> Regulation = Freedom only in George Orwell’s 1984.
I guess we should stop regulating that whole "freedom of speech" thing. Who protects your freedom of speech? AT&T? Verizon? Did you forget?
THE GOVERNMENT.
Who makes sure your kids can drink from the same water fountains that white-kids drink?
THE GOVERNMENT.
I could go on of course, perhaps quote that god awful regulation known as the Bill of Rights, but I think the point is clear. Unlike a company, its sole purpose isn't to "maximize profit". Its "Board of Directors" (Congress) and "CEO" (President) is elected by the entire People of the United States (or [insert country-name here]). We have the power, every few years or so, to throw these elected representatives out.
Net Neutrality is our generation's freedom of speech debate, and just like free speech, it needs to be protected. Yes, by... THE GOVERNMENT, because that's how you protect the nation as a whole.
In what way has the government protected freedom of speech? The first amendment is about stopping the government from restricting speech, and it's only when the government restricts speech that there's even a reason. In fact, the government tries time and again to restrict speech, and if they decide, collectively, to block it, there's no recourse besides moving to another country.
You've got press blackouts in the 1940s, you have the PMRC triggering congressional hearings about musical content in the 80s, you've got crypto laws in the 90s, you've got the DMCA, you've got the DHS seizing domains, you've got calls to have Wikileaks banned. Your all-caps "the government" did these, and keeps doing them, and I don't know which government you're watching if you think that these elected officials and unelected bureaucrats shouldn't be kept on the shortest leash possible.
The Bill of Rights regulates no one but the government itself. The government has two roles: to keep others from infringing on my rights, and to keep its nose out of my damned business unles I infringe on others'. It's doing a lousy job, but that's a different issue.
There exists no private entity that can legally stop me from saying what I want. They can keep me from doing it on land they own or with resources they own, but that's fine. I don't want them to be able to freely use my resources without my consent, either. That's the concept of private property. But I can get a bullhorn and run down to city hall and yell, I can publish a newspaper, I can create a blog. If $company_x doesn't want to host my blog, I can get $company_y to do it. If my government can stop me on a whim, though, then I'm screwed.
(Edit: typos, damnable phone, it's trying to censor me.)
I agree with you that government should be kept on a short leash, for the reasons you state, but we don't want to strangle it, either - Government has a job to keep others from infringing on your rights.
If ISPs are free to regulate traffic, then they have the power to strangle the business of a content provider by preventing their customers from accessing the content. Even if you argue that customers have chosen their infrastructure provider, how is the infrastructure provider not infringing on the rights of the content provider, which doesn't even do business with them?
I agree that the government's job is to keep others from infringing on individual rights, but I don't see a content provider's rights being violated. Let's say Verizon starts offering "everything on the net except NetFlix" as a package. They're not obligated to carry any traffic they don't want, and there's no law that stops them from blocking that traffic right now. They don't do it because they'd lose tons of customers; this is one evil thing that they have an incentive not to do. (If all ISPs, or even all ISPs in a given area do this, then rights are violated, and they'd get slapped with violations of the RICO Act; that's a different matter, though.) They lose money if they do it. What if the FCC decides to kill off NetFlix, though? The downside for them is that somewhere down the line (still waiting for this in the case of the DMCA...) a judge tells them they can't.
Let's say it's fine for the FCC (or another government entity) to do this, though. What if I run open WiFi, but I block bittorrent traffic? Have I violated my neighbors' rights? I think I can do what I want with my pipe, but would this be under the FCC's authority? I'm not a business, sure, but what about the WiFi at, say, Starbucks? I trust a non-monopoly much more than I trust a government, which has a de facto monopoly over imposing its will by force on the populace.
Built into the laws of this country is an inherent mistrust of the government., the idea that authority over the populace has a corrupting influence, and that it should be kept limited to the extent possible. You hope for the best (a benevolent set of leaders) but plan for the worst (a power-hungry group of totalitarians). The Constitution's plan for the worst is to avoid trusting in our leaders' benevolence and keep them from getting enough rope to string us up. It's what I love about this country.
I think most of the commenters here agree on that principle, so I would like to apologize as it seems I've been a little abrasive, and we're all on the same side here (at least apparently). But I am secure in my belief that the government is too big already and its authority needs to be reduced, not expanded in any direction.
We are really all on the same side - the concern on both sides is about centralizing power. Your concern is that we're giving government too much power, mine is that we're trading government power for corporate power, and we each see the power we grant as mitigated somehow - either by the 3 branches of government, or by the free market, and neither has faith in the other's mitigating force.
Starbucks free WiFi is an excellent point, which sheds light on the underlying philosophical debate. If an organization provides a resource (WiFi, water, a job), but only to a select group of their choosing, at what point do we call it supplying a service, and at what point do we call it discriminatory starvation? Is the glass half full, or half empty?
If there's competition, it's moot, but if there isn't any, we're giving the single supplier complete power over distribution (slippery slope to plutocracy argument). If we ban discrimination, it's also moot, but then we're giving government power to dictate rules for private organizations (slipperly slope to fascism argument).
There exists no private entity that can legally stop me from saying what I want
Correct! Your company can fire you for saying something bad about it online, but they can't throw you in jail. No one can throw you in jail for what you say online (with technical exceptions for some forms of hate speech I believe). Companies can't do it, nor can the government. Why? Because of... heh, The Government!
You've got press blackouts in the 1940s, you have the PMRC triggering congressional hearings about musical content in the 80s, you've got crypto laws in the 90s, you've got the DMCA, you've got the DHS seizing domains, you've got calls to have Wikileaks banned. Your all-caps "the government" did these
Yes. Sometimes the government violates its own laws. And when it gets caught doing that, other parts of.. The Government, actually spring into action. This is called the system of Checks and Balances, and you may have heard of organizations such as the ACLU and the EFF making use of it to correct the Government's behavior using... The Government.
The internet, as a whole, belongs to no one. It belongs to us all. In a sense, it is Public Property (on the whole). Protecting it is therefore the responsibility of The People, through the mechanism known as Government.
(Edit: BTW, you'll note that most of the examples you cited happen to be caused by contamination in The Government caused by the private sector, known as regulatory capture (as another commenter pointed out).)
>> The government has two roles: to keep others from infringing on my rights, and to keep its nose out of my damned business unles I infringe on others'.
> And when it gets caught doing that, other parts of.. The Government actually spring into action.
You're making my point for me. And as far as I can tell, the government isn't doing much to stop itself in the last three cases, and last time I heard, some music still has "Warning! Explicit lyrics!" labels on it, so the PMRC ended up getting its way there.
No kidding. Of course governments can and do abuse their power, but that is an entirely different argument. The only alternative to having laws, as far as I can tell, is having no laws, and faced with that option I think we should aim for the best laws possible.
As Nazi Germany can always serve as example, the alternatives discussed here are not between having laws and not having laws. The alternatives are between laws that protect our individual rights and laws that violate them.
When government begins meddling in the affairs of content delivery, it is not only an innappropriate harmful intrusion, but leaves a door open for content itself to be regulated or up for public vote.
Agreed, let's not let government meddle in the affairs of content delivery.
But let's not let anyone else, either, because government isn't the only entity capable of censorship. But who would enforce such a rule?
I have an idea - we could make a law that says "no one should meddle in the affairs of content delivery" - we could call it something catchy, like "Net Neutrality".
So rather than take the risk that a part of government may become corrupt, and attempt to manage that risk with a system of checks and balances, we shouldn't give the government any power whatsoever, and instead leave any other organization that gains any form of power free to use that power without restriction?
Precisely. As long as that power was obtained through voluntary cooperation in the market, there is no concern. Power in a free market sense is only gained by being valuable. No longer valuable to your customers, no longer powerful.
Government Power and Market Power are pretty much opposite.
So in a free market, all entities inherently act in the best interest of their customers, regardless of whether or not there's competition? And they wouldn't use their position to do anything anticompetitive to maintain that position and keep the "free" market effectively closed?
My point is, without some entity establishing rules of fair play, the market isn't a free one, because one player can gain enough power to effectively close the market to any competitors.
If you honestly believe that the phenomenon of regulatory capture means we shouldn't attempt to regulate anything at all, then please hand over your Freedom of Speech Card. While you're at it, I could also use an indentured servant...
Maybe, one day, regulatory capture will be a thing of the past if The People wake up and learn what that is.
What you're doing is avoid analyzing the regulatory system's incentive system.
The regulatory system is wholly connected to the failure and success to protect "net neutrality".
All I am telling you is my grim assessment that the government is no confidence as protector. Check and balances doesn't do anything if government is simply hostile as a whole. Democracy is tyranny. The whole idea of an educated electorate is a laughingstock.
Well, forgive me when I think people in general are just hostile to the idea of liberty and that democracy have no intrinsic protection against tyranny.
> Regulation = Freedom only in George Orwell’s 1984.
I guess we should stop regulating that whole "freedom of speech" thing. Who protects your freedom of speech? AT&T? Verizon? Did you forget?
THE GOVERNMENT.
Who makes sure your kids can drink from the same water fountains that white-kids drink?
THE GOVERNMENT.
I could go on of course, perhaps quote that god awful regulation known as the Bill of Rights, but I think the point is clear. Unlike a company, its sole purpose isn't to "maximize profit". Its "Board of Directors" (Congress) and "CEO" (President) is elected by the entire People of the United States (or [insert country-name here]). We have the power, every few years or so, to throw these elected representatives out.
Net Neutrality is our generation's freedom of speech debate, and just like free speech, it needs to be protected. Yes, by... THE GOVERNMENT, because that's how you protect the nation as a whole.