On 1/29/13 1:20 AM, Rob McEwen wrote:
[...] the US Federal government:
(A) ...cannot do a darn thing without MASSIVE graft & corruption... plus massive overruns in costs... including a HEAVY dose of "crony capitalism" where, often, the companies who get the contracts are the ones who pad the wallets of the politicians in charge. [...]
Ummm, this isn't true. As all of us old enough to remember know, the ILECs promised that with *REDUCED* regulation they'd roll out universal broadband IFF they were given the revenues from DSL -- putting the CLECs and small ISPs out of the broadband business. The graft and corruption was in *private* industry, not the Federal government, due to lack of regulation and oversight.
(B) In the US, we have this thing called the 4th amendment.... which ensures a certain level of freedom and civil liberties and privacy. Unfortunately, 4th amendment rights essentially disappear if the US Federal government owns and operates broadband access. [...]
No, this isn't true either. The 4th Amendment applies to the US government. What happened is the end-around allowing *private* industry to collect personal data and infringe civil liberties. That should not happen with direct US government ownership. It could be a boon to civil liberties.
(C) This allows them to do what the FCC ACTIVELY trying to do recently, but hasn't yet found a way.
[...] Here is an article written by 8 former FCC chairmen about the "Disclose Act":
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703460404575244772070710374.ht... ...can any sane person read that article... and then trust the US Federal Gov't motives with owning/operating vast amounts of Broadband?
Ummm, none of these were on the FCC. Some were on the "stacked" Republican F*E*C. And nobody trusts Spakovsky, the architect of voter caging, purges, and suppression -- who was (as we now know) illegally recess appointed to the FEC, and whose nomination was withdrawn after disclosure of conflict of interest and the resignation of half the Justice Department voter section staff!
Finally, while I've witnessed incompetence amongst certain unnamed baby bells, there ARE... MANY... bright spots in Internet connectivity. Frankly, we're spoiled by our successes. And the worst of the baby bells, like all baby bells, do NOT have a monopoly. [...]
You seem to be living in an alternate universe. Those of us who actually owned an ISP know the ILEC oligopolies well. The one bright spot, Google Fiber, does help Internet connectivity, but doesn't help ISPs. And this is the list for operators.