Here are some libertarians protecting freedom:
In the brief, TechFreedom, The Competitive Enterprise Institute, The Free State Foundation, and the Cato Institute argue that the last year’s FCC net neutrality order “Preserving the Open Internet” (PDF), which took effect in November 2011, violates the First and Fifth Amendments, and that the FCC lacks jurisdictional authority to implement such a rule.
Specifically, the groups say that compelling private companies to “speak,” by requiring them to carry all traffic across their networks, instead of allowing them to discriminate as they see fit, violates the principle of freedom of speech.
The papers are full of stories of oligopoly ISPs being waterboarded and beaten with rubber batons to get them to carry Netflix traffic. And we all remember the mass lock ups that preceded the implementation of BGP. I’m glad that Cato and other respected, independent Libertarian think tanks are leading the charge to protect these downtrodden members of society.
In solidarity with the ISPs, I’ve gone to this site to demand that Atlas Shrugged Part 2 be shown in my town to educate the moochers and looters who inhabit this city.
Narcissus
Damn. The Onion couldn’t top that.
Scott S.
Corporations are people, my friend.
Actual people, however, are not people. If they were, they’d be corporations.
Mark S.
I thought libertarians were in favor of net neutrality.
TheMightyTrowel
@Scott S.: golf clap
Comrade Javamanphil
@Narcissus: Oh sure, but where does it end? If ISPs cannot discriminate against speech pretty soon we’ll have to live in a country where any business has to offer their goods and services to any citizen regardless of their race, gender or creed. The horror!
c u n d gulag
The absolute pinnacle of “Free Speech,” is when you can control the speech of others, and charge them fees.
That’s called “Fee Speech.”
Baud
Sadly, I’d give this argument an even chance of prevailing in the Supreme Court.
mattminus
If you don’t like it, build your own internet the way the ISPs did, moocher.
Mick McDIck
piers morgan is on my tv haranguing michael phelps for taking a bonghit. michael phelps is all “i learned and grew blah blah etc.”
i am shocked, shocked that i must still pretend to be shocked cuz sum dude took a bonghit. fuckin shocked bro!
gelfling545
So the ISPs should get to restrict other people’s free speech AND charge them for it? Marvelous. I’m rapidly getting the impression that to way too may folks corporate speech is not only equal to individual speech but privileged beyond it. Yesterday a FB friend posted something about how Chik-Fil-A was lying about the Muppet deal. I was amazed by the number of people who said that the corp. was entitled to it’s opinion so just shut up. Corporations are not just people, they are the nobility, my friends.
Nicole
I just love that the entire cast from Part One has been replaced for Part Two. I can only hope they make it a thing and do the same for Part Three.
Walker
Libertarians are very, very stupid people. By making this argument, they are rejecting “common carrier status.” Which means they are claIming liability for all the kiddy porn that flows over their networks.
rikyrah
nothing but grifters getting their grift on
Rafer Janders
War Is Peace!
Freedom Is Slavery!
ericblair
@Walker:
Kiddie porn, libel, copyright violations, you name it. I doubt ISP legal departments will take the bait, or they’re working on some complex hair-splitting have-it-both-ways legal distinction.
IP networks have ridiculous political issues that make things much more complicated then they ever needed to be. One network won’t take another’s traffic. Another network refuses to let the first network see any of its traffic. There are tunnels three deep for political and not technical reasons. The industry definitely isn’t a well-oiled conspiracy; it’s a bunch of squabbling five-year-old girls who won’t let each other go to their dolls’ tea parties.
Walker
@ericblair:
I am not a lawyer, but I cannot see why an ISP would want to thread this needle after Stratton-Oakmont v Prodigy.
Wag
Some speech is more equal than others.
bigfatdrunk
This is a very logical libertarian conclusion. After all, Kindly Old Man Ron Paul is really disturbed by the Civil Rights Act because it takes away his free speech to discriminate. Libertarianism is 100% based on being an asshole to non-Christian Anglo Saxons.
mattminus
I used to run the abuse desk at a global ISP, and I imagine that the suits are so far removed from operations that they don’t realize what a nightmare this will be. Imagine running a service like Facebook and being responsible for monitoring for any potential IP violations.
Who am I kidding! the law will be written in such a way that that they will be able sniff and throttle the traffic that they want to, but they will be common carriers for liability purposes.
arguingwithsignposts
I agree. We SHOULD get private companies out of the network!
Gus
Wait a minute. Shouldn’t the Almighty Market determine where the movie be shown?
J
If the companies providing internet services don’t like the content the convey, they are free to get out of the business and let someone else do it.
someofparts
Have folks here seen this? Someone posted it in comments at Boing Boing yesterday. Golden oldie from Ian Welsh. Nails it, just nails it.
ianwelsh.net/it%E2%80%99s-not-your-money/
Ruckus
@bigfatdrunk:
Libertarianism is 100% based on being an asshole to non-Christian Anglo Saxons.
Don’t limit yourself so much. They are equal opportunity haters.
PurpleGirl
@Nicole: How many parts is that movie supposed to be done in? Change the whole cast for each part? Yeah, that would be really neat; not only face changes but voices and accents too. I wouldn’t want to be working continuity on that gig. Do they get all new wardrobes?
burnspbesq
@Baud: @Baud:
Based on what?
Steve
The main case I’m familiar with regarding compelled corporate speech is Pacific Gas & Electric v. Public Utilities Commission, 475 U.S. 1. The Supreme Court held that a utility company that sent out a newsletter with its monthly bills couldn’t be compelled to also include an advocacy group’s mailer that included dissenting views in the same envelope. Justice Stevens, who was the principal dissenter in Citizens United, wrote a dissent; there was also a thoughtful dissent from the not-always-thoughtful Justice Rehnquist arguing that the right to be free from compelled speech shouldn’t be applied to business corporations, period.
I think the libertarians have a tough sell in arguing that net neutrality is anything like the Pacific Gas & Electric case. I see at least two central differences. First, the utility was being expressly forced to carry a dissenting view precisely because of its message; here, the ISPs are merely being required to carry all views regardless of what the message might be. Second, the utility company had a reasonable argument that a message which shows up in the envelope with your utility bill is going to reasonably be associated with the utility company. But no one who sees an obnoxious viewpoint on the Internet thinks that it represents the ISP’s point of view, and in fact we have laws that expressly exempt ISPs from liability.
But it’s amazing, as always, how swiftly the sheep can be herded into any position. Net neutrality ought to be an absolute no-brainer for almost everyone, yet here we are once again in a situation where half the country magically believes net neutrality is a government takeover of the Internet that must be stopped at all costs. How frustrating.
Haydnseek
@someofparts: THANK YOU FOR THIS. Facts never go out of style.
stratplayer
They’re trying to commodify everything else, so why not commodify freedom? Liberty should belong only to those who can pay for it.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
“Common Carrier”.
You takes the state-sanctioned monopoly, you takes the limitations, too.
Capeche?
eataTREE
I am assuming that this is the version of Atlas Shrugged 2 to which you’re referring.
Another Halocene Human
Aren’t the ISPs a “common carrier” in which case the response to this argument is “No. Just… No.”?
Another Halocene Human
@Steve: Steve,
I think the analogy here would be to the electric and gas. P&G is allowed to cut you off for not paying the bill, or for stealing electricity (assuming they catch you) or for tampering with meters or anything on a list of illegal acts messing with their equipment, etc.
They CANNOT cut off your service because you started a petition to recall their board and circulated it among your neighbors.
The service the ISPs provide IS THE INTERNET. It would be like P&G deciding they’re going to give one block shitty juice (Voltage too weak) because that block showed up at a public hearing and gave them shit.
Although in the specific case above they are trying to extract a rent from a website, but that’s exactly the issue, isn’t it? They need to provide access to websites. They’re allowed to charge different rates to customers, for example they CAN throttle people using their access to download shit illegally through certain ports or who are trying to run a server off their customer connection. You want to game, pay up or deal with the latency.
So that stuff about sending letters with the service notice is irrelevant, because what we’re talking about is the service they are chartered to provide.
Another Halocene Human
@Comrade Javamanphil: Not. Funny.
Berial
I swear it seems libertarian just must not mean what I think it means, because instead of pushing for ideas that support ‘liberty’ the people that claim the title seem to almost always be pushing ideas that would ‘comfort the comfortable’, ’empower the powerful’ and/or are simply taking pro-corporation positions. The only times it seems they AREN’T taking those positions, is when they are being ‘pro-weed’ or think maybe we should privatize police because only corporate thugs should be able to beat people up like that.