That was beautifully written. Replying so I can find it in the future more easily.

For that to happen, Obama would have to be involved.

Politicians are slimy evil scum, but they aren't stupid. They saw what happened to Nixon, so now they do all the same stuff he did, just through levels of insulation. GOP and DNC alike -- fetid pukes the lot of them.

Why do you own a smartphone that doesn't have an internet connection? You might as well just get a landline.

Just how broad is the radius of this location? If a person living in New York City buys something online from a store in Seattle while he and his phone are in NY, where does the credit card transaction occur? If the answer is Seattle, the definition of what is a reasonable proximity between transaction and phone has to be quite loose, otherwise a lot of legit transactions will be botched. I don't actually know anything about CC processing however, so I would be interested in hearing from people who do.

Isn't sort of insane to cross a border with one's primary phone? I have my old retired android phone which I "fillup" with a prepaid card (and absolutely nothing else on it all), for crossing the border. I'm surprised more people don't do this.

point well taken

Not to mention the fact that the Government is free to jail or kill you whenever it wants based on what you think and say.

Because I'm not a common carrier.

Here's the deal as referenced in the article I linked to above:

1) Claim common carrier status (this puts them under title II and they would have to lease out the lines they install to competitors) as a prerequisite for
2) getting access to public rights of way, and then once built,
3) Claim they are not common carriers and thus not subject to title II.

It's a scam on the public.

Because I can't afford tunnels, poles, and 10 million acres.

Compared to tunnels, poles, and especially land, yeah, those things cost absolutely nothing.

Secondly, as to your first point, see this link: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5...

It explains how these companies claim to be common carriers to get access to those rights of way ... until they start providing services and then they claim they aren't.

This allows them to not pay for right of way access, for building tunnels, installing poles, etc. etc. It's a "socialize expenses, privatize profits" thing -- essentially leveraging the worst parts of socialism to further the worst parts of capitalism.

I'm SOOO glad that AT&T operates room 641A and not the city of San Francisco. That makes it all so much better. Plus it costs more! Another bonus (for somebody).

Here's another example.

1. Claim common carrier status
2. Get access to public rights of way
3. Raise rates
4. Say you aren't a common carrier
5. Profit.

there is no ?

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5...

Today New York's Public Utility Law Project (PULP) published a report, authored by New Networks, which contains previously unseen documents. It demonstrates how Verizon deliberately moves back and forth between regulatory regimes, classifying its infrastructure either like a heavily regulated telephone network or a deregulated information service depending on its needs. The chicanery has allowed Verizon to raise telephone rates, all the while missing commitments for high-speed internet deployment.

It's a mess -- and, by all appearances, it's completely legal.

* * *

First, Title II designation gives carriers broad power to compel other utilities -- power, water, and so on -- to give them access to existing infrastructure for a federally controlled price, which makes it simpler and more cost-effective for cables to be run. And that infrastructure adds up: poles, ducts, conduits running beneath roads, the list goes on. Second, Title II gave Verizon a unique opportunity to justify boosting telephone rates in discussions with regulators, arguing that these phone calls would run over the same fiber used by FiOS, Verizon's home internet service. According to PULP's report, Verizon raised traditional wired telephone rates in New York some 84 percent between 2006 and 2009, blessed by regulators in return for its "massive investment in fiber optics."

"Nationalize" ... whatever.

How is it what we have all that different from nationalized net access when 99% of users are locked into one of three major providers who then use that money to buy legislation and ordinances which favor them making even more money.

In the choice between a monopoly or nationalization, nationalization is a no brainer, because out of it might spring real competition as a GP poster pointed out, by leasing the pipes to any and all ISP wannabes. In contrast, monopolization leads to fat profits at users' expense, poor service, and crappy laws and it can never ever get better. Obviously, a free market would be better than either the other two, but we have a free market in net services like N. Korea has a free and open society.

Secondly -- exactly who invested in the network? I know I saw a recent article about cable companies taking Federal money to build out their networks and then claiming those lines aren't covered by common carrier rules --- a corollary to "socialize losses, privatize profits" would thus be "socialize expenses, privatize profits." I did find this about Comcast using $40m of public funds to build itself an office building Philly:

http://newslanc.com/2014/01/16...

Also how these assholes are making competition illegal: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Or what about the fact that to lay all this wire, they are using public utility rights of way. If they aren't going to be a public utility they should have no right to use that right of way -- it's a kind of robbery of the commons -- a robbery of every American.

Until these monopolies start actually using their own money for stuff, the whole cry for the investors shit is just that, fetid stinking steaming shit. Cry a river of it. Then go swimming.

None of your examples are anything more than lotto tickets, they aren't real options. What you are saying actually, is that people who break immoral laws should with 99.9999% certainty go to jail. That is the effect of your argument. This whole, "I think they don't deserve it, but they should go to jail to jail anyway" line is total bullshit. And that is exactly what happens under the reality of the American _legal_ system -- you are operating under the fantasy that an American _justice_ system exists. It doesn't. It's just lip service. The reality is that there is a two tier justice system, and because Snowden is neither a multimillionaire nor a member of the ruling class in good standing, he would be destroyed in court.