Net Neutrality Let's discuss Net Neutrality with someone who might now.

When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to ask anyone’s permission. The new application rolled out over the existing Internet without modifying it. I tried then, and many people still work very hard still, to make the Web technology, in turn, a universal, neutral, platform. It must not discriminate against particular hardware, software, underlying network, language, culture, disability, or against particular types of data. The Internet is increasingly becoming the dominant medium binding us. The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy

Tim Bernes Lee.

This is an issue that is only going to get larger as days go by. I know I don't want governmental interference with my little oasis here. Save The Internet has more on this subject. Josh Silver over at Huffington Post has a great entry. He discusses what's at stake and how the common public interest over net neutrality needs to be dealt with as aggressively as when corporate organizations attack the government when they don't like something that will effect their bottom line. He writes:

Whenever new legislation in Washington threatens the bottom lines of Fortune 500 companies, they unleash a full-scale war for the hearts and minds of decision makers and the public. Half of the battle is winning the ear of elites. The other half is fought in the field of public opinion: mass-emails, paid advertisements, blogs, op-eds, and coalitions.

Corporate-driven campaigns engage an established set of high-priced lobby shops, PR firms, rolodex-for-hire firms, and pollsters. "Astroturf" campaigns are launched to create the illusion of grassroots support. Often enough, the combination of legislators addicted to campaign contributions and the sheer power of multi-million dollar campaigns "flood the zone" and win the day. More corporate-friendly legislation at the expense of real public input.

Snip

The reality is that both the Democrats and Republicans have been bad on media policy for decades. The Clinton administration supported net neutrality, but the president also signed the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which gave away billions worth of spectrum, lifted radio ownership caps, and "deregulated" cable, only to drive cable rates up 50% nationwide. The GOP is even worse, having become a party of by and for Big Media.

Broadband will soon deliver nearly all television, radio, phone service - and of course the Web - to most Americans. This transition is our big chance to do an end run around 24-7 lapdog journalism, low-brow entertainment, celebrity gossip, and rampant commercialism that has left the public in a fog of Brangelina, windbag pundits, sound bytes and little knowledge about what's happening in the world and what our elected officials actually think or stand for.

If we lose this net neutrality battle, we lose the greatest opportunity of our lifetimes to get critical journalism and diverse media into living rooms across the nation, as the largest cable and phone companies turn the Internet into modern cable TV: they control what you see and how much it costs.

So far, Congress has gotten more than 50,000 letters from grassroots groups and maybe Washington is getting the message.

After initially being scheduled for consideration by the full House later this week, legislation to grant the former regional Bell operating companies quick entry into the pay television market was pulled from the the week's floor schedule Monday by the Republican leadership.

The House Judiciary Committee has sought a referral of the telecom bill that cleared the Energy and Commerce panel last week, particularly for its "network neutrality" language -- and the delay is likely to work to the Judiciary panel's advantage. Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., have drafted their own version of net neutrality legislation, which they are expected to release this week

There's a really good breakdown over at Thoughts of an Average Woman. Ed Markey, who is a Democrat from Massachusets introduced the Net Neutrality Act yesterday.

But the NY Times stomps it into one little sentence:

Cable and telephone companies that provide Internet service are talking about creating a two-tiered Internet, in which Web sites that pay them large fees would get priority over everything else.

We need Aunt B, Frank over Left of the Dial, Wintermute, Julie, Tennessee Jed, Nashville Knucklehead, Brittney,Tits and Cup of Joe and even, God Forbid I'm even saying this, the Stacey Campbells of the net. All of us.

Without Government and Corporate interference.

  ¶ 5/03/2006 08:23:00 PM