

Rand and Ron Paul denounce net neutrality and the public domain - joelhaus
http://boingboing.net/2012/07/06/rand-and-ron-paul-denounce-net.html

======
baddox
Did anyone read the actual manifesto? [0] The wording sounds a bit confused,
because I can't often tell if they're using precise technical definitions for
terms or not, but I'm not seeing what this article's author claims to be
seeing. The manifesto appears to denounce government-enforced IP law [1], and
the only mention of "public domain" seems to be referring not to creative
works without any license or copyright, but rather to the idea that websites
run on privately-owned hardware should be considered "public" in some way (and
therefore the government's business) [2].

From what I can tell, the main point of this manifesto is that governments are
trying to establish control over privately-owned Internet resources, that the
language they use is intentionally deceptive, and that governments enjoy a
double standard whereby data collection is prohibited for private endeavors
but allowed and even encouraged by governments [3].

Perhaps the boingboing author would also consider my views about the Internet
and legislation radical and "pretty terrible," but while I consider this
manifesto confusing and poorly written, I'm not seeing any evidence of many of
his points, and I can't help but agree with many of the manifesto's points.
One particular line from this article says "They also ... argue that
government monopolies over knowledge should be extended, and that tax-dollars
should be used to enforce them." Where is that in the manifesto? Is the author
missing something, or am I missing something?

[0]
[http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07...](http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07/05/c4l-introduces-
technology-revolution)

[1] "Among the most insidious are government attempts to control and regulate
competition, infrastructure, privacy, and intellectual property."

[2] "According to them [the Internet collectivists]: ... Private property
rights on the Internet should exist in limited fashion or not at all, and what
is considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded."

[3] "Internet collectivists are clever. They are masters at hijacking the
language of freedom and liberty to disingenuously push for more centralized
control. 'Openness' means government control of privately owned
infrastructure. 'Net neutrality' means government acting as arbiter and
enforcer of what it deems to be 'neutral.' 'Internet freedom' means the
destruction of property rights. 'Competition' means managed competition, with
the government acting as judge and jury on what constitutes competition and
what does not. Our 'right to privacy' only applies to the data collection
activities of the private sector, rarely to government.

~~~
ojbyrne
I read the manifesto and found it hard to get past the obvious distortions
about the role of government in technology. For starters, not even
acknowledging that that wondrous thing called the internet was originally
funded by the government.

~~~
baddox
I don't think the Pauls would intentionally deny or conceal that government
funds were used to create the beginnings of the Internet. Just like NASA, I
suspect they would take their usual stance: that even when governments use tax
revenue to do worthwhile things, it would be preferable (certainly morally and
perhaps economically) for private enterprise to accomplish the same things.

~~~
prodigal_erik
We've already seen private enterprise solutions to the long-haul network
problem: CompuServe and AOL, each of which was a heavily-censored and
ludicrously expensive walled garden, soundly rejected by anyone with access to
the Internet. Well-run private enterprises avoid creating public goods because
they don't pay off, so they aren't going to happen unless you solve the free
rider problem (i.e., taxation) or you have so many selfless donors who don't
object to free riders that you can ignore the problem.

------
fragsworth
> Considering the Pauls were both instrumental in the fight against SOPA and
> PIPA, you would think that the two of them understood how copyright law is
> massively abused and how beneficial the public domain is.

Not many people seem to understand their libertarian views on things. Their
philosophy is neither _for free Internet_ or _against free Internet_. Their
philosophy is about _less government intervention_. SOPA and PIPA are both
bills that impose new government control over certain things
(controlling/limiting the rights and freedoms of individuals and ISPs). Net
neutrality is also an idea that imposes new government control over certain
things (controlling the rights of ISPs). To libertarians, almost all
government control is considered bad, be it control over corporations or
control over individuals. Thus they are against all of these things
simultaneously.

I'm not saying I agree with their exact philosophy. But it's simple, very
consistent, and they never seem to stray far from it.

~~~
_pius
_Not many people seem to understand their libertarian views on things. Their
philosophy is neither for free Internet or against free Internet. Their
philosophy is about less government intervention._

Yet the Pauls seem all too eager to push federal limits on abortion and
marriage equality.

~~~
fragsworth
Again, a misunderstanding of the philosophy. Libertarians tend to believe the
States should be free to legislate what they want. Forcing Abortion legal at
the federal level is controlling what States were once free to decide. What
they want to do is eliminate federal control of abortion law; and let the
states decide. I have never heard them suggesting Abortion or Gay Marriage be
illegal at the federal level.

I personally don't agree with all aspects of their philosophy, but it's still
_consistent_.

~~~
_pius
_Again, a misunderstanding of the philosophy. Libertarians tend to believe the
States should be free to legislate what they want. Forcing Abortion legal at
the federal level is controlling what States were once free to decide._

You're confusing a states' rights fetish for libertarianism. Libertarians are
generally alarmed by forcing things to be _illegal_ , not making them legal.

 _I have never heard them suggesting Abortion or Gay Marriage be illegal at
the federal level._

Then you haven't been paying close enough attention.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/rand-paul-fetal-
per...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/rand-paul-fetal-personhood-
flood-insurance_n_1628128.html)

[http://theiowarepublican.com/2011/ron-paul-condemns-
obama%E2...](http://theiowarepublican.com/2011/ron-paul-condemns-
obama%E2%80%99s-decision-to-abandon-doma/)

------
SpeakMouthWords
That first paragraph is choked with hyperbolic language. I think I'd rather
read a different source on the matter if one exists.

~~~
tjic
Indeed. Boing Boing may be interesting, it may touch on topics that are
relevant...but as far as "reporting" goes, it's worthless.

I resolved to never read it again about a year ago, and I've been happier
since then.

------
prpatel
This makes no sense, Ron usually takes the freedom / libertarian angle on
things. I'm sure there's some nefarious reason for their stand (campaign
dollars?). _sigh_ wish there was a way to 'hack' politics...

~~~
dantheman
What doesn't make sense? The only way to guarantee the free and open nature of
the internet is to keep the government out of it. Once the government builds
an apparatus to enforce net neutrality it's role will gradually expand to
start controlling the internet.

An argument can be made that government funding of teclos should come with
certain restrictions - those restrictions must be present when the money is
doled out. Government creating problems in order to solve them, is an easy way
to further their involvement. Additionally, I believe the Pauls would be
against the funding.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
I think you should probably remove the absolutes from your comment. It may
come to pass that net neutrality legislation morphs into something larger, but
suggesting that it is a given is just an attempt to dismiss the entire
argument on that topic. Saying that keeping governments out is the only way to
safeguard the open internet is stupid; many other interests are at play, and
many commercial organisations would definitely like to see the current status
modified in their favor, which may or may not be good for net neutrality, and
related issues.

------
ojbyrne
Oh that internet, created by the wonders of the free market. We'll just forget
about that whole DARPA thing.

~~~
hollerith
DARPA, NSF and to a lesser extent, CERN and the governments of Britain and
France.

It is hard to identify significant influences on the Internet by entrepreneurs
or private firms (excepting work done on government contracts) before 1992.
The most influential one I can think of is the decision by Sun Microsystems in
the mid-1980s to include a TCP/IP stack and basic internet client software
with every workstation at no extra charge -- which was probably responsible
for the biggest increase in the number of people with access to email in the
1980s -- but even there, doing so would not have occurred to Sun if the US
_government_ had not contracted with UC Berkeley to add those things to BSD.

Summary: although entrepreneurs and the market had dramatic effects on the
internet after 1992, the internet of 1992 was the result mainly of substantial
spending by the US government every year for _thirty_ years leading up to
1992.

And the internet of 1992 was already very compelling and useful to those
willing to master the "text-mode" (no graphical UIs) software used to access
it.

------
gojomo
On net neutrality, this isn't surprising and is in my view quite respectable.
In Washington DC, where the legislators Paul operate, calls for 'net
neutrality' typically mean putting some federal agency (like the FCC) in
charge of what's truly 'neutral' and allowed.

The FCC manages licenses for the exercise of free speech over broadcast media.
It fines disapproved speech. It dictates that telecom equipment be wiretap-
friendly. It's a board of 5 political appointees not apportioned by vote or
region, but split between the two national political parties. The FCC could
never be a friend of true 'neutrality', but rather what the national political
establishment finds helpful.

Even if initially adopted in the spirit of the 'nondiscriminatory transit'
principle, after a few years you should expect 'network neutrality' to mean
'safe for children', 'copyright-protecting', 'wiretap-friendly', 'with set-
asides for underrepresented viewpoints', and 'in compliance with campaign
finance laws'. After all, it's not a 'neutral' net if it's filled with piracy,
pornography, untappable criminal chat, ethnic/gender-insensitivity, and
unregistered political activity. That's downright hostile to law-abiding
Americans and their bipartisan protectors at the FCC!

There's one small, vague and convoluted mention in the Paul statement about
the 'public domain'. It reads roughly:

 _According to them [government attempts to control and regulate competition,
infrastructure, privacy and intellectual property]... Private property rights
on the Internet should exist in limited fashion or not at all, and what is
considered to be in the public domain should be greatly expanded._

That mention isn't even necessarily referring to the rigorous intellectual
property notion of 'public domain' (meaning non-copyrighted). It seems more
the colloquial notion of 'public domain' as 'that which the government
manages, like parks and roads and government buildings'. In order to ridicule
this, Doctorow has to spin Masnick, who is himself heavily spinning the Pauls.
So that one vague mention becomes instead...

• for Masnick, "The Public Domain [is really an] Evil Collectivist Plot"

• for Doctorow, "Rand and Ron Paul denounce... the public domain"

This is a signature move of politics and click-grabbing headline-escalation.
Create the an unfair, unfavorable, heavily-spun summarization of someone's
views. Credit that summarization to the original source as if they'd said
exactly that. Publicize to get a reaction. Collect the traffic-boosting glory!

~~~
hollerith
Have you considered that for the first 23 years of the Internet/ARPANet's
existence, the government was firmly in control of the entire network,
including consistently being the largest purchasers of internet equipment such
as routers, and being the instigator, planner and funder of the initial design
and implementation? (They tried to interest AT&T in running it -- twice, in
1977 and 1987 -- but AT&T was not interested.) Have you considered that it is
because of enlightened decisions made by the government that, e.g., Tim BL et
al did not need to seek the government's permission to use the internet to
deploy the WWW? That in 1999 Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker did
not need to get the permission of the government to use the internet to deploy
Napster?

~~~
gojomo
I am aware of the history of the internet. I am responding above to rhetorical
mischaracterizations of the Pauls' statements.

As to whether DARPA's history suggests that any 'net neutrality' regulations
would be applied in an 'enlightened' manner, I find that idea laughable. The
FCC is not run by by research scientists who value the end-to-end principle
and resistance to damage/censorship above all else. The Congresspeople who'd
be passing the enabling legislation are those who keep passing 'Decency Acts'
(no matter how many times the Supreme Court strikes them down), enabling new
wiretapping powers, and trying to sneak favors to big donor industries into
legislation.

The internet is no longer a research project or prototype. Its equipment,
infrastructure, and services are now overwhelmingly privately provided. We
should look at attempts to federally impose "network" neutrality with as much
skepticism as if they were trying to impose "printing press" neutrality or
"nonfiction book neutrality" or "newsprint neutrality". Those ideas would
rightly be heckled, were they proposed, because our society understands at a
deep level that the printed/written word should be a government hands-off
zone, from author through editor-publisher-distributor. The same should apply
to the internet.

------
iProject
>> evil "collectivists" ... are saying that "what is considered to be in the
public domain should be greatly expanded."

It is "collectivist" to release software (etc.) in public domain???

Something done only by collectivists? So that if I contribute to FOSS I must
be labeled a collectivist?

Maybe the Paul's better offer further explanations.

[edited for clarity]

~~~
baddox
You should read the actual manifesto:
[http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07...](http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/14524/blog/2012/07/05/c4l-introduces-
technology-revolution)

The boingboing author seems to be interpreting the manifesto incorrectly,
because the manifesto is not using the term "public domain" to mean what we
all use it to mean.

