Editorials Amplify Call for Congress to Act Against Telco Censorship

Verizon and AT&T's attempts to sweep away the controversy over cell phone censorship isn't working. Despite their best spin, another message is getting through: Phone companies can't be trusted to protect free speech.

As we've reported here and elsewhere, this is a story that goes beyond one outrageous case of blocking a text message.

New York Times: 'Textbook Censorship'

The New York Times responded today with an editorial calling on Congress and the FCC to set new standards that "bar interference with text messaging."

"Alarm bells should be ringing on Capitol Hill, where industry lobbying, legislative goldbricking and Republican aversion to regulations have bottled up much-needed laws on digital communications," Times editors write, singling out Verizon's effort to block text messages sent from national NARAL Pro-Choice America.

That Verizon can still get away with blocking cell phone messaging should be a call to arms for everyone who believes free speech is a cornerstone of good democracy.

Speech over traditional phones is protected under the "common carrier" rule, which guarantees that all "traffic" gets access to the lines without discrimination. "Common Carrier" was the rule that protected Net Neutrality over the Web until the FCC and courts -- under a steady assault from telecom lobbyists seeking to clear a legal path for private toll roads on the Web -- struck it down.

"The Verizon policy was textbook censorship," the Times editors add. "Any government that tried it would be rightly labeled authoritarian.... If Verizon had attempted it on normal phone lines, it would have been violating common carrier laws that bar interference with voice transmissions. Unfortunately, those laws do not apply to text messaging."

This sentiment is echoed in a column today by Vindu Goel of the San Jose Mercury News, and an editorial late last week at the Los Angeles Times.

"I don't blame the carriers for wanting control. They've invested billions of dollars in building their networks," Goel writes. "But the government -- which represents you and me -- has given them a license to use public airwaves. The phone companies have a responsibility to allow broad access to their services."

FCC Leaks and the Revolving Door

The Times called upon the FCC to act, while acknowledging that the agency has long been held captive to the interests of phone companies. That conclusion is supported by a GAO report released today that found FCC officials routinely leaking information to phone companies to give them a leg up on influencing critical decisions at the agency.

That many former FCC officials are guaranteed cushy jobs at blue-chip telecommunications lobbying firms goes a long way toward explaining the special treatment. What's not measured is the incalculable damage this insider trading has on the public.

Congress Must Take the Lead

Corruption at the FCC "means Congress will have to take the lead, as it must on other issues affecting the mushrooming world of digital communications," according to the Times.

While some members of Congress have already protested recent cell phone censorship, they need to take this one step further - by convening hearings into the matter and affirming our legal commitment to free speech on the Internet, over cellphones, everywhere.

"Our democracy is built on basic freedoms not being left to individuals, or individual companies," the Times editorial board writes. "Freedom of speech must be guaranteed, right now, in a digital world just as it has been protected in a world of paper and ink."

Amen.

Follow Timothy Karr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKarr

Comments

[Snakeback]

Corporate censorship is going to be even harder to control than government censorship.

Corporations will cite their rights to protect profits, the neocons will want secret access to intimate details about the lives of law-abiding Americans, marketing companies are salivating to get hold of all the stuff you've ever clicked on or searched on the web, and the morality perverts will be screaming bloody murder on their prescription drug-fueled radio rants.

It's of critical importance to fight this fight. Anyone who has ever worked for Verizon or Comcast knows the corporations don't give a rat's butt about protecting anyone's rights.

Another myth of the "self-regulating" market bites the dust. The market self-regulates about as well as the politicians do - that is, about as well as a six-month old infant self-regulates.

[realitytrumpsbull]

The Real Story of Verizon is how much business-related information gets piped to the Richest Man In Mexico from the US...ah, globalizationer...