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Tech at Night: Free Speech, Free Press, Net Neutrality, Louise Slaughter

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  January 13th, 2011 at 03:00 AM  | 

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Tech at Night

Good evening. The Communication Workers of America are making a cowardly little statement in favor of Net Neutrality, as they simply must be team players even though they know the radical left’s agenda threatens to kill their own jobs, but for the most part the left still wants to move on from Net Neutrality. There are good reasons for that.

First, one of our predictions from before is already coming true. They’re coming after content, already. Louise Slaughter is pressing the FCC to institute a sweeping campaign of censorship online. Free Press is on the case, too. Speech that regulators disfavor must be “curbed,” she thinks. Remember when we were assured that the FCC should show “forbearance,” and that the FCC’s Net Neutrality power grab wasn’t a free speech issue at all, but just a network management issue? Of course. Of course.

Secondly, the case continues to grow for technological and market forces protecting customers better than the FCC ever could. Next year, worldwide, one billion people are projected to use wireless, high-speed Internet access. One billion people next year, and 3.8 billion by 2015. That’s how ready we are. After all, Verizon is already serving high-speed LTE access to users, and Sprint/Clearwire/Time Warner are serving WiMAX right now, today.

That’s competition. That’s choice offered to people like never before under the old local government-mandated duopoly of Cable and DSL access. That’s innovation that we need government to keep off of in order to keep change and improvement going forward.

One final note. For all the gnashing of teeth about William Daley, Sunlight was awfully quiet about Andrew McLaughlin. Funny that. Why is a former Google leader okay, but a former AT&T leader troubling, if not for a plain old political bias on Sunlight’s part?

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  • pangborn76

    Section 326 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 USC Sec. 326, is quite unambiguous:

    Nothing in this chapter shall be understood or construed to give the Commission the power of censorship over the radio communications or signals transmitted by any radio station, and no regulation or condition shall be promulgated or fixed by the Commission which shall interfere with the right of free speech by means of radio communication.

  • http://www.redstate.com/etcartman Kenny Solomon

    The only laws, regulations and other niceties in our nation the left cares about are the ones which advance their agenda. The remainder are of little-to-no consequence for them and are outright ignored.

    Nudge.

  • http://www.campaignfreedom.org seandparnell

    Checked both links. Louise Slaughter is of course dead wrong to be trying to use the Tucson shooting to censor political speech (or use anything else to censor political speech, for that matter). But nowhere in the Hill article is there a reference to Net Neutrality, as in “Rep. Slaughter said that the FCC should use their new powers of Net Neutrality to clamp down on vitriolic speech” or the like. In fact, the article refers to her desire to clamp down on broadcast speech, which is outside the scope of Net Neutrality regulations.

    So, no, you haven’t discovered evidence that those of us saying Net Neutrality was just a network management issue were wrong. You’ve discovered that politicians and their cronies that hate free speech will occasionally turn to the FCC in their desire to clamp down on unwelcome speech. That desire, best exemplified by the Fairness Doctrine, existed well before almost anyone had even heard of computers, let alone the internet.

    And lest you be confused, as I think you have been in the past, this is not a statement in favor of Net Neutrality. Pro-Net Neutrality arguments that failure to adopt Net Neutrality standards threaten free speech are even worse than yours are to the converse.

    Best,

    Sean Parnell
    President
    Center for Competitive Politics
    http://www.campaignfreedom.org
    http://www.twitter.com/seanparnellccp

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Are you actually coming here to defend Net Neutrality?

    Wow.

  • redneck_hippie

    If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone like her would send an unpassed bill to the president to sign.

  • http://www.campaignfreedom.org seandparnell

    I said Net Neutrality is not a threat to free speech as you describe it. It may or may not be a threat to having a well-managed network that profit-seeking companies are willing to invest in, and ensuring America has the necessary network infrastructure. That is a question that lies outside of CCP’s scope of work, and I therefore will not take a position (if you really want to know my personal opinion, feel free to contact me at sparnell [at] hotmail.com).

    Re-reading my last paragraph, perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. Try this:

    1. I am not persuaded that Net Neutrality is a threat to free speech (I am persuaded that the FCC itself is a threat to free speech, however). I find arguments along this line to be unsupported.

    2. I am even less persuaded by the arguments of, for example, Free Press, that we somehow need Net Neutrality in order to ensure free speech online.

    In other words, you’re both wrong. Network Neutrality is neither a threat nor a boon to free speech, any more than FCC rate regulation of telephone service is threat or boon to free speech.

    Hope this clarifies.

    Sean Parnell
    President
    Center for Competitive Politics
    http://www.campaignfreedom.org
    http://www.twitter.com/seanparnellccp

  • fpete13527

    1. Your comments make ABSOLUTELY no sense.
    2. It is completely clear what Neil meant by his post.
    3. Neil’s post was accurate and appropriate and valuable.
    4. Neil and RS are among the top, if not the top, guardians of free speech and attackers of Net Neutrality.
    5. Are you on mind altering substances?

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • http://www.campaignfreedom.org seandparnell

    Then, let me clarify my statements for you a bit:

    Net Neutrality may or may not be good or bad policy, but it doesn’t in and of itself pose a danger to free speech.

    It was clear what Neil meant. I’m saying the part about Louise Slaughter and Free Press advancing their speech-throttling aims does not in any way relate to Net Neutrality.

    It’s because Neil and RS are, in fact, among the top guardians of free speech that I don’t understand how he makes such an elementary mistake. It’s the FCC in and of itself, particularly the current crop to Commissioners (not all), that threaten the First Amendment. In terms of the First Amendment, Net Neutrality has no more impact than, say, rate regulation of the phone companies.

    Sean Parnell
    President
    Center for Competitive Politics
    http://www.campaignfreedom.org
    http://www.twitter.com/seanparnellccp

  • fpete13527

    “……Net Neutrality has no more impact than say, rate regulation…”

    What don’t you get about “rate regulation” being an ability to do content regulation. Have you even read what Net Neutrality’s goals are and how they plan to implement them??

  • streiff

    that no one can understand your ideas.

  • http://www.campaignfreedom.org seandparnell

    … then the threat to free speech is the existence of the FCC, not any particular regulation. Which then kind of goes along with my statement that “It?s the FCC in and of itself, particularly the current crop to Commissioners (not all), that threaten the First Amendment.”

    If you want to say that giving the government any power over any aspect of broadcast, telephone, cable, internet, wireless, satellite, point-to-point, or any other form of electronic/digital communication poses some threat to free speech, well, that I can sign on to. I just don’t see singling out Net Neutrality as particularly troubling. If this is your point, you shouldn’t be arguing against Net Neutrality, you should be arguing against the very existence of the FCC.

    Sean Parnell
    President
    Center for Competitive Politics
    http://www.campaignfreedom.org
    http://www.twitter.com/seanparnellccp

  • fpete13527

    That’s not going to happen any time soon, although it should.

    MEANWHILE, the WAY that they do RATE regulation can be COVERTLY used to MANIPULATE and CENSOR CONTENTextensively….AS IS the case here.

    No need to keep this going. I get it that you see the only solution as the end of the FCC and meanwhile don’t worry about anything in the meantime.

    Your argument has zero merit.