[sllug-members]: Government and the Internet.

[rog]

Governments tend to pass really poor laws regarding technology for several reasons.  One is that the technology can quickly change so fast that the points in the law are not consistent with the reality in the real world.   

In truth governments always have an agenda.  To preserve, protect their own power.  To tax, raise money for the government.  To help the private parts of industry the government feels should be helped.   Usually those corporations and individuals who give them money.  

On the other hand.  The internet now effects the day to day life of people in powerful ways.  Many want an internet not subject to government control.  In some ways the internet has become lawless wasteland.  Consider how much better the internet could be if we could get rid to the spurious SPAM.  How much of the internet highway is now taken up by SPAM.  How much better could the internet be if we could more cleanly get rid of the scammers.  

One of the things that some talk about with dictatorial governments is that the government actions should be transparent.  

Is it reasonable for me to have available to me a description of traffic shaping.   A good enough description so I can understand how I am being effected by traffic shaping?  

Do those who set traffic shaping policies even understand the consequences of what they are doing?    

Should all the policies of the internet be made and controlled by major corporations for the own best interests?

Consider how your personal position on the regulation of the internet is cultural, rather than technological.  

I grew up in Texas where the feeling of the general population was that Unions were as bad as massive uncaring corporations unions were formed to oppose.

I have lived on the east coast where it seems to me that the general population feels that government should limit the power and actions of major corporations.  That unions are necessary to combat the power of major corporations.  Also it is great to be able to get a job at union wages, as opposed to the low wages that other jobs pay.  

I also think that many people do not trust the information that they can get off the internet.  That is, the internet is not a place to gather information to make decisions to effect their life.  It is a place to get information to prove to myself that my choices are the right ones.  

The information superhighway is becoming less the the road that takes us to a new tomorrow and is instead littered with advertisements and highway robbers.  

What ever I have said here is not answer.   It is not a very well formed question either.  
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