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The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time
This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.
As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.
This principle is called "net neutrality" -- and it's under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it.
The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing.
That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable.
Although Chairman Genachowski's draft Order has not been made public, early reports make clear that it falls far short of protecting net neutrality.
For many Americans -- particularly those who live in rural areas -- the future of the Internet lies in mobile services. But the draft Order would effectively permit Internet providers to block lawful content, applications, and devices on mobile Internet connections.
Mobile networks like AT&T and Verizon Wireless would be able to shut off your access to content or applications for any reason. For instance, Verizon could prevent you from accessing Google Maps on your phone, forcing you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it costs money to use and isn't nearly as good. Or a mobile provider with a political agenda could prevent you from downloading an app that connects you with the Obama campaign (or, for that matter, a Tea Party group in your area).
It gets worse. The FCC has never before explicitly allowed discrimination on the Internet -- but the draft Order takes a step backwards, merely stating that so-called "paid prioritization" (the creation of a "fast lane" for big corporations who can afford to pay for it) is cause for concern.
It sure is -- but that's exactly why the FCC should ban it. Instead, the draft Order would have the effect of actually relaxing restrictions on this kind of discrimination.
What's more, even the protections that are established in the draft Order would be weak because it defines "broadband Internet access service" too narrowly, making it easy for powerful corporations to get around the rules.
Here's what's most troubling of all. Chairman Genachowski and President Obama -- who nominated him -- have argued convincingly that they support net neutrality.
But grassroots supporters of net neutrality are beginning to wonder if we've been had. Instead of proposing regulations that would truly protect net neutrality, reports indicate that Chairman Genachowski has been calling the CEOs of major Internet corporations seeking their public endorsement of this draft proposal, which would destroy it.
No chairman should be soliciting sign-off from the corporations that his agency is supposed to regulate -- and no true advocate of a free and open Internet should be seeking the permission of large media conglomerates before issuing new rules.
After all, just look at Comcast -- this Internet monolith has reportedly imposed a new, recurring fee on Level 3 Communications, the company slated to be the primary online delivery provider for Netflix. That's the same Netflix that represents Comcast's biggest competition in video services.
Imagine if Comcast customers couldn't watch Netflix, but were limited only to Comcast's Video On Demand service. Imagine if a cable news network could get its website to load faster on your computer than your favorite local political blog. Imagine if big corporations with their own agenda could decide who wins or loses online. The Internet as we know it would cease to exist.
That's why net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. And that's why, this Tuesday, when the FCC meets to discuss this badly flawed proposal, I'll be watching. If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too.
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50 Comments so far
Show Allthe internet is temporary...the planet will reach a point where industrial practices required for such things destroy the fabric of nature, and collapse occurs...
the best use of technology is to coordinate an imminent shutdown of global industrial practices...the only argument for continuing limited technology is sustaining the same...
to imply that technologies should not only continue, but expand, is folly, especially given our unusual ecological position and direction...
manufacturing is toxic by nature...
argue over restrictions in this limited arena if you will, but there is a much bigger picture...
what a fascinating period of time we are in...
Yes, television had the potential of being a positive force, 99% of television became part of the problem and none of the solution.
Although the internet has lived up to a greater percentage of its potential, a greater positive force will emerge.
And, dubet, we need to manufacture more and more junk for more and more people and to grow more and more food for more and more mouths. Nothing we do to try to mitigate our horrendous attack on nature will ever be of significance until the human population of the earth is also reduced. One child per family for the next several generations and empower women.
it's so weird you have to pinch yourself.
Great comment as are the replies.
I don't quite understand the outrage over unfulfilled potential or loss of a perceived freedom on some of the other threads. Revolutionaries with IP addresses? It's a business decision. The saftey valve will continue to be accessible; it'll just cost more.
Anyone who uses the inet to get "useful" info (manuals, plans, diagrams, abstracts, how-to, etc) has already seen commercialization and limited access.
I still treasure my hardcopy.
Good luck.....
Wow, check it out - a real live Luddite!
Says the guy who supported the Iraq War and the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Sorry, folks, but Franken bores me -- just another "liberal Democrat."
Well, if this thing passes then you won't have to be bored by anyone of consequence unless you want to pay more for it. And I'm sure plenty of "liberal Democrat" will be excluded as well.
To conclude the article with "I'll be outraged - and so should you" sums up Democratic Party culture...express outrage to get votes while not doing anything that might threaten to slow the river of corporate money flowing into the Party's coffers.
That about sums it up, Ray. Thank you for your service to the cause of reality!
Please include me. And I am not just another "me too". I MEAN IT!
Didn't take old Al long to sell out, to join the lying liars and the lies they tell, did it?
don't you just hate it when anyone you even remotely admire mentions running for office, much less does so?
especially those who have been critical of government, or marketed that way...
takes alot of credulity to get that obesity over the continually-lowered bar of credibility...
I must admit, Al Franken had me laughing so hard I was crying when he pretended to be a brain tumor victim, and his partner, Davis, was pitching for donations...
great entertainment, but no excuse for anything else...
Ha!
Agreed, just another loud mouth and he too should take his feces and shaft it onto his mouth.
That would be either faux Liberal Democrat or "liberal" Democrat.
America: The bigger you are, the more breaks you get.
"But grassroots supporters of net neutrality are beginning to wonder if we've been had." Beginning?
"Here's what's most troubling of all. Chairman Genachowski and President Obama -- who nominated him -- have argued convincingly that they support net neutrality." Wrong. Nothing Obama has ever said has been remotely convincing to anyone who bothered to look at his past actions and to pay close attention to his phrasing.
Being outraged is nice. What comes after?
After "outrage" comes a meeting at the White House, followed by a "reluctant" expression of support for a compromise that is actually a surrender, then comes blaming the Republicans, then a promise to fight in the future, and then a solicitation for campaign funds so "we" can "keep fighting the good fight."
In new-york-commoners-law.com: Thomas Jefferson once said that if he had to choose between a nation with government and no newspapers, or one with newspapers and no government, he'd always choose the latter. Jefferson, historically one of the harshest critics of newspapers, also said: "Where the press is free, and every man can read, all is safe." Well, that is not even true for New York city and state lawyers or its citizens who want to read the stories, analyses, and essays about the legal system they toil under in trade media.
Journalism reached its peak, perhaps, during and just after Watergate. It’s safe to say that Nixon was brought down by the diligence of Woodward and Bernstein initially, and, then, a slew of other reporters from magazines and TV. They all competed to get the next scoop on the tragicomedy. Journalism, at that time, came closest to a full-fledged “profession,” as medicine and the law have always been regarded. Somehow, that question of professionalism for gathering news now is nowhere on the radar. It has been shot out of the sky.
A possible journalistic professional code was stillborn sometime in the Reagan era and contained elements that included: objectivity; never failing to at least try to get both sides’ comments (even if it meant writing “Mr. Smith did not return several calls made to his office) and quotes from a “common” person on the street on the subject matter. The press (newspapers, TV and radio) came oh-so-close to becoming a true Fourth Estate, contributing to knowledgable discussions among everyone from street vendors to CEOs about all local and national issues. Above all, it came close to giving a voice to the average person, which would have meant real power for the working stiff, which is just not the case in the United States these days. And it sure isn’t the case for New York city and state lawyers and citizens because of the monopoly called the New York Law Journal.
The concept of freedom of speech is often covered by the same laws as freedom of the press, thereby giving equal treatment to media and individuals.Jefferson knew that the Fourth Estate was a check on tyranny. Jefferson knew it was a hedge against secrecy. And he knew that no democracy could thrive -- or survive, even -- without a shining light on government. But New York’s legal issues are debated behind a curtain called the Law Journal and its prohibitively high subscription rates for both the Internet and hard copies. You can bet subscription rates for the NYLJ website will skyrocket without net neutrality. Reaction to this comment already has been harsh. Lawyers--who are a tightly wrapped conservative community in NYC--will not talk to me now, instead hiding behind vicious emails.
If the New York City Bar Association can be called a “democracy,” open to all points of view, including those that say possibly could say: Manhattan white-shoe firms have the right to cling with wrinkled hands to their outrageous bonuses and oversized offices as big as half a football field; or that those Law Journal attorney-columnists still arguing that the “free market is god” are fossils and should be fired,it would need another media outlet covering New York city and state legal issues. But the association has only the 100-year-old dinosaur called NYLJ. It has NO competition to educate lawyers or citizens about ediscovery or nanotechnology and the law.
If you walk into the entryway of the city bar on 44th street, the walls are covered with framed front pages of ONE newspaper, the Law Journal. If you walk to the front desk, it is piled high with free copies of ONE newspaper, the Law Journal. If that’s not a monopoly, then I’m not a former legal editor for NYLJ whose boss stood out of sight when I was laid off in the fiasco of 2007-09, which was caused by the purchase by no-response Tim Weller of IncisiveMedia of ALM Media, the ensuing takeover of the frog-logoed IncisiveMedia by the Bank of Scotland, and the return of ALM to the same investors that took Weller’s money less than two years before.
The city bar has its own publications, but the only source cited, other than itself, is the Law Journal. Why not say that the city bar’s newspaper IS the Law Journal? That “free-market-is-god” columnist (mentioned above) who would not include a comment from progressives in his banking column in January 2009, right before my layoff, seems to get his “thumbs-up” from the highest, most powerful lawyers in the city, who, of course, are conservative. Protest the banking columnist’s tunnel vision to your Law Journal editor and you’ll get: “It’s his column. Just leave it.” HIS column? The Law Journal supposedly is run by ALM Media executives and the work-at-the-speed-of-light serf-like journalists and editors punching out stories on daily deadlines for $50,000 a year and NO bonuses.
woodward and bernstein were allowed, if not enabled, to do what they did...
any journalist, or president, that really gets cocky ends up dead...
this is nothing new...
GARLAND: Thank you for the post, both your own anecdotal experience and the historical relevance and need for a free press.
Although it may be most dangerous in the field of law, many occupations become their own "insular organisms." Many Americans work longer and longer hours, and thus find what social life they can enjoy in the company of professional colleagues.
A somewhat related example. Some years ago a nurse who works at Gainesville's Shands Hospital invited me to go horseback riding. (English saddle! Yikes!) She had a lovely home on the wide expanse known as Payne's Prairie; and once we were saddled up and riding through "the sticks," (me silently fighting off flashbacks of Christopher Reed's awful fall), I asked her about her work at the hospital. Personally sensing an analogy between the nation's love (to the point of worship) of football, and a rabid identification with applied aggression as the answer to every challenge, I asked her if she thought the Gator football team influenced the doctors. She said that was the ONLY thing they talked about during surgeries. They often bragged about which team they would be flying off to view in which state.
I articulated my question pointedly a second time. "So you're saying that football influences the practice of medicine?" And she answered, "I don't see how it could not."
Within the military, a separate culture, or even reality is formed as so many soldiers live, eat, work, take their recreation, and kill together.
You've no doubt heard mention of the bond of the boys in blue, as a similar culture exists within police departments.
Territoriality and protecting turf is a basic survival response. These specialized groupings, including those associated with the Law Journal, have perfected it to a high, if unconscious, art form.
"Where the press is free, and every man can read, all is safe."
Sounds nice doesn't it, but the definition of "man" during Jefferson's days were Rich White Land Owners... so whatever.
Same goes for "All men were created equal"... again, it only refers to rich white land owners. Once you wash away the American myths, you see the rest of us are just plebs and have been for centuries.
franken proves that there is either something in the air or water in WASH DC that makes someone who was "supposedly" progressive to get to dc and proceed to follow the orders of the billionaires and throw the rest of us under the bus!
Thom Hartmann is another "supposed" progressive that recently moved to DC from the "People's Republic of Portland" and rapidly became another Obama apologist - even more than he was before - by a wide margin.....
and wasn't that the true lesson of the 1960's? the rich figured out they could simply buy off the progressive competition and use them to subvert their own message thereby weakening and marginalizing the true left?
now the left is hard to find in America and S and Central America is where we can find true lefties and protests.......
Hanky Al ("Voting for the Bush tax cuts and the depletion of Social Security was the hardest vote I've ever made! Waaah!") is now switching subjects. And his conclusion is:
"And that's why, this Tuesday, when the FCC meets to discuss this badly flawed proposal, I'll be watching. If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too." Yeah, Al. Go be outraged.
I still cannot believe that joker is a senator!
If we lose net neutrality we will be like the palestinians, slaves with no implements to defend ourselves. We need the power of an open and free communication to counter corruption, lies and the evil that this country has become. Wikkileaks is a prime example of the power of information. The governments around the world who have been shown to be lying manipulative monsters, are deathly afraid of wikkileaks and anyone who exposes their cruelty and deception. If we lose a free and open internet, we are FUCKED!
" If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too."
THIS IS IT??? A FEELING OF OUTRAGE IS ALL WE CAN DO?? NO SUGGESTIONS AS TO HOW TO STOP THE FCC FROM RIPPING THE OWNERS OF THE AIRWAVES OFF??
THIS IS WHY THE DEMOCRATS ARE DESPICABLE and WORTHLESS!!
ALL THEY CAN DO IS CURSE CORPORATE GREED (AND THEY DON'T DO THAT OPENLY AND ENOUGH)....THE ARE POWERLESS BY CHOICE.
screw the two corporate parties in power....we need to take our OUTRAGE to the streets.... after the austarity measures start taking place in our municipalities we will begin doing just that.....taking it to the streets... SEE YA THERE!!!
That was a nice speech Senator Franken but aren't we forgetting two things such as the need to restore the Fairness Doctrine and repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996? Net neutrality is already slipping away as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that made unethical price gouging all too legal. The Fairness Doctrine could have been kept and enhanced to prevent phone and cable companies from misusing their powers to give unfair discounts to rightwingers for high quality service at the expense of leaving everyone else with dirt-road "service".
You forgot to mention the need to remove the "Patriot Act" of 2001 and 2003 and FISA. That too had a lot of effect on communications.
Thank you max. I will bear that in mind now that I had a chance to figure out the connections.
You know what, Al? I'm sure when the time comes you will fret over this most difficult decision you will have had to make, and then do what's best for Minnesotans, SHORT TERM, as opposed to LONG TERM, just like you did with the Deficit Increase Tax and Social Security Termination vote.
Franken voted YES on the health insurance DEFORM fascist bill.
I'm sure, as a good Democrap, he'll be kissing Oily Bomber's arse.
Senator Franken, what happened to privacy and not being psychologically hurt and maniputed when the government started thought reading and verbally and violent dream manipulation of people like myself 17 years ago. You're worried about telecommunications! Give me a break.
Kathleen Heckman
2212 26th Street #5
Sacramento, CA 95818
Dear Al,
Here's a friendly reminder: Congress can actually enact laws. Being "outraged" at the actions of the FCC does not make use of your POWER. YOU have a higher position than the FCC-- so simply being outraged is equivalent to agreeing with them.
Yours, hamster
mtdon writes:
"and wasn't that the true lesson of the 1960's? the rich figured out they could simply buy off the progressive competition and use them to subvert their own message thereby weakening and marginalizing the true left?"
That is not what happened. The 60s Left was not bought off. Instead all of the imagery, including the music and the art, was APPROPRIATED by what we then called the Establishment, starting with a revolution in advertising. People dressed like hippies, selling hamburgers on TV, is but one example.
You sell the Left short. They weren't bought off. Their meme was merely absorbed by Matt Taibbi's giant blood-sucking squid.
It's been downhill ever since.
-30-
No one is interfering with freedom of speech 100 percent, yet, thats cause they want people to say what ever they want, so that they can have community watch groups claim you are a suspicious person and have us placed on watch lists.
Hey , we have 800000 analysts in Washington hanging on our every word, or should I say wanting to hang us for every word!!!!!!
WTF!!!
VP, I don't know if we can really say that the Internet is really protected anymore. Don't get me wrong. I am with you that what Obama and FCC are doing is wrong. But if you consider that the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine already made the Internet unprotected before it even started and later the passing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Patriot Acts of 2001 and 2003, and FISA to further unprotect the Internet from all sorts of nasty corporate takeovers and/or military surveillance, there's not much left for protection.
Excellent analysis. Thank you.
Instead of Net Neutrality, we get a Neutered Net Reality.
Net Neutrality...cause Gosh Darn it, you're worth it!
As soon as liberals (the pompous self-anointed leaders of liberalism, not any one here necessarily who may identify as a liberal) start talking about "saving" something, I know its days are numbered. "Saving" it then becomes a cause for them, they will dominate all attempts to save it and insist that they and only they are in charge of the effort, and then as always they will nobly lose - but their hearts will be in the right place!!
As soon as the Dems say "we are in favor of this" it means it is on the chopping block and soon to be given away the moment the Republicans go "boo!!"
If all of the liberals started saying "we are going to destroy Internet freedom" I would rest a lot easier, since they would be certain to fail.
Got freedom? IF the press isn't free, then we're not free.
Where does Franken stand on the Wikileaks issue--
with Oily Bomber and his cronies?
Jacklondon,
Well stated.
Now that Al has been fully assimilated into the Elected Misrepresentative Duopoly hive-mind, he may as well change the family name back to Frankenstein.
Yep, and just as progressives are assimilated, inevitably, so too would any third party candidates be. It is not possible to ask people to play the game, and then play a different game. well, there is one way. The Communist party in Greece is running, and getting some pretty significant vote totals - 15-20% - and have no platform for government, no promise to govern. They promise to dismantle the system. (I hesitate to offer that example, because Americans are so indoctrinated to reject anything attached to the "C" word.)
You cannot out skates on people, give them a stick. and put them out on the hockey rink and then say "OK begin the opera" and be surprised when they start playing hockey (or lose and get tossed from the game if they insist on standing there and singing an aria.)
We need to tear the hockey arena down and put up an opera house if we are serious about wanting opera.
(I am a long time fan of both hockey and opera (something to so with being from Detroit maybe LOL) just using those as an example.)