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At the heart of so-called Net Neutrality, the official-though-hopelessly-vague-and-hopefully-illegal policy of the FCC, is the idea that all data streamed over the internet should be treated equally.

Simply as a description of how data is handled on networks, that’s wrong for many reasons. And when it comes to “zero-rated” services, which allow users unlimited access to some subset of data, it can be obviously pernicious.

As Mike Godwin wrote here last year, opposition to zero-rated services—such as free Wikipedia or limited Facebook access in the developing world—plainly works againt the interests of impoverished end users, starving them of content and information in the name of some devotion to an abstract goal.

But what about here in the First World, or at least the United States? In league with Net Neutrality zealots, the FCC is taking a long look at T-Mobile’s Binge On service, which allows users to stream Hulu, Netflix, HBO, Sling, and other video and music services without having that data count aganst their monthly usage caps. In order to facilitate that, T-Mobile downgrades the signals. It’s that action that has groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which once employed Godwin and provided the legal oomph to help overthrown the awful Communications Decency Act in the 1990s, all upset.

From an interview  at Forbes with Tech Freedom’s Evan Swartztrauber by the Manhattan Institute’s Jared Meyers:

[Swartztrauber]: With Binge On, T-Mobile reduces video resolution to optimize it for smartphone screens. While the change in video quality is hardly noticeable to a consumer, as 480p (DVD-quality) streams look great on small screens, the optimization helps T-Mobile mitigate network congestion and improve overall customer experience….

The FCC’s Open Internet Order codified certain principles of net neutrality for broadband providers: No blocking of lawful content, no unreasonable discrimination or throttling, and no paid prioritization. But it did not make a clear judgment about free data given away through zero-rating programs, which include Binge On. Instead, the FCC said it will judge these offerings on a case-by-case basis. Net neutrality, in its most extreme form, requires that all Internet traffic be treated exactly the same with few, if any, exceptions. Under this interpretation, any type of zero-rating should not be allowed at all. This is why some self-styled “consumer advocacy” groups oppose Binge On. In other words, T-Mobile’s exemption of video streams from data caps is not the issue that EFF is fighting. EFF argues that when T-Mobile optimizes or downgrades video quality, it is in violation of the FCC’s no-throttling rule.

It isn’t clear yet whether and how the FCC will rule in this case, though at Swartztrauber notes, because of the United States’ outsize global influence, that ruling will have a world-wide impact (and India has already shut down Free Basics, a stripped-down, zero-rated version of Facebook). A proposed zero-rated plan at the old carrier Metro PCS was important in the development of Net Neutrality and the current head of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, seems very interested in flexing his muscles. As important, the idea of the FCC (or any government authority) working things out on a “case-by-case” basis is deeply troubling as it guarantees confusion and un-level playing fields by building in the possibility of government action.

As Meyer observes: “This is another war against consumer empowerment, in the name of consumer empowerment. Not only are regulators always at least one step behind innovators, but their vague language stands in the way of innovation and competition. If the FCC rules against T-Mobile, it will serve as another example of regulators myopically focusing on one objective, while ignoring all the nuances and negative consequences of their crusade.” Whole thing here.

The purported standard for much government regulation of business is supposed to be whether a particular rule or practice helps the consumer, not its effect on existing firms. In reality, that standard is rarely kept front-and-center in deliberations and the case for or against something is discussed largely in whether it increases or decreases the number of companies in an often-arbitrarily defined market. Hopefully, this sort of case, in which T-Mobile customers are getting a free service that they can either accept or reject, will help show that Net Neutrality is unnecessary at best and counterproductive at worst. Do we have more choices or fewer choices for better or shittier services when it comes to Internet and mobile carriers?

Despite what you’ve heard (including often-fantastical comparisons to foreign countries), things are getting better all the time on that front.

Court challenges to the FCC’s Open Internet Order are proceeding apace, so all of this may be water under the bridge. Indeed, it is far from clear that the FCC has the statutory authority to be doing what it’s doing.

Last year, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who voted against Net Neutrality rules, called Net Neutrality “a solution that won’t work to a problem that doesn’t exist.” Watch below. Read transcript here.

If you think that’s hyperbolic you should take a look at his Expatriate Terrorist Act. It’s a terrifying piece of legislation would jeopardize the citizenship rights of ALL Americans under the guise of preventing 12 ISIS fighters from returning to the country. That’s why Sen. Rand Paul, who had himself previously called for revoking the passports of Americans who join ISIS, is opposing the Cruz bill. So should all civil libertarians of all political persuasions.

 I note at The Week that Cruz’s bill is dangerous because it is so unnecessary:

If the government has evidence that these folks [the alleged ISIS fighters] are indeed terrorists, then why should it merely strip them of their citizenship and stop them from returning home (or leaving if they are already here)? Why shouldn’t it also prosecute them? And if it doesn’t have evidence, then why should they face any consequences at all?

The only way to understand Cruz’s bill is that it aims to give government the power to take away the citizenship not of Americans against whom it actually has hard evidence — but against whom it doesn’t.

Go here to read the column and fully understand the awfulness this bill is.

Another cautionary tale about thinking twice before calling police. The Charleston Gazette-Mail out of West Virginia reports:

Donna Spry called her husband’s doctor, crying.

Curly Spry was refusing to go to his appointment. He was suicidal, off his medication and had a gun, his wife said.

Call 911, the doctor’s staff instructed her.

Less than an hour later, Curly Spry was dead. He had been shot 11 times by troopers with the West Virginia State Police, according to a lawsuit filed by Donna Spry last month in Kanawha County Circuit Court.

The family is suing for $11 million—their attorney told the Gazette-Mail that the agency’s insurance covers $1 million per incident.

Spry was shot in the head and chest, and his family claims in the lawsuit he was lying in bed when police shot him. At the time, police claimed Spry had pointed his gun at them. Spry’s wife says she called 911 and requested an ambulance, not cops, for her husband. She was on the phone with 911 when her husband was shot, and according to the lawsuit one of the troopers forced her to hang up the phone after he shot her husband.

In South Carolina Sen. Ted Cruz is trying to tighten his grip on evangelical conservatives by casting Sen. Marco Rubio and Donald Trump as being weaker in opposition to gay marriage recognition. He’s wrong on both counts (though Trump is arguably the most pro-gay candidate remaining among the Republicans). Rubio is opposed to gay marriage recognition, has said so regularly, and wants to appoint Supreme Court justices that would return decision-making back to the states. But he apparently acknowledged the legality of the Supreme Court’s ruling mandating recognition and this somehow puts Rubio on the same side as President Barack Obama, according to Cruz.

Over the holiday weekend, where we celebrated both our love of each other and of aggrandizing the role of the president (or lamented the absence of both and maybe played a lot of Grim Dawn), Rubio attempted to counter Cruz’s attack by announcing his “Marriage and Advisory Board.” The 13 members of the board have backgrounds (some quite lengthy) in culturally conservative defenses of marriage. The Washington Blade picked up that many people on the board have been significant opponents of same-sex marriage recognition.

But is that all they are? I’d say the Blade is not wrong to classify the group as a whole as anti-gay marriage. Most of the participants are either members of activist groups that oppose same-sex marriage or have written independently in opposition to gay marriage. One member, Bill Wichterman, was a proponent of the Federal Marriage Amendment, and even jumped ship from Fred Thompson’s campaign to Mitt Romney’s back in the 2008 presidential race because Thomson didn’t support a constitutional ban. Everett Piper, president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, recently had his college drop out of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities because two other colleges had decided to hire staff members in same-sex marriages.

But there is maybe more to the group than meets the eye. Whenever a social conservative brings up marriage and family issues, it’s easy to assume he or she is talking about the culture war issues of same-sex relationships and abortion and that’s pretty much it. But pay attention to Rubio’s wonkishness (which can get lost in debates) and there is an interest in actual family-oriented economic policies that helps explain Rick Santorum’s endorsement of Rubio beyond the shared interest in military intervention, domestic surveillance, and not liking gay marriage.

Rubio’s issue page for families actually focuses on tax and economic issues, promoting a $2,500 tax credit for parents, eliminating the marriage penalty, and even a voluntary paid leave plan that would reward participating businesses with a non-refundable tax credit. He was asked to defend his tax plan in Saturday night’s debate and said:

Here’s what I don’t understand, if a business takes their money and they invest in the piece of the equipment, they get to write to off their taxes. But if a parent takes money that they have earned to work and invests in their children, they don’t? This makes no sense.

Parenting is the most important job any of us will ever have. Family formation is the most important thing in society. So what my tax plan does, is it does create – especially for working families, an additional Child Tax Credit. So that parents who are working get to keep more of their own money, not the government’s money to invest in their children to go to school, to go a private school, to buy a new back pack.

So there’s more to his family politics than just opposing abortion and gay marriage. The same can be said for at least some of the people in his new board. Robert Lerman and Bradford Wilcox, for example, both members of Rubio’s board, put together a lengthy study showing the economic impacts and advantages of stable, intact families. The report did not pit straight couples versus gay couples; rather it was about analyzing the economics of married families versus unmarried families.

Kay Hymowitz, also on the board, wrote in 2004 an essay that critiqued the gay marriage movement as ignoring the historical roots of marriage as a social tool for promoting the proper rearing of children. But in 2015 Hymowitz signed on to the Marriage Opportunity Council, a bipartisan group that seeks to “make marriage achievable for all who seek it.” Its co-directors are David Blankenhorn, who famously switched sides to support gay marriage in 2012, and Brookings Institute Senior Fellow and Reason contributor Jonathan Rauch, a notable supporter of gay marriage recognition. It is a group devoted to embracing marriage as a tool for improving social and economic opportunities for Americans, gay or straight.

Hymowitz’s inclusion suggests there is more to this council than just harping on the gays. But whether she can serve as a counterbalance to some of the others in the group is an open question. I predict there’s very little likelihood that the next president, no matter how conservative, will be successful in rolling back same-sex marriage recognition in any degree. So what matters is what sorts of policies they recommend that could actually get anywhere. Just imagine if Rubio got the marriage penalty revoked while same-sex recognition remained intact.

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“It makes sense politically, rationally, electorally, to gain political power by saying all sorts of terrible things about immigrant groups, but at a certain point, the math doesn’t work out,” says Joel Fetzer, a professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University, and author of the new book Open Borders and International Migration Policy: The Effects of Unrestricted Immigration in the United States, France, and Ireland.

Watch above, or click the link below for the full text, associated links, and downloadable versions of this video.

Run time approximately 8:43. Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Music by Cellar Dwellar and Kevin MacLeod.

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