Well, now, guess what proposal is coming up on the docket of the outgoing FCC hearings this month??
From the online Wall Street Journal, via Raw Story:
Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is pushing for action in December on a plan to offer free, pornography-free wireless Internet service to all Americans, despite objections from the wireless industry and some consumer groups.The main difference between the original M2Z plan and what is being proposed by the FCC now is that there would be a public auction for the spectrum being offered, whereas M2Z wanted to build the spectrum all by themselves.
[...]The free Internet plan is the most controversial issue the agency will tackle in December. Mr. Martin shelved plans to consider a wider variety of sticky issues pending at the agency, including a request by the Hollywood studios to hobble TVs and set-top boxes so studios can offer copy-protected theatrical releases sooner.
The proposal to allow a no-smut, free wireless Internet service is part of a proposal to auction off a chunk of airwaves. The winning bidder would be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service. The winner could establish a paid service that would have a fast wireless Internet connection. The free service could be slower and would be required to filter out pornography and other material not suitable for children. The FCC's proposal mirrors a plan offered by M2Z Networks Inc., a start-up backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr.
Consumer advocates have objected to the FCC's proposed pornography filter, while the wireless industry has objected to the entire free Internet plan. To address concerns about the filter, the FCC is proposing that adults could opt out and access all Internet sites.
T-Mobile USA, in particular, has raised concerns. The Deutsche Telekom AG unit paid about $4 billion a few years ago for nearby airwaves and has complained that the free wireless Internet plan will likely result in interference for consumers of its new 3G wireless network. The FCC dismissed the company's interference concerns this fall, although T-Mobile disagreed with that finding.
Naturally, the existing wireless industry majors are all in an uproar about the proposal, mostly because it would basically remove a huge chunk of their profit base. T-Mobile has been especially concerned because of fears that the "free" spectrum would disrupt and interfere with their own wireless spectrum that they use for their commercial service....a charge that has been voriferously denied by M2Z and the plan's proponents.
Just as naturally, most consumer groups are very much up in arms over the porn filtering requirement (and who says that it won't be used to go after P2P transfers and use poor Internet users as guinea pigs for other means of government snooping and control, either??), calling it a major breach of First Amendment protections and a priori content censorship. A group of affiliated consumer groups led by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Freedom Foundation, and the excellent Woodhull Freedom Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief expressing their strong opposition to the content filtering (the full brief can be read here -- Warning, pdf file).
Strangely enough, though, the plan does have their supporters, especially in Congress; and not just the typical Religious Right social conservative Republicans who would love to see a porn-free Internet. Quoting from an Ars Technica article from last August:
Yep..more of that wonderful change we can believe in. I'm sure that Ernest is smirking reading that.Two prominent Capitol Hill Democrats have written a letter to Federal Communications Commission chair Kevin Martin supporting his proposal for a national smut-free broadband service. Their statement takes on wireless company charges that it will interfere with wireless services in neighboring spectrum areas.
"We agree with you that promoting universal broadband is an urgent national priority," wrote Edward Markey (D-MA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) on Friday. "However, we are concerned that incumbent wireless carriers are seeking unnecessary and unprecedented testing delays to prevent new innovative competitors from entering the market."
The letter is the first serious support that Martin's beleaguered scheme has gotten from Capitol Hill. The FCC wants to auction off the 2155-2180 MHz spectrum region to a bidder who will provide a nationwide broadband service that's free from both access fees and pornography. This area of the spectrum is also called the Advanced Wireless Services 3 (AWS-3) region. Martin's plan has come under heavy fire of late, not only from wireless companies and Congressional Republicans, but from public interest groups and trade associations that call it a threat to freedom of speech on the Internet.
[....]Eshoo, in fact, has submitted a bill to the House of Representatives that pretty much proposes what Martin wants. Her Wireless Internet Nationwide for Families Act of 2008 (H.R. 5846), reserves the same chunk of spectrum (2155-2180 MHz) and requires the service to provide technology that "protects underage users from accessing obscene or indecent material." The legislation presently awaits debate in Markey's House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications. It has 14 co-sponsors, mostly Democrats, including Markey.
If this plan gets past big wireless, there is, of course, another hurdle ahead: the constitutionality of a government mandated service that doesn't just obey the FCC's legally shaky indecency rules, but has to block (dare we say "censor"?) the indecency in advance.
As Ars has reported, in July, nearly two dozen prominent public interest and civil liberties groups warned the FCC that the filtering part of the scheme could find itself facing a deluge of lawsuits. So far, proponents of the idea seem to have adopted an "We'll drive off that bridge when we get there" approach to the First Amendment question.
That particular proposed bill did die in the last Congress...but I'm sure that there will be attempts in the new Obamaized Congress next year to sneak such requirements through.
Thus far, the only bone that the proponents of this "free but porn-free" wireless spectrum have thrown at opponents has been an "opt-out" clause which would allow adults to exit the plan and continue to receive unlimited Internet access through traditional channels....at market rates. In short, you would have a two-tiered system of wireless access where the poor and working class would get "free" but greatly censored wireless Internet access, filtered to fit whatever the government (or the agency who wins the spectrum) decides is "proper speech"; and the rich and those willing to borrow up the wazoo get the full unemcumbered access, but at increased prices to make up for the loss of the "freeloaders". All that, and still no net neutrality, either.
Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Martin. I'd much rather a free system with full access and NO censorship at all from the top end (why not just allow end users through their own filters and blocking software to do the censorship for themselves??)...but if I had to choose between "free but filtered" and paying $60-$100 bucks a month for unlimited and uncensored access, well, I'll just eat the loss and take the latter.
Here's a novel idea, FCC: Why not stop trying to impose the Religious Right's morals on the rest of us, and focus your limited attention span on what really matters to us....namely, how to cut down the excessive costs of delivering Internet service across the board (whether through satellite, cable or wireless), while increasing broadband speed for everyone?? How about actually removing the ties between the Big Media companies and Internet providers and allowing ISPs to offer their services through multiple channels?? Orrrr....here's a even more novel concept: how about just getting the hell out of the way and letting end users decide for themselves what is appropriate for their families to view online?? Just as there is such a thing as the "V-chip" for TV's (and don't get me started on the FCC and their approaching shutdown for analog signals for TVs in favor of all-digital), there are numerous software fixes available for those who want to monitor their child's viewing habits. And there is always the ultimate cure for those who are concerned about too much access to the Internet for children: it's called "the OFF switch." And those things called "BOOKS" don't hurt, either.
And, Kevin Martin should be dumped into the Potomac for this debacle of a proposal...if for no other reason than the fact that he was the Bush Admin's legal counsel for the Gore-Bush 2000 Presidential Theft. And, for being such a censorious, corporatist hack.
[also crossposted at Casa van SmackChron]
Yeah! I don't have the money at the moment to get a digital converter box or whatever, nor am I in a rush to. I'll just be reading more books. Not exactly a setback. Also, yes, need to lower the cost and increase the speed.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, I must plead guilty to smirking. Obama has already made his peace with the blue dog dems and I doubt he'll oppose this kind of "soft censorship." In fact, it's a pretty good example of the kind of thing I expect to see more of in his administration.
ReplyDeleteEchoing the radfem line, the public is likely to be offered more opportunities to "choose" to live free of the evil "secondary effects" of a "pornified society."
As we can see from this proposal, that doesn't necessarily mean going to the mess, bother and expense of throwing pornographers in jail. Manipulating the "demand side" to create obstacles to porn distribution and consumption will be more the vogue.
This particular thing is kind of a virtual version of "the Swedish solution."
Sadly enough, our allies on this one will be big telecom corps who don't want to lose any of their revenues to free, government-subsidized high-speed connection sources.
Grateful as I am to outfits like the EFF and the CDT, I suspect we'll be delivered from this mad scheme not by civil libertarians but rather by corporate greedheads.
One prediction I will make overall is that it will get harder and harder to tell friend from foe as the new regime picks and chooses among its "bipartisan" priorities.
When it comes to religion and people's rights, religion mostly wins cause religions hate freedom and democracy deep down. The seperation of church and state in most countries looks like it's now becoming a myth.
ReplyDeleteWell, here's a view of this brain-dead proposal that at least offers a ray of hope. It may turn out to be a last bit of grandstanding by the outgoing administration at the FCC with no real chance of passage:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=31582
We can only hope.