims their newly sought authority does not include "'content' of email or other Internet communications," this is so much eyewash to deceive the public.

In fact, the addition of so-called transactional records to the volume of files that the state can arbitrarily seize, would hand the government access to a limitless cache of email addresses, dates and times they were sent and received, and a literal snap-shot on demand of what any user looks at or searches when they log onto the internet.

As I have pointed out before, most recently last month when Idescribed the National Security Agency's PERFECT CITIZEN program, the roll-out of privacy-killing deep-packet inspection software developed by NSA already has the ability to read and catalogue the content of email messages flowing across private telecommunications networks.

Former Bushist Homeland Security official, Stewart A. Baker, applauded the proposal and told the Post, "it'll be faster and easier to get the data." Baker touts the rule change as a splendid way for ISPs to hand over "a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL."

While the Post claims "many internet service providers" have "resisted the government's demands to turn over electronic records," this is a rank mendacity.

A 'senior administration official', speaking anonymously of course, told the Post that "most" ISPs already "turn over such data." Of course they do, and at a premium price!

Internet security analyst Christopher Soghoian has documented that just one firm, Sprint Nextel, routinely turned over their customer's geolocation data to law enforcement agencies and even built them a secure web portal to do so, eight million times in a single year!

Soghoian wrote last year that "government agents routinely obtain customer records from these firms, detailing the telephone numbers dialed, text messages, emails and instant messages sent, web pages browsed, the queries submitted to search engines, and of course, huge amounts of geolocation data, detailing exactly where an individual was located at a particular date and time."

As a public service, the secrecy-shredding web site Cryptomehas published dozens of so-called compliance guides for law enforcement issued by a plethora of telecoms and ISPs. Readers are urged to peruse Yahoo's manual for a taste of what these grifters hand over.

While the administration argues that "electronic communication transactional records" are the 'same as' phone records that the Bureau can obtain with an NSL, seizing such records reveal far more about a person's life, and political views, than a list of disaggregated phone numbers. This is precisely why the FBI wants unlimited access to this data. Along with racial and religious profiling, the Bureau would be handed the means to build a political profile on anyone they deem an 'extremist'.

That 'senior administration official' cited by the Post claims that access to a citizen's web history "allows us to intercede in plots earlier than we would if our hands were tied and we were unable to get this data in a way that was quick and efficient."

Perhaps our 'change' administration has forgotten a simple historical fact: police states are efficient. The value of privacy in a republic, including whom one communicates with or where one's interests lie, form the core values of a democratic order; principles sorely lacking in our 'new normal' Orwellian order!

In a small but significant victory, the ACLU announced this week that "the FBI has partially lifted a gag it imposed on American Civil Liberties Union client Nicholas Merrill in 2004 that prevented him from disclosing to anyone that he received a national security letter (NSL) demanding private customer records."

In a statement to reporters, Merrill said: "Internet users do not give up their privacy rights when they log on, and the FBI should not have the power to secretly demand that ISPs turn over constitutionally protected information about their users without a court order. I hope my successful challenge to the FBI's NSL gag power will empower others who may have received NSLs to speak out."

Despite this narrow ruling, the FBI intends to soldier on and the Obama administration is hell-bent on giving the Bureau even more power to operate in the dark.

Commenting on the Merrill case, The Washington Post reported FBI spokesperson Mike Kortan claimed that NSL "secrecy is often essential to the successful conduct of counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations" and that public disclosure "may pose serious risks to the investigation itself and to other national security interests."

Those 'other' interests, apparently, do not extend to the right to express one's views freely, particularly when they collide with the criminal policies of the secret state.

Tom Burghardt is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20599

Net Neutrality and Why You Should Care
Paul Kapustka, PC World
Aug 30, 2010

It’s one of the most important issues - if not THE most important - in the life of the Internet so far. Yet it’s widely misunderstood. Here are the facts.

I know, I know. You keep hearing this term and wonder what it really means. I’ve been following the story for five years now, and sometimes I still wonder myself. Is it something that could really end up affecting what I see or can’t see on the Web, or is it just a buzzword that geeks, policy wonks, and politicians like to throw around at parties? Well, it’s really both.

Here I've put together a list of basic questions about Net neutrality that, if taken as directed, can help you swim through the spin and hype around the topic. It'll also help you understand in jargon-free terms what's being debated now, and how the possible outcomes of the debate could change the Web forever.

Q: What is Net neutrality?

A: At the very simplest level, the term "Net neutrality" is accepted shorthand for the idea that Internet service providers shouldn't be allowed to block, degrade, or charge extra for legal content and applications that run on the Net--an idea that has pretty much been the standard operating procedure since the Internet's start, but one that has never been codified into enforceable law.

Q: Why should I care?

A: In its most egregious forms, Net neutrality violations could keep you from accessing content or services you have legally paid for--as in the very first known violation, when a regional service provider blocked users from the Vonage Voice over IP service, or the most recent one, when Comcast used questionable management practices to keep some broadband users from downloading content. While it's true that most Net neutrality violations are either unknown or still theoretical, consumer advocates who favor Net neutrality regulations say they are needed to ensure that service providers don't use their market strength to turn the Internet into a place where they can charge both customers and content and application providers premium fees to connect to each other.

Q: Why is Net neutrality in the news again?

A: The latest headlines came on August 9, when Google and Verizon announced that they had worked together to produce a "framework" to help legislators and regulators construct Net neutrality regulations that industry leaders might readily agree with. Details of the framework aside, the deal was big news mainly because Google and Verizon had previously been very vocal opponents on many sides of the Net neutrality battles. Google, which has long championed Internet openness on all levels, was accused of "selling out" its Net neutrality principles in order to placate its business partner Verizon, which is one of the biggest sellers of mobile phones that use Google's Android operating system. Though Google denied it was giving up its net neutrality ideals, a full Greek chorus of bloggers and columnists derided it for doing just that, and Internet consumer groups even staged a small "Don't Be Evil" protest at Google headquarters.

The Google/Verizon deal followed a busy spring and summer of Net neutrality activity in Washington, D.C., where the Federal Communications Commission has been struggling to assert its historical control of the issue. In April, the agency took a big legal hit when a district court ruled that the FCC didn't have the necessary jurisdiction to enforce Net neutrality regulations on cable providers like Comcast, a ruling that left many questioning whether the FCC had any Net neutrality enforcement powers at all. Currently, the FCC is moving forward on several fronts to try to regain its legal footing, floating ideas for new Net neutrality regulations as well as possibly reclassifying Internet services as telecommunication services so it could regulate broadband providers under its historical powers.

Telecom companies, who are among the nation's strongest lobbying forces, are doing their best to push their own agendas, and drafting members of Congress to decry the FCC's intended actions. The FCC has also drawn the ire of consumer groups for holding several off-the-record meetings with industry representatives in order to try to find some common ground on the matter.

Q: Have there ever been any known cases of Net neutrality infractions?

A: The issue first surfaced back in 2005, when regional telecom service provider Madison River was punished for blocking its DSL users from the Vonage VoIP service. Later that year, then-SBC CEO Ed Whitacre--whose company at the time was about to buy AT&T--made the issue famous by telling Business Week that Internet firms like Google should have to pay extra to reach users over AT&T's lines:

"Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts," Whitacre said. The inflammatory nature of his comments fueled intense debate about the subject throughout 2006, but attempts by the Republican-controlled Congress to pass legislation that would prohibit Net neutrality regulations stalled.

In 2007, the Associated Press reported that Comcast was slowing BitTorrent without telling its customers, an act that the FCC censured in 2008, saying it was in violation of the Net neutrality "principles" that the FCC had outlined in 2005. The court decision this April, however, overturned the FCC's punishment of Comcast and has thrown the whole issue back into disarray.

Q: Should wireless broadband be exempt?

A: The real sticking point in the current state of the Net neutrality debate is the question of wireless networks, especially wireless broadband networks that carry data to smartphones. One of the most strenuous objections to the Google-Verizon framework is its declaration that wireless networks should be excluded from any Net neutrality regulations. From the provider perspective, the reasoning behind this exemption is that wireless networks have much lower capacity and much higher management demands than wireline networks do, so providers don't want regulations that make administration tougher or operations more expensive. Consumer groups, however, say that wireless networks need regulations to ensure that Internet-style innovation can occur as wireless connections gradually replace wired ones, and to keep providers from enacting "toll gates" that would extract high costs from bandwidth-heavy uses of wireless networks, like streaming video.

Q: Who has the juice in this fight?

A: The biggest influence by far in the Net neutrality battle comes from the big telecom service providers, namely Verizon and AT&T, and the big cable players, like Comcast. With hundreds of lawyers well-versed on regulatory topics and the ability to contribute mightily to legislators on both sides of the aisle, the telco lobbying forces are among the elite in Washington circles, the equal of drug and oil companies. AT&T and Verizon have both spent nearly $9 million each on lobbying so far this year, with Comcast right behind at nearly $7 million in lobbying costs, while the main cable-industry association spent another $8 million.

The big phone and cable providers are experts at controlling the message. They contribute to lawmakers' campaigns, actively educate and advise legislators on complex telecom issues, and even help draft legislation. Witness the recent public "letter" signed by 73 Democrats that tells the FCC it should abandon its "reclassification" plans since such actions might "jeopardize jobs and deter investment”--a claim that Big Telco has long used to ward off moves to regulate its industry.

On the side of Net neutrality, Google used to lead the way, at least in terms of lobbying and spending, a role that may be diminished if Google spends more time trying to work with its previous opponents. But some very vocal customer advocacy groups are also involved in the Net neutrality fight, led by Public Knowledge and Free Press--groups that have much smaller budgets than the big providers but that have become very adept at publicizing their side of the story via Internet channels and aggressive e-mail messages to reporters, analysts, and Washington insiders.

Q: So again, why should I care? Do I need to get involved?

A: In the short term, Net neutrality violations are likely to remain nonexistent since service providers know that any transgressions would give opponents plenty of firepower during a key decision-making time. And despite their claims that Net neutrality regulations would discourage investment, service providers are likely to keep spending big to build up their networks no matter what happens on the regulatory front, given the competitive market for providing Internet access, especially on mobile networks.

But as AT&T's recent decision to do away with "unlimited" wireless data plans illustrates, the big providers are already moving toward charging more for broadband services, especially mobile ones, in part to defend against the perceived added costs of possible Net neutrality regulation.

Should the government (the FCC) be given the power to mandate Net neutrality principles by force of law, or should the big ISPs have the right to police themselves? For many, the latter approach has become suspect in these days of bank collapses and offshore drilling catastrophes.

On the other hand, if you believe that a lack of rules might allow service providers to indiscriminately boost prices and limit competition on networks of the future, you might want to lend your support to the groups and legislators backing a Net neutrality law, since they claim their rules will keep the Internet more open for innovation.

With no Net neutrality regulations, service providers say they will have more incentive to invest in the networks and applications of the future, since they'll be able to control transmissions more to their liking in order to maximize profits. But that also means a probability of wireless services that are priced much like cable TV, where customers pay more for "premium" channels.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/204336/faq_net_neutrality_and_why_you_should_care.html?tk=nl_cox_h_cbintro

More control over the internet ...

Philly Blogger Tax Gets Laughs On Web

A City Paper story on Philadelphia's efforts to tax its blogger population is big news on the Internet - and another national joke about our city.

Last Wednesday, a City Paper column talked about Philadelphia's effort to get revenue from any blogger who lived in its confines, and who attempts to get some money back from selling ads on a blog.

Technically, the city isn't levying a tax on bloggers. It is charging a $50 annual fee or a $300 lifetime fee for the privilege of putting advertising links on a blog - even if no one clicks on the links.

But to bloggers, the words "blog tax" resonates and is being used to describe the city's efforts.

City Paper spoke with blogger Marilyn Bess , who has made $50 in the past three years on her blog and now faces a $300 bill from the city for a business privilege license.

Affiliate advertising is very popular on the Internet as a way to pay for monthly hosting fees. People who make serious money on blogs pay income taxes and conduct business as any other taxpayer.

Hobbyists like Bess write blogs because they have strong opinions on topics, or just like to write.

But to the city of Philadelphia, there is apparently no distinction if someone intends to make any money on a blog, even if the ads are never clicked or if the blogger just makes a small amount of money.

That got local bloggers riled up and the story spread over the Internet last weekend.

By Monday, Bess' story made the mainstream newspapers, and by Tuesday, it was on the Associated Press newsfeed and CNN.

The astute New York Magazine even took Philadelphia to task - on its own blog. It urged Philadelphia bloggers to stop blogging so that the city wouldn't get the license fees.

Ironically, the city may be finding out about bloggers because they are reporting their tiny income on tax forms.

So far, it doesn’t look like Philadelphia will change its stance.

City spokesman Doug Oliver told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the city considers bloggers as business people when they attempt to sell ads on a blog.

"It is the same standard for any business operating in Philadelphia," Oliver said.

Technorati blogger Alex Priest says the licensing effort just makes Philadelphia look bad - again.

"This is low, Philly. Just low. There are better ways, and ways that don't infringe on people's rights," Priest says.

The Washington Post, after making fun of Philadelphia, says the city should follow an example from another city that has the right idea - Washington.

"In other cities, no such problem exists. The District, for example, only requires a business license for activities that would require other forms of oversight, such as food sales or rental housing. Blogging and other sorts of writing are free from that requirement, although if you make real money from your blog--hey, stop laughing!--D.C. will want its share," the Post's Rob Pegoraro blogs.

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Love Always
mudra

Stop the Internet Blacklist
By David Segal and Aaron Swartz
27-10-2010

When it really matters to them, Congressmembers can come together - with a panache and wry wit you didn't know they had. As banned books week gets underway, and President Obama admonishes oppressive regimes for their censorship of the Internet, a group of powerful Senators - Republicans and Democrats alike - have signed onto a bill that would vastly expand the government's power to censor the Internet.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced just one week ago, but it's greased and ready to move, with a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee this Thursday. If people don't speak out, US citizens could soon find themselves joining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broad chunks of the public Internet.

COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.

The lists are for sites "dedicated to infringing activity," but that's defined very broadly - any domain name where counterfeit goods or copyrighted material are "central to the activity of the Internet site" could be blocked.

One example of what this means in practice: sites like YouTube could be censored in the US. Copyright holders like Viacom often argue copyrighted material is central to the activity of YouTube, but under current US law, YouTube is perfectly legal as long as they take down copyrighted material when they're informed about it - which is why Viacom lost to YouTube in court.

But if COICA passes, Viacom wouldn't even need to prove YouTube is doing anything illegal to get it shut down - as long as they can persuade the courts that enough other people are using it for copyright infringement, the whole site could be censored.

Perhaps even more disturbing: Even if Viacom couldn't get a court to compel censorship of a YouTube or a similar site, the DOJ could put it on the second blacklist and encourage ISPs to block it even without a court order. (ISPs have ample reason to abide the will of the powerful DOJ, even if the law doesn't formally require them to do so.)

COICA's passage would be a tremendous blow to free speech on the Internet - and likely a first step towards much broader online censorship. Please help us fight back: The first step is signing our petition. We'll give you the tools to share it with your friends and call your Senator.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-segal/stop-the-internet-blackli_b_739836.html

Homeland Security shuts down dozens of Web sites without court order
The Homeland Security Department's customs enforcement division has gone on a Web site shutdown spree, closing down at least 76 domains this week, according to online reports.

While many of the web domains were sites that trafficked in counterfeit brand name goods, and some others linked to copyright-infringing file-sharing materials, at least one site was a Google-like search engine, causing alarm among web freedom advocates who worry the move steps over the line into censorship.

All the shut sites are now displaying a Homeland Security warning that copyright infringers can face up to five years in prison.

According to a report at TorrentFreak, the search engine that was shut down - Torrent-Finder.com - neither hosted copyrighted material nor directly linked to places where it could be found. Instead, the site opened new windows to sites that did link to file-sharing materials.

"When a site has no tracker, carries no torrents, lists no copyright works unless someone searches for them and responds just like Google, accusing it of infringement becomes somewhat of a minefield," writes Torrentfreak, "Unless you’re ICE Homeland Security Investigations that is."

As of its last update, Torrentfreak counted 76 domains shut down this week.

Homeland Security's ability to shut down sites without a court order evidently comes from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a Clinton-era law that allows Web sites to be closed on the basis of a copyright complaint. Critics have long assailed the DMCA for being too broad, as complainants don't need to prove copyright infringement before a site can be taken down.

News of the shutdowns has some observers wondering whether the US really needs COICA, the anti-counterfeiting bill that passed through a Senate committee with unanimous approval last week. That bill would allow the federal government to block access to Web sites that attorneys general deem to have infringed on copyright.

"Domain seizures coming under the much debated ‘censorship bill’ COICA? Who needs it?" quips Torrentfreak.

However, COICA would allow the government to block access to Web sites located anywhere in the world, while Homeland Security's take-downs are limited to servers inside the United States. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said he would place a hold on COICA, effectively killing the bill at least until the new congressional session next year.

The owner of Torrent-Finder.net complained that his search engine was shut down without so much as a court order or prior complaint.

“My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the owner said, without being identified in the Torrentfreak article.

Earlier this week, Homeland Security shut down a popular hip-hop music site, RapGodfathers.com, which had nearly 150,000 members. The site claims it is compliant with copyright laws, as it doesn't host copyrighted materials. However, its users posted links to file-hosting services such as Rapidshare and Megaupload, where copyrighted material may have been shared.

These domains are now "the property of Homeland Security," writes Gareth Halfacree at Thinq.co.uk, "And there's no indication that their original owners will ever be able to get them back."

Source:http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/homeland-security-shuts-dozens-sites/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Out of curiosity I started running their names through whois, and a pattern soon became apparent.

Here's the whois results for the first twenty. I haven't given the full readout with each one as it's probably not really necessary here.

Domain Name: 2009JERSEYS.COM
Registrar: BEIJING INNOVATIVE LINKAGE TECHNOLOGY LTD. DBA DNS.COM.CN
Whois Server: whois.dns.com.cn
Referral URL: http:// www.dns .com.cn
Name Server: NS1.SEIZEDSERVERS.COM
Name Server: NS2.SEIZEDSERVERS.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: serverDeleteProhibited
Status: serverTransferProhibited
Status: serverUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 24-nov-2010
Creation Date: 14-jul-2009
Expiration Date: 14-jul-2013

Domain Name: 51607.COM
Registrar: BEIJING INNOVATIVE LINKAGE TECHNOLOGY LTD. DBA DNS.COM.CN

Domain Name: AMOYHY.COM
Registrar: BEIJING INNOVATIVE LINKAGE TECHNOLOGY LTD. DBA DNS.COM.CN

Domain Name: B2CORDER.COM
Registrar: BEIJING INNOVATIVE LINKAGE TECHNOLOGY LTD. DBA DNS.COM.CN

Domain Name: BISHOE.COM
Registrar: BEIJING INNOVATIVE LINKAGE TECHNOLOGY LTD. DBA DNS.COM.CN

Domain Name: BORNTRADE.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.

Domain Name: BORNTRADE.NET
Registrar: HICHINA ZHICHENG TECHNOLOGY LTD.

Domain Name: BOXEDTVSERIES.COM
Registrar: ENOM, INC.

Domain Name: BOXSET4LESS.COM
Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
Whois Server: whois. paycenter .com.cn

Domain Name: BOXSETSERIES.COM
Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

Domain Name: BURBERRYOUTLETSHOP.COM
Registrar: HICHINA ZHICHENG TECHNOLOGY LTD.

Domain Name: CARTOON77.COM
Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

Domain Name: CHEAPSCARFSHOP.COM
Registrar: BIZCN.COM, INC.

Domain Name: COACHOUTLETFACTORY.COM
Registrar: XIAMEN ENAME NETWORK TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION LIMITED DBA ENAME CORP

Domain Name: DAJAZ1.COM
Registrar: FASTDOMAIN, INC.

Domain Name: DISCOUNTSCARVESONSALE.COM
Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

Domain Name: DVDCOLLECTIONSALE.COM
Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
Whois Server: whois. paycenter .com.cn

Domain Name: DVDCOLLECTS.COM
Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

Domain Name: DVDORDERONLINE.COM
Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

So, though I haven't checked all the others on that list, it seems to me that the vast majority are likely to be Chinese companies. I guess that's not surprising, seeing as so much of this counterfeit stuff is made in that country.

The majority of people who might be affected by these website shutdowns are not Americans. They're Chinese, working for the Chinese-based and registered companies that are trading in the US (and other places) and bringing money into China through selling their often low-quality fake-trade-name goods.

But the question is -- why take this action right now? I mean, is there anything going on right now concerning China? Like Korea -- and a certain very large US warship steaming towards China's "economic territory"?

Might this be a ploy by the US government to send the Chinese goverment a not-too-subtle message of some kind?

I'm just offering another perspective, but it seems to me that it could have some validity.

Mike
Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread634288/pg2

The Net Neutrality Scam And Netflix
By Cassandra Anderson
11-30-10

Comcast will start imposing a fee on Level 3, a company that Netflix hired to deliver movies and TV shows to web customers. And why shouldn't they? Comcast built and maintains the broadband infrastructure. Level 3 is looking to double its internet traffic. Comcast has contract that charge other companies for the same service. Netflix already accounts for 20% of downloads between the peak hours of 8pm to 10 pm.

'Net Neutrality' is sold as keeping the internet free. Yet it is really a device for more government control. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled in favor of Comcast, who was sued for charging higher prices to some internet users, and the FCC stepped in and regulated the charges, under the banner of protecting the public from price gouging and private companies shutting down service. However, Comcast focused charges on a few individual users who were sharing gigantic files and clogging the broadband system. If someone requires more from a provider, why shouldn't they pay for it? This is simple free market economics. In a free market, the public enjoys competitive lower pricing, and fewer, if any regulations. Remember that J.D. Rockefeller, the monopoly mastermind, said that competition was a sin.

Jay Rockefeller, the FCC and a number of other federal agencies support 'net neutrality' because they want to control all media in order to shape the way people think. Independent media is a threat to social engineering. Google supports 'net neutrality' because they get a free ride off of the companies that paid for the infrastructure. Cable TV companies support 'net neutrality' because their business is dying as more people turn to the internet.

Because this is a complicated issue, many 'net neutrality' advocates have had succes. Watch this video to see Jay Rockefeller use scare mongering to implement 'net neutrality'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YWVAJEcHUE&feature=player_embedded

The cost of viewing TV programs and movies on the Web may be passed on to the consumer. But if 'net neutrality' is accomplished, the price will be far greater: government controlled internet. Is free TV really worth it?

Source: http://www.rense.com/general92/md.htm

Wave goodbye to Internet freedom
FCC crosses the Rubicon into online regulation

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Thursday, December 2, 2010

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is poised to add the Internet to its portfolio of regulated industries. The agency's chairman, Julius Genachowski, announced Wednesday that he circulated draft rules he says will "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet." No statement could better reflect the gulf between the rhetoric and the reality of Obama administration policies.

With a straight face, Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the "freedom" of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web. Ordinarily, it would be appropriate at this point to supply an example from the proposed regulations illustrating the problem. Mr. Genachowski's draft document has over 550 footnotes and is stamped "non-public, for internal use only" to ensure nobody outside the agency sees it until the rules are approved in a scheduled Dec. 21 vote. So much for "openness."

read on: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/2/wave-goodbye-to-internet-freedom/

Love Always
mudra

The tech nerds are fighting back

[snip]

BitTorrent Based DNS To Counter US Domain Seizures
Written by Ernesto on November 30, 2010

The domain seizures by the United States authorities in recent days and upcoming legislation that could make similar takeovers even easier in the future, have inspired a group of enthusiasts to come up with a new, decentralized and BitTorrent-powered DNS system. This system will exchange DNS information through peer-to-peer transfers and will work with a new .p2p domain extension.

In a direct response to the domain seizures by US authorities during the last few days, a group of established enthusiasts have started working on a DNS system that can’t be touched by any governmental institution.

Ironically, considering the seizure of the Torrent-Finder meta-search engine domain, the new DNS system will be partly powered by BitTorrent.

In recent months, global anti-piracy efforts have increasingly focused on seizing domains of allegedly infringing sites. In the United States the proposed COICA bill is explicitly aimed at increasing the government’s censorship powers, but seizing a domain name is already quite easy, as illustrated by ICE and Department of Justice actions last weekend and earlier this year.

For governments it is apparently quite easy to take over the DNS entries of domains, not least because several top level domains are managed by US-based corporations such as VeriSign, who work closely together with the US Department of Commerce. According to some, this setup is a threat to the open internet.

To limit the power governments have over domain names, a group of enthusiasts has started working on a revolutionary system that can not be influenced by a government institution, or taken down by pulling the plug on a central server. Instead, it is distributed by the people, with help from a BitTorrent-based application that people install on their computer.

According to the project’s website, the goal is to “create an application that runs as a service and hooks into the hosts DNS system to catch all requests to the .p2p TLD while passing all other request cleanly through. Requests for the .p2p TLD will be redirected to a locally hosted DNS database.”

“By creating a .p2p TLD that is totally decentralized and that does not rely on ICANN or any ISP’s DNS service, and by having this application mimic force-encrypted BitTorrent traffic, there will be a way to start combating DNS level based censoring like the new US proposals as well as those systems in use in countries around the world including China and Iran amongst others.”

The Dot-P2P project was literally started a few days ago, but already the developers are making great progress. It is expected that a beta version of the client can be released relatively shortly, a team member assured TorrentFreak.

The project has been embraced by many familiar names in the P2P-community. Former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde is among them, and the people from EZTV have been promoting it as well.

“For me it’s mostly to scare back. To show that if they try anything, we have weapons of making it harder for them to abuse it. If they then back down, we win,” Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak in a comment.

Although the initiators of the project are still debating on various technical issues on how the system should function, it seems that the administrative part has been thought out. The .p2p domain registration will be handled by OpenNIC, an alternative community based DNS network. OpenNIC also maintains the .geek, .free, .null and several other top level domains.

On the other hand, there are also voices that are for distributed domain registration, which would keep the system entirely decentralized.

The domain registrations will be totally free, but registrants will have to show that they own a similar domain with a different extension first, to prevent scammers from taking over a brand.

The new P2P-based DNS system will require users to run an application on their own computer before they can access the domains, but there are also plans to create a separate root-server (like OpenNIC) as a complimentary service. It’s worth noting that the DNS changes will only affect the new .p2p domains, it will not interfere with access to any other domains.

It will be interesting to see in what direction this project goes and how widely it will be adopted. There are already talks of getting Internet Service Providers to accept the .p2p extension as well, but even if this doesn’t happen the system can always be accessed through the BitTorrent-powered application and supporting DNS servers.

If anything, this shows that no matter what legislation or legal actions are taken, technology stays always one step ahead. The more aggressive law enforcement gets, the more creative and motivated adopters of the Open Internet will respond.

[/snip]

Full Article can be found at
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-based-dns-to-counter-us-domain-seizures-101130/

UN mulls internet regulation options
By John Hilvert on Dec 17, 2010


WikiLeaks sparks push for tighter controls.

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonise global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet.

Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil.

At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks.

The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet.

India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.

However, Australia, US, UK, Belgium and Canada and attending business and community representatives argued there were risks in forming yet another working group that might isolate itself from the industry, community users and the general public.


read more : http://www.itnews.com.au/News/242051,un-mulls-internet-regulation-options.aspx

Love Always
mudra

FCC’s Christmas Gift for the Internet: Net Neutrality Regulation

Should bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., set rules for the Internet? Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), thinks so. In remarks today, he stated that he had developed a new plan to impose so-called “net neutrality” rules on Internet service providers, setting a vote on the issue for December 21.

Details of the plan are yet to be released, but the chairman indicated that the plan was based on a legislative proposal floated a month ago by Representative Henry Waxman (D–CA). That plan, however, was soundly rejected by Congress. Genachowski’s plan — which the FCC would adopt without specific approval by Congress — should be rejected as well.

The Waxman proposal would have banned Internet providers such as Verizon and Comcast from managing the flow of traffic on their networks in a way that “unjustly or unreasonably” discriminates against particular types of content. The new rules would have been enforced on a case-by-case basis by the FCC. This plan was an improvement from earlier calls by regulation proponents to ban nearly all types of traffic management. But the case-by-case approach leaves vast discretion in the hands of the FCC: Could a provider take steps to limit “bandwidth hogs” who are consuming vast amounts of available capacity? Could it offer “priority service” to willing content providers for a fee? These questions are left for the commission to handle at its discretion. Such discretion is not only dangerous, but it is hardly likely to create the consistent regulatory atmosphere necessary to encourage needed investment in the Internet.

Moreover, the approach would no doubt encourage gamesmanship by businesses of all sorts. That was shown earlier this week, when communications provider Level 3, in a business spat with Comcast over how much it would pay Comcast — if anything — for Comcast to handle traffic from Level 3’s network. Such negotiations are common among networks, and the longstanding system of private interconnection agreements has worked quite well. Yet Level 3 now claims that Comcast’s request for payment to carry Level 3’s traffic violates net neutrality rules. The argument is hogwash, but it has caused a political stir that promises to help Level 3 in its ongoing negotiations.

Whatever happens on December 21, the net neutrality issue is unlikely to be settled anytime soon. To start with, the FCC has no apparent statutory authority to regulate the Internet at all. Nothing in the Communications Act explicitly gives the FCC power to regulate, and just this spring a federal court firmly rejected the FCC’s argument for “ancillary” jurisdiction. It will take some fancy footwork for FCC lawyers to find an alternative argument.

At the same time, Congress seems dead set against such regulation. The Waxman proposal, for instance, got nowhere fast, and the new Congress will certainly be more skeptical of such regulation.

Yet it appears that Genachowski intends to ignore the courts — and ignore Congress — in order to impose regulation. Hopefully, wiser heads among the five members of the FCC will prevail. If not, Congress should use its power to intervene.

Source: http://blog.heritage.org/?p=47479

Carol wrote:

BY-PASS Google and instead use www.startingpage.com
the world's most private search engine!

Or http://www.scroogle.org/

The FCC's Threat to Internet Freedom
'Net neutrality' sounds nice, but the Web is working fine now. The new rules will inhibit investment, deter innovation and create a billable-hours bonanza for lawyers.

Tomorrow morning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will mark the winter solstice by taking an unprecedented step to expand government's reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings. In doing so, the agency will circumvent Congress and disregard a recent court ruling.

How did the FCC get here?

For years, proponents of so-called "net neutrality" have been calling for strong regulation of broadband "on-ramps" to the Internet, like those provided by your local cable or phone companies. Rules are needed, the argument goes, to ensure that the Internet remains open and free, and to discourage broadband providers from thwarting consumer demand. That sounds good if you say it fast.

Nothing is broken that needs fixing, however. The Internet has been open and freedom-enhancing since it was spun off from a government research project in the early 1990s. Its nature as a diffuse and dynamic global network of networks defies top-down authority. Ample laws to protect consumers already exist. Furthermore, the Obama Justice Department and the European Commission both decided this year that net-neutrality regulation was unnecessary and might deter investment in next-generation Internet technology and infrastructure.

continued at link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703395204576023452250748540.html

Obama's uses executive order to take over internet
By: Sharry Edwards
Dec 19, 2010

Barack Obama has a "Christmas surprise" for the American people. It's based upon the FCC's self-imposed December 21 deadline to implement new Internet rules.

Via the FCC, Mr. Obama wants to take control of the Internet - YOUR Internet - your ability to contact your friends, your relatives, and your elected representatives in government.

This "stealth" use of new rules and regulations will sneak up on us just before Christmas. Quite frankly, not too many people know about this; or really take the notion seriously, because, after all, we have the 1st Amendment to the U. S. Constitution to protect us. Right? Wrong!

The FCC is ready to add the Internet to its "portfolio" of regulated industries. The Obama Administration wants to take control of the Internet. BEFORE CHRISTMAS! (even though the regulations won't "officially" go into effect until after the holidays. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that he has circulated "draft rules" that he says will "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet." No statement - I call it a bald face lie - reflects the vast gulf between the rhetoric and the reality of Obama Administration policy.

Obama's FCC is ready to steal our Internet freedom by simply declaring it has the "right" to regulate it. Here's the underlying problem for Barack Obama. Internet journalists tend to report the news without coloring it with the brush of "political correctness." They challenge the lies that the Obama Administration puts out that the so-called "mainstream media" simply accept and repeat as the truth.

Congress needs to exercise their Constitutional authority and oversight over the FCC, by insisting that the FCC postpone the implementation of these new regulations until proper Congressional Committee hearings are held to determine whether the Executive Branch has the Constitutional authority to take over the Internet. Three federal judges in three different cases have already ruled that the Internet deserves the same protection under the First Amendment as printed material receives. We must not let the federal government continue to whittle away at our Constitutional freedoms!

We must be prepared to do battle with the intrusive FCC federal regulations that will clamp down on our 1st Amendment rights via the Internet. To protect our free speech rights on the Internet, we must contact every single Member of Congress and let them know they must NOT agree to the upcoming December 21st regulations! Will you do that for yourself and for the rest of us... today - please? This is so important; let me repeat my request so you understand the extreme urgency. Because, historically, when government seizes liberty, it's gone forever.

According to the Washington Times: "With a straight face, Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the 'freedom' of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web. Ordinarily, it would be appropriate at this point to supply an example from the proposed regulations illustrating the problem. Mr. Genachowski's draft document has over 550 footnotes and is stamped 'non-public, for internal use only' to ensure nobody outside the agency sees it until the rules are approved in a scheduled December 21 vote. So much for 'openness'!

Mr. Obama will use the FCC plans to implement control of cyberspace by issuing regulations. He blatantly insists that he has the right to regulate the Internet through the FCC - which regulates the other electronic mediums: radio and television. What Mr. Obama really means is that as long as the American people have unfettered access to the Internet, he cannot continue to spread his propaganda and bald face lies without being challenged, and he will be a one-term visitor at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Make no mistake; Barack Hussein Obama is very determined to undermine free speech by seizing cyber-control Internet free speech; under the disguise of making sure our safety and security are of prime importance. The recent WikiLeaks fiasco has helped him to rationalize this tremendous increase of government control to the American public.

Freedom and openness should continue to be the governing principles of the Internet. That's why Mr. Genachowski's December 21 proposals should be STOPPED by Members of Congress. In fact, both the U. S. Senate and the House of Representatives should make it even clearer that the FCC should STOP trying to expand its REGULATORY EMPIRE and should STOP trying to control our freedom of speech over the internet!

In the administration's zeal to "protect the people," the social progressive zealots in the Obama federal bureaucracy are not averse to writing the rules and regulations like this. It makes a clear statement. It takes away our freedoms on the Internet; but it is all under the claim of "protection."
That's why the proposed FCC Internet rules and regulations - THAT ARE ABOUT TO BE IMPLEMENTED without Congressional legislation being enacted - must be stopped by that Body whose legislative authority has been abridged.

Don't let the Obama Administration give you a government "Merry Christmas" via Internet controls. Send Barack Obama your personal "BAH, HUMBUG!"

Say "Merry Christmas" with a message that STOPS the federal government from crossing that Constitutional line by seizing the Internet. Barrack Hussein Obama blames the Tea Party Revolution, and the results of the 2010 election, on the American conservatives' unfettered access to the Internet. That appears to be the real reason that the Obama Administration authorized the FCC power grab to regulate the Internet. Obama talking heads might refer to regulation as a form of "Net Neutrality," or a cyber-version of the "Fairness Doctrine." But, plain and simple, it is plain, old fashioned, censorship of the views of a majority by a frightened minority who want to silence that majority.

Are you part of the no-longer "silent" majority which believes that the 1st Amendment protects our right to speak our mind, in the public forum of the Internet, or at a Town Hall meeting? Free speech is free. Don't let anyone regulate your right to speak. Get involved. Now. Today.

When it comes to the Internet, bipartisan majorities in Congress have insisted on maintaining a strict hands-off policy whenever the left has proposed legislation to impose censorship through regulation. A federal appeals court confirmed this in April, by striking down the FCC's last attempt to do it. In order for the FCC to take this control, it needs Congress to give it explicit statutory authority to do so. Since they have chosen not to, Mr. Obama intends to just do it himself. The Obama Administration is overstepping its Constitutional boundaries? These proposed regulations prove that!

December 21 is only days away.

Freedom of the Press is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Federal judges have ruled specifically that the Internet has the exact same freedoms. But the Obama Administration is trying to control the Internet... and YOU!

On December 1, with an impending implementation on December 21st, Mr. Genachowski announced to the media that he had circulated his draft rules memo. He said it will "... preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet," adding that the federal government will increase the freedom of online services because, he noted, heavy use in some areas of the Internet slow the "web experience" for everyone sharing the same information superhighway lines.

Even though that may be partially true, the United States government should not dictate to us what we can and cannot do on the Internet. Period.

Although the federal judiciary has extended First Amendment protection to the Internet, Barack Obama believes that he has the executive authority, WITHOUT legislation enacted by Congress, to arbitrarily regulate who uses cyberspace and what access they may enjoy, based entirely on the content of the material that they wish to publish there. If this isn't a violation of our basic rights as Americans, I do not know what is!

SOURCE: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=190441

'Net Neutrality': Internet Freedom without Gatekeepers - Implications of the FCC Ruling
by Tim Karr
January 2, 2011
Global Research / Savetheinternet.com

On December 21, 2010 FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gave AT&T a decision that was gift-wrapped for the holiday season. By a 3-to-2 vote, the FCC passed a rule that, in the chairman’s words, “protects Internet freedom.”

If only that were true.

After a year of promises to deliver on President Obama's pledge to protect Net Neutrality, this chairman has pushed through a rule that favors the very industry his FCC is supposed to regulate, leaving Internet users with few protections and putting the future of the open Internet in peril.

The chairman chose to ignore the voices of more than 2 million people who have urged Washington to support real and lasting Net Neutrality protections. His rule, for the first time in history, allows discrimination over the mobile Internet, paving the way for widespread industry abuses.

Now, the chairman is trying to spin the media that this toothless decision is a win for Obama and for Internet users. Free Press and our allies are not going to let him get away with that.

The FCC rule doesn't do enough to stop the phone and cable companies from dividing the Internet into fast and slow lanes. It doesn't stop them from splitting the Internet into two - one Internet for those who can pay to access special sites and services, and another neglected network for the rest of us.

The rule fails miserably to protect wireless users from discrimination, a prospect that's especially troubling for African American and Latino communities who increasingly access the Internet via mobile devices.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) underscored this point. "Although the new rules bar fixed broadband Internet providers from 'unreasonable discrimination' against Web traffic," she said on Wednesday. "They exempt mobile broadband providers - leaving millions without critical consumer protections and leading to a fractured Internet."

The FCC vote is a textbook example of industry capture of a federal agency. Chairman Genachowski gave AT&T veto power over this rule. What he's now characterizing as a "reasonable compromise" looks, to anyone who compares his order to his earlier promises, as a near total capitulation to industry.

By failing to protect the open Internet, Genachowski has put at risk one of the essential needs of any healthy democracy: our right to freely access information, engage in political discourse and govern ourselves.

We’d be lying if we didn’t tell you that this vote was a major setback. But this bad rule is not the end of the story. Free Press and our many allies are going to keep fighting to secure your right to an Internet without gatekeepers.

SOURCE: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22610

MPAA Takes A Dozen Torrent Sites Offline
Jan 27, 2011

The MPAA has managed to take a dozen torrent sites offline in the United States, with help from Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. The 12 torrent sites – which remain anonymous – were pulled offline by their hosting companies following complaints from the two organizations. What effect this ‘massive’ takedown operation will have on the BitTorrent ecosystem is yet to be seen, but thus far there are no reports of ‘missing’ torrent sites.

100,000 P2P Users Sued in US Mass Lawsuits
Jan 30, 2011

The avalanche of copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States, mainly against BitTorrent users, are about to hit a dubious milestone. In total 99,924 defendants have been sued in the last 12 months, and new cases are being filed at a rapid rate. Adult companies in particular have have embraced the profitable pay-up-or-else scheme where tens of millions of dollars are at stake.

More:
SOURCE: http://torrentfreak.com/

TRANCOSO wrote:MPAA Takes A Dozen Torrent Sites Offline
Jan 27, 2011

The MPAA has managed to take a dozen torrent sites offline in the United States, with help from Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. The 12 torrent sites – which remain anonymous – were pulled offline by their hosting companies following complaints from the two organizations. What effect this ‘massive’ takedown operation will have on the BitTorrent ecosystem is yet to be seen, but thus far there are no reports of ‘missing’ torrent sites.

More:
SOURCE: http://torrentfreak.com/

Carol, is Channel 131 still online at your end?

It was last week. I'm not getting anything right now... This is where I watch my TV programs and the latest movies.

www.ch131.com
www.hulu.com
www.syfy.com Jurassic Park III is on tonight
My favorite series is Eureka http://www.syfy.com//rewind/eureka/

Carol wrote:It was last week. I'm not getting anything right now... This is where I watch my TV programs and the latest movies.

www.ch131.com
www.hulu.com
www.syfy.com

Same here.

Hulu doesn't work outside the US, Syfy ditto!

Death Of The Internet - Rockefeller: Internet is 'Number One National Hazard'

According to the great-grandson John D. Rockefeller, nephew of banker David Rockefeller, and former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller the internet represents a serious threat to national security. Rockefeller is not alone in this assessment. His belief that the internet is the "number one national hazard" to national security is shared by the former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Obama's current director Admiral Dennis C. Blair.

"It really almost makes you ask the question would it have been better if we had never invented the internet," Rockefeller mused during the confirmation hearing of Gary Locke (see video), Obama's choice for Commerce Secretary. He then cites a dubious figure of three million cyber "attacks" launched against the Department of Defense every day. "Everybody is attacked, anybody can do it. People say, well it's China and Russia, but there could be some kid in Latvia doing the same thing."

Jay Rockefeller's comments reveal an astounding degree of ignorance - or if not ignorance, outright propaganda. Since the September 11, 2001, attacks the government has cranked up the fear quotient in regard to cyber attacks and so-called cyber terrorism, a virtually non-existent threat except in the minds security experts and politicians. In the years since the attacks, not one real instance of real cyberterrorism has been recorded.

"Cyberattacks on critical components of the national infrastructure are not uncommon, but they have not been conducted by terrorists and have not sought to inflict the kind of damage that would qualify as cyberterrorism," writes Gabriel Weimann, author of Terror on the Internet. "Nuclear weapons and other sensitive military systems, as well as the computer systems of the CIA and FBI, are 'air-gapped,' making them inaccessible to outside hackers. Systems in the private sector tend to be less well protected, but they are far from defenseless, and nightmarish tales of their vulnerability tend to be largely apocryphal."

"Psychological, political, and economic forces have combined to promote the fear of cyberterrorism," Weimann continues. "From a psychological perspective, two of the greatest fears of modern time are combined in the term 'cyberterrorism.' The fear of random, violent victimization blends well with the distrust and outright fear of computer technology."

"The sky is not falling, and cyber-weapons seem to be of limited value in attacking national power or intimidating citizens," notes James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Such a threat is overblown, Lewis explains. He notes that "a brief review suggests that while many computer networks remain very vulnerable to attack, few critical infrastructures are equally vulnerable." In other words, Rockefeller's example of a kid in Latvia with a laptop posing a serious "hazard" to national security is little more than sensationalistic propaganda.

So-called cyber terrorists are far less of a threat than government. China and Australia have recently imposed draconian censorship on internet freedom. Brazil, Denmark, Canada, Finland, Ireland , Italy, Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and many other countries also impose nominal censorship on internet freedom. Urgent calls to restrict the medium in various ways through legislation and government action have increased over the last few years (for more detail, see Internet Censorship: A Comparative Study).

However, the real threat to internet freedom is currently posed by IT and ISP corporations, not the government.

As Alex Jones explained last June, large corporate ISPs are now in the process of imposing bandwidth caps and routing traffic over their networks and blocking certain targeted websites. For instance, in 2005 AOL Time-Warner was caught blocking access to all of Jones' flagship websites across the entire United States. Other instances of outright censorship include the UK ISP Tiscali blocking subscribers from reaching material on the 7/7 London bombings and Google's continued and habitual censorship of 9/11 material and Alex Jones' films on the ever-popular YouTube. There are many other instances as well.

SOURCE: http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2010/06/death-internet

TRANCOSO wrote:

Carol wrote:It was last week. I'm not getting anything right now... This is where I watch my TV programs and the latest movies.

www.ch131.com
www.hulu.com
www.syfy.com

Same here.

Hulu doesn't work outside the US, Syfy ditto!

It's BACK online

I must recognize I did'nt understand it all but for those who do it may be usefull

Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down
Does your government have an Internet kill-switch? Read our guide to Guerrilla Networking and be prepared for when the lines get cut.

By Patrick Miller, David Daw, PCWorld Jan 29, 2011

http://www.pcworld.com/article/218155/get_internet_access_when_your_government_shuts_it_down.html

These days, no popular movement goes without an Internet presence of some kind, whether it's organizing on Facebook or spreading the word through Twitter. And as we've seen in Egypt, that means that your Internet connection can be the first to go. Whether you're trying to check in with your family, contact your friends, or simply spread the word, here are a few ways to build some basic network connectivity when you can't rely on your cellular or landline Internet connections.
Do-It-Yourself Internet With Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi

Even if you've managed to find an Internet connection for yourself, it won't be that helpful in reaching out to your fellow locals if they can't get online to find you. If you're trying to coordinate a group of people in your area and can't rely on an Internet connection, cell phones, or SMS, your best bet could be a wireless mesh network of sorts--essentially, a distributed network of wireless networking devices that can all find each other and communicate with each other. Even if none of those devices have a working Internet connection, they can still find each other, which, if your network covers the city you're in, might be all you need. At the moment, wireless mesh networking isn't really anywhere close to market-ready, though we have seen an implementation of the 802.11s draft standard, which extends the 802.11 Wi-Fi standard to include wireless mesh networking, in the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop.

However, a prepared guerrilla networker with a handful of PCs could make good use of Daihinia ($25, 30-day free trial), an app that piggybacks on your Wi-Fi adapter driver to turn your normal ad-hoc Wi-Fi network into a multihop ad-hoc network (disclaimer: we haven't tried this ourselves yet), meaning that instead of requiring each device on the network to be within range of the original access point, you simply need to be within range of a device on the network that has Daihinia installed, effectively allowing you to add a wireless mesh layer to your ad-hoc network.

Advanced freedom fighters can set up a portal Web page on their network that explains the way the setup works, with Daihinia instructions and a local download link so they can spread the network even further. Lastly, just add a Bonjour-compatible chat client like Pidgin or iChat, and you'll be able to talk to your neighbors across the city without needing an Internet connection.
Back to Basics

Remember when you stashed your old modems in the closet because you thought you might need them some day? In the event of a total communications blackout--as we're seeing in Egypt, for example--you'll be glad you did. Older and simpler tools, like dial-up Internet or even ham radio, could still work, since these "abandoned" tech avenues aren't being policed nearly as hard.

In order to get around the total shutdown of all of the ISPs within Egypt, several international ISPs are offering dial-up access to the Internet to get protesters online, since phone service is still operational. It's slow, but it still works--the hard part is getting the access numbers without an Internet connection to find them.

Unfortunately, such dial-up numbers can also be fairly easily shut down by the Egyptian government, so you could also try returning to FidoNet--a distributed networking system for BBSes that was popular in the 1980s. FidoNet is limited to sending only simple text messages, and it's slow, but it has two virtues: Users connect asynchronously, so the network traffic is harder to track, and any user can act as the server, which means that even if the government shuts down one number in the network, another one can quickly pop up to take its place.

You could also take inspiration from groups that are working to create an ad-hoc communications network into and out of Egypt using Ham Radio, since the signals are rarely tracked and extremely hard to shut down or block. Most of these efforts are still getting off the ground, but hackers are already cobbling together ways to make it a viable form of communication into and out of the country.
Always Be Prepared

In the land of no Internet connection, the man with dial-up is king. Here are a few gadgets that you could use to prepare for the day they cut the lines.

Given enough time and preparation, your ham radio networks could even be adapted into your own ad-hoc network using Packet Radio, a radio communications protocol that you can use to create simple long-distance wireless networks to transfer text and other messages between computers. Packet Radio is rather slow and not particularly popular (don't try to stream any videos with this, now), but it's exactly the kind of networking device that would fly under the radar.

In response to the crisis in Egypt, nerds everywhere have risen to call for new and exciting tools for use in the next government-mandated shutdown. Bre Pettis, founder of the hackerspace NYC Resistor and creator of the Makerbot 3D printer, has called for "Apps for the Appocalypse," including a quick and easy way to set up chats on a local network so you can talk with your friends and neighbors in an emergency even without access to the Internet. If his comments are any indication, Appocalypse apps may be headed your way soon.

Tons of cool tech are also just waiting to be retrofitted for these purposes. David Dart's Pirate Box is a one-step local network in a box originally conceived for file sharing and local P2P purposes, but it wouldn't take much work to adapt the Pirate Box as a local networking tool able to communicate with other pirate boxes to form a compact, mobile set of local networks in the event of an Internet shutdown.

Whether you're in Egypt or Eagle Rock, you rely on your Internet access to stay in touch with friends and family, get your news, and find information you need. (And read PCWorld, of course.) Hopefully with these apps, tools, and techniques, you won't have to worry about anyone--even your government--keeping you from doing just that.

Love Always
mudra