Save the internet

[cantdog]

Honestly. This is happening, right now.

This week, the House is expected to vote on Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006. The COPE bill would permit phone and cable companies to operate Internet and other digital communications service as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight. The bill would effectively end what is known as "net neutrality" which is the concept that that everyone, everywhere, should have free, universal and non-discriminatory access to all the Internet has to offer. The COPE bill would permit Internet service providers like AOL to charge fees for almost every online transaction and to prioritize emails based on the senders' willingness to pay.

The COPE Act would also permit providers to refuse service to low-income communities that they believe would be less profitable to serve. Rural communities, lower-class communities would no longer have any actual right to phone and cable service.

The way that I understand it is that the phone companies and the cable companies, which provide internet access to 98% of Americans and almost all businesses, are companies that were set up in business by the government. They're not free market companies. Their entire business model has been based on getting monopoly license franchises from the government for phone and cable service and then using it to make a lot of money. And they’re using their political leverage now to try to write a law, basically, which lets them control the internet.

What they want to do, desperately, is be in a situation where they can rank-order websites. And websites that come through the fastest to us, to the users of the internet, are the ones that pay them money or the ones they own. And websites that don't pay them come through slower, much harder to get, or in some cases, they’ll have the power to take them off the internet altogether.

Right now, the user pays per month for use of the internet, and that’s how these companies get their money. So they’d be both charging the user and the content provider, the one who makes the website?

There’s no technological justification for this. There’s no economic justification. It's pure corrupt crony capitalism. They're basically using their political leverage to change this so they get a huge new revenue stream, and it gives them an inordinate amount of power over the internet.

What people have to remember is that what excited us all about the internet was the idea that anyone could start a website at a fairly nominal fee and be competing equally, then, with General Motors, with General Electric, with Rupert Murdoch. We all had a shot at it. It was a common carrier requirement of the Telecom Act, which required the phone companies to give all websites equal access. They want to get rid of that, because they see enormous amounts of money if they can decide which website gets the inside lane and which website is on the dirt path.

The entire business community gets screwed by this. It’s just these big companies, the cable companies and the phone companies, that want this inordinate power over everyone else in our society over the internet, over the right of who gets to speak and who doesn't get to speak. And so, what we find is the more people know about it, the more we win. I mean, no one supports this, unless you’re getting paid off by these companies. There really isn't any other justification for supporting it, unless you are fundamentally opposed to equal access, to free speech. Which a lot of control freaks are, I suppose.

What we're seeing is this across-the-board outrage at the corruption of the process in which powerful special interests sneak through these privileges that benefit only them. And their public relations, when it’s subject to scrutiny, is laughable. It doesn't hold up. And once people hear about this, they absolutely are outraged.

There are a couple of wonderful amendments that have been offered: one by Edward Markey of Massachusetts in the House that was voted down, but it might come to the floor again, which defends net neutrality and requires the cable companies and the phone companies to maintain the ongoing First Amendment of the internet, letting all websites have access without discrimination, without favor shown to any, without payoffs having to be made so you can get fast treatment and access to the public; and there’s a similar amendment now in the United States Senate by Senator Olympia Snowe, the Republican of Maine, Byron Dorgan, the Democrat of North Dakota, also a net neutrality amendment, which is going to be coming up for a vote in the next month or so. Next week, by some estimates.

If people go to savetheinternet.com, you’ll find all the information. There's a map you can click on with every member of the relevant committees, how you can contact them, let the know. If you simply let members of Congress know you care, we will absolutely win this issue, because there's no support for this. And I’d urge people to get involved.

 

[Guest]

 

[cantdog]

I'm kinda proud of my Republican senator for being one of the heroes in this.

But I think it might be a good time for people to sign on to support her.

If we just keep the pressure on these people, we can defeat this thing.

Please take a second to check this out. The companies tried to ram this through on the sly. They would have done so, I think, by the end of the summer. But! The word got out. And honestly, if your, ahem, representative is supporting this, he or she is on the take. If not, advise them to get the bribe money. I mean, why support this if you don't get some kickback?

 

[Pure]

i do love the title of the act. Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006

it's a gem comparable to 'no child left behind"

 

[Colleen Thomas]

i do love the title of the act. Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006

it's a gem comparable to 'no child left behind"

They can't very well call it spreading our legs and collecting our check from Aol now can they?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Don't forget the "Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act." That's the one that shifted the burden of proof from manufacturers proving their products were safe to the government proving they weren't, effectively turning the U.S. population in the world's largest guinea pig ranch.

 

[impressive]

Um ... so now the Internet is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the United States?

We gotta do something about the "www" then -- 'cause it's false advertising.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I'm totally against this...

but I was just thinking... when has ANYTHING stayed "free"???

Except for (maybe) public education... I can't think of a thing we have "free" access to... capitalism makes a business venture out of everything...

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

I'm totally against this...

but I was just thinking... when has ANYTHING stayed "free"???

Except for (maybe) public education... I can't think of a thing we have "free" access to... capitalism makes a business venture out of everything...

Well we don't have "free" access to the net. We have to pay a monthly fee to use it.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Well we don't have "free" access to the net. We have to pay a monthly fee to use it.

I know... this is just how to grease both ends...

I'm just saying I'm not surprised...

although I wonder if those backing this are more interesting in censorship than money, actually...

 

[TheEarl]

Considering the concept of networking was invented by an Englishman who was studying in Switzerland, I find this a little bit cheeky.

The Earl

 

[Guest]

Considering the concept of networking was invented by an Englishman who was studying in Switzerland, I find this a little bit cheeky.

The Earl

A bit?

But then, when has greed ever bowed to ideas of propriety?

 

[cantdog]

The 'net will still be the 'net, of course, but the whole thing still has to come to Americans through the 'phone lines and the cable. If they're filtering it, Americans will be fucked out of access to it. Like China. Call these corrupt blokes!

 

[shereads]

Honestly. This is happening, right now.

Is there any destructive act of legislation that these pigs have overlooked in the name of either God or corporate America? Why not allow Comcast to charge a fee for speech itself? I'm sure the argument could be made that if our cable companies hadn't brought information into our homes, we wouldn't have anything to talk about.

Cdog, you've performed a valuable service and spoiled my morning coffee. I promise to take it out on one of my quasi-elected representatives.

 

[shereads]

Don't forget the "Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act." That's the one that shifted the burden of proof from manufacturers proving their products were safe to the government proving they weren't, effectively turning the U.S. population in the world's largest guinea pig ranch.

These new plutonium-enhanced multivitamin tablets taste just like sunflower seeds.

<nose twitches>