It would be at best sophomoric and at worst patronizing to stop by here and "tell you" you how important the Internet is to our economy and political culture now.
But when you're talking about almost 200 billion emails sent each day and more than $3 trillion in e-commerce a year ago, it's more than clear we've just scratched the surface of what the Internet can do, both as a platform for commerce and discourse.
And so it's far from surprising that the powerful interests have lined up on different sides of a huge fight going on in Washington; and it will probably be very familiar to you, after years of battling over Net Neutrality.
On one side are the telephone and cable companies who believe they should be in control because they own the wires that deliver the Internet to your house. On the other side is you, the consumer, and President Obama's FCC, with a broad set of interests -- making sure consumers are protected, users and content are not discriminated against, and broadband service is universally affordable and available.
President Obama has been a strong champion for an open, fast Internet. He was a leader on Net Neutrality as a Senator, and he has pushed hard to create a National Broadband Plan to build the fast broadband infrastructure we need. And his FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, has been fighting hard to make President Obama's vision a reality, which is no surprise to those of us who knew Julius before he headed the FCC.
But not surprisingly, the industry is fighting back, with heavy artillery on their side.
Today, there's a vital hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee, and I need your help. You could make an enormous difference if you take just a couple of minutes right now, call your Senators and urge them to support the President's push for Net Neutrality and a National Broadband plan. You can just call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your Senator.
It's helpful to bust wide open the convenient myth many in Washington buy into -- the idea that it's only the industry and those with financial skin in the game who really care about these issues.
The travesty in the court system last week underscored the importance of you weighing in, and doing it in a hurry. Just last week, the industry won a round in court, with a DC Circuit of the Federal Appeals Court ruling that could block the FCC from protecting Net Neutrality, working for consumers, or making broadband available to all Americans.
The details get a little technical, but it basically boils down to this: back in the Bush Administration, the FCC classified the Internet as an "information service" rather than a "communications service." This limits what the FCC can do, which is, of course, just the way the big telecom companies want it.
But the FCC could reclassify the service and preserve its traditional role. The telecom companies are giving it everything they've got to keep this from happening, and if you don't speak up, they could win.
A win for them would mean that the FCC couldn't protect Net Neutrality, so the telecoms could throttle traffic as they wish -- it would be at their discretion. The FCC couldn't help disabled people access the Internet, give public officials priority access to the network in times of emergency, or implement a national broadband plan to improve the deplorable situation where the United States -- the country that invented the Internet -- lags far behind in our broadband infrastructure. In short, it would take away a key check on the power of phone and cable corporations to do whatever they want with our Internet.
The telecom companies try to say that only Congress can pass a law to make this better. But having suffered through a year of record filibusters and procedural hurdles to grind the process to a halt, do you really think it's a good idea for Congress to try and do this, when the FCC can have the authority right now?
Look, eventually we may need to build a new legal framework for broadband service, but the Internet is moving too fast, the economy needs the innovation of the Internet too badly, to wait. Especially because we don't have to. The FCC can act right now.
But they need the political support from the Senate, and the Senate needs to know that you care about this. So call right now and let them know. Especially if your Senator serves on the Commerce Committee (here's the membership of the committee).
Bottom line is that this is the way politics work. In the end, you pull the levers, but only if you use them. The industry will fight for control, and they should fight -- if you were advising them, you'd give them that advice yourself.
But we need to show them that we're going to fight even harder to make sure the Internet stays in the hands of the American people, that we get to set the rules to benefit all of us, not just a few huge corporations.
Crossposted from Daily Kos, because I wanted to make sure you saw this.
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If internet neutrality is that important why can't the govt just take over AT&T, comcast and other internet carriers?
sure...there exactly the same....lol
Face facts it's not our equipment that is being manipulated, it is the content and available bandwidth..
thank you for all you do! keep up the good work!!
No matter what the telecoms have tried, there are ways to encode packets to out maneuver them.
Trying to be all "YAY! Government controls the Internet for the good glory of consumers" worked well for the Iranians, didn't it?
When we start hearing the government wanting to "protect" us, that's when the analogy is germane.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/24/us_under_cyber_threat/
'Cyber attacks threaten the "very existence" of the US, according to a top FBI official charged with worrying about such things.'
The only way to derail the telecomms from getting their way in this and any matter is to strengthen the FCC, promote competition ( i.e. choice for the consumer) or convince them that this is a money LOSING proposition since profits are the only thing they understand.
How about that Mr. Kerry?
Let me sum up your argument: ZOMFG, THEY ARE ATTACKING US, FBI SAYS NEED GOVT CONTROL. GIVE IT GIVE IT OR WE'RE ALL DEAD!!M
No thanks.
I'll refer to my 3-Com certification, what will you refer to?
"Simply put, net neutrality is a network design paradigm that argues for broadband network providers to be completely detached from what information is sent over their networks.In essence, it argues that no bit of information should be prioritized over another. This principle implies that an information network such as the internet is most efficient and useful to the public when it is less focused on a particular audience and instead attentive to multiple users.
To draw a simple example, take two content providers such as the Verizon website and the University of California website. If net neutrality were upheld, both entities would pay their monthly fees and if all else equal, any bit of information from the Verizon website will make the same trek as one from say the UC Berkeley website. ....Say Verizon (which is also a network provider) chooses to prioritize their data over that of UC Berkeley. Information from Verizon will then be more desirable to the end user since it is so much faster than the UC website. The problem then arises when Verizon is trying to promote something opposed to that of the beliefs of the University of California. What would happen if network providers bar content providers that they think have a conflict of interest from using higher speed networks? What if the network providers degrade the service of specific content providers?
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~raylin/whatisnetneutrality.htm
You say: give the network back to the people? Does that mean I have to take a shovel, go dig, and lay the wire? Or would the local government add a few percent tax to hire overpriced "diggers" and make us wait another ten years while they build the funds and collect bids? Who will run the network, also "the people"?
"not just a few huge corporations", eh? Shouldn't Senator Kerry be thankful for his family fortune to "a few huge corporations"? Are they not paying him enough anymore?
While there are exceptions, in general, wherever the money is, the power is.
You want to return power to the constituents...the individuals... you need to cut off the power
For example...public financing of elections.
Here's the proposal for Minnesota.
http://www.fairvotemn.org/
The other thing that can be done is the National Popular Vote initiative, a mechanism where states join a treaty to recognize the winner of the popular vote and direct their electors to vote for that winner. This would transform Presidential elections from focusing on "swing" states to focusing on each and every voter.
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/
Two concrete proposals that have to be enacted at the state level.
And then, of course, public financing as well so corporations won't purchase elections.
We need an RBA, B for "broadband". From Wiki:
the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) ... was created on May 11, 1935 with the primary goal of promoting rural electrification.
In the 1930s, the U.S. lagged significantly behind Europe in providing electricity to rural areas due to the unwillingness of power companies to serve farmsteads.
Private electric utilities argued that the government had no right to compete with or regulate private enterprise, despite many of these utilities having refused to extend their lines to rural areas, claiming lack of profitability.
Private power companies set rural rates four times as high as city rates.
Under the REA there was no direct government competition to private enterprise. Instead, REA made loans available to local electrification cooperatives, which operated lines and distributed electricity.
Do you know that many apartment complex leases require you to have electricity, even if you choose not to have it? And, there's a minimum charge even if you never use it?
Sounds like a shell game to me. Maybe a Ponzi scheme.
Whatever it is, someone is getting rich every time the government tries to "help" make the unwashed masses more civilized and it ain't me.
There is a reason why citizens of the United States pay more for cell phones that have data access and are limited on what phones they can have with their plans. It's because other countries require providers to share the same towers and it keeps the prices down. In parts of Korea and Japan a full length feature film can be downloaded in two minutes, while in the United States many cable companies do not provide that. Ten years ago the United States was the world leader in broadband and has fallen considerably behind other nations since then. In the US socioeconomic status and location still plays a role in regards to who does, and does not, reap the full benefits from access to broadband and technology.
The US has poor and expensive telecom service because we privatized the Bell system.
I just read another Huffpo article I wish you would get involved in that is desperately needing investigation ASAP, to help our wounded soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan that are being severely mistreated and denied medical benefits as well as being tortured and coerced into signing papers they had a pre-existing condition. This is terrorism on our own soldiers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-kors/when-the-army-uses-enhanc_b_536727.html
Your attention to this along with all you do would be appreciated. It is disgusting what is going on in our military.