https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/comcast-asks-the-fcc-to-prohibit-states-from-enforcing-net-neutrality/
[It matters. If we want a working democracy which respects the rights
of the individual, we need to be well informed. Net neutrality is part
of that as we increasingly get our information from the Internet rather
than traditional print and broadcast media. Given the U.S. has more
'news' media concentration of ownership than most other jurisdictions,
and increasingly U.S. interests are buying 'news' channels in other
countries, what happens in the U.S. has a way of leaking into the rest
of the world.
links in on-line article]
Comcast asks the FCC to prohibit states from enforcing net neutrality
Pressure builds on FCC Chair Ajit Pai to preempt state net neutrality laws.
Jon Brodkin - 11/3/2017, 2:13 PM
Comcast met with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's
staff this week in an attempt to prevent states from issuing net
neutrality rules.
As the FCC prepares to gut its net neutrality rules, broadband providers
are worried that states might enact their own laws to prevent ISPs from
blocking, throttling, or discriminating against online content.
Comcast Senior VP Frank Buono and a Comcast attorney met with Pai Chief
of Staff Matthew Berry and Senior Counsel Nicholas Degani on Monday, the
company said in an ex parte filing that describes the meeting.
Comcast urged Pai's staff to reverse the FCC's classification of
broadband as a Title II common carrier service, a move that would
eliminate the legal authority the FCC uses to enforce net neutrality
rules. Pai has said he intends to do just that, so Comcast will likely
get its wish on that point.
But Comcast also wants the FCC to go further by making a declaration
that states cannot impose their own regulations on broadband. The filing
said:
We also emphasized that the Commission's order in this proceeding
should include a clear, affirmative ruling that expressly confirms the
primacy of federal law with respect to BIAS [Broadband Internet Access
Service] as an interstate information service, and that preempts state
and local efforts to regulate BIAS either directly or indirectly.
Despite calling for the FCC to abandon the legal authority it uses to
enforce net neutrality rules, Comcast said it supports "a free and open
Internet" and "legally enforceable net neutrality protections." Comcast
told Pai's staff that the FCC could adopt net neutrality rules using its
other authority—but the FCC tried that in 2010, and this previous
attempt at enforcing net neutrality rules was struck down in court.
Alternatively, Comcast said the FCC could decide not to impose its own
rules and simply rely on the Federal Trade Commission "to ensure that
ISPs' public commitments to core open Internet protections are honored."
Such a move would essentially set up a "voluntary" net neutrality system
in which ISPs would face no rules and would choose whether to make net
neutrality commitments.
Verizon, Republicans also call for preemption
Comcast isn't the first to make a preemption argument in the net
neutrality proceeding. Verizon asked the Federal Communications
Commission to preempt any state laws that regulate network neutrality
and broadband privacy, as we wrote earlier this week.
Current and former Republican FCC commissioners are also urging Pai to
preempt states. Current FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly recently said
he's open to using the FCC's preemption authority and that he wants
states to be "barred from enacting their own privacy burdens on what is
by all means an interstate information service," i.e. broadband access.
Former Republican FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell made a similar call
when he appeared in front of a Congressional committee this week.
"The FCC should use its ample statutory authority to preempt states and
localities to promote flexible and clear national rules that protect
consumers and markets alike," he argued.
McDowell said there is a "disturbing trend" in which "states and
localities have tried to regulate many aspects of the broadband market,
potentially creating a confusing and innovation-killing patchwork of
local laws governing both the economics of the Internet and consumer
privacy."
Whether the FCC can actually preempt state-level net neutrality laws is
in dispute. The FCC voted in 2015 to preempt state laws that restrict
the expansion of municipal broadband, but the state laws were
re-instated after a federal appeals court ruled that the FCC overstepped
its legal authority.
While the FCC has some preemption powers, "that does not mean that the
FCC has the authority to preempt everything relating to broadband at
all," Senior Counsel John Bergmayer of consumer advocacy group Public
Knowledge told Ars today. "It is fairly clear, for instance, that the
FCC cannot preempt state efforts around consumer protection, even when
the product in question is broadband."
Another complication is that Pai is proposing to strip away the FCC's
regulatory authority over broadband providers by removing the Title II
classification.
"If the FCC has no power to regulate, it has no power to preempt,"
Bergmayer said. "Title II is all about legal authority. Trying to
disclaim authority to regulate while simultaneously preempting seems
somewhat paradoxical."
Even if Pai wants to preempt states, he might have to open a new
proceeding in order to do so, which would delay any such move by at
least several months. The FCC has to ask the public for comment on
proposed changes, but Pai's net neutrality proposal did not ask for
input on preempting state net neutrality laws.
We contacted Pai's office and will update this story if we get a
response. Pai's final proposal for rolling back net neutrality rules
could be announced later this month and voted on at the FCC's December
14 meeting.
=====================================================================================
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42492-st-louis-rises-up-against-police-violence-again-corporate-media-ignore-uprising
[links in on-line article]
St. Louis Rises Up Against Police Violence Again; Corporate Media Ignore
Uprising
Sunday, November 05, 2017 By Shahid Buttar, Truthout | News Analysis
A grassroots uprising responding to police violence in Ferguson,
Missouri, gripped the world's attention in 2014. In September 2017, a
former St. Louis police officer was acquitted of the 2011 murder of
Black driver Anthony Lamar Smith. In response, local residents have
staged continuing protests now stretching into their second straight month.
Escalating police responses to the 2017 uprising have driven support for
proposed local reforms introduced this summer, even as a continuing
cable news blackout limiting the struggle's visibility may suggest that
the power of social media is waning in an age of algorithmic content
curation.
How the Latest Uprising Started
The current uprising is the latest chapter in a long-simmering debate
over police violence in St. Louis.
Jason Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer, was the defendant in
a murder trial this August for shooting and killing Anthony Lamar Smith
in 2011. Stockley initially evaded prosecution, as do most police who
kill in the line of duty. Yet four years after state and federal
prosecutors declined to pursue charges, a local prosecutor stepped into
the void to seek justice.
Stockley's prosecution included remarkable allegations, supported by
forensic evidence, video evidence and audio evidence. The court examined
an audio recording of Stockley voicing his intention to kill Smith
(saying during the chase preceding the shooting that "I'm going to kill
this mother****r … "), and dash cam footage showing that it took
Stockley only 15 seconds to shoot Smith after leaving his police
vehicle. The court also heard testimony from an FBI forensics specialist
who noted that Stockley fired at least one shot from only six inches
away, more reflective of an execution than Stockley's claim to self-defense.
The evidence against Stockley was so strong that support for his
conviction came from unlikely corners, including a local police union.
Noting that Stockley committed multiple violations of department
protocol, Sergeant Heather Taylor explained that, based on the facts,
Stockley clearly "wasn't defending himself in the line of duty."
Nonetheless, Stockley was acquitted on September 15 after a bench trial,
confirming the observation of activists across St. Louis -- and the
country --that there is "no justice" to be found in courts when police
kill civilians.
An Escalating Police Response to Protests
Public reaction to the acquittal was both swift and consistent. Mass
protests quickly spread across the city, prompting escalating police
responses, including what one state official described as "a police riot."
St. Louis has endured scathing criticism -- from federal authorities
including the Department of Justice, and also in federal court, where
the city continues to face multiple lawsuits -- for its police
department's violations of constitutionally protected rights to speech
and assembly during the 2014 uprising. Informed by that history,
officials anticipated mass protests as early as August, even calling in
the state National Guard before Stockley was acquitted on September 15.
Activists seeking police accountability have mounted an ongoing campaign
featuring a range of actions. Rather than focus their dissent in
impoverished areas where longstanding police abuses have generated a
widespread awareness about the need for overdue reforms, local
organizers have extended a visible presence into suburban shopping malls
and university enclaves. The escalating police responses -- which have
included the indiscriminate deployment of chemical weapons in generally
peaceful areas -- have in turn alienated residents, local leaders and
even business owners from areas historically unaffected by police violence.
At a protest that shut down the Galleria shopping mall in suburban
Brentwood, police forcefully arrested not only participants, but also
bystanders as young as 13 years old. A local newspaper published images
of a police officer placing a chokehold on an African-American
grandmother later revealed to be a faith leader, which prompted another
faith leader in the city to accuse police of "domestic terrorism."
Rather than reflect an isolated occurrence, police violence responding
to protests (protests that were, of course, sparked in response to
police violence) constitute an apparent pattern and practice. On Sunday,
September 24, police responding to protests downtown not only arrested
more than 120 people en masse, but also meted out seemingly random
violence. Police assaulted -- and viciously injured -- not only dozens
of civilians protesting police violence, but also an undercover police
officer among them, as well as journalists. Victims of the assault
included an active duty Air Force officer who was not participating in
the protests but merely lived nearby and was reportedly "kicked in the
face, blinded by pepper spray and dragged away."
Reacting to mounting public alarm, the office of Mayor Lyda Krewson
stated, "The allegations are disturbing." City prosecutor Kim Gardner
proposed to local policymakers that her office be given independent
authority to investigate and prosecute police misconduct. As Gardner
argued, "Both the community and police deserve an objective, fair and
transparent investigation, and it is no longer acceptable for police to
be essentially investigating themselves."
Meanwhile, local resistance to police violence has continued unabated. A
week after police ran amok in the Galleria, participants in the earlier
protest returned to the shopping mall for a subsequent demonstration
that -- without police instigating violence -- remained peaceful.
Residents resisting police violence have also escalated their tactics to
impose economic costs on a community seemingly unwilling to consider
justice for its own sake. Beyond declaring dissent, St. Louis organizers
-- whose recurring chants include "no justice, no profits" -- have
pursued several activities to impede commerce.
For instance, of the more than 300 activists who have been arrested
across St. Louis since early September, 143 were detained on a single
night when they peacefully seized an interstate highway, blocking
traffic downtown until they left and were arrested. Other actions have
included a march through a hotel and protests at Major League Baseball
games that included unfurling a banner reading, "Stop Killing Us," and
chants such as "no justice, no baseball."
Beyond these discrete protests, organizers have also called for an
economic boycott of the city, which offers profound possibility given
the proven responsiveness of institutions -- from agricultural producers
and footwear manufacturers to companies engaged in logging -- to
economic boycotts. The band U2 inadvertently honored the economic
boycott by cancelling a concert citing security concerns.
Surveillance Reforms on the Horizon
Months before the latest uprising in St. Louis, the Board of Alders (a
local equivalent of a city council) introduced a measure to enable
community control over surveillance by local police. The bill is
supported by Privacy Watch St. Louis, a local member of the Electronic
Frontier Alliance. It is modeled on reforms that have drawn support from
policymakers elsewhere in the country, beginning in Silicon Valley in
2016, and most recently in Somerville, Massachusetts, in early October.
These measures aim to essentially end the era of police departments
secretly, unilaterally and unaccountably buying surveillance platforms.
They require law enforcement agencies to document the security rationale
driving any proposed equipment purchase, as well as its implications for
privacy. The reforms also require an opportunity for public notice and
comment on those documents. After public comment, these policies empower
lawmakers -- not police -- to decide whether any proposed purchase will
proceed.
On the one hand, the recent uprising may seem to have obscured proposed
surveillance reforms. Since police violence has occupied the public
attention, surveillance has not risen to the fore of the St. Louis Board
of Alders' agenda. On the other hand, the uprising has brought the need
to restrain police generally into increasingly sharp focus.
While surveillance presents constitutional harms that threaten the
rights of all Americans, it has been historically politicized in the US,
with particular communities enduring its worst examples. For instance,
law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson writes that contemporary
"[a]ctivists involved in the Movement for Black Lives … have been
monitored" by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and observers
have documented the abuse of various tools, including cell-site
simulators that spy on voice and data transmissions from cellular
devices, to do so. Similarly, the FBI recently designated "black
identity extremists" as particular threats to public safety, recalling
the COINTELPRO era during which it discriminatorily criminalized dissent
-- flouting constitutional protections -- for over 40 years.
The historical connection between surveillance and government attempts
to (in the FBI's words) "disrupt … or otherwise neutralize" the movement
for civil rights has not been lost on activists in St. Louis. Due to
their efforts, the backlash to police violence may have prompted
interest among local policymakers in revisiting police reforms even
beyond those they previously endorsed.
With communities elsewhere having recently established new high
watermarks for local safeguards protecting civil rights and civil
liberties, they will have any number of models to consider. Some address
digital rights in the context of allowing youth restrained by gang
injunctions to enjoy due process rights to contest their inclusion in
police databases. Others directly address surveillance, in the form of
limits on intelligence collection of the sort adopted in Berkeley,
California, as early as 2011.
Social Media and Resistance to Police Violence
While activists in St. Louis continue their work to restrain police in
their communities, many Americans have not noticed that the uprising
that began in Ferguson continues. How can that be true in the age of
social media?
One of the original value propositions presented by social media
platforms was the opportunity to correct biases apparent in traditional
media outlets. Two particular historical examples seemed to establish
the ability of social media to focus public attention.
In 2011, Silicon Valley triumphantly claimed that its tools advanced
democracy by helping social movements across the Middle East destabilize
a series of dictatorships (most -- but not all -- of which relapsed to
authoritarian rule after brief flirtations with democracy). More
recently, a continuing stream of police murders captured no video and
shared on social media has forced national attention to systemic racism
despite its long and conspicuous omission from the mainstream policy
discourse.
There's no doubt that social media has grown inestimably powerful.
Drawing over $1 billion in advertising during the 2016 elections,
Facebook alone has demonstrated the power to swing elections. The
platform can skew what people read, shifting their impressions of
reality, and mask foreign influence to such an extent that it can
effectively override domestic preferences and elections.
Beyond the crisis in policing and civil rights in St. Louis and its
implications for local policy, the 2017 uprising may also have
demonstrated the limits of social media. Despite a raging controversy
extending for weeks across a major US city, cable news outlets --
including those dedicated to 24-hour news, several which established a
ubiquitous presence during the 2014 uprising -- have not covered either
the 2017 uprising or the continuing abuses that have inspired it.
Meanwhile, even Americans who do use social media may be insulated from
events in St. Louis. That may be because filter bubbles and algorithmic
content curation -- implemented by both Facebook and Twitter in the
years since the Arab Spring -- limit the visibility of posts about them.
Alternatively, it may result from social media becoming an object of
discourse in itself, with the president's tweets driving journalism that
might otherwise be dedicated to covering actual news.
Regardless, activists in St. Louis remain undaunted. According to John
Chasnoff, co-chair of the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression
and a member of Privacy Watch STL, "Local business leaders know the
economic disruption that the current uprising is creating. Local
politicians know that their ability to govern is being challenged. Sure,
national attention would provide another pressure point, but we're going
to reshape this city and region one way or another."
=======================================================================
From Dogwood Initiative this week.
Last week our video of Kinder Morgan's illegal anti-spawning mats in
B.C. rivers went viral. Within two days, the B.C. government publicly
urged the feds to crack down on the company's violations and sent
enforcement staff to survey the rivers.
The media isn't covering this. And our government didn’t take action
until Dogwood supporters like you pushed them on it. Clearly it’s up to
you and me to keep this American company in check.
We are not going to let Kinder Morgan get away with illegal construction.
On top of their salmon tampering, we’ve just learned Kinder Morgan has
ordered more than 300,000 tonnes of steel pipe -- in violation of
another National Energy Board order. They plan to stockpile pipeline in
cities across B.C. for a project that doesn’t even have all of its
permits yet.
Kinder Morgan keeps breaking the rules, but you can catch them in the act
Dogwood Initiative video on Kinder Morgan illegal activity.
https://www.facebook.com/dogwoodbc/videos/10155766228978416/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpneVpHVXhOV05tT0ROayIsInQiOiJhc2hZXC9XRjRLTGErSGlQT3pmdWh3XC9MNjBNTkx2dGtmeCtlQmN5cEF4M2xFNStiOTVyNHBZaHQ3VDRVTWZyajVsWXR5emdOQTRCZFdKNlkrSmhVbmlLbnhCMlhzdEVqa20ra1l5Tis3ajI5YnRraVZuYzJzNTY0VkZIY0Q5bGxzIn0%3D
Kinder Morgan blog rationalizing their illegal activity.
https://www.transmountain.com/news/2017/innovative-use-of-snow-fencing-protecting-spawning-salmon-and-trout
But public pressure is making a difference, and thereby creating the
media coverage.
=========================================================================
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/trans-mountain-pipeline-neb-warning-fish-spawning-mats-1.4308637
NEB warns Trans Mountain pipeline builder to stop installing
anti-spawning mats
Trans Mountain says spawning deterrents are a 'preventative measure' to
minimize impacts of construction
The Canadian Press Posted: Sep 26, 2017 5:34 PM MT Last Updated: Sep 26,
2017 5:34 PM MT
The National Energy Board is issuing a stern warning to the company
building the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion for installing mats in
streams to discourage fish from spawning where the pipeline is to be built.
In a letter on its website, the regulator orders the company building
the line from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C., to stop installing the mats
until it has obtained all approvals from the board to allow the start of
construction in those areas.
In a blog dated Sept. 12 on the project website, Trans Mountain
describes the "innovative use of snow fencing" in streams to protect
spawning salmon and trout.
It says its biologists had temporarily laid plastic fencing on the
bottom of some sections of five streams through mid-August 2017 in
preparation for pipeline construction there in early 2018, adding it had
identified a total of 26 streams in British Columbia and Alberta where
the mats would be used prior to spawning season.
In an email, Trans Mountain spokesman Ali Hounsell says the spawning
deterrents were considered a "preventive measure" to minimize
environmental impacts of construction, adding the company is working on
a response to the NEB order.
Greenpeace Canada energy strategist Keith Stewart says it's hard to
believe that Trans Mountain owner Kinder Morgan didn't know or failed to
check to see if its anti-spawning strategy was allowed.
===================================================================
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7UhabfVDcs
