Foundation

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals slapped the FCC today by ruling in Comcast v. FCC that the regulatory body overstepped its legal bounds when it tried to regulate Internet management practices. This precludes Net Neutrality regulation, which is at heart regulation of how ISPs manage their networks.

Judge David Tatel, Clinton appointed successor of now-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote for the court that since even the FCC acknowledged it had no “express statutory authority” to go after Comcast for regulating use of Bittorrent on its network, the Commission had to show that the regulation was “reasonably ancillary” to the authority it does have. The FCC did not, and so the FCC’s order to Comcast has been thrown out.

I’m no lawyer, but having lost decisively at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals seems to set a dangerous precedent for the FCC’s future ability to regulate ISPs. That is why the FCC has a plan: reclassify (or deem) ISPs to be something different under the law (make them a Title II service under the Communications Act, which former Chairman Michael Powell says they never, ever have been), and then reassert (or pass) this authority regardless of what the court said.

We’ve got to raise the alarm and pressure the FCC against this deem and pass tactic.

Two quick hits following up with ongoing stories.

First off, Google and/or Andrew McLaughlin (Deputy White House CTO formerly of Google) seem to have responded to the FOIA request for McLaughlin’s email by deleting his Buzz account. It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up, as they say. Big Government is doing such great work on this story.

Next we turn from the behind-the-scenes discussions of Net Neutrality to the front lines. Reuters has a story on the FCC’s Deem and Pass plan to reclassify Internet services into a different category, if and when they lose the Comcast case and the judge tells them they have no authority to regulate the Internet.

The ISPs aren’t ready to lay down and die and according to Susan Crawford, formerly of the Obama White House, they’re ready to fight “World War III” over it. I hope they remember that elections have consequences, and spend accordingly for November.

Here is the amendment that Tom Campbell asked John Campbell to withdraw, an amendment that would have withdrawn funding for a number of NSF grants.

These aren’t earmarks, but is this wise spending?

Michael Powell is a former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission who is not in favor of the whole Net Neutrality takeover of the Internet. So he’s warning us about what I’m calling deem and pass, in which the FCC will respond to a lost lawsuit by deeming ISPs to be something different, and using that to justify passing rules to regulate the Internet like television.

You may remember Michael Powell because right out of the gate during the Bush administration he was an active regulator of content. Imagine a Democrat having that kind of power over the Internet.

Anyway, Powell’s reaction to deem and pass is that “I think that idea is an unadulterated disaster.” Strong words for what is a pretty dry, technical interview. Read the whole thing, please.

This is Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican representing the 46th Congressional District.

This is the title of a press release put out by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, per the LA Times:

Not an April Fools’ Day Joke: Representative Dana Rohrabacher Caught Trying to Take Credit for Jobs She Voted Against

It’s clear that the Democrats have done so little research on their targeted Republicans that they can’t even tell the men from the women. Why such sloppy work? Is the feeling of DOOM hampering their concentration, or something?

Remember Andrew McLaughlin, Deputy CTO of the White House? The one with lots of Google contacts exposed by the Google Buzz security hole?

A group called Consumer Watchdog is filing a FOIA request for his emails, both GMail-based and WhiteHouse.gov-based. This is beautiful. Either we get to watch White House officials backtrack on transparency as fast as their legs will carry them, or we get to see just what Google and Obama Democrats have been discussing.

I’m rooting for the former. It will be delicious to watch Obama and the Democrats adopt Dick Cheney’s position on private meetings with industry.

Updated: I’ve been sent a passage from the Congressional record illustrating that the specific spending Tom Campbell defended was not an earmark, but rather an NSF grant. So, while it makes sense that John Campbell’s amendment would target such a thing as wasteful spending, this specific amendment that Tom Campbell opposed addressed “peer reviewed” grants, not requests by members of Congress. Different process. John Campbell must have mis-remembered, which is of course understandable, but the record must be corrected for my part in repeating it.

Tom Campbell has now pledged to oppose earmarks. That’s a good position to take, and I agree with it. Earmarks are a tiny part of the spending problem, but they’re a gateway drug to outright corruption. There is too little oversight and too much abuse of that system, and it should be abolished.

However this is a recent change for him. Via Flash Report, John Campbell tells us how Tom Campbell once lobbied him in favor of earmarks.

Are campaign-year conversions a useful indicator? That’s for the primary voters to decide.

Picked this up on a stress-relief binge. It’s a nice little game, but if you try to get perfectionist on it, it’ll just frustrate you.

Guess who keeps getting frustrated.

Remember when Google CEO Eric Schmidt laughed at you for questioning Google’s commitment to your privacy? Remember when he asked you if you’d rather the government do what he does, as though there were an imperative that somebody gather and cross-reference everything they can about you?

It turns out that line between Google and government is pretty sketchy. Very sketchy, in fact.

Big Government amusingly enough used a privacy hole Google itself created to expose how integrated Google is with the Obama White House. At least 28 different Google lobbyists, lawyers, and other big wigs have the ear of Andrew McLaughlin, White House Deputy CTO. These men and women don’t just create products for Google either. No, Google has whole staff wings dedicated to promoting specific public policy in the US and other countries, and they have excited ears deep in the White House.

Oh yes, and the Youtube Political Director’s been chatting with the White House, too. No bias or anything, though, honest.

Number 5: Light brings safety. There are safer ways to make a statement and raise awareness than to create a controlled time when thieves and rapists know they will be harder to spot.

Number 4: Everyone buys LCD monitors now, and LCD monitors work by placing the LCD sheet between an always-on backlight and your eye, so black screen backgrounds burn more energy, not less, than light backgrounds. Such poor symbolism only discredits everything you write, because it suggests a lack of forethought and research.

Number 3: The energy spent raising awareness about Earth Hour just might cancel out the energy saved that hour.

Number 2: One hour out of 168 in a week, 720 in a month, and 8760 in a year will not make a significant dent in your energy use. Less so when battery-powered gadgets are used during that hour, as then the energy is only shifted, not reduced. It’s even less when people merely postpone activities until after the hour.

And the Number 1 reason is…

The amount listed on your electricity bill is only a fraction of the energy used to support your lifestyle. Do you buy imported goods, especially gadgets, that travel internationally? Do you buy food from a supermarket, or anything else transported by truck? Do you drive? Do you shop at stores which violate all the ‘principles’ of Earth Hour by blasting heat or air conditioning all day long, using continuous bright lighting, including external signage? What about the factories and farms where everything you wear, eat, or use is manufactured or grown?

Reducing energy use is a fundamental lifestyle change, not a light dimmer in the kitchen. Earth Hour only heightens awareness of how superficial the commitment is from the proponents of global warming. Get off of the Internet, as all the servers, routers, switches, backup power supplies, air-conditioned data centers, and rare earth metal-consuming manufacturing processes are far too costly to justify using them for playing on Facebook, Twitter, and MyBO.com.