Net Neutrality is a politically charged topic in the United States, and has been for several years now. Both sides of the issue are attempting to influence the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC), which theoretically has the power to decide the matter. During the Obama administration, the FCC ruled that Internet Service Providers must operate in a net neutral manner. Since then, the membership of the FCC has changed and now the FCC is moving to rescind that ruling. Neither position has been tested in court. So, the ultimate position is in flux… In a nutshell, Net Neutrality is the position that all Internet Service Providers (ISP) must be neutral in carrying packets across their network (American Civil Liberties Union, 2017). …show more content…
With the advent of high bandwidth services and increased processing power within the routers, it has become possible and practicable to discern the nature of a packet without prying into the confidentiality of the packet contents. With that ability, and the ongoing drop in prices for Internet connectivity, ISPs sough revenue from those who generate unusually large quantities of data. Prior to the advent of video streaming, this wasn’t a matter of much import. Generally ISP A and ISP B exchanged packets, and considered it to be most even over time. However, once video streaming took off, the ISPs servicing the streamers got revenue from the big companies generating the data packets, and the ISP servicing the home users still had to invest in order to support the traffic, despite not getting significant revenues in return for the investment. This was a situation ripe for exploitation. Enter the Quality of Service (QoS) concept. Under QoS rules written by the ISPs themselves, they had the right to restrict data traffic volumes in order to maintain QoS levels. Carrying that forward, some ISPs began restricting the data coming from video streamers (American Civil Liberties Union, 2017). Of course, the ISP’s own customers were unhappy about this,
In 2012, President Obama introduced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for young people who had been residing in the United States at least five years prior to the bill’s passing. DACA was the most significant provision from the Obama administration that aimed to help undocumented youth be integrated in the American society. It protected them from deportation and allowed them to obtain a state identification, work permit, and Social Security number. The immigrant communities celebrated this bill as it had been a long time since there was a significant change in the country’s immigration policy. However, the current administration and government pose a serious threat to the beneficiaries of the DACA program as well as
When we think of those skilled in the art of rhetoric, we often jump to those we know are trying to convince us of something, like politicians, salesmen, lawyers, etc. We do not always consider corporate CEOs part of that group though Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, would have us believing another thing. On March 20th, 2014, Hastings published an article titled “Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality” on Netflix’s official blog. Just under a month before the blog was posted, Netflix settled a deal paying Comcast, America’s largest cable and Internet service provider (ISP), for faster and more reliable service to Comcast’s subscribers (Cohen and Wyatt). These “internet tolls” go against the culture of net neutrality in America, which in its essence is when no piece of information is prioritized over another on broadband networks. Hastings took to their blog to advocate for net neutrality and against abusive ISPs. Whether he was conscious of his rhetorical finesse or not, he wrote quite convincingly thus turning this blog into an excellent rhetorical artifact. Reed Hastings’ blog post aims to convince American Internet consumers that strong net neutrality is important by appealing to their values of choice, frugality and empathy while simultaneously making ISPs seem ill intentioned and Netflix seem honorable.
The NSA is a U.S. intelligence agency responsible for providing the government with information on inner and foreign affairs, particularly for the prevention of terrorism and crime. The NSA maintains several database networks in which they receive private information on American citizens. The agency has access to phone calls, emails, photos, recordings, and backgrounds of practically all people residing in the United States. Started in 1952 by President Harry Truman, the NSA is tasked with the global monitoring and surveillance of targeted individuals in American territory. As part of the growing practice of mass surveillance in the United States, the agency collects and stores all phone records of all American citizens. People argue that this collected information is very intrusive, and the NSA may find something personal that someone may not have wanted anyone to know. While this intrusion's main purpose is to avoid events of terrorism, recent information leaks by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, show that the agency may actually be infringing upon the rights of the American citizen. Whether people like it or not, it seems that the NSA will continue to spy on the people of the United States in an attempt to avert acts of terrorism. Although there are many pros and cons to this surveillance of American citizens, the agency is ultimately just doing its job to protect the lives of the people. Unless a person is actually planning on committing a major crime, there is no real reason for citizens to worry about the NSA and it's invasion of our privacy. The agency is not out to look for embarrassing information about its citizens, rather, only searches for and analyzes information which may lead to the identification of a targe...
The North American Free Trade Agreement—NAFTA—was an important agreement signed between three countries—the U.S., Mexico and Canada. NAFTA played an important role between each of these countries’ relations with one another through imports and exports. Throughout the presidential elections throughout the years, NAFTA has been highly debated on whether or not it has helped benefit the economy of these countries or if it has caused a lot detrimental issues. NAFTA promised many benefits for these countries, but not all of their promises were carried through; many views across the political spectrum also have their indifferences about NAFTA.
We all have heard the quote “Life, Liberty, Land, and the Pursuit to Happiness” and that is the promise of a life here in America. As Americans we pride ourselves on these freedoms that allow us to live everyday. We are one of the only countries that have this promise and it is what draws people from all of over the world to come here. Our founding fathers of the United States of America wrote these words, having no idea the impact that they would have for the rest of this countries history. Those words were the foundation for government, and it wasn’t perfect at first but slowly it matured into what we have today, strong and powerful. To other nations America is seen as the World Power, and a somewhat perfect nation to live in. Unfortunately corruption, scandals and controversies have tainted our once golden glow, and other nations are weary of watching their steps. One of the most controversial elements to our government is the NSA. Hidden in the shadows from American and global knowledge is what the NSA is actually doing and watching out for. Only very recently has the NSA been ripped from the shadows and brought to light what exactly is going on inside those walls. They are “spying” on not only America’s personal data, but foreign leaders as well. The NSA says it’s for the safety for everyone against terrorism and attacks. However, it has gone way to far and violates a constitutional right, privacy. The NSA has overstepped their boundaries, and spying doesn’t seem to make a difference in safety.
On January 1st, 1994, a treaty that created the largest free trade area were signed into place by the trilateral of United States, Canada, and Mexico. NAFTA is a promise made by world’s most significant corporations claiming to create many high paying jobs and raise the standard of living in the US, Canada and Mexico. As we approach its 21st birthday, NAFTA now links 450 million people producing trillion dollars’ worth of goods and services each year. However, behind this seemingly good deal, it also created many underlying issues. Beginning with NAFTA giving corporation opportunities to move factories aboard to the lower-cost Mexico. Manufacturing aboard did not only outsourced American jobs, it also caused manufacturers that remained to lower
Free trade is a policy that lifts all trade tariffs and barriers and thus encouraging the free movement of goods (imports and exports) between nations. Agreements to free trade establish free markets where countries can engage in trade in a free and conducive environment. This type of trade is made possible by free trade agreements made between countries. According to the International Trade Administration, these agreements help minimize barriers to exports form the US, protect their interests as well as enhance the rule of law in member countries. NAFTA is one of such agreements.
Although the net neutrality debate didn’t come into the spot light so long ago, it has sparked controversy in the communications world. This concept provides a positive impact to the consumers, competition and network owners/internet service providers. It broadens the aspect of equality, which the open Internet was first based on. The profound effects on the aforementioned players provide a supported purpose to regulate the notion of net neutrality.
Net Neutrality requires to give everyone access to everything on the internet. This means that your internet provider won’t charge you for using specific websites. But with this, companies will have the ability to charge you for using basic things such as email, Spotify and even YouTube. Fast and slow lanes will also be included which may vary depending of what packages you paid for. But that is just the beginning, being that with this they will be able to control what you are able to see and not, ending Freedom of Speech in the
Under the US Patriot Act, or Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism, I believe citizens have only been put in danger. The Patriot Act was created to keep terrorism at bay and to launch The United States of America forward. However, it has done nothing but set us back. How can we live in a country where everyone is a suspected criminal? I believe that The Patriot Act does not help control terrorism. Instead, it undermines us as loyal citizens and is a way for the government to abuse their power over the citizens. How are we really free as Americans when our government is keeping a very watchful eye on us? Almost too watchful. The government has access to almost everything. As much as I love being an American I don’t think the US Government is perfect. What if the the government makes a mistake? What if they are really accusing the wrong people? It looks as though the government is resorting to old tactics that will be discussed further in this essay. The Patriot Act is a faulty document that puts the lives of Americans at risk. I also believe that the Patriot Act was put together way too quickly after the tragic event the stirred the nation and brought fear to many peoples hearts on September 11th, 2001. We all believed that our nation had fallen to the ground and there was no way of coming back. However, the government drew up The Patriot Act 45 days after the attacks. Congress seemed to have forgotten the constitutional rights that we were given by our founding fathers a long time ago. The Patriot Act goes against numerous constitutional rights that we have. This including our first, fourth, and sixth amendment rights. As one of the founding fathers, Benjamin...
The United States believed that the FCC would consider bending the rules allowing internet service providers or ISPs to violate net neutrality principles by making it easier for Internet users to access certain content. This problem was explained by John Oliver the host of Last Week Tonight explained that,
In recent years net neutrality has become a hotly debated topic. Canadian consumers have favored legislation protecting net neutrality and Canadian telecoms have sought to change the legislation. In this case, Canadian consumers have it wrong. Canada should strike down its legislation regulating how internet service providers behave and move to a more open market. The current legislation forces all Canadian internet service providers to treat all traffic equally. This stifles competition and reduces consumer options.
Net neutrality was the big talk towards the end of 2017. Taking away net neutrality would cause chaos in my opinion. Making schools and other organizations pay to use technology only discourages them from doing so which is a major step backwards in such a technological point in time. The world is constantly creating new ways to implement technology to our everyday lives and charging us to do so is not a step in the right direction. Saying that getting rid of net neutrality will do away with discrimination is absurd. Discrimination was around way before the internet was but instead we once again have one political party trying to undermine the other by playing the victim. I do agree that it isn’t right that such huge corporations such as
The Obama administration took steps to prevent government and private monitoring of internet content when it passed net neutrality rules, which state that internet service providers must treat all content the same when providing their service. Thus, Comcast or Verizon are not allowed to slow down Netflix at the expense of Hulu, or the Washington Post at the expense of the Wall Street Journal. These rules allow the internet to remain free and open
Due to the demand for the internet to be fast, networks are designed for maximum speed, rather than to be secure or track users (“Interpol” par. 1). The adage of the adage.... ... middle of paper ... ...