White House Aims To Defend 'Network Neutrality' Regulations From House GOP Bill

WASHINGTON -- The White House is threatening a veto against a House Republican bill that would overturn new federal rules aimed at ensuring equitable access to the Internet. The House is slated to vote on Thursday on legislation to repeal "network neutrality" regulations issued by the Federal Communications Commission in December.

The rules bar Internet providers, phone and cable companies from favoring or discriminating against Internet content and services, and require that broadband providers offer access to all legal content and applications.

Republicans say the rules amount to government interference and will discourage providers from upgrading their broadband services.

The White House said the GOP bill would undermine a fundamental part of the national strategy to keep the Internet free and open.

Comments

[postyntts]

05:32 PM on 04/05/2011

While we're at it, let's turn over all of our roads to private companies so they can put up toll booths on every corner.

[Roxee]

06:01 AM on 04/05/2011

Veto. Hasn't the UN voted in this? Is the US a signatory?

[Jim Pasterczyk]

05:00 AM on 04/05/2011

Veto.

[AllAmericanAmericanBoy]

03:25 AM on 04/05/2011

It looks like there's a struggle here, the good guys against the bad guys, and each of us has picked a side (each thinking we've sided with the good guys).

But in the end, each time one of these 'net neutrality' battles ensues, there is another little slice of neutrality shaved off into the pockets of the internet providers. Their great hope is that they can take over as gate middlemen between customers and providers, but the little people will not let them get away with that .... for very long. Then another struggle will ensue and they'll start adding just a smidgen of neutrality back ... for a little while.

They will always take as much as they can get away with, and they will always be working on getting more.

Mark my word, the veto warning is in, so that means that the 'compromise' is going to be decided upon, and Obama will give up a little more neutrality. People have to get very loud in order to bring the pendulum back in our direction, and when we can make that happen, we'll only get it a small compromise at a time ... unless we're willing to really be serious about it.

[mashtoe]

03:16 AM on 04/05/2011

I bet Obama caves.

[dragongal]

09:11 PM on 04/08/2011

Caving is his DNA

[Mister Grumpy]

02:32 AM on 04/05/2011

The rules bar Internet providers, phone and cable companies from favoring or discriminating against Internet content and services, and require that broadband providers offer access to all legal content and applications.
==============
Yep......... everything the GOP is against........... Why?.......... because in the eyes of the GOP........ corporations can do nothing wrong..........

[AquaBuddha]

01:42 AM on 04/05/2011

"Republicans say the rules amount to government interference..."

The internet was created by government funded researchers and paid for by tax payers. It belongs to us. It does not belong to corporations. We should not allow private commercial interference in the operation of this public utility.

[Jennifer Zeares]

02:43 AM on 04/05/2011

YES. Net neutrality is a very KEY issue.

"The White House said the GOP bill would undermine a fundamental part of the national strategy to keep the Internet free and open."

And it would. It would undermine the whole idea of free and open.

[Jerry Aripez]

01:32 AM on 04/05/2011

It is another attempt by the baggger party to let the corporations start charging for internet usage like minutes on a cell phone...they are for the corps and let the middle class pay the higher rates since corps will have waivers for business purposes....

it is the same as how we all had free TV until they brought cable and satelitte under payers use only...

Don't be fo0led the WH is doing the right fight on this....

[AquaBuddha]

01:42 AM on 04/05/2011

Has the term "teabaggery" been coined yet?

[AquaBuddha]

01:44 AM on 04/05/2011

I see that it has. Nvm.

[rabbitz]

01:22 AM on 04/05/2011

The funny thing about this is all the anti - corporate libs thinking net neutrality is some fight against "the man" - a fight for the little guy. What rubes! Net neutrality is about one corporation worried about be charged too much by another corporation. The battle isn't between Comcast and Jo Shmoe blogging in his parents basement, but between Comcast and You Tube. AT&T vs Facebook. It is a hardware vs software fight. The cable managers vs the network hogs.

From the cable providers point of view it really doesn't matter because their cost is X and will not change. The difference is how you divide x. Will x be divided evenly to all customers no matter their use? Or will it be a tiered cost structure where the video watchers and gamers pay more than the emailers and web surfers?

Think of the network as fuel. Should individuals pay for what they use or should the fuel cost be divided evenly to each member of a community regardless of consumption.

[Jerry Aripez]

01:34 AM on 04/05/2011

anti - corporate libs ??? You mean the big bad bagger corps taking something for free and making money on it...simple x math....

[aqueryan]

02:26 AM on 04/05/2011

In this particular case?

Let the cost be divided evenly to each member of the community regardless of consumption.

[wonderYrednow]

03:24 AM on 04/05/2011

Now that's socialism we can all get behind, never happen, but would be sweet.

[jwredd]

12:57 AM on 04/05/2011

"The White House said the GOP bill would undermine a fundamental part of the national strategy to keep the Internet free and open."

That's just something that GOOPers will never get... the concept of a national strategy.

[Crystal Macmillan]

12:52 AM on 04/05/2011

How is it a government interference if the rules are there to PREVENT blatant interference with our access to open and free internet which we should defend as that is a defense our of freedom to information and free speech. SHAME seems to be a popular word these days for how the corporate puppets, oh I'm sorry politicians act these days.

[SteveB1956]

01:03 AM on 04/05/2011

No regulation is needed here, this net neutrality is a red haring. First they pass a bill that allow them to regulate it (for the people) then start regulating everything involved. Look at the commerce clause in the constitution as an example. This is a fix for a non problem that should raise flags for everyone.

[wonderYrednow]

02:40 AM on 04/05/2011

Wrong.

[mados123]

02:56 AM on 04/05/2011

No regulation is needed here only if the corporations didn't want to change the way content is fundamentally delivered over the internet, to their subscribers. Unfortunately, the idea of "prioritizing packets" and using QOS fee structures based on the ISP's parameters goes against the spirit and design of the internet itself. The "fix" for the non-problem is attempt to create a tiered service when for the past 30 years, it worked perfectly fine the way it is.

[eddw88]

12:50 AM on 04/05/2011

Once agian the republicans prove that they are for big corp profits over the everyday American rights.

So much for protecting that US Constitution huh?

[Opening Shares]

12:47 AM on 04/05/2011

What right do you have to the internet? And what right does any one of only a few different companies have to charge as much as they can get to provide you internet services?

The public sector in the US, that's you and me (if you live in the US) have paid to develop much the technology that has been just a give away to corporations to make money off of. The cycle goes about like this- we pay tax dollars, the government gives those tax dollars to the DoD, who in turn gives those tax dollars to universities and corporations to develop those technologies. Once those technologies are developed, the government grants contracts to those same and other corporations to produce the goods that WE paid to develop, without any sort of stipulation about any return on initial investments. So that's twice that US tax dollars have footed the bill to profit corporations. Then the corporations get paid a third time by us when we pay for the goods or services that are offered. Then there's the infrastructure that your state and local municipalities just rolled over for to single entities like AT&T or Comcast to install, when they could have much more wisely taken out bonds and installed the cable or phone lines through a third party and charged the providers for use of that infrastructure and regulated how much those providers charged.

[craniguy]

02:06 AM on 04/05/2011

Very good analogy, fanned and fav'ed!

[CupOJoe]

12:41 AM on 04/05/2011

What we need to remember as we defend internet freedom (or net neutrality, whatever we want to call it) is that the internet was created by the government using taxpayer money (it originated with DARPA and the US military), and that a great deal of the money to build the infrastructure also came from taxpayer money, federal, state, and local.

In short, to quote Reagan, we paid for that mike.

[TricksR4Kids]

12:33 AM on 04/05/2011

Believe it when I see it. ZZzzzzz.......