Net Neutrality Links
I’ve added these links to the Net Neutrality Page today.
Stopping the Big Giveaway – by John Kerry
The Commerce Committee voted on net neutrality and it failed on an 11-11 tie. This vote was a gift to cable and telephone companies, and a slap in the face of every Internet user and consumer.
It will not stand.
I voted against this lousy bill for two reasons: because net neutrality and internet build-out are crucial to building a more modern and fair Information Society, and both were pushed aside by the Republicans.
. . . Why are United States Senators afraid to say that companies should be expected to foster growth by building out their broadband networks to increase access?
. . . This bill was passed in committee over our objections. Now we need to fight to either fix it or kill it in the full Senate. Senator Wyden has already drawn a line in the sand ââ¬â putting a ââ¬Åholdââ¬Â on the bill, which prevents it from going forward for now. But there will be a day of reckoning on this legislation soon, make no mistake about it, and we need you to get engaged ââ¬â pressure your Senators, follow the issue, demand net neutrality and build-out.
It’s not just net neutrality that is at stake
Kos wrote yesterday that the Net Neutrality amendment was defeated yesterday in the Commerce Committee, and there have been several diaries about that since. A bill that was kept however has not been remarked upon here. This is the revival of the broadcast flag, which the FCC had mandated several years ago but was struck down by a court. Now the entertainment industry is trying to bring the broadcast flag back with a new law. . . .
With respect to the broadcast flag however, Republicans take precisely the opposite position. By supporting the broadcast flag, they are saying that it is necessary for the government to control which of those transmissions that we listen to or watch on TV we can record: something that is unprecedented. It has been taken for granted up until now by everyone that if you can hear something on the radio or hear it on TV you should be able to record it, but the broadcast flag would change all that. The government would require all electronic devices that are capable of receiving digital TV or radio signals to implement restrictions blocking recording of those signals if the producer of the signal has embedded in it a flag indicating that it does not want the signal recorded. In other words, the government will mandate that you no longer control what you do with your electronic devices, but the corporations of the entertainment industry do.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE
These gluttany of challenges to consumer rights, which go so far as to attempt to tarnish one of the only unfettered spaces for the free flow of comunicative content, have found their patron saint in the resounding idiot known as Senator Stevens. If anyone has taken the time to listen to his rambling polemic for a cessation to Net-neutrality, one might immediately detect that this individual doe not even know what a computer is, let alone the Internet. He frequently cited Net-neutrality as the culprit for the emails sent by his staff to him taking 4 to 5 days, due to the jamming of the “pipes,” from people such as you and I as well as providers offering free services over the Web. He seems to go so far as to suggest that ordinary people and vendors that offer free services are exploiting the poor ISP’s, such as Comcast and AT&T, who struggle to maintain the growth of bandwidth, which they are miraculously able to continue despite their opression and second-class citizenry within this Industy. This guy, who has come out with past top ten most stupid bills, such as the unfrogetable bridge to nowhere, which was an effort to divert funds from victoms of the horrific natural disasters that hit New Orleans and other areas in the proximity, might be one of the dumbest individuals to whom I have ever had the astonishing experience to listen.
It is truly Remarkable,
R Cole
Your point about Senator Stephens is so well taken. There is no argument to refute it. The man has said shown he knows nothing of what he speaks about.