Source: Raw Story
By Stephen C. Webster
In a U.S. Senate debate Wednesday morning, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) gave an impassioned defense of network neutrality, the principle that mandates Internet service providers (ISPs) treat all Web traffic equally.
“Net Neutrality,” as supporters have labeled it, was cemented into law by the Federal Communications Commission in 2010 after years of campaigning by activists and major technology companies alike.
Facing a Republican effort to repeal “Net Neutrality,” Franken stood up in the U.S. Senate and called the regulations “the free speech issue of our time.”
“You may not realize it, but Net Neutrality is the foundation and core of how the Internet operates every day, and how it has always operated,” he said. “When scientists and engineers were creating the basic architecture of the Internet, they decided they needed to establish some basic rules of the road for Internet traffic. One of the fundamental design principles of the Internet was that all data should be treated equally, regardless of what is being sent or who is sending it. That is Net Neutrality.”
Read more and watch the video from C-SPAN, broadcast Nov. 9, 2011.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/09/sen-franken-delivers-impassioned-defense-of-net-neutrality/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29