House Subcommittee Voted To Kill Internet (From meme at Daily Kos)

[Uncle Joe]

If there is one thing the corporate owned Congress cannot stand, it's an empowered American People. Too much information for us, is bad for them, it means they are likely to get away with less and increases the chances of them being held accountable for their poor decisions and misdeeds. To this end they will do everything in their power to make the internet less accessible to the masses.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/11/194439/884

A House subcommittee handed phone companies a victory Wednesday by voting 27-4 to advance a bill that would make it easier for them to deliver television service over the Internet and clearing the way for all Internet carriers to charge more for speedier delivery.

The lopsided vote was a defeat for Internet and technology firms like Google and Microsoft, which had hoped to amend the bill to enforce a principle called network neutrality and preserve the status quo under which all Internet traffic is treated equally.

Earlier in the day, the subcommittee voted 23-8 to reject an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., that would have inserted specific language designed to enforce network neutrality and prevent the feared creation of fast and slow lanes on the Internet.

<snip>

Members from both sides of the aisle endorsed a plan which will permit cable and phone companies to construct 'pay as you surf, pay as you post' toll booths for the Internet," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington.

[wordpix]

1. we need to contact our reps and senators before this gets out of hand

Freedom of speech through the internet!

Next thing we know, they'll be screening content like Yahoo and Google do to "serve" the Chinese government so the Chinese people won't know anything about Tianamen Sq. and the '89 massacre, or anything else related to freedom in China.

It could happen here if we snooze.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Personally, I believe money is the secondary issue,

their primary motivation is power and control. Information is power, and if the American People are blissfully ignorant, they could not be happier.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. How bad could it be?

Just like cable, if you want the extras ya gotta pay for them. I'm sure the government will provide a 'basic plan' for netsurfers who don't want to pay -- and Fox will be happy to supply the news links for it.

[ThomCat]

7. That basic plan

will have;

1. filtered searches
2. restricted lists of websites you can visit
3. those websites will be entirely comercial sites

The rest of the internet will be broken up into arbitrary "zones" of some kind, so you'll have to buy access to all those zones to get everything you get now.

Sites will all start having intro screens where you need to give a credit card number or a subscription ID to enter. Nothing will be free anymore. Hosting charges will skyrocket, and we'll be the ones paying for it.

[B3Nut]

10. The real laugh is

that idea would be ridiculously difficult to implement, and those skilled in the dark arts of IP and proxies and routing could circumvent any "fences". It would be a cat and mouse game. That said, go to the free press site and sign that petition - it auto-sends to your rep and senators. Hopefully I'll hear back from Sen. Feingold, his office responds pretty rapidly when I write in. Russ rocks. :D

Todd in Beerbratistan

[Ioo]

4. Anyway, six Dems joined the evil Republican majority on this bill in the s

Thanks Dems,

[Uncle Joe]

5. Yes, we need a new color coded map,

blue for the democratic party controlled states, red for the republicans, and gold for the corporate controlled states.

[ThomCat]

8. They're all more or less corporate controlled states.

It's just a matter of which corporations.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Thanks, I should have made a distinction between,

corporation and corpwhoration.

[Mrspeeker]

6. Hats off to the Dem's again

Way to show some opposition..oh and fuck all six of you!

[ThomCat]

9. Yes, once again most of the Dems support big money

instead of freedom and equality. The digital divide will now have a more segregated class structure.

[Greeby]

12. Members of the House Telecom Subcommittee

Pukes:

Fred Upton, Michigan
Chairman

Michael Bilirakis, Florida

Cliff Stearns, Florida

Paul E. Gillmor, Ohio

Ed Whitfield, Kentucky

Barbara Cubin, Wyoming

John Shimkus, Illinois

Heather Wilson, New Mexico

Charles "Chip" Pickering, Mississippi

Vito Fossella, New York

George Radanovich, California

Charles F. Bass, New Hampshire

Greg Walden, Oregon

Lee Terry, Nebraska

Mike Ferguson, New Jersey

John Sullivan, Oklahoma

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee

Joe Barton, Texas
(Ex Officio)


Dems

Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Ranking Member

Eliot L. Engel, New York

Albert R. Wynn, Maryland

Mike Doyle, Pennsylvania

Charles A. Gonzalez, Texas

Jay Inslee, Washington

Rick Boucher, Virginia

Edolphus Towns, New York

Frank Pallone Jr., New Jersey

Sherrod Brown, Ohio

Bart Gordon, Tennessee

Bobby L. Rush, Illinois

Anna G. Eshoo, California

Bart Stupak, Michigan

John D. Dingell, Michigan
(Ex Officio)

[Uncle Joe]

13. Thanks for the list Greeby,

I wonder if anyone has a list of the six dems that voted for this?

[Greeby]

14. Definitely not Markey

While that'd be obvious from the amendment he offered. "Net Neutrality" is one of the major issues on his website:

http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=531&Itemid=138


And I understand Sherrod Brown was out on the campaign trail while this was going on

[Uncle Joe]

15. Representative Markey has my respect and he would have my vote

if I lived in Massachusetts.:patriot:

[Uncle Joe]

16. Kick for the afternoon crowd.

:kick:

[Time for change]

17. So so sad

What is the matter with them?

Are they doing this just in order to get support for their campaigns from the telecommunications industry?

Are they doing it so that they don't get targeted by the corporate media?

Or are they just ignorant of the consequences?

I pray that this kind of thing will begin to reverse itself after the mid-term elections.

[Uncle Joe]

18. All the reasons you cited and

I believe in their heart of hearts, they do not want to be held accountible for their actions. The internet makes hiding the truth more difficult, they think of them selves more as royalty than honest representatives of the American People.

[TexasLawyer]

19. This needs to be nipped in the bud.