The Ninth Amendment to the Constitution is the strongest statement therein that powers not expressly granted the State are retained as rights of the People. The State has misconstrued, misrepresented, ignored, and denied the People's rights by elimination of protections reserved alone to them, not recognized by the Supreme Court, the Legislative, and worst the Executive Branch in the illegitimate exercise of draconian powers which unlawfully disparage the inalienable rights of the People.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/technology/net-neutrality-fcc-ajit-pai.html Pai OK'd More Media Mergers, Killed Low-Income Fast Internet, Let ISPs Raise Business Rates, Refuses Request Of Dozens In Congress And 18 State AG's To Delay Net Neutrality Kill Vote Due To Evidence Millions Of Fraudulent ISP Comments
Mark Zuckerberg has hatched a plan with telecom giants around the world called Internet.org, which provides access to a fake Internet that only includes services hand-picked by Zuckerberg and his cronies.
People in countries like India, Brazil, Zimbabwe, and Paraguay are outraged over this fake Internet, and are speaking out. We all deserve access to the real open Internet.Stand with people around the worldand demand Zuckerberg stops restricting access to the open Internet NOW.
People in countries like India, Brazil, Zimbabwe, and Paraguay are outraged over Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to control what billions of soon-to-be Internet users do online.1,2
Billions will soon face Zuck’s fake Internet, which blocks the websites, apps, and services the rest of the world loves from being available on equal terms.4 And if we don’t stop it now, Internet users everywhere could one day be faced with the same thing.
To amplify the concerns of people around the world, today 65 organizations in 31 countries have released an open letter today opposing Zuck’s plan to control what billions do online by prioritizing some services over others on this fake Internet.5
And we need you to do your part. We all deserve access to the real open Internet.Stand with people around the world and demand Zuckerberg stops restricting access to the open Internet NOW.
Zuckerberg is facing a huge PR backlash about Internet.org.6,7 His image is important to him, so the more people speak out, the more pressure he'll feel to do the right thing.
Global Internet users would much rather Zuck use his influence for good, and promote access to the real open Internet, not just his fake imitation.8And it’s time you stand with them.
As Norman Mukwakwami from Zimbabwe writes:
“There are 60 social media platforms in Africa. I ask: how do we expect them to survive when users are charged more to use their platforms than they are charged to use the global giants of cyberspace?”9
To add insult to injury, there are actually great initatives to connect the unconnected to the joys of the open Internet, but Zuckerberg’s Internet.org has effectively sabotaged some of those efforts.10
P.S., The fight for net neutrality is the fight for Internet freedom. We’re up against some of the most powerful companies in the world – but with your support, we can ensure the Internet remains an open platform that fuels the type of society we aspire to. Please consider donating today to help this campaign reach more people in countries around the world.
Footnotes [1] Internet.not. Source: Huffington Post. [2], [5] 65 groups from 31 countries speak out against Zuckerberg’s fake Internet project Source: OpenMedia. [3], [4] Facebook’s Internet.org isn’t the Internet. It’s FacebookNet. Source: Wired. [6] Facebook’s Internet.org sees defections over alleged harm to net neutrality. Source: ArsTechnica. [7] How Telecoms And The Indian Government Stop Net Neutrality In Its Tracks. Source: TechCrunch. [8] If the price of giving everyone internet access is total domination by Facebook, it’s not worth it. Source: The Guardian. [9] Net non-neutrality on demand! Source: ICT Africa. [10] Internet.org, the Panamanian case. Source: Digital Rights LAC.
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Thursday, 26 February 2015, WASHINGTON, D.C. - In what is being seen as perhaps the biggest policy turnaround since the inception of the Internet with likely far-reaching consequences in preserving an "open" Internet for "the public good" the five-member Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.) today is expected to line up a majority of its two Democratic Commissioners behind the proposal of its Democratic Chair Tom Wheeler (appointed by President Obama) to preserve "net neutrality" by regulating the Internet as a public utility with no "fast lanes" for the rich and also stopping intentional slowdowns by broadband companies, also known as "throttling", of Internet content providers' net traffic if they refuse to "pay up" to the broadband giants. The proposal also includes F.C.C. authority to intervene directly should any of the handful of wireless and broadband giants discussed below seek somehow to interfere with implementation of the proposal's prohibitions against "fast lanes" and "throttling".
The original F.C.C. proposal, promulgated with little or no public comment but rather heavy pressure from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association said to be the second most powerful corporate lobby in D.C. with an "army of lobbyists" funded by the small handful of cable and telecommunications giants dominating wireless and including the three -- Comcast, Verizon Communications and Time Warner Cable --which dominate broadband, would have permitted the establishment of "fast lanes" for the rich and sluggish service for the general public as demonstrated graphically by President Obama sitting on his desk lamenting the endless spinning circle of doom on the tablet he held while singing the praises of municipal broadband at fair and reasonable prices for all Americans racing at over one hundred times the speed of present commercial internet service of much of the nation's population.
The resultant public outcry overwhelmed Washington with President Obama reporting over four million comments against the original proposal as an opposing group of small and medium internet content providers and other activist groups helped facilitate the above-mentioned avalanche of passionate and engaged Internet users and consumers besieging the F.C.C. and elected officials for months. This then came to the point last October as described in the New York Times article linked to below of activist tech group Fight for the Future acquiring the direct telephone numbers of about 30 F.C.C. officials circumventing switchboards which resulted in the officials receiving about 55,000 direct phone calls from the public in about six weeks before the group "turned off the spigot".
Congressional Republicans' opposition to net neutrality meanwhile reportedly has faded in the face of the public onslaught leading to the concession of Republican leaders earlier this week to Obama and Democrats now lining up behind him supported by a very vocal public that they no longer wished to take independent Congressional action. As recently voiced by Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, Republicans did not wish to proceed legislatively without bipartisan support and now reputedly also favor the same things, no fast lanes and no "throttling", that are contained in F.C.C. Chair Tom Wheeler's proposal to be voted on today. Therefore today's only public Republican opposition to the proposal apparently is widely expected to be two votes against net neutrality by the F.C.C.'s two Republican Commissioners.
For interested readers a second New York Times article published today of technology news analysis entitled "The Push for Net Neutrality Arose From Lack of Choice" also is linked to beneath the above-referenced article linked to directly below.
Monday, 26 January 2015 - The Ninth Amendment editorial board urges that all readers and Americans strongly consider taking this one historic opportunity to save "Net Neutrality" as supported by President Obama and demand in huge numbers that the FCC not cave to ALEC, the Koch Brothers, AT&T, Verizon,Comcast, Time Warner, other big telecommunications and cable nor anyone else by letting them grab publicly-owned internet bandwith. For the reasons set forth below by CREDO Action it is vital that open public access for all people regardless of wealth, position or power be preserved or restored where it already has been "awarded" to a single provider locally as to all public bandwith at a reasonable and fair price because if it is lost history shows there will be no going back once big money interests become entrenched in their "life in the fast lane" paying off politicians with the same money that pours in to them from their latest monopolistic grab of public bandwith that those same politicians would unfairly award them. Readers might as an analogy conceive of other public utilities such as water or power were consumers regularly have to endure on a daily basis "brownouts" of electricity or unavailability of the public water supply daily during peak hours of need by the biggest businesses, the richest and the most powerful.
The historic actions of the FCC as to public airwaves available for broadcast radio and television are instructive here as they were put in place seeking to prevent single entities from taking over large swaths of publicly owned airwaves across the country by periodic public bidding as well as limits on ownership so that the voices of many could be heard rather than just a few dominating the public airwaves. Nevertheless all are familiar with the takeover by single entities forming "networks" or even ownership of very large local stations such that they have became too rich and powerful at the public's expense to ever be displaced from those limited public airwaves again. If not for the foresight and tenacity of Clifford Durr in particular member of the FCC at that time there may not even be the one true radio and television station serving the public interest that Americans still have today, that of course being the non-commercial NPR and PBS owned by the People.
All the American people should not settle for spending the rest of their lives looking at a spinning arrow as they endlessly wait at their computers while the communications of the richest people and biggest corporations speed past at up to 100x that in the"priority" lanes that belong to and must be bandwith forever available to every American including all individuals and small business at a reasonable and fair price regardless of wealth or power.
Americans must make their voices heard now at this one historic opportunity to save their bandwith preserving the opportunity for reasonable and fair access to broadband for all or they may find themselves so fed up watching the circle of frustration spinning endlessly on their computer screens that they end up going down to the pony express station to send and receive their private communications the "fast way".
Stop AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from blocking fast and affordable Internet access.
Sign the petition to the FCC: “Americans want more access to fast and affordable Internet service, not less. The FCC must preempt state laws that ban municipalities from selling Internet service.”
Add your name:
Dear Ninth Amendment Readers,
Imagine having affordable, lightning-fast Internet access at your home that is 50-100 times faster than the national average.1That could soon be a reality, but the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is working to make sure it never happens.2
Nearly 20 states already have laws on the books stopping cities from providing fast, publicly-owned Internet access – and other states could soon follow suit.
President Obama just urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make it illegal for states to block cities from providing affordable and fast Internet access – and the FCC is expected to make a decision very soon.
ALEC – a shadowy corporate front group that works to enact discriminatory voter ID laws, weaken gun safety laws and eliminate environmental regulations – is now pressuring state legislatures around the country to ban cities from offering broadband Internet access. ALEC is pushing its anti-municipal broadband agenda through model legislation it has developed, which one municipal broadband advocate described as “the kind of language one would expect to see if the goal is to protect politically powerful cable and telephone company monopolies.”3
Many perennial funders and members of ALEC, including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner,4 stand to gain financially from these state laws because they eliminate the possibility of competition from city-run broadband services.
According to recent surveys, nearly a quarter of Americans don’t have broadband Internet access at home.5 By pre-empting state laws that block municipal broadband, the FCC could help cities and municipalities provide fast Internet access to millions of Americans who don’t have it, and help create less expensive and faster Internet access options for tens of millions of others.
The FCC is planning to make a decision on President Obama’s proposal to protect municipal broadband in February.6 Before then, let’s make sure Chairman Wheeler and the other commissioners know that Americans want more access to fast and affordable Internet service, not less.
Tuesday, 20 January 2015, WASHINGTON, D.C. - 44th President Of The United States Barack Obama (POTUS) tonight at 9 p.m. delivers his 6th State Of The Union (SATU) Address live before Congress and the American people via national television and in a special recommended "enhanced version" followed by questions from Americans accessible through www.whitehouse.gov. The Obama White House which claims a commitment to being the most "transparent" Administration and White House in history at the www.whitehouse.gov web address accessible by all links provided on this page has broken with tradition and shared in advance many of the topics to be covered this evening by the President with daily casual talks by the President to viewers of the White House website as well as written page content from senior White House officials and videos showing the President's speeches and visits with Americans around the country. The President also daily reads ten of the public's thousands of letters, emails and social media messages to him and responds to them by video on the website.
President Obama up to the delivery of his State of the Union Address again at 9 p.m. tonight seeks to know via direct contact from the Nation via their visits to the site what issues all Americans are most concerned about hearing addressed from a current list of topics among those of the most interest to those who do respond. The White House website provides many ways to contact the White House from social media addresses on all top social media as well as phone numbers to the White House switchboard and the physical address for the White House along with directions for those who wish to write or send something (and directions what not to send) to the White House, the President and/or First Lady Michelle Obama.
The issues identified by the President to date include and many have videos of the President speaking about his support for net neutrality, the opportunity for communities including cities, towns, and rural areas to achieve and have equal affordable access to broadband speeds which in a few communities already have reached world class gigabit speeds, making community colleges free throughout the country, the 240,000 private sector jobs created in December 2014 alone, "charting a new course to Cuba", immigration issues, how well the Affordable Care Act is working signing up record numbers of Americans for affordable health insurance with premiums contrary the the expectations of some mostly going down and/or staying the same for the past 2-4 years after going up at staggering rates for many years earlier, as well as other topics identified at the website and mentioned in news items there or by the President.
The enhanced version of the POTUS (as he is known in some social media) of the SATU (likewise) will continue after the larger public address before Congress and the Nation in which the President will meet with the three creators of YouTube and answer questions from the public. This will also continue through the following day on Wednesday, 21 January 2014 during which the President will field more questions and members of the his Administration from a wide variety of areas will deliver updates as visitors can continue to contact the White House via social media and emails. The Ninth Amendment sincerely hopes that the President will field some questions on tough issues other than those mentioned above and many more core areas identified on the website for which the White House is now taking input on the public's interest.
The www.whitehouse.gov website provides a complete point of contact for the public to the White House on a daily (and archived) basis from which interested readers may also request daily emails featuring casual talks to site viewers by President Obama as well as the President's and Vice-President's schedule for the day, photo for the day, blogs by senior staff members, links to different videos of the President in a large variety of appearances giving speeches around the country, speaking with Americans and so on.
President Obama's stated reason for breaking with all tradition in disclosing and discussing in advance so many of the topics that he will be addressing in his State of the Union address is that in addition to the stated claim of more "transparency" in the Obama White House than any administration preceding it that the President feels pressed for time and energized to get as much done as possible in his two remaining years in office after having to spend so long cleaning up the wreckage of an American economy which he inherited in a deep economic recession which was the worst in American history since the Great Depression but now under the Obama Administration has become remarkably robust for greatly extended periods on nearly all fronts notably a two-thirds drop in the national deficit including soaring stock market prices, record employment rates and and plummeting gasoline prices for consumers who have seen just in the past year well over a dollar a gallon to a national average of a mere $2.00 a gallon the lowest price in six years.
The President says that he welcomes work with the Republican controlled Congress but if it does not want to do its job and merely focus on diversionary non-issues and giveaways to the ultra-rich then the President is eager to accomplish all he can in any case on his own with his executive authority of his and all the Nation's citizens' many honest priorities for the American people and the true future of this Country to secure and firmly establish its continuing world leadership role throughout the 21st Century and beyond. The Ninth Amendment remains most interested to see what issues the President truly is intending to and does in fact tackle. One more time then the best way to fully "experience" the President's "enhanced" State of the Union Address according to POTUS is via www.whitehouse.gov.
Tomorrow night, Barack will deliver his sixth State of the Union address.
That means tonight, he’ll be sitting down at his desk, reviewing each and every word to make sure his speech tells the most important story: yours.
For Barack, that is what this address is about. Not politics or partisanship, but the lives you lead, the challenges you face, and the future you hope to build for yourself and for your children. Every day, he reads those stories in the letters folks send to him from across the country.
Barack sat down to talk about what makes the address so personal for him, and what will make 2015 special.
I have the honor of watching Tuesday's speech with a few of the inspiring Americans who shared their story with Barack this year.
Anthony Mendez overcame every obstacle put in his way to become the first member of his family to graduate high school. Carolyn Reed opened her third sub shop in Colorado with help from a federal small business loan -- she and her husband now own seven. Victor Fugate worked hard to bounce back from unemployment, earn his degree, and find a job. Jason Gibson returned from Afghanistan without either of his legs. Today, he is recovering and his wife just gave birth to a baby girl.
Their grit and dedication represent what's best about this country, and while we have made so much progress, we have so much left to do to make sure all Americans have the opportunities they deserve to get ahead. That's what my husband will be talking about tomorrow.
Saturday, 8 November 2014, WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Ninth Amendment forwards below for signature by interested readers a CREDO SuperPAC Petition to President Obama demanding that President Obama exercise his rightful executive power to take action on ten progressive priorities listed below for which President Obama has promised support before it is too late now that Tea Party Republicans have control of both the Senate and House of Representatives as he has to date shown himself far too reluctant to exercise rightful executive power on the pretext of accomplishing government action with "bipartisan support" as the GOP has proven itself repeatedly and now declared itself absolutely unwilling to participate in any bipartisan action but rather to hold the United States Government hostage in continuing deadlock accomplishing nothing therefore proving the time for President Obama to stand up and take executive power he may rightfully exercise is long past overdue.
In the wake of Tuesday’s electoral defeat, what happens now is going to depend a lot on what President Obama is willing to stand up and fight for.
That’s not a comforting thought. But it’s also up to us and how far we’re willing to go to pressure the president to do the right and necessary thing.
In his press conference on Wednesday, president Obama towed the line between a willingness to push forward with progressive priorities if congress was unwilling to take action, and offers to look for so-called middle ground with the extremist Republicans who will control the Senate.
We don’t know how far he’s willing to push - or what he’s willing to give up. But we know that the landscape in Washington DC just got worse. Much worse. It’s up to us to quickly pivot to the key fights we know are coming as a result of Republican control of the Senate. And to push President Obama to do everything in his power to break through the coming Republican blockade.
It's worth noting that progressive base turnout was down in this election in part because President Obama has been far too reluctant to use his executive power to deliver victories on key progressive issues from climate to immigration to economic justice.
To make matters worse, the Republicans now in control of the Senate and House will do everything in their power to advance their Tea Party agenda – including what Democrats refused to do, like getting rid of the filibuster for legislation, using reconciliation to pass bills with only 51 votes, and continuing to refuse to compromise in the face of Democrats all too willing to cave preemptively.
President Obama can no longer credibly suggest that there is a bipartisan path to progress – though his advisors may urge him to do just that. He needs to take executive action. He must refuse to cave to Republicans. He cannot waste time negotiating with bad faith partners who have no intention of compromising ever.
