Call for the Resignation of FCC Chairman Ajit Varadaraj Pai | Hacker News Reader

Call for the Resignation of FCC Chairman Ajit Varadaraj Pai

petitions.whitehouse.gov

241 pointsDiabloD366 comments

We're all aware that this is an action being taken by the executive branch, not the legislative. However, Executive departments rely on the legislative branch to get relevant legislation passed, to confirm appointees, and for other forms of support for their actions. Administrative departments generally try to avoid angering the relevant standing committees that regulate them.

The website for the US Senate subcomittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet is here https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/communicati...

There appear to be two relevant subcommittees of the US House of Representatives:

https://energycommerce.house.gov/subcommittee/communications...

and

https://energycommerce.house.gov/subcommittee/digital-commer...

From the looks of the twitter iframes* on both house subcomittee pages, the FCC has significant legislative support for these rules changes.

That’s really not true, there was a bipartisan push to pull this power away from the FCC specifically because members of both parties saw net neutrality becoming a political football. And that the regulatory uncertainty of back-and-forth, regulation and deregulation, on a 4 year basis, was going to ultimately be more damaging than going one way or the other.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/341605-senate-republica...

Which died primarily due to inaction caused by the republican members of Congress chasing long shot bills and wasting productive time for unproductive time.

This is a great point. Congress is abdicating its responsibility to enact proper legislation and allowing this issue to be decided by the whims of whatever the executive branch wants (which is subject to change every 4 years). We need certainty with regards to this issue, and this is not the only example of congress abdicating its responsibilities (war, healthcare, immigration, etc.).

Where the hell are Google and Facebook on this? The idea that they'll profit from the repeal is simply naive - without net neutrality Comcast et al will be able to extort whatever they want from SV. I realize that this is unethical, but Alphabet alone can match ISP donations and then some. Alphabet plus Facebook can probably buy post Citizens United Congress fifty times over.

They’re definitely already on this. Likely they have a deal in place with Comcast already.

I am surprised that they fought for net neutrality at all in the past. The primary threats to their businesses are new companies, and barriers to entry are their best protections. Having money skimmed by companies like Comcast is far better than being replaced by a better search engine or a new social network. Right now it is much easier to implement an idea and scale it than it would be if you began also having to finance new extortion fees before you even had a chance to validate your idea.

I see it the opposite way. Big companies are too big to be blocked in any "standard" plan. So the effect of this legislation is that little guys will be blocked.

Signed... thanks for the link.

I don’t think this administration has much interest in what “we the people” really want, though.

Hopefully people call their reps to voice concerns about the repeal of NN too.

s/this/any/g

The previous administration created the We The People site this petition is on... and the CFPB... and the FCC rules that Pai now wants to overturn.

So, no, it is this administration.

If you think the previous administration was "better", you probably haven't read Thomas Frank's book, "Listen, Liberal!". Thomas Frank is a lifelong Democrat and an actual liberal.

It illustrates how US politics were hijacked, and the horrible policies of the administrations since Bill Clintons inauguration. If you are someone who thinks Obama or Clinton were "good" presidents, the book will dispell you of that notion.

I'm not saying the things you enumerated are bad things.

Personally, I am fiercly pro-NN, and I think Pai should actually be imprisoned (though there's probably no current law that would allow it, obviously IANAL), and the CFPB is something the US has lacked for ages (though I'm not sure if it has enough powers to enforce anything much).

But I am saying that the previous administration was actually not better, all things considered. And if you think so, the book will convince you otherwise.

They might not be "good" in all the things that they did. Running a federal govt like the US is no joke and I am sure that everything that they did they could have done better.

But you cannot compare to the level of dishonesty and incompetency that this administration has.

Lets not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Yes, I can, but that's only because I have read that book. Which cites its sources for everything.

If you can't compare it, that's because you're missing the data to do so. I'm quite certain you'd like reading it.

I don't really want to push that book this much, but I do want liberals to understand the dishonesty and malice inherent in the actings of previous administrations that are held in high esteem for no apparent reason - like Clinton and Obama.

And the reason I want that is because it would be helpful to liberals.

The US is so far behind on many basic things, it's a joke to the rest of the world; - The level of poverty in the US is staggering - you can reasonably say that more than 50% of citizens live below the poverty line. - The lack of basic bank security, the fact that if someone steals your bank account money, you don't automatically get it back from the bank. - The cost of health care is actually insane - The number of citizens in jail, and the exploitation of them for manufacturing (talk about slavery) - The low number of people who vote. In my country, more people vote in _city_ level elections than do in your presidential elections. Always. By a factor of 20%. "representative democracy" my ass.

Anyone who lives in Europe knows these things. And any honest US citizen who has lived abroad knows it.

I am saying these things to illustrate that I want to _help_ you.

And that includes reading that book, and dispelling your notion that Clinton or Obama were good or honest. Competent, oh yes - competent enough to literally destroy your nation.

>Running a federal govt like the US is no joke

Ha. Donald & friends' behavior disgrees with that statement.

If the summary of the book is, as Wikipedia puts it, that " the American Democratic Party has changed to support elitism in the form of a professional class instead of the working class," then I don't disagree. And if the suggestion is that all administrations since Clinton are responsible for that, I don't disagree with that either - in fact, I'd go further back, and I would make it bipartisan.

But we are making an in-group comparison here: the current administrations versus previous ones on the topics at hand. To imply complete equivalence between the two on the grounds that both suffer from some of the same systemic problems is moving the goalposts.

Were previous administrations also corporatist and deeply flawed? Yes. Does that mean that the Obama administration didn't also provide demonstrably better outcomes than the Trump administration on a range of issues? No. Dismissing the clear policy differences between the two actually does a disservice to the cause of making government better, because it ignores the positive things that did happen that we want to encourage and further.

For instance, if you support a single-payer healthcare system, you can say both "the ACA has made healthcare in the US better than before, and closer to what I want," and "the ACA doesn't get me all the way to what I want." But it would be dishonest to suggest that the ACA didn't bring us much closer to healthcare-for-all than we were before it passed. Incremental change is still change. (And if you have the opposite stance on healthcare, the same logic applies in reverse.)

Incremental change is often counter productive. Major change requires major problems because people are inertial. Picture things as a number line. 0 is something 100% beneficial to society at expense of special interests. 100 is something that is 100% beneficial to special interests at expense of society.

Major changes, such as single payer healthcare, require major action and major support. It's highly controversial and would require a massive rethinking of an enormous amount of our society - and all at substantial risk to many people. To get this sort of action you need people pretty far along that number line - perhaps at 85 - to drag people out of their naturally inertial state. And indeed it may have been the case that before the ACA people were starting to reach into the 90s. What has the ACA done? It's certainly a very flawed system and that's seen, arguably predictably, skyrocketing premiums (an average 25% increase in premiums in 2017 alone [1] ) and other more systemic issues such as rapidly decreasing competition. But it's better than what we had before, even if just incrementally. But now instead of being in the 90s, our numberline on the 'fairness' of healthcare is now somewhere in the high 70s. Another way of looking at this is that the odds of something like single payer entering the political conversation, which was a very real possibility before, are now effectively zero.

And this has been a recurring theme throughout many of Obama's actions. Of course this all begs an obvious question. Was he behaving this way intentionally to maximize the value of special interests, or was he just a well intentioned person trying to make progress in a difficult system? Given one of the first things he did after leaving office was to go give a private talk to a wall street firm on healthcare, for a $400k "speaking fee" - well...

[1] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-obamacare-premiums-are-risi...

I'm not trying to imply complete equivalence between the two. I'm trying to point out that just because you think Trump "is an idiot" or whatever, that doesn't mean his administration is performing objectively worse than its predecessors.

The top commenter here says "I don’t think this administration has much interest in what “we the people” really want, though."

And if he believes that previous administrations like Clinton/Bush/Obama did, that's demonstrably not true.

> ..., because it ignores the positive things that did happen that we want to encourage and further.

That's not what it's about, it's about highlighting the flaws of the previous administrations, because all I see is unequivocal love for both Clinton and Obama.

Not because that's somehow immediately helpful to the political climate, but because it might be helpful to someone personally to understand at least some of the reasons why their country has gone to shit, and it might stop them rallying to false idols.

And it also might humble them towards the other half of their country when they realise their church is just as filthy.

If you haven’t been able to see the tangible ways that one party is way more beholden to monied interests by this point, I don’t know what it will take.

Some people just want to watch the word burn.

If you are a political cheerleader for the DNC or the GOP you are lighting the fires.

Money overcomes political ideals or the interest of those with less money.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...

"Report by researchers from Princeton and Northwestern universities suggests that US political system serves special interest organisations, instead of voters "

What you may not see is both parties playing people against one another. They're both completely beholden to special interests. As perhaps the most visible example, did you ever wonder why the TPP, which was going to be arguably the single biggest corporate handout in US legislative history, was being spearheaded by Obama? Or why he was going about it in such an absurdly undemocratic fashion?

Keeping the people divided is the key to keeping the establishment powers entrenched in office. So long as the people hate the alternative sufficiently, they need not worry about the quality of their own candidate. Clinton won the popular vote, yet I think it's safe to say that most voted for her not because she truly was the type of candidate that people wanted in office -- but because the alternative was considered absolutely unacceptable under any circumstance. And the same is no doubt true of much of Trump's support.

I don't think another Ross Perot 1992 is ever likely to happen. If that's before your political period, an independent individual (vastly more eloquent and reasonable, but politically similar to Trump) ended up making a huge run. At one point he was actually ahead in the polls against candidates from both parties. In the general he ran against Bush and Clinton, even then some of the most powerful names in politics. He pulled 19% of the vote - destroying Bush's incumbency and effectively giving the presidency to Clinton.

But far from just a spoiler, that's a single outsider independently threatening to 'take over' Washington. The increasingly sensationalized and divisive rhetoric with a focus on identity politics, really began to spike in the elections to come. So long as both side of the political spectrum think those on the other side are completely intolerable, it makes it much easier to control people. You can even get them to do things like vote for people they don't actually want in office -- they just need to be convinced that it's better than the alternative.

The current Congressional majority has made clear (including several members making explicit statements) that their legislative actions are motivated by the concerns of major donors, so don't expect any more concern for public opinion from them than the administration.

The fact that major donors are more important than democracy is not widely acknowledged.

It is important to expose this mechanism, document it, and starte a broad discussion about it.

We've allowed them to become the controlling force because we don't take any significant and tangible action. They don't need to listen because we're complicit and complacent.

Who seriously believes it would make a difference? As the Chairman is just a puppet and will if resigned be replaced by another. The USA is not a functioning democracy anymore and you should aim at replacing your complete government and the rules how it's elected.

The USA is not a functioning democracy

Thank goodness too! We are a Constitutional Republic. A pure democracy only works when the majority is moral.

This constitutional republic isn't working either.

But the oligarchy is working beautifully.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...

To bad people have become political cheerleaders that care more about their party and ego then the country or holding their own party accountable.

Republican and Democrat political cheerleaders is a big reason we have lost our gov't along with people being to stupid to focus on the REAL issue versus distractions such as healthcare,welfare ,taxes,racism,sexism,sexuality,religion,heck even net neutrality.

The only issue we should be talking about is 1. term limits in congress. 2. Closing revolving doors. 3. Reforming lobbying 4. Reforming fund raising. 5. Real transparency.

you cant expect a bunch of people with conflict of interest to do the right thing for anyone but themselves.

you are welcome to leave.

Personal attacks and incivility are not allowed here. If you do this again, we will ban you.

That's not to say the GP was a good comment, but responding by making the thread more toxic is exactly the wrong thing to do.

“Constitutional republic” and “democracy” are not contradictory. Most democracies are also republics. “Republic” just means “doesn’t have a king or queen”.

Also a republic is a form of democracy. He never said pure democracy. I remember Fox and Rush types trying to confuse their listeners by portraying a republic as not a democracy without using the term "pure," or "direct." several years ago.

We occasionally have instances of pure democracy through referendums.

Some states do practice pure democracy, like California. We have citizen initiated constitutional amendments, recall power, legislation and even citizen redistricting.

Oh for Christ's sake, pedantry is even more annoying _when it's not even correct_. Just Google the definition of "democracy" before the next time you think it's a good idea to interject this trite, useless comment. Here, I'll get you started:

""" noun

- a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

- a state governed by a democracy.

- control of an organization or group by the majority of its members. """

The term you're thinking of is "direct democracy".

how is it that you trust Google to define democracy for us ?

A word doesn't have an inherent meaning that extends beyond how it's used. Dictionaries don't dictate definitions, they describe them; at best, they provide a Schelling point.

Google's definition in this case isn't out of sync with common usage or with any other dictionary that I'm aware of. Think for a second about point you're trying to make exactly, because it sounds to me like a vague soup of paranoid anti-corporate gibberish.

The extremely liberal for their time founding fathers of the US were greatly concerned about the tyranny of the majority, which is why people get pedantic when talking about the US as a democracy. As has been pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, many states do function as democracies where we can vote directly on amendments to the state constitution (which is how all laws allowing for possession of cannabis have been passed).

Please enlighten us on how it's not a functioning democracy.

Millions of law abiding Americans are denied representation because they live in DC or territory's, but not states etc. Look at single party congressional races.

America is not even a representative democracy and has not been one for a very long time.

PS: I can point to similar posts under the Obama presidency if you think this is about who is in office. America like China holds elections, but is not a democracy.

I mean, it's a functioning democracy in that there are elections. But there is a very serious class divide and it's pronounced in the upper echelons. It is widely known that governments and policy is bought and paid for.

The idea is, if you're rich enough you can lobby for what you want. Functionally this is bribery with some extra steps.

I would refer to the US as either a pendulum swing of administrations that attempt to cancel each other out at best and inverse totalitarianism[0] at worst. But I certainly wouldn't hold it up as the pinnacle of democracy.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism

http://wws.princeton.edu/system/files/research/documents/Gil...

There is next to no correlation between the will of the people and the chance of their preferred policy being enacted.

There's a very strong correlation between the will of the elites and their preferred policy being enacted.

The US is only nominally a democracy, it is functionally an oligarchy.

Its probably worth noting that this site may be manipulated:

http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/white-house-petition-si...

After the election, many petitions were not registering signatures. My position is that this was deliberate. So if this somehow 'fails' or gets stuck at some number, don't be surprised...

Right now its at 47,008 signed

LOL, somebody actually down voted stating that 47,008 have signed so far?

I mean two of the top 3 petitions are calling for Trump to release his tax returns (1.1 million) and put his assets in a blind trust (356,031).

Whether or not the site is being manipulated I can guarantee no one from the White House is clamoring to respond.

I'm not so sure disagreeing is grounds for demanding resignation. And a couple clicks for a digital signature hardly says, "I'm pissed odf." Pardon me but I'm just not a believer in slack-tivism.

If ya wanna move the needle ya got to hit'em where it hurts. Boycot FB. Boycot Twitter. Boycot Netflix. Boycot Amazon. Even if it's just for a day, those are all actions that will be heard.

If Small Biz Saturday can be a thing, so can You Need Us More Than We Need You Friday. Okay. Agreed. The name needs some work.

People are missing the point in this case. Ajit is not the problem at all, he is a pawn in a larger game.

Only hope is fixing the system.

While it's ok to not shoot the messenger, this is not the case here.

"We were just following orders" didn't stick before and shouldn't stick in this case. Whoever pull the trigger is guilty as well.

I'm actually against asking for his resignation, the appropriate action would be his demotion from position.

He should resign... for trying to rape the American people... Clinton resigned for less than that.

Is it just me or is the number of signed petitions not increasing?

Guessing they do some basic verification and purge bad signatures over time. If it's anything like Reddit where subreddits with <80 subscribers get 30,000 upvotes on posts about net neutrality; one can assume that there will be a lot of bots on that site too.

Seriously, is this all the plan of one guy? Ajit Pai, if so, how could we give such power to one person. I don't think it's his plan it never it's, his resignation won't mean anything.

No, ending the FCC’s policy of net neutrality has been the general Republican Party position for years.

I would say more correctly the Republican Party was the one chosen by the lobbyist to take the heat for this anti consumer action.

In reality when the democrats get back control Net Neutrality will unlikely be brought back. Just like the Republicans did with Obmacare. They labeled it the anti-christ of all regulations then they get full control and they do nothing.

The DNC and the GOP are just tools of the lobbyist to keep the people distracted , separated, and appeased to think they still have a voice.

The unfortunate truth, IMO, is that the two party system in America has broken down in that they both serve corporate interests and then blame each other in order to keep the news cycle going and the populist distracted.

What can we do? I believe we need to move away from a First-past-the-post voting system, as it mathematically converges to a two party system. There is a small push to get America to move to Ranked Choice Voting: http://www.fairvote.org.

If "the lobbyist" had the power over both parties that you are imagining, then net neutrality would have not passed in the first place.

Or do you think that was part of some long game to hide the influence of "the lobbyist" by appearing to lose on that issue, even though that meant "the lobbyist" had to put up with net neutrality for many years (it would have been at least 14 years if Clinton had one)?

Do you explain the numerous other things besides net neutrality for which Democrats and Republicans have consistently been on opposite sides for a very long time as just fake outs by "the lobbyist"?

> I would say more correctly the Republican Party was the one chosen by the lobbyist to take the heat for this anti consumer action.

You might say that, but not “more correctly”. While the action is anti-consumer, there are big business lobbyists on both sides, it's not big business lobbyists on one side and consumers on the other. And this is true of most issues with big business lobbying; it's the exception, rather than the rule, that big business has a unified interest.

You can't talk about “the lobbyist” as if there is only one, or many that act in coordination with a single will.

> The DNC and the GOP are just tools of the lobbyist to keep the people distracted , separated, and appeased to think they still have a voice.

I get how it might have seemed that way if you looked at a narrow range of big-picture economic-policy issues at the height of the 1990s neoliberal consensus, but that's not even approximately true.

His resignation will be a an important sign.

Suppose for the sake of my argument that this petition is successful and Ajit Paid has to resign, and the newly put in place chairman the removes net neutrality anyway.

It will then be obvious that there are powers in place that want net neutrality to fall even at the cost of having to replace the chairman.

Given that it's unlikely that net neutrality can be upheld in the current political climate, this would be a victory.

How would the "has to resign" part work? What binding power does this petition have once it reaches the required number of votes?

This isn't how things work. They appointed him precisely because he's a hack.

It's not all him, but it can't happen as easily without his cooperation. If cooperation means losing your job, the next person in his position will be less likely to cooperate.

Why is HN pushing this post down? Considering the votes and comments the post has got ,it should be in the top of the list?

Maybe because it won't amount to anything (these petitions never do) and it's wasting space on the front page?

Or are they being lobbyed by the government?

Got any proof of that?

https://imgur.com/a/PydFk

As a member of tech community I support Ajit Pai and I think what he is doing is good for the open-ness of the internet.

From what I understand he is standing in the way of an open internet. Maybe I understood it wrong?

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