[Infowarrior] - Fwd: Dianne Feinstein is worried net neutrality might help the terrorists

[Richard Forno]

--
It's better to burn out than fade away.

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Chris B
> 
> http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/14/9156699/dianne-feinstein-terrorism-net-neutrality
> 
> In a remarkable feat, internet providers have apparently succeeded in
> making the net neutrality fight about terrorism. In a newly-published
> letter delivered to the Federal Communications Commission in May, Sen.
> Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) raised concerns that the new net neutrality
> rules might be used to shield terrorists. In particular, Feinstein was
> concerned that Dzhokar Tsarnaev had studied bomb-making materials on the
> internet — specifically, online copies of AQAP's Inspire magazine — and
> that many broadband providers had complained to her that net neutrality
> rules would prevent them from honoring any orders to block that content.
> 
> It's quite a bind, and in the letter, Feinstein entreats FCC chair Tom
> Wheeler to assure providers that it isn't true. The senator acknowledges
> that there are laws against material support for terrorism, and Title II
> only applies to legal web traffic, but "nonetheless, there is apparently
> confusion among at least some broadband providers on whether they may
> take such actions in order to promote national security and law
> enforcement purposes."
> 
> This argument is nonsense for at least three different reasons. For
> one, there's no current effort to wipe Inspire off the internet
> entirely, nor is it clear what those grounds would be. If law
> enforcement agencies do want to take down a network of sites as a result
> of criminal activity, there's a clear process for them to do so. In
> fact, this happens all the time! Here's one example; here's another.
> This is not a real problem facing law enforcement agencies, and even if
> it were, it has nothing to do with Title II. The same Title II
> regulations have applied to landline telephones for years, and that
> hasn't stopped cops from singling out specific phone numbers for
> wiretaps or more drastic measures. Fast lane or no, you can still pull
> someone over if you've got the evidence to justify it.
> 
> In other words, this isn't about terrorism; it's about broadband
> providers doing whatever they can to throw a wrench in the FCC's net
> neutrality proposals. After countless ill-fated lawsuits, providers seem
> to have decided that making a counter-terrorism case is their best bet,
> and Senator Feinstein, never one to back down from a counter-terrorism
> fight, seems to have taken the bait. Of course, it's alarming to see the
> specter of recent terrorist killings being used to cynically further an
> unrelated domestic policy agenda, but hopefully this is just a one-off
> kind of thing.
> 
>