Net Neutrality 6-03-2006

Net Neutrality Links

I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.

This is what started it all

FYI, here’s the article that but a bee in the bonnet of the special interests who’re trying to shackle the Internet with their so-called net-neutrality regulations:

William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.

Or, Smith said, his company should be allowed to charge a rival voice-over-Internet firm so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth’s offering.

Remedial First Amendment For The Net Neutrality Crowd

I’ve noticed lately that some net neutrality advocates have taken to calling neutrality legislation the “First Amendment of the Internet”. Allow me to point out that the first five words of the First Amendment are “Congress shall make no law …”

When it comes to our communications systems, our first priority should be to keep Congress out of it. The First Amendment says, when it comes to speech, the government simply does not make the call. It is not a question of debating right and wrong in the hallowed halls; the Constitution says simply, the government has no say.

Broadband Providers Lobby Against Internet Neutrality

We’ve been enjoying a resource that many have just assumed would continue. Consider some of the other changes that are occuring. Newspapers are going out of business all over America. Many, if not most, big city papers have been bought out by huge multi-media companies. Those media companies have shown an inclination to limit our access to the news to the point that a paid public service statement from the United Church of Christ is rejected by network TV and a book that lists the top 25 censored news stories is published annually in America.

Newspapers and other written media have been an important part of our democracy since Thomas Paine published “Common Sense” and helped light the fire of revolution and independence from a monarchy bent on exploiting, not nurturing it’s colonies. Today we face a different kind of threat. Very few men control virturally all of our news in the mainstream media and they’ve demonstrated a willness to limit even big stories like Downing St. Memos are still not widely known by Americans.

Al Gore characterized our democracy as “hollowed out” by a dearth of editorial variety in the “marketplace of ideas”. He called for the preservation of freedom on the Internet

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE