New Net Neutrality Bill

[Mass]

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6405757.html?display=Breaking+News

Dorgan, Snowe Introduce Net Neutrality Bill
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/9/2007 1:05:00 PM
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Senate Commerce Committee members Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) wasted no time putting the network neutrality issue back on the legislative calendar.

On Tuesday, the first day of the new Congress, the pair re-introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which would prevent broadband providers from "discriminating against Internet content, applications or services, and require them to offer stand-alone broadband service not bundled with video or voice."
...

Co-sponsors of the bill's latest incarnation include John Kerry (D-MA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and Barack Obama (D-IL).

“We applaud Senators Dorgan and Snowe for reigniting the essential Net Neutrality debate on Capitol Hill," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press. "Their continuing commitment will help make competitive and affordable broadband services a central issue in the 110th Congress."

[derby378]

1. Hell, it oughta be a Constitutional amendment...

...then again, the First and Fourth Amendments should cover that nicely, assuming that the White House were to obey the Constitution. Gee, what a concept...

[dogday]

2. K&R

[AndyA]

3. Let's hope this one passes, and we no longer have to worry about

websites being cut off from traffic by slow connections because they aren't paying bribe money. :thumbsup:

[BootinUp]

13. Only one battle in a never ending war, lets get started though. :) n/t

[williesgirl]

4. k&r - great news.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. But...but...I thought that net neutrality just just a lot of mumbo jumbo

being foisted on us by the big corporations so they can charge us more! That's what my little, caring local cable company (Time/Warner) tells me.

[mainegreen]

6. Dance Olympia, dammit dance! To the left! To the left!

You're not fooling anyone.

[Lasher]

7. Horay for Congressional Democrats!

Raise the minimum wage! Tell the people what really went on in the runup to Iraq! Protect the internet from exploitation by large corporations! Govern for the people instead of selling out to the richest 1% and their corporations!

Are people in general watching at all? Do they see that Democrats are their friends and Republicans are not? I hope at least some are paying attention. Just a 10% swing, AKA waking up, would be highly substantial.

[The Wizard]

8. By and large

the left side of the blogosphere has been more effective than the right. Look for Bushigula to veto it and ask for a Constitutional Amendment to silence opposition to the fascist state.

[WiseButAngrySara]

9. Yes! ....n/t

[E-Z-B]

10. Excellent news!

[annabanana]

11. Write your Congress critters!

My letter to Hillary

Dear Senator Clinton,

I was delighted to find out today that you are a co-sponsor of the new Net Neutrality Bill (the Internet Freedom Preservation Act) along with John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Tom Harkin, Patrick Leahy and Barack Obama..

The internet has replaced the Public Square for discourse. Communication through this media has taken the place of the chat over the “back yard fence” that bound neighbors to each other in the past. It is essential to the health of this Nation that we communicate freely with other Americans about our concerns and interests. The ‘net brings us closer and closer to having the kind of “informed electorate” envisioned by the Founding Fathers all those years ago. We can not afford to have it co-opted by commercial interests, whose agendas so clearly differ from the common weal.

I hope you will encourage Senator Schumer to join you in this sponsorship.

I am now going to send one to Chuckie encouraging him to join Hillary... And I'm sending it snail mail (much harder to ignore)

[WarhammerTwo]

12. What's wrong with you people?

What are you? A bunch of hippie, communist, liberal, leftie, islamo-fascists? Why do you hate America? After all, you seem to hate capitalism and unrestricted free trade which is what America is all about! I mean, have you no sympathy? Don't you feel bad for all those regular joes slugging it out in the trenches of Wall Street who are just trying to make a living? How are they going to buy their fifth car, third house or second boat if you keep stopping corporations from fleecing the America public to keep their stock prices artificially inflated? Seriously, what is wrong with you people?!

All kidding aside, I'm thrilled. I've been trying to get all of my friends to get on their Congressmen's case about this. I even have a video about net neutrality on my MySpace page. I don't know if they did or didn't but it looks like we're gonna win this one. And don't get me wrong. I like Verizon. My sister works for them (and half of my family worked for AT&T). I just got their Fios (Fiber optic) Internet and Television Service (both of which are amazing)and I'm really happy with my phone service, but extorting small start-up internet sites in not a very nice thing. See, this is what businesses need to do to compete: INNOVATE! But when they can't innovate (and so many can't), then they resort to lay-offs, reducing services but not the prices or getting rid of employee benefits and pensions. And that's awful and shouldn't be done.

To be fair, though, you can't just blame the companies. It's not totally their fault. They have masters that even they answer to. And that's the yahoos on Wall Street. If ya wanna blame anyone for the crappy things businesses do, blame the major investors who demand huge returns and constantly (and unrealistically) expect never-ending growth out of companies. When those goofs "guess" what a company should earn and a company looks like it's not going to meet that goal, that's when companies lay people off or pull crap that requires net neutrality. I mean, yeah, the heads of businesses are to blame for bowing before Wall Street and doing unscrupulous things to appease them, but if they don't then the company dies and everyone loses their jobs (not that this justifies said unscrupulous things). But we should also blame the investor class for all the pressure and unrealistic expectations it places on the marketplace.

Anywho, enough with my rant. I'm just glad it looks like Net Neutrality is gonna happen. I do have one question, though. All the Telecom guys are calling this Net Regulation. But if this thing wasn't passed, wouldn't it still be Net Regulation? Because without Net Neutrality, wouldn't it be the Telecom Industries regulating what sites we could or could not visit based on the site's ability to pay? Gotta love spin.

Later gators.

[Cobalt-60]

14. Since 2001 the net has gone downhill

I remember the first time I wanted to put a webby on the Yahoo list and they stuck their virtual hands out for cash. It was a massive disappointment.
Big Business must have noted by now that we're using the web to bypass their MSM monopolies.
They'll stop at nothing to get control.