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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Organizations in the position that Comcast is in--i.e. having aided and abetted in knowing and egregious lawbreaking (with respect to the warrantless surveillance programs), and fearful of being held responsible for it--invariably do the absolutely worst thing possible by going into full-on denial, obstruct and stonewall mode, which invariably comes back to haunt them. Because not only did they break the original law in question, FISA, but now they're compounding this by breaking other, secondary but just as serious laws, having to do with censorship and license violation (I don't know the laws surrounding this but my understanding is that telcoms do NOT have the right to censor content based solely on political value, nor to deliberately misrepresent what is obviously politically-motivated censorship by lying about it).
I think that Comcast is just setting itself up for serious legal action against it--civil for now, and if Obama wins, criminal--that could actually cost it the vast sums of money that it falsely claims current lawsuits against it could cost it, if not its license itself. What we might be looking at here is AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc., all but begging the government to clamp down hard on them and break up their monopolies. That would take years, but I think it's going to happen--for other, unrelated reasons as well, of course--and this just might be the proverbial straw that broke this camel's back. Mukasey's obviously not going to take this anywhere, and civil suits could take years to unfold. But Comcast just committed a very serious mistake, I believe, by setting itself up for serious legal action down the line.
Screw tort reform. What we need is MORE tort, not less, against such corporations.
Because it becomes impossible to sell packet prioritization and VoIP is extremely sensitive to QoS (Quality of Service) isochronous packet priority ordering.
I've been noting that for many years now. Despite early hype, IP telephony was much delayed in getting out of the starting box, and a large part of the reason was these technical requirements (lacking guaranteed latency delivery of low-bandwidth but continuous [isochronous] content, echo cancellation goes to hell and you get the sound quality of talking down a well ... or worse).
IP in general operates better under less than maximum utilisation, and tends to fall apart as usage approaches bandwidth capacity (and not nicely). For web content, you get ised to it, and just hit the reload. But for voice, the conversation gets to be totally useless with any significant dropouts (the commercials to this effect are hilarious).
With all the IP video nowadays and streaming media, the bandwidth starts to approach tolerable capacity for these apps, but that's far above what makes VoIP two-way communication intolerable.
The solution is the evolving QoS protocols and different classes of service. But as one of my buddies (and a frequent contributor to telecom spec/tech meetings) pointed out, all that does is make your VoIP look like circuit-switched signaling, and if so, then why bother switching; we already have billions of dollars in circuit-switched technology equipment deployed.
One solution to the "conflict" between "net neutrality" and the requirement for grafting a "voice-friendly" QoS scheme onto the IP network is to allow for "class of service" prioritisation, but not for prioritisation between users of a certain class of service based on user or provider identity. IOW, neutrality of access within each type of service.....
Cheers,
"Cannot the rules under which it operates be changed?"
I think this is a fascinating area. Comcast and similar companies (along with their and our actions--such as being discussed here) reside at the confluence of corporate/business rights, journalistic rights, and free speech rights. Seems like a pretty tangled web, but then I'm not a lawyer and don't know what the case law says.
Does Comcast utilize public space as part of its business? Is the Carney ad considered free political speech? (I note that it cost money, and the SCOTUS says money is free speech...). What obligation does Comcast have in terms of public benefit and public good, not only as a news distributor and venue owner, but also simply as a corporation?
I just clicked on the play button and it comes up with a message "video no longer available."
Don't tell me it was too hot for them to handle.
Click your refresh, or click the Youtube at the bottom of the video, which will take you directly to the video playing on Youtube.
[our resident eedjit]: I love this part....
[Glenn]: Whatever one might think about the legal right of corporations to control our public debates by exercising power of this sort, it is impossible to deny how corrupt and damaging it is to have corporations be able to use their control over media outlets to limit and suppress the terms of our most important political debates in this manner.
Damn that rule of law. How dare Comcast refuse to air an ad attacking it.
When you're a common carrier (or given by the gummint an exclusive or semi-exclusive license or "franchise"), your responsibilities are different. Because you are a monopoly or quasi-monopoly so established by the gummint, you should not be allowed to discriminate in ways that violate freedom of speech.
Cable companies are regulated by the FCC (at least in name).
And there are rules quite different for political ads too. For instance, the GM of a radio station I used to work for told us about the Barry Commoner ad (when Commoner ran for office) which started out: "Bullshit!!!" While normally the Carlin Rules would make that impermissible, the stations were not only permitted but required to air that ad. Another rule for political ads is that the station broadcasting such many not make any alterations to the ads. They must be broadcast as received. While the Comcast shysters are trying to claim that the ActBlue ad is not such a "political ad", I think any person of common sense would say that it is indeed such. What complicates things is the rules on election financing distinguishing between "issue ads" and "candidate ads". But while that distinction might be workable or useful (depending on one's POV), that hardly means that the FCC rules as to what is "political" ought not encompass ads on issues in the public interest.
Cheers,
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
