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Re: aaaah! president might remove online gaming!
This isn't what people are complaining about.
Having the authority to do something and doing it are different. And the FCC might not be legally able to say "close now" and have that happen, but no company is going to roll over on that anyway. It would be a huge hit to their business, possibly fatal. As it is, I have to imagine the FCC could probably fine them into insolvency.
Anyway, I haven't read the bill. I'm not saying it's perfect, or even a good idea. But it's clearly been blown far out of proportion by what barely qualifies as journalism, and people need to keep in mind that it's far from finalized, and President Obama did not write it. This is Pure Lieberman. It's not aimed at online gaming, it's not a Presidential power grab, and it's not some secret law that's going into effect next Tuesday.
Also keep in mind that should we ever need to shut down a network due to a large-scale attack, a bill that gives these powers in a limited and controlled fashion could be very valuable-- setting limits to the worst case scenario can keep us from having to implement martial law to close these things, violate far more of the constitution than these laws (also keep in mind laws can be overturned by the Supreme Court when they're misused or bad ideas from the start) would, and generally make a bad situation ugly. Do we want to think about the government shutting down an ISP? Of course not. Do we want to think about the government rounding everyone up and putting us in subway tunnels and bunkers? Of course not. But should we be attacked, it's not a bad idea to have a contingency plan.
Originally posted by Mhurron
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Originally posted by Mhurron
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Anyway, I haven't read the bill. I'm not saying it's perfect, or even a good idea. But it's clearly been blown far out of proportion by what barely qualifies as journalism, and people need to keep in mind that it's far from finalized, and President Obama did not write it. This is Pure Lieberman. It's not aimed at online gaming, it's not a Presidential power grab, and it's not some secret law that's going into effect next Tuesday.
Also keep in mind that should we ever need to shut down a network due to a large-scale attack, a bill that gives these powers in a limited and controlled fashion could be very valuable-- setting limits to the worst case scenario can keep us from having to implement martial law to close these things, violate far more of the constitution than these laws (also keep in mind laws can be overturned by the Supreme Court when they're misused or bad ideas from the start) would, and generally make a bad situation ugly. Do we want to think about the government shutting down an ISP? Of course not. Do we want to think about the government rounding everyone up and putting us in subway tunnels and bunkers? Of course not. But should we be attacked, it's not a bad idea to have a contingency plan.
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