The Daily Show Explains Net Neutrality

by Matt Stoller, Thu Jul 20, 2006 at 08:14:47 AM EDT

Meanwhile, in Technology Daily, Byron Dorgan says he has the votes to pass the Snowe-Dorgan bill mandating net neutrality protections.

Ferrier said swaying colleagues to support net neutrality is a matter of educating them about the consequences of an Internet dominated by communications giants. "We think we have the votes now to pass this on the floor," added Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt. Snowe and Dorgan issued a joint statement Tuesday reaffirming their plans to move the amendment.

It looks to me like Verizon's Tom Tauke really screwed this one up on the Federal level. With this failure, the telcos are taking franchising to a state and local level, and may hope to avoid any national legislation on net neutrality. They may have given up on national video franchising, though I'm not really sure.

Regardless, they have stirred up a hornet's nest. Millions upon millions of people now know about the concept of a neutral internet, and that is really bad for corporations that rely on non-neutral systems to loot the public interest. The telcos probably think that Google and Microsoft sure kicked some ass on this fight because Verizon execs can't conceive of popular interest in government. They don't know how much they are hated and mistrusted, though they are finding out as their brands sink to Walmart level territory. I hope they enjoy flushing their marketing dollars down the toilet.

Anyway, in fighting this fight, we've popularized new language that will be used in many other populist fights. It's not over, it's not even near the end, as we have to move to the states and get into the trenches on a local level. But the playing field is fundamentally different now.

Update: Find out where your Senator stands here. Please make a call to let them know that you're still watching. I'm in DC, so I have no Senator, alas. Put what you hear in the comments.

Tags: net neutrality, Ted Stevens, telecom (all tags)

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Great webpage...

...to find out where your Senators stand:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=senatema p

by EricJaffa 2006-07-20 08:27AM | 0 recs

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Re: The Daily Show Explains Net Neutrality

I've got two thoughts about Sen. Dorgan's having the votes to pass Snowe-Dorgan:

1) That's great news that he's got the votes.

2) I hope he uses them, not to pass the Snowe-Dorgan Amendment, but to block Sen. Stevens' telecom bill for the rest of the year.

We know what happens to bills in conference committee - all the stuff we like gets stripped out, and bad stuff gets added in. There's no reason this time should be any different. The House conferees will NOT let Snowe-Dorgan be part of the final bill, even if it passes the Senate 100-0.

So memo to Dems: just kill the bill. Then pass Snowe-Dorgan next year, when we're in better shape in Congress.

by RT 2006-07-20 08:29AM | 0 recs

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If he can do that

He may only have the votes to add the amendment, not to kill the entire bill.

by bosdcla14 2006-07-20 11:28PM | 0 recs

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Re: The Daily Show Explains Net Neutrality

FYI.....
"Senate Panel Rallying Industry In Support Of Telecom Measure" from National Journal:
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/tel co/live/tb-QUSY1153337501029.html

by mitchipd 2006-07-20 08:31AM | 0 recs

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Re: The Daily Show Explains Net Neutrality

Tuesday's New York Times:

For reasons yet unexplained by the authorities, the Indian government has apparently directed local Internet service providers to block access to a handful of outlets that host blogs, including the popular blogspot.com. Indian bloggers have reacted with anger and confusion, accusing the government of censorship and demanding to know why their sites have been jammed.

Nilanjana Roy, a Delhi-based writer who runs kitabkhana.blogspot.com, a literary blog, called the seeming censorship "a dangerous precedent."

"You have a right to know what is being banned, and why it's being banned," she said. "I can understand if it's China or Iran or Saudi Arabia. I'm truly appalled when it's my country doing this."

The ban, in theory, meant that people living in India were kept from reading anything that appeared on the blocked outlets -- whether Indian blogs or otherwise.

Something bad happens, so block the entire country from reading anything that ends in blogspot.com -- it can happen here too.

by Bob Brigham 2006-07-20 09:31AM | 0 recs

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Public Interest

After years of conservative drum-beating against the very notion that such a thing as a Public Interest or Public Good exists -- "leave it all to the invisible hand" they say -- it's good to see the tide turning on this.

With any luck, the new Progressive wave will seize upon the type of Public Good which the internet typifies: infrastructure. Creating platforms for economic innovation and citizen well-being is something that States really do have a unique ability to do.

We win on Health Care for the same reasons: it frees businesses and people up to be more effective when their medical coverage is an assumed piece of social infrastructure. The only downside there is that Health Insurance ceases to be a massive scheme of redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top, in the same way as the only "downside" to net neutrality is that telco companies will be unable to exert a private information tax.

by Josh Koenig 2006-07-20 11:26AM | 0 recs