Guest post from Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott
Originally published on TomPaine.com.

A year ago, the future of the free and open Internet looked pretty grim. The telephone companies were firing up the engines of one of the biggest lobbying campaigns in history. All told in 2006, they would spend more than $100 million on advertising, lobbying, campaign contributions, slanted research from coin-operated think tanks and an array of astroturf groups—in an attempt to rewrite communications law. At the top of the priority list was the destruction of “net neutrality.”

Net neutrality is the basic principle that keeps the companies connecting your house to the global network from discriminating against content flowing over the Internet based on its source or ownership. As a result, the Internet has grown into the greatest engine of democratic participation, free speech and economic innovation since the printing press.

When the dust cleared in the 2006 fight in Congress over net neutrality, the telephone lobby—and its hundreds of millions of dollars—fell short. They were thwarted by the grassroots SavetheInternet.com Coalition, which brought together of more than 800 organizations and collected 1.5 million petitions supporting net neutrality. Standing beside them were the titans of Silicon Valley and hundreds of small businesses, librarians, civil libertarians, journalists and thousands of bloggers and YouTubers. As a result of SavetheInternet.com Coalition’s political pressure, Congress closed its doors for the year without passing a new telecom bill. It was a grand moment for supporters of a democratic Internet.

In the last days of 2006, the net neutrality debate heated up again. This time it was not in Congress but at the Federal Communications Commission. AT&T was pushing for final approval of its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth, the largest merger in telecommunications history. The FCC might have rubber stamped the merger for AT&T without a single public interest condition (as the Department of Justice did), but when one of the FCC’s three GOP commissioners, citing a conflict of interest, removed himself from the proceeding, AT&T was left with a divided FCC—two Democrats, two Republicans—and no choice but to compromise.

To get its merger, AT&T agreed to two years of clearly defined net neutrality, an expansion of its network and low prices for new Internet subscribers. In the wake of the merger, much of the discussion in the Internet community has focused on trying to poke holes and find weaknesses in the net neutrality condition that AT&T was forced to accept. This line-by-line critique has attained such a volume in certain circles that you might think it was the most significant element in this story. It is not, not by several country miles.

It was never possible to win a perfect net neutrality victory at FCC through a merger condition. But the terms of this deal have reshaped the debate over the future of the Internet. The phone companies’ two most prominent arguments against net neutrality are now dead. They can no longer argue that net neutrality cannot be defined—because the FCC just did it. Neither can they argue that net neutrality, network build-out, low-cost high-speed Internet and a profitable company are mutually exclusive. AT&T’s agreement means that in the new Congress, the debate is not about whether net neutrality should be the law of the land; it’s about how and when Congress will move to make it so.

Once net neutrality is back on the books, we can set our sights higher than protecting the free and open network we’ve always had. We can start pushing for the big goal: universal access to a world-class broadband network at affordable prices. We need a national broadband policy, not a series of laws designed to prop up the business models of incumbent telephone and cable companies. We want to make the information superhighway a public good, to bring the transformative spirit of free speech and free markets to every community. The organizers of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition recently unveiled the “Internet Freedom Declaration” to pursue these goals.

This is an uphill fight, but the new Congress has leaders in key positions that favor an expansive, public interest broadband policy. In particular, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., now chairs the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over Internet issues. Judging by his speech at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, Markey has a very progressive agenda in mind. Together with Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., we can expect to see close scrutiny and oversight of FCC activities. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin will have to answer for why his commission has watched the United States tumble down the ranks of the world’s leaders in broadband. He will have to answer for why he has consistently opposed net neutrality and pushed an agenda that is indistinguishable from AT&T’s wish list.

We’ll also look to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Senator Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, to put in place a national broadband policy with net neutrality as its cornerstone. Inouye will be supported by Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who recently re-introduced their net neutrality bill. Other important issues for the future of the Internet are also being teed up in the Senate. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has introduced a bill to press the FCC to open up more of the public airwaves for wireless broadband.

Throughout the early months of 2007, we should expect House and Senate Commerce Committees to conduct a series of hearings to determine the best paths for bringing a bigger, better, more affordable Internet to the American public. For once, the lawyers of the largest corporations won’t be the only voices at the table. We’ll see scholars, consumer representatives, unions and entrepreneurs who can give testimony about why we need a universal broadband to super-charge our economy and enhance social opportunity.

The concessions made in the AT&T merger are a big victory for the millions of people who have followed and fought this debate to hang their hats on. We’re not playing defense any longer.

Last week in Memphis, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition unveiled the “Internet Freedom Declaration of 2007,” our plan to make a faster, more open and accessible Internet for all Americans.

Prior to it’s unveiling, several founding members of the Coalition signed on to the Declaration, including Free Press, Consumers Federation of America, Moveon.org Civic Action, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, Common Cause, US Pirg/State Pirgs, United Church of Christ, Media Access Project, Afro-Netizen, Educause, Benton Foundation, Center for Creative Voices in Media, Internet2 and Democracy for America.

>> Click here to sign your organization on to the Declaration.

While Net Neutrality forms the foundation of the Declaration, the plan goes much further, setting forth a broader, more inclusive public agenda for the future of the Internet.

This agenda is built around three fundamental “Internet rights”: 1. Universal, Affordable Access; 2. An Open and Neutral Network; and 3. World Class Quality through Competition.

As the SavetheInternet Coalition gets to work with the new Congress, we plan to marry these principles to a broad grassroots campaign for legislation that fosters a communications infrastructure that better serves the common good.

>> Read the Declaration and join us for action in 2007.

>> Listen to the Save the Internet panel featuring Tim Wu, Matt Stoller, Adam Green and others.

It’s not the fear of God, it’s the fear of voters that scares politicians in Washington, Congressman Ed Markey said Saturday in Memphis.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who now chairs the House Subcommittee that will oversee all telecommunications legislation, promised to protect Internet freedom in his elevated role within Congress.

Click Here To Watch Markey’s YouTube Speech

“We are going to in Washington have a historic debate over the next two years and I will chair the committee that is having those hearings,” Markey told the audience.

“I can promise you this, that unlike the last two years it just won’t be the CEOs of the telephone and cable companies who are there. You will be selecting witnesses to testify right next to them on the same day before the same Congressmen so that the voices of the American people will be heard as well.”

Markey spoke before a crowded convention hall including many hundred SavetheInternet.com Coalition members. The Congressman praised our Coalition’s grassroots campaign, which delivered nearly 1.5 million petitions to Capitol Hill.

“Let me tell you something about Congress,” Markey said. “Congress is a stimulus response institution. There is nothing more stimulating than having 1.5 million people who say I don’t think I want you to keep your job if you won’t keep your hands off the Internet.”

Markey blasted the phone and cable company assault on Net Neutrality, pledging to foster openness, innovation and neutrality during his tenure. But, said markey, he couldn’t safeguard Internet freedom on his own.

According to Markey, the digital revolution has the potential to change our society only if we “animate these technologies with the human values that represent our highest aspirations for our society.”

“The wave of the future is a wave of technological empowerment and innovation. It is a wave of grassroots activism that can make a difference in Washington, D.C. down to every single community in our country. It’s a wave of digital democracy the likes of which we have never seen in the history of our country.”

Markey closed by promising to work with the public to keep this Net Neutrality wave rolling.

Veteran television journalist Bill Moyers opened the National Conference for Media Reform Friday with praise for SavetheInternet.com’s grassroots campaign to keep the Internet open and fair.

“You lit a fire under people to put Washington on Notice,” Moyers told a packed house of more than 3,000 activists and organizers.

Click Here To Watch Moyers’ YouTube Speech

Net Neutrality, which Moyers dubbed the “Equal Access Provision of the Internet,” became a broad public issue “that once again reminded the powers that be that people want the media to foster democracy not to quench it.”

Moyers called our campaign critical, as soon virtually all media will be delivered to homes via a single high speed broadband connection.

“This is the great gift of the digital revolution and you must never let them take it away from you,” he said.

“Without equality of access the Net will become just like cable television where the provider decides what you see and what you pay.”

Moyers highlighted SavetheInternet.com’s grassroots and online organizing efforts, saying that Washington “hadn’t reckoned with this movement.”

“Free Press and SavetheInternet.com orchestrated 800 organizations, a million and a half petitions, countless local events, legions of home-made videos, smart collaboration with allies in industry and a top-shelf communications campaign,” he said.

“Who would have imagined that sitting together in the same democratic broadband pew would be the Christian Coalition, Gun Owners of America, Common Cause and MoveOn.org. And who would have imagined that these would link arms with some of the powerful new media companies to fight for the Internet’s First Amendment.”

Speaking about the recent agreement by AT&T executive Ed Whitacre to adhere to strict Net Neutrality as a condition of his company’s $86 billion merger with BellSouth, Moyers said, “AT&T had to cry uncle.”

“The agreement marks the first time that the federal government has imposed true neutrality — oops equality — on an Internet Access Provider since the debate erupted almost two years ago.”

Regarding our prospects for 2007 and beyond, Moyers said this:

“I believe you changed the terms of the debate. It is no longer about whether equality of access will govern the future of the Internet, it’s about when and how.

“It also signals a change from defense to offense for the backers of the open Net. Arguably, the biggest most effective online organizing campaign ever conducted on a media issue can now turn to passing good laws rather than always having to fight to block the bad ones.”

>> Watch the video at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhx_15qKoJM.

>> For full video of Moyers’ speech, visit the Media Reform Conference Blog.

Last night in Memphis, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition unveiled a visionary plan for a faster, more open and accessible Internet for all Americans.

While Net Neutrality forms the foundation of the “Internet Freedom Declaration of 2007,” the plan goes much further, setting forth a broader, more inclusive public agenda for the future of the Internet.

SavetheInternet.com Shakes it in Memphis

This agenda is built around three fundamental “Internet rights”: 1. Universal, Affordable Access; 2. An Open and Neutral Network; and 3. World Class Quality through Competition.

As the SavetheInternet Coalition gets to work with the new Congress, we plan to marry these principles to a broad grassroots lobbying effort in support of legislation that fosters a communications infrastructure that better serves the common good.

Prior to its broad release, the Declaration was signed by Free Press, Consumers Union, Common Cause, the National Association of State Pirgs, Consumer Federation of America, MoveOn.org Civic Action, Media Access Project, Educause and several other charter SavetheInternet.com Coalition members.

>> Click here to sign your organization on to the Declaration.

The Declaration was released before a crowd of 750 supporters at last night’s “Party for the Future” at Memphis’ Gibson Guitar Factory. The event kicked off this weekend’s National Conference for Media Reform, which will feature workshops and panels on Net Neutrality and discussions of SavetheInternet.com’s plan.

“As the new Congress gets to the business of making law in 2007, we’re going to make sure that they stand with us and against any corporate gatekeepers who seek to turn OUR internet into their private fiefdoms,” Josh Silver, Free Press’ executive director, said during the Memphis party.”

“Thanks to many of you who spoke out in 2006, Congress is now listening.”

The party was co-sponsored by SavetheInternet.com Coalition members Free Press and MoveOn.org Civic Action.

To stay up to speed with the latest developments in Memphis visit the Conference Blog: www.freepress.net/conference/blog/

In an exclusive video for SavetheInternet.com, Sen. Byron Dorgan says he introduced the bipartisan “Net Neutrality Act” (S. 215) to protect the Internet’s potential to foster the “ultimate in democracy” and to stop the online market grab by large phone and cable companies seeking to impose new tolls on the Web.

“Increasingly big interests, cable and telephone companies and others, want to be gatekeepers and have toll charges on the Internet,” Sen. Dorgan says in the video.

“That is, in my judgement, dangerous because some place today out in this country there are a couple of people, college students perhaps, in a dorm room perhaps, who have a great idea, the next idea, the new, new thing.

Along with his colleague Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Dorgan yesterday introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2007.

The bill reignited the Net Neutrality debate on Capitol Hill — coming less than two weeks after AT&T’s concession to Net Neutrality conditions in its planned merger with BellSouth.

Both Dorgan and Snowe called upon Senators to act now to keep the Internet free of gatekeepers who would destroy this revolutionary platform for free speech and economic innovation.

“The only way that they’re going to be able to take that innovation that idea to the Internet is if someone out there is not discriminating against the small interests, against the little businesses. I want to keep the Internet open and free,” Dorgan says.

“The Internet Freedom and Preservation Act will give us the opportunity to preserve the Internet as we know it. That’s what has allowed us to progress and to create such great new wealth and opportunities not only in this country but in the world.”

The fight for Net Neutrality has resumed in the opening days of the 110th Congress as Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) today introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2007.

Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)

The bill reopens the debate in Congress over Net Neutrality — the fundamental principle that prevents Internet service providers from discriminating online — and comes less than two weeks after AT&T’s concession to Net Neutrality conditions in its planned merger with BellSouth.

SavetheInternet.com applauds Senators Dorgan and Snowe for reigniting the essential Net Neutrality debate on Capitol Hill. Our elected officials now must act to keep the Internet free of gatekeepers who would destroy this revolutionary platform for free speech and economic innovation.

The American public has an overwhelming interest in seeing this bill pass into law, ensuring that the online marketplace of ideas remains open and vibrant.

“This bill represents the appropriate next step following the Net Neutrality condition the Federal Communications Commission placed on AT&T’s merger with BellSouth,” said Mark Cooper, the Consumer Federation of America’s director of research.

Byron Dorgan (D – N. Dakota)

“With the leadership of Senators Dorgan and Snowe, the Congress should act swiftly to make permanent the Net Neutrality conditions of the AT&T merger and apply them to all broadband providers,” added Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analyst for Consumers Union. “The legislation is the first step towards a national policy that will ensure that all consumers, not just the most affluent, have affordable access to high-speed Internet services.”

The Dorgan-Snowe bill also has the support of Senators Patrick Leahy (chairman of judiciary), John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Tom Harkin.

In the House, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) is expected to reintroduce a Net Neutrality proposal, which seeks similar requirements. An aide to the incoming chairman of a House Internet and telecommunications subcommittee, told Anne Broache of CNET News that it was not immediately clear when Markey would take this action. Meanwhile, House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) said on Wednesday that passing Net Neutrality legislation would be a “high priority” this year.

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Recommended: Harold Feld’s legal analysis of the Bill

The telecommunications giant AT&T, whose chief Edward Whitacre once called Net Neutrality indefinable and its supporters “nuts,” has now signed off on the principle as a condition of its mega merger with BellSouth.

But that hasn’t stemmed the flow of rhetoric from Net Neutrality’s naysayers, who are readying their lawyers, think tanks and lobbyists for another assault on our position.

AT&T’s Ed Whitacre chats up FCC Chairman Kevin Martin

AT&T’s agreement put aside their executive’s own argument that Net Neutrality didn’t really exist.

It also puts to rest his bogus notion that Net Neutrality will cripple the phone company’s plans to build out broadband services. AT&T agreed to this condition — and also to offer cheaper broadband services – and yet they continue to expand their networks and offer services to the tune of $24.5 billion in gross profits in 2006.

Net Neutrality is good for smaller businesses as well. Writes the Bangor Daily News on Monday:

“That temporary concession could set a framework for Internet democracy that would benefit not only such huge users as Google and eBay but also small businesses like Maine wreath makers and crafters, protecting them against future discrimination as they market products and services online. It also would keep open the way for new startups to flourish, as YouTube and MySpace have zoomed out of nowhere.”

While we’ve cheered AT&T’s temporary concessions as a step in the right direction, and are now looking to make them permanent, Washington’s “Astroturfs” and coin-operated think tanks are mounting a new campaign against a free and open Internet.

The AT&T agreement “was a shakedown, no question,” Patrick Ross of the Progress & Freedom Foundation told the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend.

What Mr. Ross fails to tell the Chronicle’s reporter is that his D.C. think tank has been taking AT&T and Verizon money hand over fist to generate phony studies that trumpet as good for consumers the Internet market grab by these same virtual monopolies.

The supreme irony, of course, is that a paid operative of the phone lobby is now labeling as “a shakedown” our legitimate efforts to put the public’s interests before those of his corporate benefactors.

Ross seems to have forgotten for whom this government is supposed to work.

Meanwhile, Wall Street has ignored AT&T’s dim predictions that Net Neutrality would choke off investment in their efforts to speed Internet wires to the home.

Since the merger was announced the company’s stock value has held steady. “By and large the market did not view (AT&T’s concessions) as particularly onerous or even material,” one financial expert told the Chronicle.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board got it only half right when they wrote (“Net Discrimination,” Jan. 2) that Beltway lobbyists exerted an unfair influence over the Net Neutrality debate.

But they blamed Net Neutrality supporters for wielding a bigger stick in Washington when by far the largest sum of money being poured into PACs, campaign contributions and high spending D.C. law firms comes from the phone and cable companies themselves.

The political contributions of Net Neutrality supporters pales by comparison to AT&T’s. Rather our influence is expressed by the number of real people — more than 1.4 million by my last count — who have urged their elected representatives to protect Net Neutrality and put the interest of the public before those of the nation’s largest phone and cable companies.

The Journal editors added, “the one thing no one should be deceived about is that this ambush has anything to do with ‘consumers,’” mischaracterizing Net Neutrality as a war between corporate titans. That all of the nation’s major consumer protection groups support Net Neutrality strongly suggests otherwise.

But you won’t be hearing that from the Net naysayers.

SavetheInternet.com Coalition received remarkable press coverage in the New Year, as Congress returns to Washington and the business of writing better telecommunciations legislation. Most of the coverage labeled AT&T’s recent concession on Net Neutrality a significant win for the public interest. Others called upon a new Congress to act in 2007 to make Net Neutrality — as the New York Times puts it — “a basic rule of the road.”

Here’s a sampling coverage from the last 24 hours:

New York Times:

The cable and telephone companies have fought net neutrality with a lavishly financed and misleading lobbying campaign, because they stand to gain an enormous windfall. But there is growing support from individuals and groups across the political spectrum, from MoveOn.org to the Gun Owners of America, who worry about what will happen to their free speech if Internet service providers are allowed to pick and choose the traffic they carry … On the information superhighway, net neutrality should be a basic rule of the road.

CNet News:

Although some FCC commissioners have asserted that the agreement is not a public policy mandate, it could serve as a blueprint for members of Congress preparing to reintroduce bills intended to bar network operators like AT&T from charging extra fees to content providers for added perks. “The agreement once and for all puts to rest the bogus argument that no one can define Net neutrality,” said Ben Scott, policy director for the advocacy group Free Press, which coordinates a pro-Net neutrality coalition called Save the Internet.

Ars Technica:

SavetheInternet.com, one of the most vocal groups lobbying for net neutrality, said that the decision “paves [the] path to Congress.” Ben Scott, another neutrality supporter who directs Free Press, likewise believes that this is only the first step to the Rose Garden. “The bottom line is whether this merger condition advances our cause in the marketplace and in Congress,” he said in the wake of the announcement. “In the market, this condition will have the effect of disciplining bad behavior—certainly for AT&T, and likely for the industry as a whole.”

National Journal:

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, which coordinates the pro-network neutrality campaign, said the deal “once and for all puts to rest the bogus argument that no one can define net neutrality…The FCC just did it, and the sky hasn’t fallen.” The merger sets the bar for the entire industry, Scott said. “We are no longer having a debate about whether net neutrality should be the law of the land. We are having a debate about how and when,” he declared.

Inside Bay Area:

“If we lose network neutrality, we lose the most promising method for regular people to access and provide diverse independent news, information and entertainment,” said Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois telecommunications professor and co-founder of Free Press, a telecommunications lobbying organization. “We will see the Internet become like cable TV — a handful of massive companies will decide what you can see and how much it will cost.”

Tech Web News:

In the meantime, SavetheInternet.com drew mentions during political campaigns, support from famous musicians, and content contributions from Internet users. It has gained nearly 1.4 million signatures in favor of network neutrality and distributed public messages through video, blogs, and e-mail. The group argues that if the government fails to regulate the Internet, Web content would go the way of television and radio, with a few companies controlling most of the user experience.

And this from WebProNews in late December:

“Because of Free Press, SaveTheInternet.com, and MoveOn.org, an obscure, difficult to grasp concept won the support of 1.3 million petitioners, who made 50,000 phone calls to Congress, and spread the word to hundreds of thousands of others… What’s happened in the last year has been nothing short of amazing, and those heroics should be recognized.”