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Give Me A Cup Of What Congress Is Drinking

In the what were they drinking file for today, we have Congress stating that ISPs should be responsible for blocking fraud sites. You’re right, let’s put the same people that barely understand what the hell the Internet even is in charge of passing laws that may very likely have unintended consequences.

What consequences might you ask? Ah, well due to the fact that we have entirely too many naive people using the ‘Net, ISPs would have to dive down into the rabbit hole with Alice and talk to the Mad Hatter as the technology is not there yet! Not to worry, this little hurdle would never stand in the way of progress. No, we’ll throw some new ill-informed laws at the problem and see how long it is before the ISPs raise their rates yet again to fund a think tank to deal with people who really should not be allowed to surf the Internet in the first place.

Look, as a thinking adult with all of my marbles, I am responsible for my own financial mistakes. And if this means that I end up on a fraudulent Web site, taken to the cleaners and so on, well… guess what? Too bad for me. I should have been more careful. Maybe considered using browsers with phishing protection or simply using something I like to call common sense.

So in the end, it is not only impossible considering this would need to go beyond merely ISPS, encompassing bookstores offering Wi-Fi, etc. But the fact of the matter is that we, as individuals, need to take responsibility for our own actions. If you want a baby-friendly, decaffeinated Internet experience, filter your own connection and let me make my own mistakes. This mindless eternal victim crap really gets old. But hey, it’s unenforceable anyway — so go ahead, Congress. Pass it. Let’s see how well that works out for all of us. In the end, all it would do is skyrocket our broadband rates. But at least we’ll be safe from “fraud!” Give me a break…

14 Comments

You right wing nut jobs all sound the same. First you say people are to stupid to even be on the net then you whine about how the government shouldn’t step in and stop the problem. How elitist of you! The ‘Naive people’,…what a snob!

By the way, I’m kidding. Just the thought of government crawling around the Internet scares the heck out of me. it’s just more power control for the democrats in their never ending quest for running your life. Now they want to control internet content. Fairness doctrine 1.5 anyone?

I couldn’t agree with you more…. congress seems to be sticking there nose into so many areas now where they no expertise nor business when they should be focusing on what they are already responsible for and have thoroughly screwed up.

Now they want to run health care! If you want to get a picture of what federal controlled health care will look like, just look at how they are handling the H1N1 vaccine. Its late in arriving, in short supply, rationed for only those a federal bureaucracy has mandated should receive it and even then you have to stand in line hoping they don’t run out.

Sure, lets let the government run the car manufacturers, the banks, the media, the healthcare system and the internet. After all, they have proven they can do such a good job running everything else they handle such as the post office, Amtrak, purchasing $400 toilet seats, the economy, the deficit, etc. etc, etc….. need I say more?

Urban Underbrink

November 5th, 2009
at 5:58am

If enough people get fed up with the “Control Freak Fools” in Congress, we might be able to Impeach all those Fools!

Congress is a series of tubes!

In my opinion people should in the first place know what they were talking about, they dont surf the internet, they have people to do that for them, if they did they would gain a little “Internet Common Sense” and know what a Phishing site is, nowadays, everyone uses the internet, and can distinguish a fraud site from a clean one.
If they even drove their cars maybe they didnt pass all those laws against some traffic infractions… Anyways i agree with you on one point (not the only one but the one i find essencial) people are responsible for their own mistakes, if dont want to lose your money look out for it, don’t make other people do it for you, If you lost it too bad, don’t blame the ISP blame yourself for not being informed…

oldwolves get a clue it is the republicans that what to setup a dictatorship not the dems. maybe you should keep your mouth shout if you do not know what you are talking about.

Hear hear, I agree 100%. The idiots people hire to run this country are only good at one thing: winning elections. To think they understand or even have the faintest grasp of what they’re asking for here is giving them more credit than they deserve. Who, exactly, do they figure is going to determine what a “fraud site” is? Do they suppose software developers can write a program that figures it out for them? Or are they just going to start building ban lists that ISPs have to comply with? That’d be great. Suddenly “fraud” will extend to mean “politically unpopular”. I don’t know - I could rant for a while about the technical impossibility of this, but I think it suffices to say that the inmates are running this asylum.

Congress is a series of holes. Tubes imply direction.

By the same logic, if someone walks up to you on the street and manages to defraud you, then whoever provided the street should be held responsible.

Hey, Al Gore invented the Internet(s) let him police it.

These are the same people that proudly proclaim throuhout the world that Michelle Obama’s butt is the same size or smaller than Jackie O’s and puts her picture on the cover of every fashion magazine as thin and fit. The woman is 60 pounds overweight with a fat butt and a falbby belly. Your cries to Congress (Congriefs) are not heard without the allure of benefit to the Congress. What benefit will you provide in exchange for reason?

American Citizen

November 5th, 2009
at 5:06pm

Hello.

I propose we impeach or recall the members of Congress who initiate stupid things like this. Clearly they have no understanding of the Internet other than from their own simplistic / limited viewpoint.

I am an independent, not a Republican. This story shows yet again that the Democrats think we’re too “weak and stupid” to handle things on our own and that we need to be protected from ourselves. I say they’re wrong. Life isn’t about living in a padded room with knee pads and elbow pads and a helmet on, with a padded floor beneath. Life is about learning and experiencing things. Making choices. Living up to your own potential if you so choose. Learning from your mistakes and improving. Learning and growing. It sounds like Congress wants to lock us in a room and strap us to a table and feed us with a needle because the world is simply “too dangerous” for us to be let out. We might get hurt. I say they’re wrong and they are looking at this incorrectly.

I have to agree and disagree at the same time with your argument here. The FCC plans on doing some word wide research and comparison that is supposed to touch on our already greatly inflated broadband rates as well as our currently aging broadband framework. I would assume that a broad look at other Countries broadband pricing as well as the cost of actually maintaining the pre-existing networks that are comparable will yield the sheer volume of insidious greed that these companies shoulder. I am not a die hard democrat by no means however I can do the math and 60$x13M subscribers=780000000$ of total revenue per month and this is only Comcast. That’s 3/4 of 1 billion dollars and they are trying to pop on bandwidth caps because they think they can convince us that their infrastructure is too expensive for them to maintain? and this is completely in lieu of their cable and phone customers for whom the difference 100 percent profit. These companies are the Chase banks that we for some reason are too “naive” to notice or we simply enjoy the metaphorical *** rape they bestow on us on a monthly basis.

With that said I can almost agree with what they are doing here, somebody should be watching over what is being passed though there DNS, the government sure isn’t stepping in. I may never fall victim to any of these online phishing operations or scams but there are a great deal of uninformed who simply do not understand how dangerous the internet can be or they do and live in a technology hole for the remainder of their lives, neither of which in my opinion are great ways to live. What if it was your grandmother who fell victim to this or your mother what if they were like many others entangled in the complicated medical system and needed to pay out of pocket for their meds? Sure they are adults but they certainly didn’t grow up progressively learning the dangers.

System101,
I promise to keep my mouth shut when;

1. The current government socialism is turned back and

2. You graduate middle school and learn how to make statements other that a juvenile throwing a tantrum.

Statement one will happen.
Statement two… Doubt it.

I think you only need to Google “Where are the jobs” and press I’m feeling lucky… to see were our “stimulus” money is going. If you are like me you may conclude that the dollar doesn’t fall very far from the tree.

What Do You Think?

 

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