Is this true? I had always assumed the US government would own the primary servers and routers for their internet networks. I know Australia owns its primary hubs and so doesn't pay a cent for bandwidth. The only cost would be upkeep, which would have to be paid anyway in order to keep normal sites running.

The true winner here: W.W. Norton...

http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall04/032671.htm

Edit: The reason why I said the above was I am assuming that the government picked up some of the costs of publishing the report, and since it is so long, if you want to read it, it is probably a lot easier just to buy it rather than download it.

cactoblasta

No I do not know if this is true. I have no basis for this claim. It was just a (what I thought was a) logical thought that occurred to me in response to another post.

The money for any "Commission" has to come from somewhere. Where does the U.S. government get their money; the money to fund a "commission", the money to fund defense, the money for border patrol, the money for the multitude of other agencies, the money for NORAD etc.? They get the money from the taxpayers. The general U.S. taxpayer pays for the Government's salary as well as any project that they might have in their sights.

Ergo, this 911 Comission, including the download bandwidth, including the cost to produce the hardcopy, not to mention the price of the whole 911 Commission itself, is inevitably shouldered by the U.S. taxpayers.

Unlsess, of course, the U.S. Government has an alternate source of income that I am unaware of.

My post is forcing me to re-think my future post on "Commissions", their cost to the U.S. Taxpayer and their usefullness. But as of this posting, I have not completed my research.

Regardless, the cost for the "911 Commission", the hearings, including publishing rights, including the cost for the actual publishing for the hardcopy, has to be put on someone. If the price for the bandwidth turns out to be legitimately "free", then it is good. But the general popultaion of the U.S. still inevitably still pays for it.

I was just gearing up to create a post about "commisiions" and how ANY commission is at the taxpayer's expense, whether it's the Janet Jackson NFL gaff, or the space shuttle Columbia, or the Waco ATF fiasco, or the space shuttle Discovery. But that will probably be a future post.

LLS

historyishere

But who inevitably picks up "the tab" for the purchase?

LLS

Taxes aren't taken al a carte. The budget for next year will be the same regardless of whether or not everyone here downloads it or not. It isn't a matter of seeing how much something costs and then charging peopel for it. They are allocated the money to use, and THEN they use it, as they are now offering this for download.

So, you could say that the taxpayers have already paid for it, whether you download it or not. Regardless, no one is going to be put out by a penny''s worth of transfer. If my local ISP can afford for me to download up to a gig a day, I don't think the US government is gonna be put out serving this.

BakerStreet

Thankyou. That was insightful, and has been noted as such.

This post has increasingly caused me to think of this specific instance, in a broader perspective.

If it is true that the 911 Commission is shouldered by the US Taxpayers, whether it amounts to "pennies" or not, it is still shouldered by the US Taxpayers.

What is the bottom line price for the 911 Commission?

Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-911 Commission. I truely believe that it was a neccessary evil. It was justified.

I just have a couple ideas in my head right now that are getting jumbled together, and that I need to sort out.

The 1st idea is one about "Frivolous Commissions", which I am developing for another post.

The 2nd idea that for me, is getting thrown into the fray, is the idea that "a US government", federal or local, is the only "company" in the US that can randomly inflate it's projected budget to some arbitrary number, regardless of "income vs. overhead vs. cost of goods sold". That is how I see it, anyway. If a Federal or Local government comes in "under budget" for a particular year, not only will they look good, but it is inevitable that the following year's budget will be inflated as well. (This will probably never make it to one of my articles)

I know that last paragraph is based on misconstrued logic and has inherent errors. If the 911 Commission decided to release their report in hardcopy exclusively, in order to make a profit and recoup some of the cost for the commission itself, I can see that, and it would be commendable. But they didn't do that. Pennies or dollars, it doesn't mater, the US is not only shouldering the price of the 911 Commission, the the actual physical publishing of the report, but we are also shouldering the cost to maintain the website and the downloads for the rest of the world.

Like I said, my train of thought has gone in several different directions since I posted this yesterday. It is in part, due to the responses here, all of which are excellent feedback. Unfortunately, I have to sort through all of these mental "tangents". An initial post that I thought was coherent and succinct, now resembles dreadlocks on a bad hair day.

It is all good.

Thank you all for encouraging me to think.

LLS

Well, you have to ask yourself if the 9-11 commission is the government's job, and if providing the report free of charge is their job. If so, you paid them to do their job when you paid the taxes that they used to fund the efffort.

Me, personally, I think that the commission itself is money well spent, and I think all findings should be public. If we have a service like the Internet, then we aren't reliant on people to translate this document for us, or sidled with the extra cost of buying it. To me, if I went and paid for the hard copy, I feel that I would be paying twice, since the commission has already been funded and the money for the downloads is already spent.

BakerStreet

lol And somehow this post has come full circle. You have brought this post, once again, to the intent of my original post. That if you purchase this report from a bookstore, you are already paying for it more than once.

LLS