FFTF starts 2019 by closing out the record on the CRA

Fight for the Future is still at it, with a story in its website on January 2, 2019 – and that’s the trouble, its one day, as Wikipedia would say, “TOOSOON”.  But not enough members of the old Congress had signed the petition on the Congressional Review Act to undo Ajit Pai’s repeal of network neutrality. 

The trouble with working with an organization like this, is that their focus is too narrow. The “repeal” of network neutrality has not proved to be as threatening to Internet freedom as a lot of other issues: FOSTA (one of the worst), the Facebook fake news scandals, the European Union copyright directives (which can affect us in the US eventually) and most recently, clandestine behavior by payment processors banning doing business with persons whom they may incorrectly believe are part of the “alt right”.

But that is how activism is done, by non-profits representing special interests.  And there is more pressure now form platforms even like Facebook to raise money for them.

Major Medium essay on the loss of net neutrality

Gigi Sohn, from Georgetown University, has recently also joined Electronic Frontier Foundation and has an article on Medium regarding the results of suspending network neutrality protections by the FCC finally last June, here. She discusses the throttling by Verizon of emergency services during the wildfires in California, and argues that a few throttling events have happened to try to goad consumers away from local grids.

  

FFTF has a posting today on members of Congress who took money from telecoms.

 We need also to remain aware of the possibility that activists (especially the SJW on the far left) could pressure telecoms to disconnect the websites of those persons or parties believed to be "connected" somehow  (even merely by appearance or association or code words) to the alt-right. How long will it take for this idea to catch on? 

Final deadline for lame duck session action in House on net neutrality "unrepeal" is apparently December 10

On Nov. 28, Kaleigh Rodgers reported on Motherboard Vice that House Democrats who hadn’t pledged to sign the discharge petition to, for practical purposes, restored network neutrality, had taken campaign finance contributions from major telecoms. On Nov. 28, Kaleigh Rodgers reported on Motherboard Vice that House Democrats who hadn’t pledged to sign the discharge petition to, for practical purposes, restored network neutrality, had taken campaign finance contributions from major telecoms.

“They” needed 18 more Democrats to sign the discharge petition for the lame duck session.
  

The last “Deadline for Net Neutrality” for the lame duck session had been Thursday, Nov. 29 according to a link from FFTF. 

  

Haven’t heard yet how it turned out!  Well, there is a video now that says it failed (above).  There is one more deadline Monday December 10, 2018. 

FFTF promises lame duck session activism to force discharge petition, regardless of today's election results

Fight for the Future (FFTF) does have a significant Medium account and blog, to which it posted today, saying it will fight to execute a discharge petition in the House by mid December regardless of the outcome of today’s elections. 

  

However it is apparent that if the Democrats take at least the House, the next Congress would be more favorable to reversing Ajit Pai’s action than is the current one.

  

FFTF still has its crowdfunding page, linked on the blog post.

   

The Washington Post, on Monday, in an editorial linked in Monday’s “Bill on Major Issues” post, compared the behavior of tech companies in removing some offensive sites from access to domain name registrar and hosting, to what net neutrality claims it wants to prevent.  That’s interesting. The activism on the far Left against hate speech could be applied to telecoms to deny connection to some sites if net neutrality were not restored.

Would 5G really be as good as fiber-optic in hard-to-serve areas? Telecom wants you to think so

Ernesto Falcon of Electronic Frontier Foundation has an article critical of the behavior of telecom companies in pressing 5G as a solution for rural areas – it is supposed to be as good as normal cable Internet – so that it doesn’t have to invest more in fiber optic-to-home service.  

  

Does this affect network neutrality?  Maybe.  If the services they finally supply are not as good as they could have been, they could have more incentive for throttling in the future.

Vermont passes net neutrality law for state contractors, and they sue back!

Now big telecom is suing the state of Vermont over a new net neutrality law that applies only to companies trying to get state contracts.  Jon Brodkin reports. 

  

It does sound like Vermont will stand its ground legally.  And the state keeps looking for workers.

Sorry, the picture is Mount Washington, NH, July 2011. 

Comcast complains about California's net neutrality law, and it may really have a valid point

Jon Brodkin writes for Ars Technica that Comcast complains that its revenue will go down under California’s net neutrality law, due to go into effect Jan. 1 unless stopped.

  

Comcast (and ATT) want the ability to charge very large intermediaries like Cogent more to make efficient connections.  But Comcast’s complaint would not affect “ordinary” websites.  But transit companies like Cogent claim they are actually carrying traffic for free. 

The New York State attorney general is looking for evidence of fraud in more than 22 million comments supposedly submitted to the FCC in 2017, New York Times story by Nicholas Confessore.