As if we didn’t have enough of a problem with the NSA and Samsung and the like spying into our personal lives on a daily basis. Now a proposal similar to SOPA and PIPA is breaching its ugly face.
Why would anyone want, desire, or need govt regulation of the internet? Once the govt controls free speech or rather the free exchange of knowledge the game is up. Total control would be just around the corner.
Yes, it all seems doom and gloom, but similar things have occurred in the past and have resulted in mass murder. Most North Koreans have no idea what the outside world is really like. Why? Because their Supreme Leader Kim Jung Un, just as his father, blocks most internet traffic from outside its borders and primarily subjects its “citizens” to govt provided news.
The argument that the govt would regulate the internet ensuring the general public would not be disproportionately targeted in terms of internet speed restrictions is a very thin point in the larger scope.
The govt already regulates the internet. They do it under cover of darkness. The Affordable Care Act website healthcare.gov collects, stores, and sells private information to advertisers. This violates HIPPA laws. The “penalty” for not signing up is a “tax” on not having care.
Personally, if I chose not to have care and I got injured and needed medical attention, that is between me and the hospital, not the govt. Hospitals are not govt-run and most are not govt subsidized. So why should the govt get involved? To sell your information and make more revenue off selling information than they ever could in taxes. These monies are also not subject to the same regulations and will not be placed in the same accounts or funds as prescribed by law. This is all off the top.
Rights have now become privilege. Privileges have now become revoked. This is how the govt thinks currently and all in the name of public safety.
The free-market should decide what internet traffic gets what. Companies should make profit where they can and not where they can’t. This applies to people as well. We all can spend where we want and not where we don’t want. Well, unless the ACA remains valid then that right is gone too.
I propose this tax: a stupid tax on all politicians up to 50% of their pay annually because we all know that they will all be stupid at least once severely every year.
http://news.yahoo.com/fcc-chairman-proposes-regulating-internet-phone-164910584–finance.html
Clayton: Your Virtual Assistant 