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Partisan Bullshit Tanks House Section 702 Reform Efforts

from the fuck-the-constituents dept

It took the FBI carelessly, stupidly, and unlawfully targeting members of Trump’s inner circle to make Section 702 program reform a thing that might actually happen.

It’s kind of astounding, considering the Snowden leaks provided a much better argument for reform, as well as the FBI’s long-documented history of abusing its access to Section 702 collections to engage in warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

But it wasn’t until a former Trump advisor and Trump acolyte in the House got caught up in the FBI’s dragnet that things started to look a little grim for supporters of clean reauthorization. Years of abuse was considered fine right up until it affected people who mattered… at least to themselves and the former president they idolize.

There’s been plenty of opposition to unchecked surveillance over the years, but it has almost always been led by Senator Ron Wyden. Wyden’s efforts have been shot down by his own colleagues, who have been unwilling to challenge the Intelligence Community’s claims nothing about any surveillance authority should ever be changed because terrorism.

More than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, this attitude remains in full force. But it has been made worse by hyper-partisanship — something actively encouraged by Donald Trump during his term in office and made worse by Republicans who both want to ingratiate themselves with a former president as well as show their voting base they’re doing something to address Deep State conspiracies they’ve been stoking since Trump first took office.

The thing is this could have led to meaningful reforms, even if the motivations were highly suspect. As for the FBI, it offered only two arguments in defense of its warrantless access to US persons’ communications: (1) TERRORISM!, and (2) [hilariously] pretty much all of our searches of Section 702 collections are unlawful if you bring the Fourth Amendment into it.

The vote on extending Section 702 has been pushed back several times. Reform efforts (again led by Wyden) have been mounted. The rep heading the House Intelligence Community also pushed his own set of “reforms,” but they did nothing more than provide protections to congressional members who might find themselves subjected to the FBI’s continuous surveillance abuses.

The vote in House on proposed reforms and Section 702 reauthorization has given the FBI a free pass until the next renewal. As Elizabeth Nolan Brown notes for Reason, Democrats unwilling to give Republicans what they wanted (even if it meant better protections for their constituents) overwhelmingly voted in favor of an unaltered continuation of everything that’s been abused for years.

A measure requiring federal agents to get a warrant before searching American communications collected as part of foreign intelligence failed to pass the House of Representatives today. The measure received 212 votes for and 212 votes against.

“This is a sad day for America,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.). “The Speaker doesn’t always vote in the House, but he was the tie breaker today. He voted against warrants.”

But it was largely Democrats who sank the warrant requirement. House Democrats voted against the measure 84–126, while Republicans voted for the measure 128–86.

There’s the partisan split. That’s how you end up with a tie, which means the unaltered Section 702 moves on to the Senate for a vote. Had just a few Democrats been willing to place the concerns of Americans ahead of their own antipathy towards those on the other side of aisle, a warrant requirement might have been put in place on the House side of things.

But that didn’t happen. And part of the reason that didn’t happen is because the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee decided to swing votes by lying to his fellow representatives. Dell Cameron brings the news and the screenshots:

Cameron’s post for Bluesky says:

The head Dem on House Intel was caught by Politico reporter blasting disinformation out to colleagues ahead of a vote on the 702 wiretap program

Following that were screenshots of tweets (or whatever the fuck) made by Politico reporter Jordain Carney about the last-minute lobbying performed by Congressman Jim Himes, a Democrat representing Connecticut.

If you can’t see/read the screenshots, here’s what they say:

Peak into some of the behind-the-scenes lobbying on 702 ahead of today’s vote:

Himes sent a text to colleagues, explaining that he opposes warrant requirement, calling it an “extreme amendment that goes far beyond” what PCLOB [Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board] recommends, per message I saw,

But…

Sharon Bradford Franklin (chair of the PCLOB, speaking in individual capacity) told me this morning: “I strongly disagree with the characterization” of the amendment “as going far beyond what the PCLOB recommends”

Called it “consistent” and in many ways “similar” to majority rec

_Added that PCLOB report notes it would support Congress going further and said the amendment includes similar exceptions to what P_CLOB recommended

In other words, Rep. Himes didn’t like what he was hearing from the PCLOB (if, indeed, he bothered to check its views at all) and didn’t want the Republicans to get a win, so he actively misrepresented the PCLOB’s views to swing votes in favor of clean reauthorization. We’ll never know how many Democrats he swung to his side by doing this but the voting tally suggests a lot of Democrats either bought into Himes’ bullshit or simply couldn’t bear giving House Republicans a win… even if that win would have respected Americans’ rights and (as a bonus) shut down the pro-surveillance efforts of the Republican leader of the House Intelligence Committee.

This now moves on to the Senate, which has its own suggestions for reform. Fortunately, Ron Wyden is a senator, which means there’s still a chance the FBI will be subject to warrant requirements if it wants to search NSA data for US persons’ communications. Here’s the latest from Wyden, who has spent his entire career pushing back against surveillance power expansions:

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., vowed to oppose legislation passed by the House of Representatives that would reauthorize Section 702 of FISA and expand warrantless surveillance, in a statement today.

“The House bill represents one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history,” Wyden said. “It allows the government to force any American who installs, maintains, or repairs anything that transmits or stores communications to spy on the government’s behalf. That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a wifi router, or a phone. It would be secret: the Americans receiving the government directives would be bound to silence, and there would be no court oversight. I will do everything in my power to stop this bill.”

Section 702 remains, at least partially, on the ropes. The FBI’s abuses might finally see themselves curtailed by codification, something that would be far more permanent than its own voluntary oversight efforts or the FISA court’s periodic reprimands. No matter how disingenuous the effort being made by many Republicans is, the end result would be better protections for all Americans — something that can’t be easily undone no matter who’s sitting the White House in 2025.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, fbi, mass surveillance, nsa, partisanship, section 702, surveillance, warrants

Biden Fires Steve Bannon Protege, Who Tried To Turn Voice Of America Into A New Breitbart

from the and-he-whines-about-partisanship-on-the-way-out dept

Last summer we covered how Trump had hired Michael Pack, a prot?g? of Steve Bannon, to run US Agency for Global Media. USAGM is the organization that runs Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting. It also runs the Open Technology Fund (which itself spun out of Radio Free Europe, and helped to fund a variety of important technologies for enabling free speech among dissidents and activists). It was clear from the beginning that Pack’s plan was to (a) recraft the media organizations to be propaganda machines and (b) shift OTF’s funding to some organizations with security/encryption techniques that were not widely trusted. Pack fired a bunch of people in a move that a court later rejected, noting that Pack did not have the authority to do so.

He also began a witch hunt at Voice of America, seeking to investigate journalists for “anti-Trump bias” and get rid of them. A reporter who asked a perfectly reasonable question to Mike Pompeo was reassigned.

As we pointed out, this kind of meddling, beyond likely breaking the law, was also doing tremendous damage to the credibility of these organizations, and certainly to the important technical work that OTF funds.

So it was good to see that one of Biden’s first moves upon getting into office was to demand Pack’s resignation and also to shuffle the leadership at Voice of America.

In an act of true projection, on the way out the door Pack whined about how being fired was a partisan act and would harm credibility. This is all bullshit. From day one, Pack was a partisan hack who tried to turn Voice of America into a pro-Trump media organization.

Whether or not people like or appreciate the work that USAGM and its various organizations do, there is no doubt that Pack’s efforts harmed those organizations’ credibility. Good riddance.

Filed Under: joe biden, michael pack, otf, partisanship, propaganda, steve bannon, usagm, voice of america
Companies: otf, usagm, voice of america

DOJ Releases Its List Of 'Anarchy' Jurisdictions The President Thinks Should Be Blocked From Receiving Federal Funds

from the Pell-grants-no-longer-offered-to-Anarchy-State-University-students dept

The Trump Administration hasn’t met a slope it isn’t willing to grease up and go sliding down. There’s not much united about the states at the moment and the President’s lavish devotion to all things “law and order” is making things worse.

The insertion of federal officers into cities experiencing weeks and months of protests hasn’t done much to reduce the adjacent violence that drew them there in the first place. Engaging in Gestapo-esque “disappearing” of protesters — along with federal officer violence targeting journalists and observers — has done nothing to return order to cities like Portland, Oregon.

Earlier this month, the Administration issued a memo threatening to cut off federal funding to cities the Administration doesn’t like.

My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones. To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities. It is also critical to ensure that Federal grants are used effectively, to safeguard taxpayer dollars entrusted to the Federal Government for the benefit of the American people.

Suddenly the Administration is very concerned about federal spending. Named in the memo were New York City, Seattle, Portland, and Washington DC. All of these have been targets of Trump’s personal attacks via Twitter, where he’s claimed the cities are being ruined by “radical left Democrats.” The memo is transparently partisan. Nowhere in the memo — which is directed to the DOJ and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) — does Trump call out cities in contested states vital to his reelection. Similar protests and/or law enforcement defunding are occurring in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Kenosha, Wisconsin, but neither city is mentioned in the memo.

The memo — issued September 2nd — gave the DOJ two weeks to designate “anarchist” cities unworthy of federal funding. The DOJ has responded, sparing Washington DC, but designating the other three cities mentioned in the memo as “anarchy jurisdictions.”

The U.S. Department of Justice today identified the following three jurisdictions that have permitted violence and destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract criminal activities: New York City; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington. The Department of Justice is continuing to work to identify jurisdictions that meet the criteria set out in the President’s Memorandum and will periodically update the list of selected jurisdictions as required therein.

So, what does it take to become an anarchy under Trump? Not much, apparently. Just an unwillingness to maintain the law enforcement status quo. The DOJ considers it “anarchy” to prevent police from “restoring order” or ordering them to abandon areas they lawfully have access to. (This refers to the temporary “autonomous zone” set up in Seattle by protesters.) These stipulations deal with judgment calls by city mayors during periods of intense civil unrest — unrest prompted by previous police violence, something that’s ignored completely by the memo and the DOJ.

But “anarchy” is also something as simple as police reform.

Whether a jurisdiction disempowers or defunds police departments.

Nobody’s shutting down police departments. Taking police officers out of schools or routing mental health crisis calls to mental health professionals instead of cops isn’t “disempowering.” And if the funds aren’t being used by law enforcement agencies to cover activities they’re no longer being asked to perform, they should be routed to the agencies that are performing them. That’s not “defunding.” That’s just funding.

And if the Attorney General can’t find anything on the list to use to designate a city as “anarchist,” he can always make something up.

Any other related factors the Attorney General deems appropriate.

So, anything could be used to trigger this review. Possibly even just being located in a state Trump doesn’t think he can carry.

Right now, the memo only orders a “review” of existing funding. There are no laws on the books that allow the President to strip federal funding from cities he doesn’t think lean right enough or are too mean to cops. Congress controls federal funding, not the Administration.

The slippery slope is, of course, a route to direct federal control of city and state-level policy making. Pass the “wrong” laws and your federal funds could be reduced or eliminated. If Congress somehow finds a way to make this legal by codifying pro-law enforcement requirements, the federal government will be the final arbiter of local lawmaking. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to work. And the Tenth Amendment is supposed to limit federal interloping like this. Even if a law is passed by Congress to make Trump’s defunding plan “lawful,” it probably won’t be Constitutional. For an administration that leans so heavily on the phrase “rule of law,” it sure seems to ignore rules and laws with alarming frequency.

Even if nothing happens past this point, the Administration will still be posting a periodic list of enemy cities and seeking some way to block them from receiving federal funds. And the selection process is transparently partisan, targeting only cities that have pushed back against Trump’s heated rhetoric and his “offers” to deploy federal stormtroopers to handle local protests. This is more malignant ugliness from an administration that’s served up plenty over the last four years.

Filed Under: anarchist jurisdictions, defund the police, doj, donald trump, fascism, new york city, partisanship, police, portland, protests, seattle, william barr

Election Security Has Become A Partisan Issue As Senate Votes Down Funding

from the bad-ideas dept

It shouldn’t matter which party you belong to (or if you belong to no party at all): fixing our totally broken election security should be a priority. This is a topic we’ve written about on Techdirt for nearly 20 years. The broken system of electronic voting has always been a security disaster, and now with more direct attempts to influence elections happening, it should be even more of a priority. And yet, following the lead in the House, this week the Senate voted down an amendment from Senator Patrick Leahy providing more funding for election security.

The vote was almost exactly along partisan lines, with only one crossover (Senator Bob Corker was the only Republican who voted for the amendment). While there were some arguments made against the bill, they don’t make much sense:

Sen. Blunt said that states are responsible for running their elections, not the federal government, and that providing more funds would give the impression of federal overreach. Sen. Lankford said on the floor Wednesday, referencing the omnibus funds, ?the $380 million amount is what was needed for the moment,” and indicated he didn’t want to fund states beyond that right now.

There can be reasonable questions in how this money is being spent, and what’s being done to actually secure elections, but the fact that this seems to be becoming a partisan issue should worry us all. And, I know some of you will be tempted to do this, but claiming that Republicans are against this because insecure technology helps them get elected is not a serious response. That’s not only cynical, but almost certainly incorrect.

However, at a time when Congress (including many of the Senators who voted against this) have been grandstanding about tech companies being used to influence elections, the fact that they would then not really care that much about our woefully undersecured voting infrastructure just seems ridiculous. For years, we’ve argued that when tech policy issues get partisan, they get stupid, and it would be a real shame for election security, of all topics, to become stupidly partisan.

Filed Under: election security, funding, partisanship, patrick leahy, senate

The View From Somewhere: The Press Needs To Be Anti-Partisan, Not Bi-Partisan

from the read-this dept

For somewhere close to a decade we’ve talked about journalism professor Jay Rosen’s important concept of “the view from nowhere.” This is the “professional” stance that many media operations (mainly big time newspapers) take in reporting the news, in which they stupidly refuse to actually take a stand on truth and instead tend to report the news in a “he said/she said” fashion, never bothering to tell you which one is actually true. Indeed, we’ve long argued that if journalists want to actually be relevant, they need to have a point of view, and that point of view should be about what is true, not granting “equal weight” to both sides of a story that doesn’t deserve it. Taking the side of truth and pointing out lies for what they are is not bias, it’s real journalism.

If you want a recent example of the moronic “view from nowhere,” which is so frequently practiced by the NY Times, entitled Trump Now Says He Accepts U.S. Intelligence Reports on Russian Election Meddling. There’s nothing factually incorrect there, but it’s… complete bullshit in terms of what is actually happening. Yes, Trump says that, but an accurate report would explain why that’s almost certainly a false statement from Trump given everything else he said about the situation during his press conference with Putin. Joshua Benton succinctly summarizes just a couple of the many, many problems with the NY Times “view from nowhere” approach:

This story has 687 words and none of them give the reader any clue that everyone knows he's lying.

No "But one word change does not alter all the other things he said in Helsinki."

No "Trump has expressed doubts about the intel findings many times." https://t.co/WwZTgVMZzW

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) July 17, 2018

The problem is again not that the Times description is inaccurate, but rather that it is meaningless if you understand the actual context — with that context being that what Trump says this time clearly does not accurately portray the situation due to the many, many times he’s said the opposite, or attempted to undermine the investigation, let alone the fact that he seems incapable of even comprehending that Russian meddling may be a separate issue from “there’s no collusion!” But the NY Times insists that this is how it has to cover the President (even as the President likes to call the NY Times out as “fake news” pretty frequently), because it stupidly thinks that this “view from nowhere” helps them appear unbiased. But that’s dumb. It doesn’t make them appear unbiased. It makes them appear stupid and unwilling to do the job that reporters should be doing in helping to suss out the truth.

And “the truth” is not “just report the facts.” The truth means putting the facts in context so that the news is actually meaningful. That means dropping “the view from nowhere” and picking up the view from somewhere. And that somewhere should be reality-based.

Reporter Dan Froomkin has a long and fascinating post at Medium that has gotten much less attention than it deserves on this subject, and I urge everyone to read it (especially if they’re reporter). In it, Froomkin argues that the way past the “view from nowhere” is that newspapers (in particular, the LA Times) should take “the view from California”:

So from California, the view is clear: Trump is a profoundly regressive force whose actions and statements are dangerous. And he?s being enabled. Congress has abdicated its role as a check to presidential power. The Supreme Court is no longer committed to protecting minority rights. The result: an irrational and unrestrained president threatens the future of our country as a pluralistic constitutional democracy.

A bureau that openly embraces this view as a baseline, and is unafraid to call out assaults on pluralism, for instance, would cover Trump very differently from more typical DC reporters, who censor themselves for fear of appearing to take sides.

It would operate almost like a foreign bureau. That means no undue deference to authority and no allegiance to stifling local conventions.

Some will — incorrectly — argue that he’s suggesting they just take an “anti-Trump” stance, which would make them no better than various partisan news organizations that are either pro- or anti-Trump. But that’s not what he’s actually arguing if you read closely. He’s arguing that it’s time to take a reality-based approach. That’s not a pro- or anti- any particular party or politician. It’s just pro-reality.

And that takes us to what I think is the most important point in Froomkin’s article: there are publications that take partisan viewpoints, and a bunch that claim to be “bi-partisan” or “non-partisan.” Indeed, so much of the bad NY Times and Washington Post coverage we’ve seen tend to be them bending over backwards to try to appear “bi-partisan,” which usually means bringing on some “conservative” opinion columnists to supposedly “balance out” their “liberal” reporters (though all of those labels are pretty silly). But that just leads to more nonsense for everyone. It’s just reinforcing he-said/she-said. Instead, Froomkin says the good journalists today need to be anti-partisan:

I?m talking about being anti-partisan. Anyone coming to Washington who is not blinded by political ambition can see that both parties have failed and are corrupt and are out of step with most Americans.

That doesn?t mean they are similarly culpable. Other than sharing the Republican Party?s slavish devotion to money, the Democratic Party has an entirely different set of failings. Its leaders remain the same elitist career politicians who brought you Hillary Clinton and managed to lose to Trump. They are inconstant, hedging, observably insincere, and prone to seeing the least-popular political positions as pragmatic.

In spite of this, mainstream reporters continue to craft their articles to reflect the presumption that there are exactly two sides to each issue???one Democratic and one Republican???that they are facially equally valid, and that people with alternate views are extremists. This is what The Atlantic?s James Fallows and others have so aptly called ?false equivalence.?

But in reality, the American common ground may actually lie outside the current Democratic-Republican axis, rather than at its middle, which opens up a world of interesting political-journalism avenues.

In short, stop covering everything as if it’s a horse race, with two horses: one red, and one blue. Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are deeply flawed institutions, in different ways and (perhaps) to different degrees. But the real problem is the stupidly partisan nature of basically everything. We’ve long noted here at Techdirt that we’re not even remotely partisan. We try to avoid naming any politician’s political party because as soon as we do it seems to drop the intelligence level of any conversation as people immediately jump in with nonsense claims about “well, obviously he’d do something dumb he’s a [Democrat/Republican], they all believe in [pure anti-American nonsense].”

And yet, any time we criticize someone from either party, we’re also then automatically lumped in (falsely) as being a clear supporter of the other party. It’s this tribalistic nature of partisan politics that leads to an inability to actually tackle large issues. Being anti-partisan and focusing on actual truth, as Froomkin suggests, has to be the way forward for news organizations these days. Obviously, there will always be those who are clearly partisan on one side or the other, but the supposedly “bi-partisan” view from nowhere news organizations are doing everyone a disservice. In pretending to be unbiased and “just presenting facts,” they’re failing to present truth by failing to present actual context or any sense of reality.

Anyone and everyone working in journalism today should read Froomkin’s article (which is much longer and goes into more detail). I don’t necessarily agree with every point in there, but on the key point, I wholeheartedly agree. The press today needs to be anti-partisan and anti-tribal. It shouldn’t be looking for point/counterpoint on tough issues. It should be ferreting out the truth.

Filed Under: anti-partisan, bi-partisan, donald trump, journalism, partisanship, the view from somewhere, tribalism, truth, view from nowhere

Mozilla Poll Again Shows Net Neutrality Has Broad, Bipartisan Support

from the not-really-that-divided-after-all dept

Fri, Jun 9th 2017 06:24am - Karl Bode

So we’ve noted for a long time that while net neutrality is framed as a “partisan” issue, it really isn’t. Data has consistently shown overwhelming, bipartisan public support for the concept and the rules, in large part because of the way most people have been treated by marginally-competitive TV or broadband providers. But to help sow dissent among the public, large ISP lobbyists (and the lawmakers paid to love them) have been immensely successful in framing this as a hotly contested subject, usually by portraying the effort, incorrectly, as a “government takeover of the internet.”

A new survey from Mozilla and IPSOS once again highlights this cap between reality and common media and policy wisdom. The survey found, unsurprisingly, that over three quarters of Americans (76%) support net neutrality. When it comes to the supposed “partisan division,” the survey also found that 81% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans are in favor of it:

So again, this narrative that countless, angry Americans see net neutrality as “Obamacare for the internet” or “incredible government over-reach” tends to be the pervasive wisdom you’ll see in the press and in most ISP policy rhetoric, but it’s simply not accurate. Most people, across parties, realize the importance of a healthy and functioning internet. And, as the survey makes pretty clear, wanting to prevent giant companies like Comcast from using massive gatekeeper power to anti-competitive advantage against consumers and smaller companies isn’t really all that complicated.

“Americans view net neutrality as having a positive impact on most of society. Respondents said it is a ?good thing? for small businesses (70%), individuals (69%), innovators (65%) and ISPs (55%), but fewer think that it will benefit big businesses (46%).”

Or, put more simply by the folks at Mozilla:

“At Mozilla, we believe net neutrality is integral to a healthy Internet: it enables Americans to say, watch and make what they want online, without meddling or interference from ISPs (Internet Service Providers, such as AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner). Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech, competition, innovation and choice online.”

It’s clear that most people understand that net neutrality is just a symptom of a lack of competition in the broadband market, something that has proven endlessly frustrating to consumers and entrepreneurs alike for going on two decades now. Fix the lack of competition, and you fix not only many net neutrality issues, but countless other problems — from privacy violations. Even the cable industry’s own polls reflect this reality.

But it’s also clear that the current FCC not only has no real plan to fix or really even acknowledge these competitive shortcomings, but also wants to replace the already-fairly flaccid oversight of the sector with the technology policy equivalent of damp cardboard. All while ignoring the massive, overwhelming support for the rules piling up in their own proceeding’s comment section. What’s more, they seem to be under the impression that there will be zero repercussions for giving the public a giant, obnoxious middle finger on this subject. One would like to think they’re wrong on all fronts.

Filed Under: democrats, net neutrality, partisanship, republicans
Companies: mozilla

Jeb Bush Is The Latest Politician To Demonstrate Absolutely No Understanding Of Net Neutrality

from the politicians-don't-understand-anything dept

Like many folks, I’m dreading the seeming inevitability of a Clinton-Bush presidential campaign next year involving Hillary Clinton against Jeb Bush. I’m 40-years-old and half of my life has involved a Clinton or a Bush in the Oval Office (and it’s even worse if you count Vice Presidency). Both seem completely out of touch with the real issues of today. Instead, both are so surrounded by political cronies and yes-men that it’s difficult to see either candidate as being willing to actually take on the real challenges facing the world today. Clinton is currently dealing with the fallout from her decision to expose her emails to spies while shielding them from the American public. And Jeb Bush is now spouting pure nonsense on net neutrality.

Bush’s comments aren’t surprising, because despite Democrats and Republicans alike both strongly supporting net neutrality and those who truly understand the details favoring these rules, in Washington DC, net neutrality is a partisan issue. The reason almost certainly has to do with campaign finance. Splitting an issue down partisan lines makes it an issue that politicians can raise money around. Things that everyone agrees on aren’t useful for fundraising, and since politicians these days need to spend half their time fundraising, politics gets distorted pretty quickly.

But Bush’s comments are particularly clueless, trotting out both debunked talking points and clear misstatements that appear to have been fed to him by the broadband players.

?The idea of regulating access to the Internet with a 1934 law is one of the craziest ideas I?ve ever heard,? he said. It was the first time Bush had weighed in on the subject since the FCC voted.

?Just think of the logic of using a 1934 law that was designed when we did have a monopoly for wireline service as the basis to regulate the most dynamic part of life in America,? Bush said. ?It?s not going to be good for consumers. It?s certainly not going to be good for innovation.?

Except, you know, that’s not true. The 1934 Telecommunications Act was rewritten in 1996 by Republicans, who set it up this way with a clear plan for broadband to be covered by Title II. As Tim Lee at Vox recently explained:

The awkward thing about this is that the rules were drafted by a Republican Congress in the 1996 Telecommunications Act. In that legislation, Congress created two legal categories for online services: a low-regulation category for online services (known unimaginatively as Title I) and a high-regulation category for companies that provide basic infrastructure (called Title II).

When telephone companies began offering broadband access using a then-new technology called Digital Subscriber Lines, it was widely accepted that Title II ? the stricter regime designed for basic infrastructure ? would apply. After all, telephone companies had been governed under Title II for decades before that. Title II rules had ensured that telephone companies didn’t strangle the burgeoning market for dial-up ISPs, which provided internet access over telephone lines.

But Bush trots out the 1934 argument in a totally misleading way. And yes, in 1934 there was a monopoly for wireline service, but in 1996 when the Act was rewritten (again, by Republicans), there was actually a lot of competition in the ISP business thanks to line sharing. Yet, today, everyone knows that there’s basically no competition. While not a monopoly, it’s at the very least an oligopoly with very little choice for most consumers.

Furthermore, the rules are pretty clearly just basic rules to prevent anti-consumer behavior by the ISPs. How that’s going to be “bad for consumers” is hard to fathom. And considering that many of the most innovative internet companies have come out strongly in favor of net neutrality, it’s hard to see how it’s going to be bad for innovation. You can’t even argue that it’s going to be bad for broadband companies either, since many independent broadband providers, like Sonic.net, have come out in favor of the rules. As we’ve noted in the past, it’s only bad for broadband providers that want to treat customers badly.

So, does Jeb Bush really think he understands internet innovation better than all these internet companies that have pointed out how the new rule is helpful to innovation?

Is Jeb Bush giving a giant middle finger to internet innovation? That hardly seems like a good campaign move.

But, apparently, Bush not only is doing that, he’s also going to totally misrepresent others to do so:

Bush said that Netflix and other backers of net neutrality are already regretting the scale the FCC?s action. ?There is no support for this now,? Bush said. ?The people who were concerned about this, the content providers like Netflix and others, have now disowned this.?

That’s just hogwash. There’s massive support for this, which Bush would have noticed if he actually paid attention to the internet, which celebrated when the rules were approved. Anti-net neutrality folks have seized upon an out-of-context statement from a Netflix exec claiming that it would have been preferable to find another route — but that’s not disowning the rules. We’ve been among those who have pointed out for months that reclassifying under Title II was simply the best of a bunch of not great solutions. Yes, it would have been better to have something even cleaner than reclassification, but that option was not on the table.

Restrained rules, based on Title II, are a perfectly reasonable solution to stopping broadband providers from implementing anti-consumer practices. The only “innovation” it may harm is the broadband guys innovating new ways to screw over consumers and successful internet companies. If Jeb Bush is looking for support from the most innovative sector on the planet, spewing lies and misrepresentations about key issues for the internet world seems like a piss poor way to go about it.

Filed Under: innovation, jeb bush, net neutrality, partisanship, republicans, telecommunications act

Partisanship Over Spying On Journalists Is Stupid: Spying On Journalists Is Bad, Period

from the stupid-partisans dept

I’ve said many times before that I’m not a member of any political party, nor a fan of partisanship in general, and that means most political parties are a ridiculous concept to me, because they’re more focused on “beating the other guy” than doing what’s right. This often becomes quite clear when power shifts from one party to the other, and people who used to complain about too much power in the executive suddenly want more power for “their guy” or vice versa. The latest example of this on display can be seen in the partisan response to the DOJ spying on AP reporters.

On the Republican side, politicians are reasonably up in arms about this, but they seem to ignore that when “their guy” was in the Oval Office, they were very much in favor of having the DOJ sift through reporters’ emails. On the Democratic side, you have groups like Media Matters, ridiculously destroying its own credibility by coming out with talking points about how the DOJ did the right thing in spying on reporters. Basically, it’s all about “defend your guy / attack the other guy” no matter what the situation is. This obviously isn’t true across the board — there certainly have been some party members “crossing lines” to express horror at this kind of surveillance.

Frankly, this kind of partisanship is part of why so few people trust Congress. It seems like a pretty clear case of what’s good and right, and spying on journalists’ communications is generally considered not right. A principled stance would be to oppose that, no matter which party is in power. When positions are staked out clearly based on partisanship, the public loses whatever little trust it has that the government has its best interests in mind.

Filed Under: journalism, partisanship, politics, spying, surveillance, wiretaps