Outsourcing the U.S. Constitution to India
Outsourcing the U.S. Constitution to India
Date: Friday, January 05, 2007 2:19 AM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1617 -- 1/05/2007 >>>>>
There is no shortage of news and opinions concerning the negative effects
of outsourcing but .... ALMOST NOTHING IS SAID ABOUT HOW OUTSOURCING IS
ERODING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.
I had an experience with AT&T that demonstrated to me the insidiousness and
pervasiveness of this attack on our basic rights.
In mid-December of 2006 AT&T blocked my newsletter from all of its
customers. I found out that AT&T was blocking it mostly by coincidence
while talking to a subscriber who asked me why I haven't been publishing
newsletters lately.
To make a long story short, the reason they weren't getting the newsletters
is that someone in India arbitrarily decided to put a spam block on all
email content from ZaZona internet servers. I base this accusation on
converstations I had with a few AT&T customers that fought this censorship.
I am pleased to announce that the AT&T blockade was lifted today after
efforts by several of their customers who called AT&T's technical support
-- which is in India. It was no small effort by these brave activists
because the Indians they talked to were snotty, arrogant, and
uncooperative. They wouldn't even honor their American customers by
explaining why the newsletter was blocked and when or if the block would be
lifted.
Battling the censorship took a lot of my own personal time also. The time I
take to ward off these attacks is detracts me from other efforts.
AT&T and their staff in India may think their trans-national status gives
them the right to subvert our freedom of speech but they are wrong on
several counts. Violations of U.S. and international laws as well as their
own were made:
1) The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects our right
to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
2) Article 19 of the Indian constitution states that all citizens shall
have the right to freedom of speech and expression.
3) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly in 1948, says that: "Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas
through any media regardless of frontiers."
Several people suggested that I contact the ACLU, FCC, EFF, and a variety
of other organizations to take action against AT&T. Great idea, but folks,
I can only fight so many battles! I have enough on my plate as is, and I
hope you agree that my time and energy is best spent fighting H-1B and
outsourcing.
I will conclude this newsletter with some thoughts about AT&T, corporatism,
and fascism.
James Carlini writes in the article below that the merger of AT&T was a net
positive. He then goes on to say:
AT&T won. Even though some people for Net neutrality are very
passionate about their position as they fight AT&T, they don't
understand who they are going up against, the prior
regulations and guarantees set in the Telecom Act of 1996 and
what resources the incumbents really have.
Carlini makes some good arguments in favor of the merger, but I think he is
the one who doesn't understand what we are going up against. This
concentration of power will allow AT&T to be a bigger and more powerful
bully than they are now. Once this merger is completed you can bet that
BellSouth customers will experience similar erosions of their
Constitutional rights, which means the abuse will be bigger and badder.
Carlini's material has been used several times for this newsletter because
he has great insight on high-tech, H-1B, and outsourcing. This time though,
I think he missed the boat. As the trans-national corporations concentrate
their power they are becoming tyrannical behemoths.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a
merger of state and corporate power."
-- Benito Mussolini
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.carliniscomments.com/archives/113-ATT-BELL-SOUTH-MERGER-THE-REVESTITURE-CONTINUES.html
AT&T BELL SOUTH MERGER - THE REVESTITURE CONTINUES
Filed Wednesday, January 3, 2007
The divestiture in 1984 was not such a good idea.
We are almost back to square one as another regional Bell operating company
merges back into AT&T. The executives and lobbyists from AT&T and BellSouth
must "be on a mission from God because they are putting the band back
together". It seems no one can stop them.
They waited until the last week of 2006 to pull off the largest telecom
merger in U.S. history. I always thought the old Bell system was better as
one big company. They are another step closer to proving I was right by
continuing the "revestiture" of AT&T, which I coined in a column in May
2005. I stated:
For all the noise generated by small Wi-Fi prophesies and shrill catalysts
for change in the telecom and network industries, you still hear the clear
booming sounds of Ma Bells old Victrola playing louder than anyone and
setting the rhythms for regulation and rewrites.
We have come about full circle with the telecom industry. Unfortunately,
that means we are back where we started.
The Victrola played at the FCC again when it merged BellSouth with AT&T.
The combined company now covers 22 states with about 300,000 employees and
about 70 million subscribers.
Analysis Paralysis on Net Neutrality
There is so much blog analysis on the recent approval of the AT&T and
BellSouth merger that the true issue has been overshadowed. As some blogs
have ascertained, this is not a Democratic or Republican victory or defeat.
The fighters and crusaders for Net neutrality better take a second look at
what they really won. It doesnt look like they really got much. Some of
the analysts got it right by saying AT&T didnt give up much to get the
merger approved. Parts of Jeff Pulvers blog statement summed it up
succinctly:
I ... fear that -- in the long run -- AT&T might have given up nothing to
the FCC, nothing to the Internet application providers [and] nothing to the
users of the Internet and broadband networks.
[AT&Ts] offer on Net neutrality sounds good and might be a model to
countries like Japan that are considering Net neutrality rules.
AT&T agreed "not to provide ... any service that privileges, degrades or
prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouths wireline
broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or
destination".
A seemingly innocuous later sentence effectively makes that almost
meaningless: "This commitment ... does not apply to AT&T/BellSouths
Internet protocol television (IPTV) service."
AT&T has always intended to give paying customers priority by routing them
over the IPTV part of [its] network with Alcatel routers and Microsoft
software designed for [quality of service].
This is another perspective:
Heres why this concession is not sufficient to protect the public
interest if this monopoly-enhancing merger is allowed:
AT&Ts IPTV is exempted from the neutrality provision. It is the TV
"pipes" that AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre thinks are his.
The trouble is there are no separate pipes on an IP network. AT&T has left
itself full flexibility to favor its own Internet video offers over all
challengers or to charge others a premium for equal treatment.
Very carefully, the access network is defined as the part of the
AT&T-supplied network between the customer premises and the nearest
Internet peering point.
AT&T owns huge stretches of Internet backbone -- the part of the Internet
between peering points -- [and] there is absolutely no promise of
neutrality here.
Even this very weak concession sunsets in two years rather than the [3.5]
years AT&T has offered for [its] other concessions.
It would be a step backward if AT&T succeeds in having this definition of
Net neutrality become a standard.
Once they become a huge monopoly again, Net neutrality will fade into
insignificance like the Versailles Treaty did after World War I.
Not a Democrat, Republican Issue
If you are looking at the merger as a Republican victory or at the mention
of adhering to weak Net neutrality verbiage as a Democratic victory, you
just dont get it. Having the best network infrastructure transcends any
political party and is more of national strategic importance.
Some of the self-proclaimed telecom and network analysts have missed this.
We have become too polarized and simplistic on siding with a party and its
views versus understanding there are some things that are more important
and shouldnt be tagged with a party affiliation.
Concessions should be given to AT&T if they are going to build and maintain
the best infrastructure in the world. That is fair. That was in effect with
what they had in the pre-divestiture, monopoly days. Still, those were
simpler times because we were not talking about a convergence of voice,
data and video on one broadband line coming into your house.
Comcast was not around with an alternative approach. Many third-world
countries were not at a point of understanding that the network
infrastructure of their country was a key component for global economic
development.
Today, we are far behind network infrastructure deployments in some other
countries. If AT&T isnt going to make ours the best network, they should
not be given anything in concessions and they should shutter if the
competition in the market overruns them. One post on BroadbandReports.com
said:
Either build a robust network through and through or go out of business,
get out of the way and let someone ... willing to build the network build
already!
Isnt that capitalism? Does this merger get us any closer to building a
superior infrastructure or does it merely create a "circling of the wagons"
for old incumbent telephone companies to hold their last stand on
profitability from an obsolete infrastructure?
DSL: Damn Slow Lines
Build the best or get out of the way. Is this telling the incumbents too
strong a message? Some people have asked me where I stand on this issue. It
is very simple. I am for building the best network infrastructure as a
platform that America can compete with globally for economic development.
If there is any rhetoric or lobbying that focuses on "well do what we
can with copper" or "this is the best we can do" and its a second-rate
effort, there should be no legislation or restrictive covenants protecting
the incumbents.
As for "naked DSL" or selling DSL without having to tie in phone service, I
fail to see the great significance there. Slow DSL is slow DSL whether or
not you tie it with another service. Nothing was mentioned about getting
really fast DSL or any data service to consumers.
Some peoples mouths are watering because we are going to get 6 Mbps with
Project Lightspeed when other countries are looking at delivering 100 Mbps
in the same time frame. We are behind. DSL stands for damn slow lines when
you compare it with fiber.
So Who Really Won?
AT&T won. Even though some people for Net neutrality are very passionate
about their position as they fight AT&T, they dont understand who they
are going up against, the prior regulations and guarantees set in the
Telecom Act of 1996 and what resources the incumbents really have.
Some people have made clamoring for Net neutrality like it is some sort of
modern-day crusade. Some of these people thought they won a victory by
seeing certain concessions. Others -- who are more astute -- learned they
simply brought a knife to a gun fight.
No concessions of consequence were won and the bigger issue of ensuring
that a No. 1 network will be built was never even put on the table.
Carlinism: Never underestimate an opponent. Let them underestimate you.
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