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Is Broadband A Civil Right?
FCC meeting heavy on rhetoric, light on usefulness...

"No matter who you are, or where you live, or how much money you make ... you will need, and you are entitled to have these tools (broadband) available to you, I think, as a civil right," said FCC commissioner Michael Copps during yesterday's broadband hearing in Pittsburgh. Users around here enjoy fighting over whether broadband is a luxury or necessary utility, but suggesting it's a civil right is a new wrinkle. Yesterday's meeting was a mish-mash of various ideas, with nothing even close to consensus. From CNET:

quote:
It would take work to be more vague than the event's official title: "Broadband and the Digital Future." So speakers veered haphazardly between spam, pornography, media ownership, database privacy, computer prices, Net neutrality, mobile provider pricing, bandwidth caps, Webcasting official meetings, and piracy on peer-to-peer networks. And that was just in the last hour.
The FCC website has the speeches from three of the commissioners (Tate, Copps, Adelstein), and a video of the event should be posted here in time. The FCC has announced they'll be holding yet another public hearing, this time in Brooklyn on July 30, according to an FCC press release. But why? More rhetoric doesn't accomplish anything, and the current FCC has shown they aren't interested in implementing new policy.

The FCC's first two hearings had an actual purpose: addressing transparency in network management and Comcast's packet forgery. That ended with Kevin Martin announcing that Comcast would be wrist-slapped. But now it's getting harder to decipher what the hearings are actually supposed to accomplish. Not that Mark Cuban's thoughts on 3D basketball aren't really, really fascinating, but what's the actual point?

Most recommended from 125 comments



N3OGH
Yo Soy Col. "Bat" Guano
Premium Member
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs

6 recommendations

N3OGH

Premium Member

Civil right? No freakin' way

People just love to toss the word "right" around. I have a right to this, a right to that. You're violating my civil rights by tasering my nuts, ow ow ow STOP (sorry, had a flashback to my last shift).

But, I digress, and in all seriousness. Something like high speed internet is not a civil right. To even introduce the notion spits on the legacy of people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr who made legitimate stands for genuine civil rights.

Civil rights:

Due process under law
Equal protection under law
freedom from cruel and unusual punishment
The right to posses a gun
Freedom of speech
Freedom of religion
Freedom from tyrannical government
the right not to incriminate ones self
Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure

Rights can not be taken from you, except via due process of a court of law, and even then some civil rights can not be taken from you period...

Privileges:

The privilege to drive
The privilege to hold professional license
The privilege to carry a concealed deadly weapon

Privileges can be taken from you, if you violate the rules that facilitate them (EG, you get a DUI and they revoke your driver's license)

Utilities:

Electricity
Indoor plumbing
Heat
Phone (maybe. I know this one is technically considered a utility, but I think you can do without)

Things you need to "live". EG, to take a dump and not make a sanitary issue of yourself, wash, keep warm, cook, etc.

Nifty things I like to have, but don't need:

Cable TV
Broadband
Cell phone
Easy bake oven
Motorcycle
GI Joe with the Kung Foo grip
Laser pointer to tease the cat

Sorry, I know I'm going to get the flames going on this one, but no way in hell broadband is a CIVIL RIGHT.

This guy is smoking crack.....

n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

2 recommendations

n2jtx

Member

Yet Another Social Program?

So I guess we will have to have a special broadband tax for those who can afford to have Internet at home so that those who spend their money on cell phones and cable TV can have reduced cost or free Internet because it is a Civil Right. Give me a break. If you want to use the Internet and cannot afford it at home, go to the public library (if you know where that is).

I hate that word; "Entitled"

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

2 recommendations

FFH5

Premium Member

Add "broadband stamps" to food stamps & free healthcare?

quote:
"No matter who you are, or where you live, or how much money you make ... you will need, and you are entitled to have these tools (broadband) available to you, I think, as a civil right," said FCC commissioner Michael Copps
Copps is just proposing 1 more addition to the welfare state - free food; free health care; free schooling(even for illegal aliens); electricity you can't turn off when it is too hot or too cold; guaranteed heat without paying; etc.; etc.

Hey, if you can't pay for broadband then the taxpayers will foot the bill. Only problem is that the freeloaders will eventually outnumber the workers. And that is the problem when the government becomes beholden to voters who don't pull their own weight and pay for their own necessities. You get a government of handouts until the piggybank runs dry. And we aren't all that far from that actually happening.