Wonders of the Internet keep changing individual lives, American business, and almost the whole world. Internet users enjoy quick access to volumes of information about the fine arts, history, sports, music, cooking, politics, crossword puzzles, medicines, and just about everything else.

Internet sites help individuals, bloggers, small groups, and major political parties spread their views and connect with like-minded people. Those sites are starting to do the same thing in China, much to the consternation of that nation’s repressive leaders.

Internet equality puts ordinary, everyday people on the same footing as the biggest companies. Now, some of those big companies want a change. Powerful special interests want Congress to allow some Internet sites to run much faster — for a fee — than Internet sites operated by the average Joe.

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a bill making it easier for telecommunications companies and others to create two tiers of Internet users, which would end today’s “network neutrality.”

Network neutrality means all Internet sites must be treated equally, so their contents move at the same speed through cyberspace. Internet service providers cannot discriminate.

John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who ran for vice president in 2004, thinks the House bill spells trouble.

“When MoveOn and the Christian Coalition agree about something, it’s a good bet they’re right,” Edwards wrote. “Groups as wide ranging as Gun Owners of America on one side and U.S. PIRG [Public Interest Research Group, a liberal watchdog organization] and the One America Committee on the other are fighting to keep the Internet the way it is now — free and open to anyone with a computer.”

The American Library Association, AARP, National Religious Broadcasters and nearly every consumer group also question the House bill.

That legislation would allow big Internet operators — such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast — to start charging fees to Web site owners such as Google or Microsoft to ensure they remain on the Internet’s “fast lane.”

But site owners who don’t have extra cash to pay protection fees might soon find themselves dragging along winding backroads on the information highway.

The Internet might become more like commercial television. Those who can pay get their message across. Those who can’t, don’t.

The U.S. Senate will soon begin debating this issue. Communications professors Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney, writing on CommonDreams.org, said the question before the Senate is simple:

“Should the Internet be handed over to the handful of cable and telephone companies that control online access for 98 percent of the broadband market? Only a Congress besieged by high-priced telecom lobbyists and stuffed with campaign contributions could possibly even consider such an absurd act.”

With John Edwards, MoveOn.org and the Christian Coalition, we urge citizens everywhere to ask their senators to protect and preserve freedom of speech on the Internet.

© 2006 The Charleston Gazette

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