What you need to know about the FCC's new net neutrality proposal
Dusting off old regulations won't protect free, open Internet
The Internet is and will continue to be an indispensable part of the lives of Floridians and all Americans. As we grow more dependent on it for everyday tasks, ensuring fair and open Internet access will continue to be a priority.
In the early days of the Internet, Congress and regulators intentionally left the Internet free from burdensome regulation. This bipartisan decision to keep government’s hands off the Internet has been responsible for leaps in innovation and investment – making America a global leader in broadband development. Revolutionary ways to connect with other people around the world online; billion dollar smart phone applications; near-instantaneous Internet speeds; the list of truly life-altering innovations goes on and on.
No one disagrees that the Internet should be free and open. The president’s plan just does not accomplish that goal.
We have all benefitted from a system that incentivizes broadband providers to be the fastest and most reliable consumer access to the Internet.
Over the last six years, however, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has tried to assert more control over this valuable American resource. The courts have already overturned two sets of FCC rules, but this so-called “independent agency” is poised to vote this week on its most aggressive rules yet.
At the urging of President Obama, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler submitted a proposal that included more drastic changes and regulations than ever before. This government takeover of the Internet follows the President’s position that reclassification of broadband services to Title II common carrier status – which were originally designed and implemented to protect against 1930s monopolies– is the only option.
Dusting off regulations from the Roosevelt-era will not protect a free and open Internet. They will not benefit consumers. They will not spur innovation. They will not encourage a young entrepreneur to develop a new innovative app, or a company to develop new “smart” appliances.
Consumers – yes, you, reader – will be most hurt by this proposal. A whole host of new regulations and years of uncertainty will come. Even worse, this plan opens the door to billions of dollars in new fees on your Internet service, while putting nearly $45 Billion of new investments at risk over the next five years.
Do you like streaming live sports or network TV on your computer or mobile device? The agreements that allow you to do that quickly and reliably will now be subject to new, untested regulations. This unknown regulatory landscape is likely to reduce future investments in services that many consumers rely upon.
"LEAKED! Here's The White House's Draft Cybersecurity Executive Order"
Earlier this week, we wrote about how the White House was working on an executive order to act as a "stand in" for cybersecurity legislation that has so far failed to pass Congress (CISPA passed in the House, but a different effort, the Cybersecurity Act, failed in the Senate, and it would have been difficult to get the two houses aligned anyway). Last weekend Jason Miller from Federal News Radio wrote about a draft he saw... but failed to share the actual draft. We got our hands on a draft (and confirmed what it was with multiple sources) and wanted to share it, as these kinds of things deserve public scrutiny and discussion. It's embedded below. As expected, it does have elements of the Lieberman/Collins bill (to the extent that the White House actually can do things without legislation). It's also incredibly vague. The specific requirements for government agencies are left wide open to interpretation. For example, the State Dept. should engage other governments about protecting infrastructure. Well, duh. As expected, most stuff focuses on Homeland Security and its responsibilities to investigate a variety of different cybersecurity issues -- but, again, it's left pretty vague.
There is, as expected, plans concerning information sharing -- but again, they're left pretty empty on specifics. It talks about an "information exchange framework." Unfortunately, it does not appear to highlight privacy or civil liberties concerns in discussing the information sharing stuff. That seems like a pretty big problem. Homeland Security is tasked with coming up with a way to share information, pulling on some existing efforts, but nowhere do they call out how to make sure these information exchange programs don't lead to massive privacy violations, despite the President's earlier promises that any cybersecurity efforts would take into account privacy and civil liberties.
Last week, we posted a list of open questions about how voters’ personal information was used in the 2012 presidential election (and how it’ll be used now that the election’s over). We posted the questions on our blog and on the social news site Reddit, and lo and behold, someone from the Obama campaign’s data mining team answered!
Although he wasn’t in charge of the data mining operations, his answers still give some insight into how personal information drove the campaign. We found it especially unsettling to see how much detailed Facebook data is up for sale for marketing, regardless of whether you’ve set your Facebook account to be more private (see his answer to question 4).
We’re posting our questions and his answers below (note that we haven’t edited his answers at all, except to format their numbering):
1. Abine: How detailed did the profiles that the campaign built up about people get? Like, was it “category of single guys in OH who like microbrews,” or “John Smith in OH who hasn’t had a girlfriend in 3 years and always drinks Dogfishhead?” Bonus: can we see a (redacted) real profile?
Campaign Employee: “I wasn’t high enough to get end results, but I saw some of the print outs upstairs… They know everything Google and FB know about you, pretty much. They know what music you like, which Harry Potter book is your favorite, your voting habits, etc. It’s all in databases, you’re just a number in a DB with a name attached.”
2. Abine: It sounds like databases have become a valuable asset in a growing number of campaigns. Is there anything stopping, say, the losing party who’s in campaign debt and has to answer to creditors from selling the data to marketers and other third parties to help fulfill that debt?
Campaign Employee: “Again, I’m not the person to talk to about that, didn’t even think to ask that. I AM in advertising with a focus on DB marketing though and it depends on the conditions on which they got your data and what they agreed to in the process.”
3. Abine: Let’s talk about online tracking. Advertisers always argue that the data they collect doesn’t pose any privacy problems because it’s aggregated and “de-personalized,” while researchers say there’s no such thing as truly anonymous tracking. Given your experience, who’s closer to the truth?
Campaign Employee: “I’ve worked on advertising campaigns before. I can tell you that as long as the databases aren’t leaked, you’re fairly safe. They will have your name, CCN, SSN etc. but most of that is only used to match personally identifiable information to you (matching your Amazon spending habits to your FB “likes” for example). In other words, the latter, but it’s happened since the first targeted print ads. Magazines and newspapers have collected similar data without you knowing for decades.”
Desperate for Internet control, Senate leaders once again put the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 up for a vote yesterday, and yet again, it failed to pass. But this time it was one vote closer (51 to 47) to passing than its August defeat (52 to 46).
The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, first introduced in 2010 by Joe Lieberman, was quickly dubbed the Internet Kill Switch Bill because of the power it gives to the executive branch to seize or shut down parts of the Internet in a cyber emergency.
At the time Lieberman justified this draconian power grab by saying, "Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need to have that here, too." ...
The data mining industry is booming with no signs of slowing down thanks to increasing integration with other systems like facial recognition and an increasing reluctance to comply with any and all requests from users to maintain privacy.
Now a group of the largest data mining companies admitted to a bipartisan body of legislators in the House that they indeed mine social networks like Facebook for personal information which they then sell to third parties for advertising and “other purposes,” according to Hillicon Valley...
About 11 Sept. 2012 in Bengazi: FIRST, it WAS NOT a true “Embassy”–but a collection of rented villas for CIA SPIES. Second Stevens was running heavy weapons through Bengazi to Syria and other places to cause unrest. Third, Stevens died of smoke innihilation..The Green Resistance who set fire to the “offices” did not know anyone was still in the building. Again, The uSA and GNC puppets do not want anyone to know that it was the Green Resistance, because they want to deny the existance of the Green Resistance (instead say “a few scagglers of ‘Gaddai-supporters’ are only left”) …so they can continue their charade and façade of ‘legitmacy’ !! THIS WAS NOT an al-Qaeda operation, as Al-Qaeda work for the USA.
Maria Van Der Meel writes: “What a total cover-up. Thanks Christella”
@Maria, I was told that that Obama has made similiar spies nests throughout the world.
The Federal Communications Commission is rapidly backpedalling from a proposal to tax broadband Internet service after a public outcry over the issue.
Democrats and Republicans at the agency are now blaming each other for pushing the idea in the first place.
Neil Grace, a spokesman for Chairman Julius Genachowski, said the commission only made the proposal “following the urging of Republican Commissioners and members of Congress."
"The Chairman remains unconvinced that including broadband is the right approach,” he said.
Robert McDowell, the only Republican on the commission when the proposal was floated earlier this year, flatly rejected that he ever supported the idea.
"I have never suggested taxing broadband Internet access," he told The Hill.
McDowell said he is skeptical that the FCC even has the legal authority to tax Internet service.
Consumers already pay a fee on their landline and wireless phone bills to support the FCC's Universal Service Fund, which aims to provide phone service to everyone in the country, even if they live in remote areas.
Last year, the FCC overhauled a $4.5 billion portion of the Universal Service Fund and converted it into a broadband Internet subsidy, called the Connect America Fund. The new fund aims to subsidize the construction of high-speed Internet networks to the estimated 19 million Americans who currently lack access.
But the money for the new Internet subsidy is still coming from the fees on phone bills.
Spyware developed by a UK group can take control of a number of mobile devices, including iPhones and BlackBerrys and computers, turning on microphones and cameras, tracking locations and monitoring emails, text messages and voice calls. Gamma International specializes in governmental IT intrusion.Spyware developed by a UK group can take control of a number of mob...
The massive wave of DMCA takedowns sent by rightsholders to Google in recent months is growing at an astonishing rate. During the past month the number of takedown requests received by the search giant doubled to almost 1.5 million URLs per week. To put that into perspective, exactly one year ago weekly URL takedowns numbered just 131,577 per week, an increase of 1,137%.
DW Description: Chris Langan is known to have the highest IQ in the world, somewhere between 195 and 210. To give you an idea of what this means, the average...
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