Here’s video of Ed Markey’s pro-net neutrality amendment presented in Committee (the text of the amendment is here, in PDF format). Markey is very aggressive about protecting internet freedom. Here’s the first paragraph from his opening statement:

Tomorrow, I will be offering a “Network Neutrality” amendment, cosponsored by Mr. Boucher, Ms. Eshoo, and Mr. Inslee, to preserve the Internet and its open, non-discriminatory nature. Since the Subcommittee vote, dozens of web blogs have started talking about this issue. A broad coalition has launched web campaigns, such as www.savetheinternet.com, and www.dontmesswiththenet.com. These coalitions are diverse and growing hourly. They include leading Internet companies such as Ebay, Yahoo, Amazon, as well as entrepreneurs, small businesses, consumer groups, Common Cause, Gun Owners of America, the National Religious Broadcasters, moveon.org, the ACLU, and thousands of concerned citizens. I welcome the support of the Internet community in our legislative efforts.

The reason for the heightened interest is that tens of millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands of American businesses use and rely upon the Internet every day. In addition to its vital economic role, the Internet is also an unparalleled vehicle for open communications by non-commercial users, for religious speech, for civic involvement, and our First Amendment freedoms.

Yet the Internet is at endangered because of the misguided provisions of the bill before us, which put at grave risk the Internet as an engine of innovation, job creation, and economic growth. The bill permits the imposition of new fees, or “broadband bottleneck taxes” for Internet sites to access high-bandwidth consumers. This will stifle openness, endanger our global competitiveness, and warp the web into a tiered Internet of bandwidth haves and have-nots. It is the introduction of creeping Internet protectionism into the free and open World Wide Web.

Tomorrow’s network neutrality debate will present members with a choice. It is a choice between favoring the broadband designs of a small handful of very large companies or safeguarding the dreams of thousands of inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. Tomorrow we will either vote to preserve the Internet as we know it, or instead, vote to fundamentally and detrimentally alter it.

I’d of course be remiss if I didn’t mention that Alyssa Milano blogged about the issue today.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.-->