Internet Freedom in the House
By Tim Karr, July 31, 2009
Once and for all, a bill to make Net Neutrality the law made its way to Congress on Friday afternoon when Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 3458).
This landmark legislation would protect Net Neutrality under the Communications Act, safeguard the future of the open Internet, and protect Internet users from discrimination by network owners that increasingly seek to control the free-flowing Web.
"The future of the Internet as we know it depends on maintaining freedom and openness online," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press. "This crucial legislation will help to ensure that the public -- not big phone and cable companies -- controls the fate of the Internet."
If passed, Net Neutrality would become the simple rule of the road -- protecting economic prosperity, democratic participation and free speech online. It would protect the fundamental genius of the Internet -- essentially an open network that lets everyone innovate without permission.
"If we don’t make Net Neutrality the law once and for all, we could see the innovation and promise of the Internet derailed forever," Scott said.
In the first six months of 2009, the phone and cable industry spent tens of millions of dollars to hire hundreds of lobbyists to fight the public interest and become the Internet’s gatekeepers.
The Internet Freedom Preservation Act is now squarely in their crosshairs. Expect them to crank up their P.R. machine to tear down Net Neutrality and attack its many supporters. We saw this before in 2006 -- when Net Neutrality was stripped out of legislation by a heavily mobilized army of lobbyists.
Now, with the introduction of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, momentum has shifted in the public’s favor.
We have a president who is an outspoken supporter of Net Neutrality, congressional leadership willing to fight for an open Internet, and a pro-Neutrality chairman newly ensconced at the FCC.
Since the fight for Net Neutrality began, more than 1.6 million Americans have picked up the phone, signed petitions, spoken out publicly and written letters to urge their members of Congress to get behind Net Neutrality.
Now, we must push this bill over the finish line. Tell your member of Congress to side with the public -- not with the corporate lobbyists -- and take a final stand for an open Internet by supporting the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009.
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Comments
The internet should always be
The internet should always be freedom of speech. They should never stop this. Unsure what they are trying to do. church sound systems
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The internet should and will
The internet should and will always remain a place of free speech, a powerful networking tool that can allow one individual to speak their mind and have the world listen, trying to control the internet should be a crime in itself.
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Net Neutrality Legislation
The US government is proposing broad new regulations for telecommunications and cable internet service providers.
The new proposals appear to target specific providers for regulation and government oversight. Specifically, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has proposed the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, or the “Net Neutrality” bill, outlining government policies to impose new governance and restrictions targeting telecommunications and cable providers AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and Comcast.
The proposed is based on the unfounded fear that service providers will “control who can and cannot offer content, services and applications over the Internet utilizing such networks.”
The Markey bill indicates the vast majority of consumers receive services from only one or two dominant internet service providers. And, the bill says the national economy could be harmed “if” these providers interfered with access to internet applications.
The bill proposes regulations imposing equal treatment (eg price/performance) of all internet traffic and content, regardless of content type and delivery costs. Specifically, the legislation proposes internet service providers could not sell prioritized internet applications or services.
One of the main problems with the proposed legislation is the lack of recognition of costs to provide internet services. Some applications, such as video are bandwidth hogs and require significantly greater network infrastructure and associated costs to deliver when compared to the network infrastructure costs to deliver email access. Under the proposed legislation, services providers would have to charge the low bandwidth users (casual browsers and email readers) more to offset the higher costs of the video users. One result of the proposed legislation would be less consumer choice and a hidden “bandwidth hog tax”. Today, most service providers offer tiered products and pricing to consumers and businesses to account for the additional costs to deliver bandwidth intensive applications. You pay more if you use more under the tiered pricing model. These are not “discriminatory” practices. Rather, tiered pricing and application prioritization are sound business models delivering reliable, profitable product choices and unburdened internet ecommerce. Consumers and businesses currently have choices. The proposed legislation takes away choice and increases costs to consumers and businesses.
Another problem with the legislation is, certain applications such as voice and video over the internet require prioritization and special treatment to work properly. The proposed legislation makes existing application prioritization products and networking practices illegal. Internet service providers would have to dismantle these services to make all internet applications “equal” with no prioritization schema. The new legislation would kill off reliable voice and video over the internet as we know it.
The other problem with the Net Neutrality legislation is anti-trust and federal trade regulations are already in place to protect consumers and business from monopolistic practices and unfair trade. For example, when AT&T disconnected MCI customers in 1974, MCI filed and won a successful anti-trust lawsuit resulting in breakup of the AT&T monopoly. Another example is, the Federal Trade Commission recently investigated possible antitrust violations caused by the Apple and Google sharing two board directors. Arthur Levinson has since stepped down from both Apple and Google boards.
The US government would better use taxpayer dollars and valuable legislation time by asking two questions:
Which companies are hiring lobbyists and launching advertising campaigns promoting Net Neutrality legislation?
What is their agenda?
Net Neutrality legislation is not needed. Consumers would have less choice and higher costs. Internet service providers would incur additional costs and compliance overhead. Taxpayers would pay higher taxes to create and support additional government oversight organizations.
What business and consumers need is effective interpretation, oversight and enforcement of existing laws and regulations.
Disclosure – Joe Tighe has no paid relationships, products or endorsements from any company, political or government organization cited in this article.
The internet should and will
The internet should and will always remain a place of free speech, a powerful networking tool that can allow one individual to speak their mind and have the world listen, trying to control the internet should be a crime in itself.
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HR 3458, Trojan Horse of Net Neutrality
In a Neutral Network every user can communicate with every other user without restriction of any kind.
HR 3458, the so-called Net Neutrality bill, is an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 which is the bill that established the FCC. It empowers the FCC to ensure free traffic in legal content.
Due to its pervasive discrimination between Legal and illegal content. It is clear that HR 3458 draws clear lines in the sand only safeguarding Legal traffic. Because this bill makes distinctions between legal and illegal traffic, the freedoms it provides are only applicable to traffic that is determined to be legal. If this bill passes the freedom of your internet use, and its possible restriction by FCC, will be determined by current and future laws.
'Legal' and 'Illegal' are shifting definitions, that can change with the passage of further laws. The passage of a new law is all that will stand between the freedom of your traffic and its restriction.
Does that sound like Network Neutrality to you? Does this bill protect the freedom of all users to communicate? Don't be fooled. Of course not.
A real net neutrality bill would protect traffic of all kinds.
HR 3458 is a Trojan Horse masquerading as a defense of users rights. On the outside it looks like Net Neutrality, but on the inside is a weapon against illegal traffic.
Don't be fooled by the video clip this lobbying site has put together claiming that HR 3458 is a good, necessary, and Net Neutral bill. This video is dishonest. The video was made by cutting segments out from several web videos that are authentically Pro Net Neutrality. They appear to be incomplete, out of context, and are most likely unauthorized by their creators.
My name is Bradley Litwin. I work at a restaurant in San Diego and I am in no way affiliated with any lobby, or political party. In fact, I dislike both parties. I am simply a private citizen concerned for the future of the internet. Please join me in spreading the word about HR 3458's dishonest attempt to violate Network Neutrality.
HR 3458 Save? the Internet???
THANK YOU, Bradley, for posting your opposing viewpoint to the proposed bill.
Frankly, when I saw that Obama supported anything that suggested free speech
or lack of government control, I started looking for the smoking gun. It could not
be possible that the alleged supporters of this bill could also support any bill
that is idealogically opposite to the Marxist-Socialist doctrines they promote.
I am also disgusted with the Republican party, for abdicating their responsibility
to fiscally conservative values, and now vote as an Independent. Who would
believe that in 2008 we would elect an ARAB-American as President who has
NO CLUE this nation was founded on individual liberty and self-reliance. Instead,
this product of Chicago politics believes Big Government is the answer which
means his agenda is predicated on absolute control over the people who elected
him. It is pathetic we have to read between the lines of such legislation...but
there is no real change we can believe in... just a bigger and more frightening
grip on American taxpayers. You are commended for your observations and
effort to clarify yet another hard left tactic to muzzle communication outlets that
are essential to defending our freedom.
Editorialized message to my representative
Tim,
I hope you don't mind, but I personalized your form letter to representatives as follows, for my representative:
I'm writing to urge you to support the Internet Freedom Preservation
Act of 2009 (H.R. 3458) recently introduced in Congress.
Like the Postal Service before it, we cannot allow content to dictate
priority over delivery. All parcels and packets must be treated
identically. They must be free from inspection and prejudice to
preserve the sanctity of privacy in the modern age. Simply put: the
Postal Service is not allowed to collude with car dealerships to
prioritize advertisements over birthday cards from my grandmother. So
too, should the Internet remain free from collusion between access
providers and content providers.
It has become more evident, in the last few years, that major providers
are invested in auctioning our freedoms to the highest bidder. They
are no longer content with profiting simply by providing stable,
fault-tolerant, high-bandwidth networks--instead seeking to profit from
the data which traverses them.
This affront is a direct abridgment and infringement upon the freedom
of speech and peaceable assembly. The acceleration of these
practices--where no law currently protects, nor any individual consumer
can effectively resist--seeks to doom vast swaths of the Internet to
this fate.
The major networks have formed an impenetrable trust into which only
the arm of the law may permeate.
The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 will ensure that the
Internet remains open and free from discrimination by writing Net
Neutrality protections into law. Net Neutrality is the cornerstone of
innovation, free speech and democracy on the Internet. Your support
right now is essential. Please show your support by co-sponsoring the
Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009.
I have read the Bill, and while I was initially concerned that it would contain particulars about government involvement as a service provider, I see no such declarations. Everything about the Bill strikes me as just and proper in the modern age.
Thanks for your efforts, Tim. I'm certain we wouldn't be here without them.
-Dave
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Thanks for you information
Not a good Bill
As I do agree with Net Neutrality I think the bill at its core is flawed. It gives Internet Service Providers the ability to "thwart Illegal uses". P2P and Torrents are used mostly in illegal acquisition of copywriter material. However it has legitimate applications as well. Thus by page 4 they have already gone against what true net neutrality is. Which I would define as, unlimited access to any video, content, data, software, site or other types of data that can be accessed over the internet. This bill is not Net Neutrality it is only more of the same. If this bill was applied to the electric company it would basically give them the right to turn off power to any place that MAY be conducting illegal activity. As I read it, THIS IS NOT A GOOD BILL.
Read the bill
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills...
HR 3458, The Trojan Horse of Net Neutrality
In a Neutral Network every user can communicate with every other user without restriction of any kind.
HR 3458, the so-called Net Neutrality bill, is an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 which is the bill that established the FCC. It empowers the FCC to ensure free traffic in legal content.
Due to its pervasive discrimination between Legal and illegal content. It is clear that HR 3458 draws clear lines in the sand only safeguarding Legal traffic. Because this bill makes distinctions between legal and illegal traffic, the freedoms it provides are only applicable to traffic that is determined to be legal. If this bill passes the freedom of your internet use, and its possible restriction by FCC, will be determined by current and future laws.
'Legal' and 'Illegal' are shifting definitions, that can change with the passage of further laws. The passage of a new law is all that will stand between the freedom of your traffic and its restriction.
Does that sound like Network Neutrality to you? Does this bill protect the freedom of all users to communicate? Don't be fooled. Of course not.
A real net neutrality bill would protect traffic of all kinds.
HR 3458 is a Trojan Horse masquerading as a defense of users rights. On the outside it looks like Net Neutrality, but on the inside is a weapon against illegal traffic.
Don't be fooled by the video clip this lobbying site has put together claiming that HR 3458 is a good, necessary, and Net Neutral bill. This video is dishonest. The video was made by cutting segments out from several web videos that are authentically Pro Net Neutrality. They appear to be incomplete, out of context, and are most likely unauthorized by their creators.
My name is Bradley Litwin. I work at a restaurant in San Diego and I am in no way affiliated with any lobby, or political party. In fact, I dislike both parties. I am simply a private citizen concerned for the future of the internet. Please join me in spreading the word about HR 3458's dishonest attempt to violate Network Neutrality.
My understanding is that the
My understanding is that the creation and use of various kinds of software is protected by the First Amendment. I don't believe that the Congress, or anyone else, can simply declare something like p2p software to be illegal.
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