The latest OECD data suggests consumers in Canada, Spain and the United States pay the most for calls and text messages of all 30 ranked OECD nations.
But the important thing is that people be allowed to keep their existing cell phone coverage, rather than a government bureaucrat making decisions for them.
Unlike Europe, callers in Canada and the US pay to receive messages -- but even factored in North American customers are paying considerably more than dozens of other countries.
Socialism isn't the solution! Just look at Europe!
On average, the OECD found that Americans pay $635.85 on cell phone service, compared to $131.44 per year in the Netherlands or $137.94 per year in Sweden.
Additionally, this dumb study isn't taking into account the cutting-edge technology our carriers employ, which is so far ahead of other countries that it's nearly lapped them and is now behind, or something like that. (I'm trying to think like a cellphone executive; it hurts.)
Surely, this is the fault of government regulation somehow. If only we got rid of Net Neutrality, then prices would surely drop. The problem is that telecom companies can't get The Man off their backs.
That's me in the foreground, and another voter in a partial tron costume to the left.
I'm in DC to cast my vote, after having spent a bunch of time in a suburban area. And what struck me is how urban politics is just so fundamentally different than suburban politics. In cities, you stand around in crowded places and meet candidates, and encounter lots and lots of people. In the suburbs, you're a pod person with a car and you never have to actually deal with anyone except by choice. It's really quite lonely and unnatural.
Juan Enriquez is prepping a whole lot of 'good liberals' for drastic cuts in entitlements. I love the pain caucus. Meanwhile, the economy is falling off a cliff.
Big coal is screaming through the right-wing blogs that Obama is going to drive the industry out of business. That's not actually what he's going to do, he's just going to force coal to compete with renewables and pay the costs of carbon emissions. If coal can win in the marketplace, great. But they can't. And they know. Hence, hissy fit.
"Probably the thing that scares the industry the most about a Democratic administration is regulating the Internet," Dan Hesse, chief executive of Sprint Nextel, said in a speech in Washington on October 24.
Go vote for Zack Exley's proposal to the Knight Foundation. If he pulls it off, this project could be a fundamental shift in how we organize our society.
Twittervotereport.com is actually a really neat election day project. Election day is usually really boring, with lots of poll-watching and sign holding and waiting around until vote counting starts. If there are problems with voting machines, well, then it gets a bit, um, exciting? This site should be very useful for such incidents and for run of the mill reportorial info.
Yesterday, if you listened closely, you could hear the sound of John McCain selling off the internet to his campaign backers, the cable and telecom interests. After being shocked by a 3-2 vote punishing Comcast for illegal behavior at the FCC, cable interests are freaking out and using every tool at their disposal to reinstitute discipline among wavering Republicans.
The cable and telecom pushback started with former telecom lobbyist and current FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, who is desperate to become Chairman of the FCC under a McCain administration, launching a salvo against internet freedom, claiming that net neutrality would lead to censorship of the internet and requirements that bloggers and sites like Google offer 'equal time' to different views. This incoherence was quickly picked up by the Drudge Report, all to be timed with the coming release of McCain's technology policy, which is slated to come out this week or next. McDowell, who of the five FCC Commissioners is by far the most favorable to cable, did this at the Heritage Foundation. He even warned his side that there are more dissident conservatives like Kevin Martin getting ready to come out for net neutrality, a clear sign they know they are losing this fight and need to reframe their strategy.
McDowell denounced net neutrality under the guise that it's intertwined with the Fairness Doctrine, which he says Obama will reimpose. McDowell wouldn't actually explicitly say that net neutrality and the Fairness Doctrine are the same thing, means, because he knows he'd get laughed out of the room, but he implied it. Here's his statement.
(This is a hilarious video. Courtney's a good guy in a Northeastern conservative district. Not conservative Republican, more conservative Democratic, so it's a good sign that he is this excited about what happened. - promoted by Matt Stoller)
I was making calls at the DCCC today when I overheard Congressman Joe Courtney proudly telling his constituents about the Democrats defending the Constitution today. I thought you might like to hear him for yourself, though:
One of the key reasons why I think the progressive movement this time has a change, and why it did not in the 1960s and 1970s, is that emerging business models today are based on progressive values whereas in the 1960s and 1970s emerging business models were authoritarian. Google and Microsoft, the web 2.0 world, sustainable energy companies like Nanosolar, and even small raw food companies like Kaia Foods are driving growth and creating new jobs and sometimes even new millionaires. In the 1960s and 1970s, opening up a McDonald's franchise or car dealership, or developing shopping malls, those were the routes to economic success. And so the business vitality at that time supported authoritarian politics, whereas today emerging businesses are supporting a more open form of politics.
CCIA dismisses with contempt the manufactured hysteria that industry will not aid the United States Government when the law is clear. As a representative of industry, I find that suggestion insulting. To imply that our industry would refuse assistance under established law is an affront to the civic integrity of businesses that have consistently cooperated unquestioningly with legal requests for information. This also conflates the separate questions of blanket retroactive immunity for violations of law, and prospective immunity, the latter of which we strongly support.
There is a difference between businesses that openly break the law and use legal tools for profit and profitable businesses who build sustainable and creative ways for society to improve. One set of businesses 'gets' money, the other 'makes' money.
A telecom and/or cable company is basically a PAC attached to a billing service, and there's really no reason that these companies should be privately held. They operate intertwined with government entities, shuffling executives back and forth within high levels of government. The only difference is that instead of providing good public infrastructure, to take one example, Comcast overcharges, lies, and spies, and sends the profit to its executives (who are probably overpaid and stealing from investors). In parts of Europe and Asia, there is better TV, mobile, and internet services, with a much heavier regulatory footprint and much less corporate theft and lawbreaking.
Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo actually make products that improve the world, though each of course has their rapacious sides. They operate within the context of somewhat competitive markets, and probably can be displaced. I do not really have to use Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo, but I cannot avoid my cable company. As the web consolidates, this may change, but it is absolutely true that I am wedded to my cable company.
Moreover, in this case, it is AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc which are asking our politicians to treat them as part of and indistinguishable from government, to make them officially part of our national spying apparatus and immune from prosecution from lawbreaking. Perhaps that is the right choice, though I suspect not. If it is the right choice, though then I see no reason that these companies should remain private. They are not creatures of the market and do not benefit from market forces, they are simply part of government. If that's what they want, then they should be treated that way. There should be no more multi-million payday for their executives.
The RNC, Rush Limbaugh, and Dick Cheney are pretending like the FISA question is a sop to trial lawyers, who have given money to various Democrats running for President.
So I asked Jon Haber, CEO of the American Association of Justice, to comment. Here's what he said.
No matter how much the RNC - at the bidding of telecomm CEOs - tries to deflect the real issue, we have nothing to do with illegal wiretapping since we actually believe in the rule of law.
John McCain, however, has a different view.
I'm very serious when I say, I think it's disgraceful that the House of Representatives didn't act and this is going to lapse. We're fighting an implacable enemy here. I cannot imagine the House of Representatives not moving forward, and letting this bill just lapse. And frankly, I was proud of the president by saying he would delay his trip to Africa to try to get this thing done. This is a compelling issue of national security.
I'm sure John McCain's willingness to let phone companies off the hook for illegally spying on us has nothing to do with the $1.1 million he's gotten over his political career from telecom interests and that his track record coddling this industry is just a random occurrence, not a pattern of pay-to-play. And I'm sure he's protecting Bush and Cheney because he's a maverick.
I have expressed deep skepticism towards Clinton's commitment to net neutrality and internet freedom. I am not sure what Clinton's presumptive FCC Chair, Susan Ness, believes about the issue, but I have gone through some of her writings and she was intently focused on deregulation in the 1990s. Perhaps that attitude has changed in the intervening years, and I am trying to get in touch with her to ask her some questions.
This is a rather stunning illustration of a dangerous aspect of Clinton's character, her allegiance to an older and corrupt form of political thinking. Via rikyrah at Jack and Jill Politics, it looks like Hillary Clinton is coming out against retroactivity... for shorter drug sentences.
Here's a letter from John Ashcroft, James Comey, Jeff Goldsmith and Phil Philben.
For all of these reasons, we encourage the Committee to approve the carrier immunity provision as a fair, just, and equitable result that properly promotes a policy of encouraging the private sector to cooperate with the intelligence community.
According to lobbying disclosure reports as well as interviews, the new AT&T's outside lobbying firms include the Ashcroft Group, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Cassidy, DC Navigators, Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Ogilvy Government Relations and Quinn Gillespie & Associates, among others.
Telecom companies own DC, from Al Wynn to Jay Rockefeller John Ashcroft. It's just that simple.
It's become clear that under the curernt system of Calvinball for Republicans, parliamentary procedure is simply artifice. I never heard of motions to recommit until the Democrats took the House; all I heard, from high level officials even, was how the Republicans had the majority and that was all that mattered. If Democrats won, liberals would have committee chairmanships and the Speaker's gavel, and be able to set the agenda. Yet, now we frequently hear the words 'motion to recommit', which is apparently a new and fearsome procedural roadblocks to Democratic efforts to pass legislation. Something similar is true in the Senate, where it now suddenly takes 60 votes to pass anything, though it did not prior to 2007.
The rules are simply a crutch for members who don't want to pass good laws and don't want to stop bad ones. The question is not about rules, but about how willing members are to make it uncomfortable for other members they have to see every day. That's why Here's Atrios has a good suggestion for Chris Dodd and the telecom bill.
[Dodd] can put a hold on this, and then take the case to the public. I don't know why Democrats think they need to stand with Mr. 24%, but it's time for other Democrats to make them defend why they feel the need to do so.There's a kind of "everything is a behind closed doors deal" from which a compromise emerges dynamic, which is fine when it achieves something but not fine when it fails.
Dodd would infuriate some of his colleagues in the Senate, and they would retaliate. But over time, as other liberals stepped up and used these procedures in very high profile ways, the culture of institution would change to one more conducive to civil liberties.
Senator Dick Durbin says he'll resist President George W. Bush's demand that Congress shield telephone companies from privacy suits until lawmakers are told how carriers aided the warrantless wiretapping of Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The president wants to grant phone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., and Sprint Nextel Corp. protection from private lawsuits. The companies have been named in 36 suits seeking billions of dollars in damages for giving the government customers' private calling data.
``I am not for blanket immunity until we understand what this program has been about,'' Durbin, the Democrats' No. 2 Senate leader, said on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt.''
It's amusing to watch the Senate Democrats and House Democrats creatively figure out how to stand up for something. The Republican Party leadership is basically a gang of criminals, and dealing with a culture of intense bad faith is psychologically difficult. That said, these people have been kicked in the head enough times that they should know what's coming.
The only thing that matters is whether a Democratic Senator is willing to let the current FISA fix lapse. Is Durbin going to go that far? Will he filibuster a bill with telecom immunity? Probably not. But at the last the conventional wisdom around the need for telecom immunity in the Senate seems to be ratcheting down.
Joe Nacchio, the conservative right-wing CEO of Qwest Communications, is an unlikely good guy. But as details of his insider trading charge emerge, it's becoming clearer that Nacchio was probably nabbed because he did the right thing and refused to spy on Americans illegally.
Former Qwest chief executive Joe Nacchio planned to argue during his insider trading trial that Qwest lost government contracts as a result of refusing a government request, court documents show.
Details of the government's request were redacted in the documents released Wednesday. But last year, Nacchio's lawyer Herbert Stern said the government asked for access to Qwest customers' phone records in 2001, with neither a warrant nor approval from a special court established to handle surveillance matters. While AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. complied, Qwest refused after deciding the request violated privacy law, Stern has said.
In July 2001, the National Security Agency named other companies as recipients of a contract that Nacchio believed Qwest would get, the court documents said.
Nacchio was convicted last spring on 19 counts of insider trading. He was accused of selling $52 million in stock in 2001 based on nonpublic information that Qwest Communications International Inc. was having trouble meeting its financial targets.
Nacchio's lawyers contended he had classified information that led him to believe Qwest would win lucrative government contracts that would have bolstered Qwest's revenue. However, that argument was not mentioned at trial.
I've spent enough time in DC to know that most telecom lobbyists think of themselves as amoral business advocates trying to solve a puzzle and make some money. At a meeting in 2006 at the US Telecom Association about net neutrality, I chatted with a telecom lobbyist who perceived himself as a liberal doing a stint helping a telephone business. He wanted to figure out ways to ensure that though he was working for the telecom business, he was still 'ok' in my book. I told him that his actions were deeply immoral. I saw the look of shock come over his face, since no one had ever suggested to him before that lobbying for telecom companies was anything but just a job. I hope he changed his mind a bit that day, though I doubt it.
Still, one of the reasons you can't forgive agents for going along with immoral power systems (when they have a choice) is because of people like Nacchio. He's in serious legal trouble because he chose to do the right thing. If those who do wrong profit, and those who follow the law are penalized, the political system will trend against open and clear rules and towards corruption and deception.
If anyone has illusions about how horrific Clinton will be as a President, disabuse yourself now. Here's Clinton's 'Innovation Agenda'. Notice what's missing? That's right, net neutrality.
And here's a tip as to what she's really planning.
Establish a national broadband strategy called Connect America
Clinton is citing a program called Connect Kentucky as a national model for expanding broadband penetration. Connect Kentucky, which is embraced by the telcos as a way of warding off net neutrality and a real internet policy, defines broadband as 256k, which is about 500 times slower than what's in Japan.
It's typical Clinton. Say you'll end the war, but with residual troops. Say you'll implement universal health care, but without talking about how you're going to get everyone to buy into it. Say you'll expand national broadband, but at a speed about five times as fast as dial-up and without net neutrality protections.
UPDATE: I should note that Clinton has been a supporter of net neutrality protections, and she may yet appoint an FCC that ensures net neutrality is enforced. I just don't think she will, because basing your broadband policies on Connect Kentucky is an indication that she isn't serious about dealing with the corruption in the system that actually led to the evisceration of net neutrality in the first place.
A top Democratic leader opened the door Tuesday to granting U.S. telecommunications companies retroactive legal immunity for helping the government conduct electronic surveillance without court orders, but said the Bush administration must first detail what those companies did.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said providing the immunity will likely be the price of getting President Bush to sign into law new legislation extending the government's surveillance authority. About 40 pending lawsuits name telecommunications companies for alleged violations of wiretapping laws. Democrats introduced a draft version of the new law Tuesday _ without the immunity language.
I had lunch with Hoyer once. House Democrats love him, because he hosts fundraisers and is quite partisan on the trail. That's why he won the House Majority Leader contest, with votes from a good number of progressives who he constantly undercuts.
Anyway, it's fascinating, because there is no lobby as powerful, loathsome, and dishonest as the telecom lobby, which primarily directed its capital to Republicans prior to 2006. And yet, here's Steny Hoyer, offering retroactive immunity to this sector, a multi-billion dollar subsidy and amnesty for corporate criminality.
Thank you for engaging the American people directly on the issue of building a better Internet future for us. We should expect all of our elected representatives to be willing to enjoy such a frank and honest expression of ideas, and the fact that this is exceptional says something both about the state of the American political scene, and you personally--the latter being a worthy compliment indeed.
So, without further ado, here are my basic principles for improving America's Internet.
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