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Wiretapping, Net Neutrality and Mergers: PhoneCo Power Grabs

In 1974 the US Justice Department initiated a historic lawsuit against what was then commonly known as “The Phone Company.” Eight years later AT&T was forced to divest itself of local phone businesses which were transformed into 7 regional “Baby Bells.” AT&T then focused on long distance services with two new competitors: Sprint and MCI. Today that trend is on the way to reversing itself.

Recent and pending phone industry mergers are threatening to hurt consumers and bring us back to the monopolistic pre-1974 days (see diary below). In addition, the phone companies are allowing the Bush administration to spy on Americans and we’ve seen them team up to claim such efforts are beyond judicial control. Finally big corporations and the phone companies are trying to grab corporate control of the Internet by eliminating Net Neutrality and making it into the modern day equivalent of television.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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NET NEUTRALITY PAGE