Obama calls for tougher Internet regulation B4 Tuesday, November 11, 2014
NATION/OBITUARIES
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday embraced a radical change in how the government treats Internet service, coming down on the side of consumer activists who fear slower download speeds and higher costs but angering Republicans and the nation’s cable giants who say the plan would kill jobs. Obama called on the Federal Communications Commission to more heavily regulate Inter net providers and treat broadband much as it would any other public utility. He said the FCC should explicitly prohibit Internet providers like Verizon and AT&T from charging data hogs like Netflix extra to move their content more quickly. The announcement sent cable stocks tumbling. The FCC, an independent regulatory body led by political appointees, is nearing a decision on whether broadband providers should be allowed to cut deals with the content providers but is stumbling over the legal complexities. “We are stunned the president would abandon the longstanding, bipartisan policy of lightly regulating the Internet and calling for extreme” regulation, said Michael Powell, president and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the primary lobbying arm of the cable industry, which supplies much of the nation’s Inter net access.
This “tectonic shift in national policy, should it be adopted, would create devastating results,” added Powell, who chaired the FCC during the Bush administration until 2005. Consumer groups and content providers hailed Obama’s move, with Netflix posting to its Facebook page that “consumers should pick winners and losers on the Internet, not broadband gatekeepers.” “Net neutrality” is the idea that Internet service providers shouldn’t block, slow or manipulate data moving across its networks. As long as content isn’t against the law, such as child pornography or pirated music, a file or video posted on one site will load generally at the same speed as a similarly sized file or video on another site. In 2010, the FCC embraced the concept in a rule. But last January, a federal appeals court struck down the regulation because the court said the FCC didn’t technically have the legal authority to tell broadband providers how to manage their networks. The uncertainty has prompted the public to file some 3.7 million comments with the FCC — more than double the number filed after Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl. On Monday, Obama waded into the fray and gave a major boost to Internet activists by saying the FCC should explicitly ban any “paid prioritization” on the Internet. Obama also
suggested that the FCC reclassify consumer broadband as a public utility under the 1934 Communications Act so there’s no legal ambiguity. That would mean the Internet would be regulated more heavily in the way phone service is. “It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call, or a packet of data,” Obama said. This approach is exactly what industry lobbyists have spent months fighting against. While Inter net providers say they support the concept of an open Internet, they want flexibility to think up new ways to package and sell Internet services. And, given the billions of dollars spent to improve network infrastructure, some officials say it’s only fair to make data hogs like Netflix bear some of the costs of handling heavy traffic. AT&T on Monday threatened legal action if the FCC adopted Obama’s plan, while Comcast Corp. said reclassifying broadband regulation would be “a radical r eversal that would har m investment and innovation, as today’s immediate stock market reaction demonstrates.” Similar statements were released by Time Warner Cable Inc., Cox Communications and several industry groups including CTIAThe Wireless Association, USTelecom, the Telecommunications Industry Association and Broad-
WASHINGTON (AP) — On the eve of Veterans Day, the Veterans Affairs Department announced a reorganization Monday designed to make it easier for veterans to gain access to the sprawling department and its maze-like websites. VA Secretary Robert McDonald called the restructuring the largest in the department’s history and said it will bring a singular focus on customer service to an agency that serves 22 million veterans. “As VA moves forward, we will judge the success of all our efforts against a single metric: the outcomes we provide for veterans,” McDonald said. The VA’s mission is to care for veterans, “so we must become more focused on veterans’ needs,” he said. The VA has been under intense scrutiny since a whistleblower reported this spring that dozens of veterans may have died while awaiting treatment at the Phoenix VA hospital, and that appointment records were manipulated to hide the delays. A report by the department’s inspector general said workers falsified waitlists while their supervisors looked the other way or even directed it, resulting in chronic delays for veterans seeking care and bonuses for managers who appeared to meet on-time goals. The inspector general’s office identified 40 patients who died while awaiting appointments in Phoenix, but said officials could not “conclusively assert” that the delays caused the deaths. As part of the restructuring announced Monday, the VA will hire a chief customer service officer and simplify the way it is organized to deliver health care and other services, McDonald said. For instance, the department will create a single customer service structure with a limited number of regional divisions that will apply to all aspects of the agency, from health care to benefits, loan
centers and even cemetery plots. The VA now has nine separate regional structures of varying size and at least a dozen websites, many with their own user names and passwords. Eventually, McDonald would like all veterans to have one user name and password for all VA services. McDonald hopes to complete the reorganization within a year. Veterans also should be able to communicate with officials in a single region to solve problems, McDonald said. Under the current structure, a veteran may live in one VA region for health care, another region for mortgage services and a third for veterans’ benefits. The reorganization, to be known as “MyVA,” is designed to provide veterans with “a seamless, integrated and responsive customer service experience — whether they arrive at VA digitally, by phone or in person,” McDonald said. McDonald, a former CEO of consumer -goods giant Procter & Gamble, has been pushing to refocus the VA on customer service since taking over the troubled agency in July, following a scandal over long patient wait times for veterans seeking health care and widespread falsification of records by VA employees and managers to cover up the delays. McDonald has been urging VA employees to refer to veterans as customers and to refer to him as “Bob,” rather than “Secretary.” He also has given out his cell phone number to reporters and veterans alike and urged them to call him with questions and suggestions. Some members of Congress have disputed the inspector general’s report on the Phoenix deaths and suggested that language casting doubt on the link between the delays and patient deaths was inserted at the suggestion of top VA officials in Washington. The IG’s office and the VA have denied that claim. Three high-ranking offi-
cials at the Phoenix facility have been placed on leave while they appeal a department decision to fire them. Four other high-ranking executives around the country were targeted for removal, but only one was fired. Two officials retired and a third was granted an extension for more time to respond to the VA’s decision.
Roswell Daily Record
AP Photo
In this Oct. 10, 2011, file photo, the exterior of Netflix headquarters is seen in Los Gatos, Calif. Internet providers shouldn't be allowed to cut deals with online services like Netflix or YouTube to move their content faster, and should be regulated more like phone companies, President Barack Obama said Monday in an announcement that was swiftly rejected by the industry.
band for America. Republicans Many including House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sided with industry in denouncing the plan as government overreach. “‘Net Neutrality’ is Obamacare for the Internet,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a tea party favorite, declared on Twitter. “The Internet should not operate at the speed of government.” The Internet Association, which represents many content providers like Netflix, Twitter, eBay and Google, applauded Obama’s proposal. On Monday, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index edged up slightly, stock prices fell for big cable companies, including Time
Warner Cable, Comcast, Cablevision and Charter Communications.
FCC Chair man Tom Wheeler, a former industry lobbyist and venture capitalist, has said he is open to using a “hybrid” approach that would draw from both T itle II of the 1934 law and the 1996 Telecommunications Act. On Monday, Wheeler said he welcomed the president’s comments, but suggested that his proposal was easier said than done.
“The more deeply we examined the issues around the various legal options, the more it has become plain that there is more work to do,” Wheeler said. “The reclassification and hybrid approaches before us raise substantive legal questions. We found
we would need more time to examine these to ensure that whatever approach is taken, it can withstand any legal challenges it may face.” The FCC isn’t under a deadline to make a decision. The president’s statement all but guarantees that the major cable companies will spend the next few months trying to encourage Congress to step in to protect their interests. Still, Internet activists are hoping that Obama’s position will go a long way, even as his popularity among his party has waned. “When the leader of the free world says the Internet should remain free, that’s a game changer,” said Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass.
VA chief vows renewed Writing workshop helps focus on customer service vets get memories on paper
The scandal led to the ouster of former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and to a new law making it easier for veterans to get VA-paid care from local doctors. The law also shortens and streamlines the appeals process for employees who are fired.
McDonald told the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Sunday that the VA is considering disciplinary action against more than 1,000 employees. “We’re talking about people who violated our values,” he said. McDonald’s comment about 1,000 employees facing discipline is one of several numbers regarding employee discipline the VA secretary has of fered in recent days. At a news conference last Thursday, McDonald said the VA has proposed disciplinary action — up to and including firing — against more than 40 employees nationwide since June. Those cases are all related to the wait-time scandal and manipulation of records to hide delays.
At an appearance Friday at the National Press Club, McDonald said the VA has taken or is considering disciplinary action against 5,600 employees over the past year, although aides later clarified that most of those actions were not related to the health care scandal. “We are very serious about making sure that we hold people accountable,” McDonald said.
HARRISON, N.Y. (AP) — Matt Phair wept as he wrote about the chaos he witnessed as a Marine in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War — desperate civilians scrambling to escape, military police casually shooting a pet dog, the air smelling of “burning buildings, gunpowder and death.” “It was a part of my life, it still is, and it was very liberating to finally have a way to express it,” the 59year-old Phair said. The account came out of the Veterans Writing Workshop, where veterans from World War II through Iraq and Afghanistan gather Tuesdays — including Veterans Day — to tap their memories of military life and commit them to paper for posterity. About 200 vets, eight or 10 at a time, have gone through the free, 10-week workshop, funded by Fordham University and held on its suburban campus 25 miles north of New York City. “These men all have this shared experience that really is unlike any other experience that people have,” said instructor David Surface, a veteran writing teacher and published author. “We fire up the coffee pot and they try to make some sense of it and communicate that to other people.” The Fordham workshop, which began in 2010, is similar to others
OBITUARIES
Mary O. McCurdy
Mary O. McCurdy, age 93 of Roswell, passed away on Nov. 10, 2014. Services are pending. A complete announcement will be made when arrangements are finalized.
Arrangements are under the personal care of LaGrone Funeral Chapel.
AP Photo
In this Nov. 4 photo, military veterans listen as colleagues read from their work at the Veterans Writing Workshop in Harrison, N.Y. The workshop is helping veterans of all ages revisit their memories of military service and commit them to paper.
that have sprouted across the country. The theory is that veterans are more willing to talk — and therefore write — about their military experience in the company of other veterans. Surface said he tries to show the veterans “that if you can tap into your own experience and your own memories and get those on the page, you can create some very compelling and vivid writing.” “It’s not therapy,” Surface cautioned. “A lot of vets, if they hear the word therapy they will head in the opposite direction. But it is cathartic.”
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The process begins with vets being asked to remember specific sights, sounds or smells from wartime, which helps them recall how they felt at the time. Navy veteran R yan Barry, now 29, of Norwalk, Connecticut, said fellow veteran writers supported him as he worked through his feelings when he wrote the antiwar poem, “Lt. Wise,” about the death of an officer. The poem begins, “Can someone please explain to me/how a folded American triangle offers any type of closure/how memorials help to ease the pain?”