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Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

I'm thankful to live in a country where we have the freedom to publish this kind of thing. (That said, I think that freedom will no last too much longer.)

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I've got an idea. In the faux name of net neutrality, let's give one of the most abusive governments when it comes to privacy, vast control over regulating the domestic Internet, and let's allow them pass those new regulations without anyone external being allowed to review them ahead of time. What could possibly go wrong? It's not like the government will massively expand their direct control of the Internet, and use that to chill free speech. And it's not like we'll be sitting here in ten years, listening to pro net neutrality campaigners making excuses about how those weren't the laws they had in mind; after all, who knew the government would abuse their new powers, nobody could have guessed such a thing.

Whoops, too late:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/dear-fcc-rethink-those...

I agree with the general thrust of what you're saying, and I think the FCC takeover of the internet is much more problematic than the NSA spying scandal.

That said, the EFF is getting what it has been advocating for: A government takeover of the internet.

That is what net neutrality has always been for and about.

Once we grant that the internet infrastructure is not private property and is open to government regulation, that means it's open to all government regulation, including speech regulation. There is no middle ground.

To think otherwise is to not understand principles and politics.

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