About damn time!
I don’t think Obama understands the problems. But if he can tell the FCC to do things like that, he could certainly tell the DEA to reschedule marijuana to something other than Schedule 1, since they’ve got administrative control over it and it’s demonstrably useful for medical purposes.
Something tells me this is timed post-midterms when Obama knows that the lobbyists know he’s a lame duck. They can pepper congress and the senate with their objections, not him, as they know who holds the strings now. I hope he enjoys the next two years of just being an annoying thorn to the new republocrasy…
Wait, can he just tell them to do that? Do they actually need to listen to him?
Get ready for tons of sensible, popular policy proscriptions from Obama, now that he can be safely confident that none of them will ever become a reality.
Or that he doesn’t have to worry about his policies working against the Democrats that are supposedly on his side but tend to flee when something sensible but progressive is suggested. He’s got two years of being able to speak his mind more freely. And there’s no reason that something like this proposal couldn’t actually happen.
something tells me there are billions of reasons.
The party coming into power in the legislature seems to have some sort of agenda. Can’t quite make it out behind the giant head. Maybe you can??
(this picture from Nov 5, immediately after the elections, not before them)
Maybe he’ll have the freedom to be who he promised to be for once…
Thank FSM there is a voice of reason out there:
Ted Cruz: Net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet
Let me rephrase.
As the president, he may be able to, in fact, make this happen, as Obama’s been quite resourceful in working around a party whose stated goal is to prevent him from doing anything whatsoever. We’ll see.
Net neutrality will lead to too many packets for the internet to service them all, they’ll have to create “death panels” for packets!
Get your government hands off my ARPANET!
A little more seriously…
No blocking. If a consumer requests access to a website or service, and the content is legal, your ISP should not be permitted to block it. That way, every player—not just those commercially affiliated with an ISP—gets a fair shot at your business.
I have to wonder if there’s any nuance in that bit to allow for things like spam filtering or blanket security policies. The way it’s worded in this summary could impact things like blocks for SMTP traffic.
This sort of stuff always upsets me, especially with politics. Obama most likely wanted to take this position from day one, but he had to get re-elected. Then he had to get some other folks elected. So now that the elections are over, he has a bit less than two years to finally open up and try to make progress on the stuff he couldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole in the previous 6 years.
Step 1: Fire Tom Wheeler?
Remember the Republican mantra — if you wanna play, you’re gonna have to pay. So get ready to bend over and assume the position. If laws are passed and mobile broadband providers like VZW, ATT, Squint, and T-Mobile ever are considered a “utility” as far as providing internet access for tablets and cellphones, I predict it won’t be long before your cellphone prices will rise to $150.00/month per phone.
And when you’re writing out that check, just remember — you asked for it.
Welcome to the BoingBoing forums 
my cellphone bill was 120 dollars last month Bill.
You are describing the impacts of -deregulation- from where I stand.
Christ, what an asshole.
