A new hearing on internet neutrality has taken place in the United States today, and everything has been settled amicably and smoothly. • The Register

If there was any hope that Congress is moving forward in resolving the battle over the protections of net neutrality by the United States during this legislative session, it was surely smothered when it came to the United States. a hearing on Tuesday.

What is curious is that the session is focused on a new bill that already has more than 100 co-signatories, and that the legislators have said they want to end the problem. This is called the Save Act The Internet Act.

Mike Doyle (D-PA), chair of the House subcommittee on energy and trade, opened the hearing by warning Republicans that the session would only deal with the Democratic bill and that they wanted to address another topic, they should do it at another time.

Not to be outdone, Greg Walden (R-OR) began his statement by pointing out that only one witness was a Republican, and then – seemingly oblivious to the obvious contradiction – he complained of the fact that the Democrats on the committee did not envision a bipartisan legislative approach. .

Walden then asked if he could take action against witnesses who had not provided accurate testimony, even though they were not under oath – and they were told that yes he could do it.

It's a miracle at this point that the four expert witnesses invited to the hearing, including a former FCC official, did not just go out and spend more time productively in a neighbor bar.

But it got worse. Bob Latta (R-OH), a ranking member, took the time to ask himself what was the purpose of the hearing because the committee had one on the same topic just a month ago. And then he answered his own question in the worst possible way: by pointing out that the Save the Internet Bill would never be passed and that the Democrats were wasting their time.

Undermine your own credibility

If anything useful came out of the hearing, it was the fact that the claim of both parties to talk to each other was undermined by their own questions and statements. And that includes the witnesses.

Matthew Wood, the general advocate of the ardent advocates of Net Neutrality, echoed some of his testimony. [PDF] attack a witness at the previous hearing on the neutrality of the internet.

Wood pointed out the words of the Eastern Oregon Telecom (EOT) executive, Joseph Franell, and then hinted that he had misled Congress. "EOT said last month that in 2015 and 2016, the company" could not get bank loans ", saying that it was only after we began to hear the commitment of the new FCC to repeal the II title that we had started seeing money open up ", says Wood.

He then carefully added the warning "Free Press Action has no way of knowing what happened between EOT and his bankers or potential investors" before saying that he felt that the testimony was false by listing a number of press releases and investments that the company has made. ad.

It turned out that it was this part of the evidence that gave rise to the strange question of Representative Walden as to whether he could take action against witnesses who did not provide an accurate testimony.

He questioned Wood, asking him if he had tried to contact the executive in question before appearing before Congress, hinting that he had misled the legislative power of the US government. No, he did not, Wood said.

So there are Congressional witnesses who question the veracity of other Congressional witnesses without feeling obligated to check with them.

The main authors

But if anyone is to blame for this kind of desperately unprofessional behavior, it is the congressmen themselves. Walden and other Republican representatives have repeatedly said that the Democrats did not contact them when drafting the Save the Internet Act. And that – they pointed out – was despite the Republicans clearly explaining that they were seeking a bipartisan agreement.

How can Democrats expect to pass a law if they do not even want to talk to the other side? And why hold a hearing on a bill that, according to Pete Olson's representative (R-TX), "will die in the Senate.

Well, it turns out that the "bipartisan" Republican effort was not. Doyle pointed out that he had to miss Walden's phone call before the Republicans tabled their three Net Neutrality Bills. These were bills that "we did not know," he said.

Then Doyle and Walden made it clear to everyone that their "doors are open" before recognizing that none of them had "entered" the other's office before passing a law.

The congress is a joke. And this is not funny. ®

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