12 ms·

As per usual with all politicians, these are just words. Nice words, but until a bill is passed and there is movement in the senate to make something like this

As per usual with all politicians, these are just words. Nice words, but until a bill is passed and there is movement in the senate to make something like this closer to a reality, words are meaningless. My question to Obama is: why now? This whole net neutrality debate has been going on long before Obama started his first term of presidency, why wait until you are almost out of the White House to act upon something as important as this? He has had six years to act on this. Could it perhaps have anything to do with the fact the Democrats took a heavy blow recently with Republicans being popular with the voters in the recent election? Is Obama merely trying to save some face with the voters for his party to mitigate risk at the next presidential election? Maybe, maybe not. It probably is not fair of me to try and make connections to speculative thoughts like that. I am passionate about net neutrality and it just feels weird Obama is going public on a subject like this not long after votes were casted. But you know what? Either way, if Obama can get a bill deeming internet to be classified as a utility within the next two years, maybe he will leave behind a legacy that we talk of in the years to come. It might be six years too late, but if anyone can make something like this happen, it is the president. I am aware that the FCC can change things without any bills needing to be passed and while I am speculating here, the FCC is not exactly known for being honest and transparent. An independent agency with some suspicious ties to lobbyists and corporations trying to protect their monopolies like Comcast. The issue here is the FCC can change things and should change things but ultimately will not change a thing unless the pressure is there from the right hands. Obama speaking up is great, do not get me wrong, but I think the likes of the FCC will need more than gentle words to start changing things. Action needs to be taken. I simply refuse to believe that an agency can run itself to the point where it controls what can and cannot happen with something as important as the internet which in my opinion is a basic human right to have access to.

nicksergeant 12y ago
Before there are bills, there must be words.
- 001sky 12y ago
  http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/pres-obama-drops-by-marthas-vineyard-home-of-comcast-ceo_b81465 http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/pres-obama-drops-by-mart... http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-hobnobs-friends-marthas-vineyard/story?id=14371354 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-hobnobs-frien... http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/17/nation/la-na-obama-vacation-20130818 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/17/nation/la-na-obama-v...
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  But words don't always lead to bills, and Obama's been talking about net neutrality since 2007, before his first election, and before he named a cable lobbyist to lead the FCC[0]. If these words do lead to a bill, then great! But OP's complaint is that he/she believes this to be unlikely, given past precedent. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Tom Wheeler was a cable lobbyist from 1977 through 1984. He was a cable lobbyist before the consumer Internet existed, let alone cable Internet. His status as an anti-neutrality lobbyist is a powerful Internet meme based, so far as I can tell, on very few facts. It's sad how much force a tiny factoid can pick up in a public policy debate on the Internet. Public policy facts are about as reliable on the Internet as Google symptom search results.
    - justcommenting 12y ago
      agree with your argument--but also important to note that once you start digging into the broader context of the current administration's financial and other relationships with Comcast, the sentiment becomes more understandable, even if it's not accurate or supported by direct evidence.
    - emcrazyone 12y ago
      not exactly correct. The Internet that we know today existed long before 1977. Around 1987, a freshman in college, I could ftp and gopher with other Universities. I was tickled pink when I found out I could query a time server in Japan from my dorm room of a Michigan University!
      - tptacek 12y ago
        The advent of the consumer Internet occurred at the point where most major metro areas had a commercial ISP from which you could buy dial-in access. That was not the case in 1984.
adrianparsons 12y ago
I don't think Title II classification requires a vote from congress, just an action by the FCC.
- dabockster 12y ago
  This. Even if these are just words, they are the words of the President of the United States. To most people, words from the Oval Office carry some weight.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  You have put your finger on it. Obama is looking for things he can get done without Congress. If he can devalue campaign contributions SPs made to Republicans, that's an even more attractive move.
- mark-r 12y ago
  But if the FCC refuses to act on its own, even with encouragement from the President, a new law is the only way to force the issue. Hopefully it won't come to that, because I predict the odds of success being very low. Even if a law passes, it won't be before the lobbyists get their fingers all over it.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > But if the FCC refuses to act on its own, even with encouragement from the President, a new law is the only way to force the issue The FCC has been acting in the direction of neutrality for some time, and the House majority has been talking more about preventing them from doing so than encouraging them (much less legislating to mandate something more than the FCC wants.) With a bigger Republican majority in the House and Republican control of the Senate, there's almost exactly zero chance of pro-neutrality legislation from the Congress. Its more likely that pro-neutrality FCC will be met with anti-neutrality Congressional action (the only upside of which, from the pro-neutrality POV, is that it might raise the profile of the issue for the 2016 election.)
tracker1 12y ago
Obama already has a legacy that we can talk about... Expanding a police surveillance state, and raining hell-fire down upon our "enemies" like no other president before him.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  Someone needs to learn American History... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_an... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton When the FBI start assassinating American Citizens in their sleep after an agent drugs their food to silence African American Political movements... THEN we can start talking about a "police state". Remember: Martin Luther King Jr. was spied on by the FBI for years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#FBI_surveillance_and_wiretapping http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#FBI_sur... Today's laws make such surveillance and wiretapping illegal.
  - enraged_camel 12y ago
    >>When the FBI start assassinating American Citizens in their sleep after an agent drugs their food to silence African American Political movements... THEN we can start talking about a "police state". You do realize that the USA committed extrajudicial murder of an American citizen during the current president's term, right? Or are you just ignoring it because it's inconvenient to your narrative? >>Today's laws make such surveillance and wiretapping illegal. And yet we have the entire population under surveillance. Compared to that, spying on a handful of civil leaders is nothing.
    - organsnyder 12y ago
      > And yet we have the entire population under surveillance. Compared to that, spying on a handful of civil leaders is nothing. If the FBI of the 1960's had the technology of today, I guarantee that they would have done the same—and probably more. Not to excuse the intrusion of today, but the government of the 1960's was certainly no better.
pdeuchler 12y ago
Not to be overly cynical, but now that he's a lame duck president without any support whatsoever from the legislative branch he can try to repair his legacy with grandiose speeches like this and blame the Republican dominated Senate/House for blocking all of the good he had planned for these last two years
guelo 12y ago
I don't think it's ever a bad time to point out that Republicans are generally anti-consumer and pro large corporations.
vor_ 12y ago
Republicans have an abysmal approval rating. The recent election was the 2008 wave election self-correcting, with Democrats defending seats in red states that voted for Romney. 2016 will see the same correction but for the 2010 election, with Republicans defending their seats in blue states that voted for Obama, potentially flipping control of the Senate again. The American electoral system is, to put it bluntly, fucked up. Why is the president doing this now? I have no idea. He put off executive action on immigration until after the elections, and perhaps he was doing the same on this issue. Maybe this is low-hanging fruit to keep the base fighting going into 2016 and tempt corporatist Republicans to make foolish statements (see Ted Cruz's tweet). Maybe he thought it would be pointless to act before in the face of Republican obstructionism, and now he's using it as a challenge. More interesting is Hillary Clinton's position on net neutrality, since polls make her the most likely winner of the next elections at this point. She has publicly expressed support for it as recently as last month.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> This whole net neutrality debate has been going on long before Obama started his first term of presidency, why wait until you are almost out of the White House to act upon something as important as this? Appointing pro-neutrality Democrats to the FCC is doing something about it, and the Commission majority has been pro-neutrality and actively seeking pro-neutrality regulations for quite some time. (I suppose he could have done more to find pro-neutrality non-Democrats to appoint to the other seats given the no-more-than-three-members-from-one-party rule that Congress has imposed on the FCC.) > Either way, if Obama can get a bill deeming internet to be classified as a utility within the next two years, maybe he will leave behind a legacy that we talk of in the years to come Title II classification is an FCC decision. Legislation could direct (or prevent) it, but that's not Obama isn't seeking legislative action. > More interesting is Hillary Clinton's position on net neutrality, since polls make her the most likely winner of the next elections at this point. 2016 polls at this point are meaningless. If you looked at 2008 polls in 2006, they said the same thing -- and Barack Obama won. If you looked at 2004 polls in 2002, Lieberman was certainly not a shoe-in to win the general election, but the most likely to win the Democratic nomination at least, which he still didn't due (even with his Joementum). In 1998, such polls would have accurately predicted who would get the most votes in the 2000 Presidential election, but still wouldn't have predicted who the next President would be. About all Presidential polls just after the preceding midterm election are good for telling you is who the media is going to spend disproportionate time talking about for the much of next two years.
foobarqux 12y ago
> My question to Obama is: why now? Because it will never pass with a Republican majority so he can pretend to take a stand for the public without any actual effect that would upset business interests.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Because it will never pass with a Republican majority The FCC has a 3-2 Democratic majority (all current members appointed by Obama, but under law which imposes a limit of 3 members of one party), and is the body through which this needs to pass.
  - foobarqux 12y ago
    Is it correct to say that neither the Congress nor the Senate can override the FCC in some fashion?
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > Is it correct to say that neither the Congress nor the Senate can override the FCC in some fashion? The Congress (House of Representatives + Senate) can through the same basic process as regular legislation (the process is expedited, but it still requires majorities in both houses and either the President's signature or a veto override with 2/3 in each house.) So, sure, Republicans in Congress could block FCC action -- if they can either get Obama or a significant fraction of the Democratic Caucus in each house on board.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
roc 12y ago
> "My question to Obama is: why now?" My guess? The FCC is probably close to deciding and Obama knows which way they're leaning. So he wants to build some distance between the DNC and the FCC, before the FCC inevitably announces they're going to let the ISPs do what they will. If Obama says nothing, Net Neutrality will continue to be a sub-headline issue even if/after the FCC allows it to die. Inasmuch as anyone notices, it will reflect poorly on the DNC in 2016. If he says something now, the reactionary portion of the GOP will take the opposite position as a knee-jerk response. It will become a larger news item and the GOP will have inherited the fallout. Inasmuch as anyone notices, it will reflect poorly on the GOP in 2016. That he didn't say anything prior is probably either because the FCC only recently notified him of their position, or he wanted to avoid any blowback on those democrats who were already running tough mid-term re-election races in conservative districts.
- sounds 12y ago
  This is most likely true. To all who fight to re-open the free internet -- such as Peter Sunde -- your time is now.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > The FCC is probably close to deciding Given that the FCC Chair, who has repeatedly says he agrees with Obama on the need for neutrality (both before and after the recent statement), and specifically agreed that paid prioritization should be avoided, just announced that the final rules may be delayed into 2015 (he earlier said he wanted to get them out by the end of the year) because of legal work required by the consideration of the hybrid approach (a partial Title II reclassification which would go further than the original proposal and prohibit paid prioritization, which leaked recently as the current preferred approach of the commission) and the full reclassification approach, I suspect both the "the FCC is close to deciding" and "the FCC inevitably announces they're going to let the ISPs do what they will" parts of your prediction are wrong.
  - roc 12y ago
    If the ISPs were on-board with an acceptable compromise, they'd presumably not lobby strongly against it. The decision would likely stay in the land of wonks and be largely ignored. So why would Obama turn that -- getting what he wants (or nearly so) -- into a highly-politicized position, essentially guaranteeing that it's strongly fought, blocked and/or legislated away in the next session? There's no up-side for him or the hypothetical acceptable compromise and a huge down-side risk. And given how many years the FCC has avoided this issue, and insisted on preserving the farcical distinction between "communications" and "information" networks, I see no reason to be optimistic about the terms or lifespan of any compromise short of Title II, regardless of what has leaked. Even if something workable were agreed upon, it wouldn't be likely to last any longer than previous compromises -- such as the FCC's last stab at Net Neutrality, or the short-lived DSL open-access rules.

nicksergeant 12y ago

Before there are bills, there must be words.

001sky 12y ago
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/pres-obama-drops-by-marthas-vineyard-home-of-comcast-ceo_b81465 http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/pres-obama-drops-by-mart... http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-hobnobs-friends-marthas-vineyard/story?id=14371354 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-hobnobs-frien... http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/17/nation/la-na-obama-vacation-20130818 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/17/nation/la-na-obama-v...
chimeracoder 12y ago
But words don't always lead to bills, and Obama's been talking about net neutrality since 2007, before his first election, and before he named a cable lobbyist to lead the FCC[0]. If these words do lead to a bill, then great! But OP's complaint is that he/she believes this to be unlikely, given past precedent. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler
- tptacek 12y ago
  Tom Wheeler was a cable lobbyist from 1977 through 1984. He was a cable lobbyist before the consumer Internet existed, let alone cable Internet. His status as an anti-neutrality lobbyist is a powerful Internet meme based, so far as I can tell, on very few facts. It's sad how much force a tiny factoid can pick up in a public policy debate on the Internet. Public policy facts are about as reliable on the Internet as Google symptom search results.
  - justcommenting 12y ago
    agree with your argument--but also important to note that once you start digging into the broader context of the current administration's financial and other relationships with Comcast, the sentiment becomes more understandable, even if it's not accurate or supported by direct evidence.
  - emcrazyone 12y ago
    not exactly correct. The Internet that we know today existed long before 1977. Around 1987, a freshman in college, I could ftp and gopher with other Universities. I was tickled pink when I found out I could query a time server in Japan from my dorm room of a Michigan University!
    - tptacek 12y ago
      The advent of the consumer Internet occurred at the point where most major metro areas had a commercial ISP from which you could buy dial-in access. That was not the case in 1984.

adrianparsons 12y ago

I don't think Title II classification requires a vote from congress, just an action by the FCC.

dabockster 12y ago
This. Even if these are just words, they are the words of the President of the United States. To most people, words from the Oval Office carry some weight.
Zigurd 12y ago
You have put your finger on it. Obama is looking for things he can get done without Congress. If he can devalue campaign contributions SPs made to Republicans, that's an even more attractive move.
mark-r 12y ago
But if the FCC refuses to act on its own, even with encouragement from the President, a new law is the only way to force the issue. Hopefully it won't come to that, because I predict the odds of success being very low. Even if a law passes, it won't be before the lobbyists get their fingers all over it.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > But if the FCC refuses to act on its own, even with encouragement from the President, a new law is the only way to force the issue The FCC has been acting in the direction of neutrality for some time, and the House majority has been talking more about preventing them from doing so than encouraging them (much less legislating to mandate something more than the FCC wants.) With a bigger Republican majority in the House and Republican control of the Senate, there's almost exactly zero chance of pro-neutrality legislation from the Congress. Its more likely that pro-neutrality FCC will be met with anti-neutrality Congressional action (the only upside of which, from the pro-neutrality POV, is that it might raise the profile of the issue for the 2016 election.)

tracker1 12y ago

Obama already has a legacy that we can talk about... Expanding a police surveillance state, and raining hell-fire down upon our "enemies" like no other president before him.

dragontamer 12y ago
Someone needs to learn American History... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_an... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton When the FBI start assassinating American Citizens in their sleep after an agent drugs their food to silence African American Political movements... THEN we can start talking about a "police state". Remember: Martin Luther King Jr. was spied on by the FBI for years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#FBI_surveillance_and_wiretapping http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#FBI_sur... Today's laws make such surveillance and wiretapping illegal.
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  >>When the FBI start assassinating American Citizens in their sleep after an agent drugs their food to silence African American Political movements... THEN we can start talking about a "police state". You do realize that the USA committed extrajudicial murder of an American citizen during the current president's term, right? Or are you just ignoring it because it's inconvenient to your narrative? >>Today's laws make such surveillance and wiretapping illegal. And yet we have the entire population under surveillance. Compared to that, spying on a handful of civil leaders is nothing.
  - organsnyder 12y ago
    > And yet we have the entire population under surveillance. Compared to that, spying on a handful of civil leaders is nothing. If the FBI of the 1960's had the technology of today, I guarantee that they would have done the same—and probably more. Not to excuse the intrusion of today, but the government of the 1960's was certainly no better.

pdeuchler 12y ago

Not to be overly cynical, but now that he's a lame duck president without any support whatsoever from the legislative branch he can try to repair his legacy with grandiose speeches like this and blame the Republican dominated Senate/House for blocking all of the good he had planned for these last two years

guelo 12y ago

I don't think it's ever a bad time to point out that Republicans are generally anti-consumer and pro large corporations.

vor_ 12y ago

Republicans have an abysmal approval rating. The recent election was the 2008 wave election self-correcting, with Democrats defending seats in red states that voted for Romney. 2016 will see the same correction but for the 2010 election, with Republicans defending their seats in blue states that voted for Obama, potentially flipping control of the Senate again. The American electoral system is, to put it bluntly, fucked up. Why is the president doing this now? I have no idea. He put off executive action on immigration until after the elections, and perhaps he was doing the same on this issue. Maybe this is low-hanging fruit to keep the base fighting going into 2016 and tempt corporatist Republicans to make foolish statements (see Ted Cruz's tweet). Maybe he thought it would be pointless to act before in the face of Republican obstructionism, and now he's using it as a challenge. More interesting is Hillary Clinton's position on net neutrality, since polls make her the most likely winner of the next elections at this point. She has publicly expressed support for it as recently as last month.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> This whole net neutrality debate has been going on long before Obama started his first term of presidency, why wait until you are almost out of the White House to act upon something as important as this? Appointing pro-neutrality Democrats to the FCC is doing something about it, and the Commission majority has been pro-neutrality and actively seeking pro-neutrality regulations for quite some time. (I suppose he could have done more to find pro-neutrality non-Democrats to appoint to the other seats given the no-more-than-three-members-from-one-party rule that Congress has imposed on the FCC.) > Either way, if Obama can get a bill deeming internet to be classified as a utility within the next two years, maybe he will leave behind a legacy that we talk of in the years to come Title II classification is an FCC decision. Legislation could direct (or prevent) it, but that's not Obama isn't seeking legislative action. > More interesting is Hillary Clinton's position on net neutrality, since polls make her the most likely winner of the next elections at this point. 2016 polls at this point are meaningless. If you looked at 2008 polls in 2006, they said the same thing -- and Barack Obama won. If you looked at 2004 polls in 2002, Lieberman was certainly not a shoe-in to win the general election, but the most likely to win the Democratic nomination at least, which he still didn't due (even with his Joementum). In 1998, such polls would have accurately predicted who would get the most votes in the 2000 Presidential election, but still wouldn't have predicted who the next President would be. About all Presidential polls just after the preceding midterm election are good for telling you is who the media is going to spend disproportionate time talking about for the much of next two years.

foobarqux 12y ago

> My question to Obama is: why now? Because it will never pass with a Republican majority so he can pretend to take a stand for the public without any actual effect that would upset business interests.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Because it will never pass with a Republican majority The FCC has a 3-2 Democratic majority (all current members appointed by Obama, but under law which imposes a limit of 3 members of one party), and is the body through which this needs to pass.
- foobarqux 12y ago
  Is it correct to say that neither the Congress nor the Senate can override the FCC in some fashion?
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Is it correct to say that neither the Congress nor the Senate can override the FCC in some fashion? The Congress (House of Representatives + Senate) can through the same basic process as regular legislation (the process is expedited, but it still requires majorities in both houses and either the President's signature or a veto override with 2/3 in each house.) So, sure, Republicans in Congress could block FCC action -- if they can either get Obama or a significant fraction of the Democratic Caucus in each house on board.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

roc 12y ago

> "My question to Obama is: why now?" My guess? The FCC is probably close to deciding and Obama knows which way they're leaning. So he wants to build some distance between the DNC and the FCC, before the FCC inevitably announces they're going to let the ISPs do what they will. If Obama says nothing, Net Neutrality will continue to be a sub-headline issue even if/after the FCC allows it to die. Inasmuch as anyone notices, it will reflect poorly on the DNC in 2016. If he says something now, the reactionary portion of the GOP will take the opposite position as a knee-jerk response. It will become a larger news item and the GOP will have inherited the fallout. Inasmuch as anyone notices, it will reflect poorly on the GOP in 2016. That he didn't say anything prior is probably either because the FCC only recently notified him of their position, or he wanted to avoid any blowback on those democrats who were already running tough mid-term re-election races in conservative districts.

sounds 12y ago
This is most likely true. To all who fight to re-open the free internet -- such as Peter Sunde -- your time is now.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> The FCC is probably close to deciding Given that the FCC Chair, who has repeatedly says he agrees with Obama on the need for neutrality (both before and after the recent statement), and specifically agreed that paid prioritization should be avoided, just announced that the final rules may be delayed into 2015 (he earlier said he wanted to get them out by the end of the year) because of legal work required by the consideration of the hybrid approach (a partial Title II reclassification which would go further than the original proposal and prohibit paid prioritization, which leaked recently as the current preferred approach of the commission) and the full reclassification approach, I suspect both the "the FCC is close to deciding" and "the FCC inevitably announces they're going to let the ISPs do what they will" parts of your prediction are wrong.
- roc 12y ago
  If the ISPs were on-board with an acceptable compromise, they'd presumably not lobby strongly against it. The decision would likely stay in the land of wonks and be largely ignored. So why would Obama turn that -- getting what he wants (or nearly so) -- into a highly-politicized position, essentially guaranteeing that it's strongly fought, blocked and/or legislated away in the next session? There's no up-side for him or the hypothetical acceptable compromise and a huge down-side risk. And given how many years the FCC has avoided this issue, and insisted on preserving the farcical distinction between "communications" and "information" networks, I see no reason to be optimistic about the terms or lifespan of any compromise short of Title II, regardless of what has leaked. Even if something workable were agreed upon, it wouldn't be likely to last any longer than previous compromises -- such as the FCC's last stab at Net Neutrality, or the short-lived DSL open-access rules.