Thanks!

Supporters of Internet freedom took to the pavement Wednesday and Thursday in 25 cities nationwide, delivering SavetheInternet petitions to their senators and urging them to oppose the phone and cable company attempt to gut Net Neutrality.

From Buffalo to Fayetteville, Orlando to Seattle, the outpouring of public support for Net Neutrality comes as the Senate’s August recess comes to a close, and our elected representatives return to Washington and the business of making laws.

Unfortunately, that business has been overrun by the nation’s largest phone and cable giants. Companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are pouring more than $100 million into campaign contributions, phony “Astroturf” PR firms, lobbyists and TV and radio advertising in a drive to strong arm Congress into passing Sen. Ted Stevens’ bad telecom legislation (HR 5252).

On Wednesday and Thursday, SavetheInternet.com supporters fanned out across the country to speak back to the big phone and cable companies. Their message to Senators: “Don’t sell out the Internet. Serve the public interest. Support real Net Neutrality.”

In each location (Pictured: Montpelier - left; New York - above; Minneapolis, Denver, Providence and Seattle - below), citizens are urged their senators to place the needs of the public and our democracy ahead of the interest of phone and cable lobbyists — and to oppose any legislation that lacks enforceable Net Neutrality protections.

Here are some reports from the cities:

New York Senator Pledges Support

“We are extremely pleased that both of our New York Senators are pro Net Neutrality,” Jessica Findley, a freelance graphic designer from Brooklyn, said on Wednesday. “We are proud that they represent the importance of this freedom and hope that other senators will follow their great lead.” Findley and others delivered more than 50,000 petitions to the offices of Sen. Charles Schumer, who earlier in the week pledged his support for Net Neutrality.

Watch the video from New York and read Schumer’s statement

Iowa’s Harkin Joins Fight

Two days prior to SavetheInternet’s Des Moines rally, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin pledged to “strongly support Net Neutrality legislation.” In a statement released to press he wrote: “If Congress does not insist that this openness and neutrality remain a hallmark of the Internet, then we risk transitioning to a system where Internet providers can favor one website over another, based on money or content. This would be an unacceptable result.”

WHOTV-13 covered Wednesday’s Des Moines event where people gathered to thank Senator Harkin for his decision. At the event, Ben Bellus, a small business owner said that killing Net Neutrality could force small businesses to pay a higher rate for fast Internet service. “It would reduce the efficiency of our services to our clients and that is something we really don’t want to do, it isn’t fair.”

Watch the video from Des Moines and read Harkin’s statement

Senator Dayton Announces Support at Minneapolis Rally

Sen. Mark Dayton chose the Savetheinternet.com event in Minneapolis to come out in support of Net Neutrality legislation — and against Stevens’ Bill. Dayton told supporters that he would become a co-sponsor the Snowe-Dorgan pro-Net Neutrality bill. “I will work with the two Senate sponsors to enact the Net Neutrality principles of equal access to the Internet into law this year.”

Watch the video from Minneapolis

Vermont’s Jeffords Gets Behind Net Freedom

Days before Thursday’s SavetheInternet.com rally in Montpelier, Sen. James Jeffords issued a statement that he would “support the concept of network neutrality, as I believe the Internet works best when users can control their access to content. I recognize the benefits of reasonably priced, high-speed Internet access, especially in rural areas.” Jeffords said he was “disappointed the Commerce Committee was not able to agree on a stronger network-neutrality provision.”

Watch the Video from Montpelier

Skewering Telco Lies in Detroit

In Detroit, outside Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s office, David Pettit of the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan said, “Powerful telephone company lobbyists will tell you one of two things — both of which, of course, are false. First, they will tell you that the Stevens bill already preserves Net Neutrality. This is completely not true. Second, they might say ‘don’t regulate the Internet. Let the market decide’ … All we want to do is reinstate the Net Neutrality principles that guarantee that the Internet treats everyone fairly.”

Watch the video from Detroit

Rallies Continue Through Thursday

On Wednesday, other petition delivery events were held at senators’ offices in Buffalo, Fayetteville, Denver, Boston, Newark, Providence, Baltimore, Portland (ME), Seattle, Eau Claire and Milwaukee.

Thursday petition events were held in Montpelier, Wilmington, Orlando, Honolulu, Louisville, Columbus, Madison, Spokane and Charleston. Successful events were held earlier this month in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Stay tuned to this blog for more reports from across the country.

Before senators return to the Beltway next week, their constituents have put the issue sharply into focus.

///ends

NOTE: If you particpated in an event, please tell us about it in the comment thread below.

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MEDIA CLIPS OF THE DAY:

DENVER, COLORADO CBS NEWS
SaveTheInternet.com Petition Delivery to Sen. Salazar, 8/30/06

DES MOINES, IOWA NBC NEWS
Petition Delivery to Sen. Harken, 8/30/06

PORTLAND, MAINE PUBLIC RADIO
Petition Delivery to Sen. Collins, 8/30/06

BURLINGTON, VERMONT. CBS NEWS
Petition Delivery to Sen. Jeffords, 8/31/06

FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. ABC NEWS
Petition Delivery to Sen. Lincoln, 8/31/06

MADISON. WISCONSIN RADIO NETWORK
Petition Delivery to Sen. Kohl, 8/31/06

MADISON. NPR, WISCONSIN - 87.7
Petition Delivery to Sen. Kohl, 8/31/06

WILMINGTON, DE. WDEL 1150AM
Petition Delivery to Sen. Carper, 8/31/06

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. ABC NEWS
Petition Delivery to Sen. Bingaman

Boston (below):

Thanks to a recent video on YouTube, more people than ever are adding their voices to the fight to protect Net Neutrality.

Posted by YouTube director and celebrity Boh3m3, the video titled “Save the Internet!” features a black and white narration pieced together from different YouTubers recording at their computers. In it, they describe how important the Internet has become and what might happen if the Internet were no longer free.

“The Internet. Your world. Where you can buy, sell, watch, show, listen, talk, enjoy. Connect your computer and you are connected to the world. The Internet has given us so much. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Right now big money corporations like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress to privatize the Internet. This means slower connections to sites that are under competing ISPs. If they load at all. … Do you want companies to control your clicks? Keep your Internet free.”

The video was posted on August 17 and quickly bounced to the featured videos list. In less than a week, it has been viewed over 300,000 times, receiving more than 2,000 comments – and both numbers continue to climb.

The “Save the Internet!” video has also inspired YouTubers to post their own creative video responses. From business-owner Fathead to 16 year-old Bananasfordinner, these YouTubers offer their own unique perspective on the importance of Net Neutrality.

Another YouTuber, juicysauce, uses a clever animation to depict a grim world without Net Neutrality in “The Internet of Tomorrow.” The future without Net Neutrality — where minions of telco giant “Concast” eliminate “homegrown blogs” and “pesky small businesses” — offers “dozens of sites and services.”

Online video has become an important tool for the grassroots. In a recent article, the New York Times concedes that video sites like YouTube “may be changing the political process” by creating “more accountability and more democratization of information in the process.”

The success of videos like “Save the Internet!” is a testament to the free and open Internet, where users – not AT&T, Verizon or Bell South – are responsible for promoting the best ideas.

Check out Save the Internet! and The Internet of Tomorrow on YouTube and add your own response.

On Thursday, a diverse group of New Mexicans delivered 7,500 signed petitions to the Santa Fe and Albuquerque offices of Sen. Jeff Bingaman — urging the senator to defend Internet freedom at a time when it is at risk for local small businesses and families.

The petition deliveries — led by local chili entrepreneur Gary Maricle and including dozens of local businesspeople, media makers, non-profit organization representatives, consumer advocates and citizens — called the senator’s attention to legislation in Congress, which if passed would allow the nation’s largest phone and cable companies to erect new tolls on the Internet and effectively undermine user choice.

Sen. Bingaman will cast a critical vote in the Senate, but he has yet to take a stand on this issue.

“A neutral Internet allows businesses to compete on merit, not based on which company can afford to pay gatekeepers like AT&T to have their site open more quickly than their competitors,” said Maricle before delivering the petitions to a Bingaman staffer in Albuquerque “We need Senator Bingaman to declare his support for Net Neutrality so the goods we produce have a fair shot of being sold online against the giant corporations who will dominate the Internet if Net Neutrality were gone.”

The Albuquerque and Santa Fe events were covered by local TV, radio and print media, including a report on New Mexico Public Radio which pressed Senator Bingaman to make a statement on the issue.

A report by the local ABC affiliate KOAT showed a stack of the 7,500 petitions outside the senator’s Albuquerque offices. The New Mexico petitions are a part of the more than one million signatures that the SavetheInternet.com Coalition has collected and delivered to Congress since April.

Big telephone and cable companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are trying to eliminate Net Neutrality by spending tens of millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists, campaign contributions and TV, radio and print ad buys. But while Senators have returned to their states for august recess, they’re getting an earful from constituents who are demanding that Net Neutrality be preserved.

Before Congress returns to Washington in September, our elected representatives need to heed the advice of their constituents, and put service to the public before the moneyed interests of AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and their high-paid lobbyists and flacks.

SavetheInternet.com coalition supporters have been busy this August tracking down their senators and speaking up for Internet freedom at public events.

Sean, in Hawaii, asked Sen. Daniel Akaka if he would support Net Neutrality. In front of a live audience and countless television viewers, the Senator responded with a resounding “Yes!” Akaka had been previously undeclared on the issue.

In Paragould, Ark., Sen. Blanche Lincoln discussed Net Neutrality with her constituents after SavetheInternet.com supporters raised the issue at a recent lunch reception. “I want to make sure if you live on a county road or in a town with less than 20,000 people, you can get on the Internet,” Lincoln said. “I don’t want anyone at a disadvantage to get on the Internet.”

Earlier this week, Juan, from BlueJersey.com caught up with Sen. New Jersey Senator Robert Menedez at a town hall meeting and reports that the senator, who was previously undeclared on the issue, came out in favor of Net Neutrality.

Senator Conrad Burns from Montana (pictured right), is still towing the phone and cable company line in the Net Neutrality fight. When confronted by coalition supporters at a picnic in Fort Missoula, he claimed he was for a “free Internet” but that the Net Neutrality bill contained some provisions that would be damaging to his constituents. One wonders if he’s referring to the good people of Montana or telecom lobbyists?

Burns’ anti-neutrality comments come from a senator who has received more than $210,000 in campaign contributions this cycle from the telecom/technology sector, according to a report this week in the National Journal’s Technology Daily. In that category, Burns is second only to Sen. George Allen of Virginia, who received $260,132 in campaign contributions from the likes of AT&T, Comcast, BellSouth and Verizon.

If you believe in a free and open Internet, let your senator know. Senators are typically at home in August and often hold public events such as town hall meetings or listening sessions. We need to show up for these meetings and tell them how important Net Neutrality is to all of us.

Take a few minutes to check your senator’s Web site or make a phone call and find out where your senator will be this August. Tell us what you find out.

If you plan to attend a public meeting, go to our state-by-state Senate Action Guide for tools and resources that will help you speak up for Internet freedom.

David Cohen is Comcast’s uber-lobbyist. His role is to help the company quash potential competition. Cohen operates in D.C., at state capitals, and city hall. When Comcast believes that competition will emerge, they call on Mr. Cohen.

For example, Comcast played a major role in the passage of anti-public interest legislation in a number of states banning community broadband networks.

Now the Roberts family has set Mr. Cohen to undermine what is the biggest threat to the nation’s # 1 cable monopoly: an open Internet. Cohen just wrote an op-ed yesterday in the San Jose Mercury News.

He had the chutzpah to say that rules ensuring all online content was treated fairly would be harmful because they could stifle “a child friendly-content zone” online! This coming from one of the leading providers of porn—Comcast!

Comcast has also just begun promoting some of its new on-demand channels, including Playboy, Howard Stern, and something called “Dating on Demand.” (from its Web site: “our stealth crew of sneaky eavesdroppers trails close behind and captures everything on tape. And we mean everything — the good, the bad and the “Holy crap can you believe he did that!”).

So, when Mr. Cohen (pictured right) makes the phony charge that Net Neutrality would take channel space away from kids services or health information—what he really means is that Comcast wants to control all the space itself. It wants to use bandwidth/channel capacity so it can profit from porn and other high-revenue content.

It doesn’t want any video or online competition to emerge that might take away eyeballs, ad dollars, and subscription revenues.

The truth is Comcast, like other net neutrality opponents AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner, are terrified of an open Internet. If the Net remains open, then anyone can provide phone or video service. Who would need a Comcast then? No one.

That’s why Comcast is opposed to net neutrality, and why it is buying next-generation broadband technology from Cisco. Comcast wants to serve as a gatekeeper over the flow of video and data coming into our homes. Net neutrality rules would prevent Comcast from becoming a digital super-monopoly.

Beware of cable lobbyists—they’re a hazard to our democracy’s health.

– This post is by Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy — a SavetheInternet.com Coalition member. Read more at Jeff’s blog “Digital Destiny.”

Say you are a corporation with a cause — convincing Congress to help you pad your profits.

Normally, unleashing an army of lobbyists with terms like “free market competition” and “deregulation” will suffice. But this time you face a grassroots coalition that is taking the issue off the Hill and into the mainstream.

What should you do?

Use the telco strategy — imitate grassroots behavior by growing Astroturf. But it won’t be cheap. It takes millions to seed the media with the fake notion of popular support.

You’ll need a high priced, inside-the-Beltway PR firm, a team of marketing consultants and a coin-operated mouthpiece. At a premium rate, these people will do all of your dirty work.

Add a Web site, a catchy slogan and a seemingly populist message with misleading talking points. Blatant lies are OK, too. Many in the corporate media are happy to quote your Astroturf crew without checking behind the curtain.

Throw in some amateur-looking online videos, a blog and maybe a few cutesy cartoons. These will all be provided by your consultants. Pray that your videos appear homespun enough to go viral on YouTube.

Finally – and this is the most important step – obscure the links between your corporation and your newly created “Astroturf” group. Anything other than a vague affiliation will ruin all of the fake credibility you seek.

Results are not guaranteed.

Grassroots groups like Common Cause are very good at uncovering corporate connections to your Astroturf – and they will not hesitate to expose you.

Common Cause President Chellie Pingree says Astroturf campaigns “are dangerous for our democracy.”

Her organization today outed the Astroturfers at Hands off the Internet, NetCompetition, TV4US, The Future…Faster and Video Access Alliance for touting “so-called consumer choice” and “consumer benefits” as they quietly maneuver on behalf of their corporate sponsors at the phone and cable companies.

Let this be a lesson: growing Astroturf is a risky investment. But give it a go, and hope that no one is watching too closely.

Timothy B. Lee — a little-known libertarian think tanker not to be confused with Tim Berners-Lee, developer of the World Wide Web — published an article last week on the New York Times op-ed page warning of the “unintended consequences” of reinstating Net Neutrality protections. He points to the “cautionary tale” of the 1887 creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroads.

In the following post, Mark Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America, responds:

Timothy Lee’s “history lesson” on regulation and Network Neutrality neglects several key points. While he argues that “regulatory capture” turned the railroad industry into a cartel, he never addresses the pervasive problem of “unjust discrimination between persons, places, commodities, or particular descriptions of traffic,” which the Collum Commission found in the unregulated railroad industry prior to passage of the Interstate Commerce Act. This is the more relevant historical parallel.

Likewise, in his history of the Internet, Lee fails to note that it was Network Neutrality — or “nondiscrimination” — adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in the 1968 Computer Inquiries that prevented the telephone companies from interfering with the free flow of information that sparked the growth of the Internet. He also forgets that the open Internet protocol was the result of government action — first by DARPA and then by the National Academy of Sciences.

His economic analysis also leaves a great deal to be desired. There is an expression in economics, “four is few and six is many.” Two or three firms are not enough to ensure a vigorously competitive market. If both members of a duopoly discriminate, as the cable and telephone companies have declared they intend to do, there is nowhere else for the consumer to turn.

The prospects for competitive entry in the broadband market from wireless providers is slim to none, especially since the telephone companies own the top two wireless providers — and number three has entered a joint venture with the cable companies. Industry analysts are reporting that the once-heralded broadband “price war” is already dying down. The cozy cable-telco duopoly has no interest in cutthroat competition.

Allowing the network operators discriminate, as the railroads did before the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act, will be disastrous for the open environment for innovation on the Internet. Preserving Network Neutrality is the continuation of a policy that has worked magnificently.

AT&T chief Ed Whitacre regurgitated now familiar talking points on Tuesday when he claimed — once again — that others can no longer eat AT&T’s broadband lunch for free.

“Some companies want us to be a big dumb pipe that gets bigger and bigger. No one gets a free ride,” Whitacre said, in a statement reminiscent of his now infamous interview last October with BusinessWeek.

Ummm… Aren’t we already paying for the ride, Ed?

Last I checked AT&T and the other large ISPs made $20 billion from our broadband access fees alone. It’s a piece of the $170 billion in annual revenues recorded by the four Bells — AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and BellSouth — for telecommunications services.

This lucrative business model — returning nearly $95 billion in annual gross profits to the Bells — has worked so well for AT&T that they recorded an 81% increase in profits over the second quarter of 2006

But what’s good news for Ed is often bad for the rest of us. Not only does he want us to pay more to ride AT&T’s gravy train, we now have to endure Whitacre’s B.S. along the way.

[Watch Ed in action captured by a videographer on August 1]

The AT&T CEO — with his army of PR flacks and lobbyists – will say whatever it takes to get Washington to award phone companies with control of the Web. Net Neutrality — the principle that guarantees that they treat all Internet information equally — now stands in their way.

In this game, winning over Congress isn’t about telling the truth. It’s about spending money, buying up lobbyists, filling campaign coffers and spinning politicians.

The telcos are good at this. Since 2003, telephone and cable companies have spent more on Washington lobbying than the oil and gas industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. On the issue of Net Neutrality alone, they ran up more than $100 million in expenses to grease lobbyists and politicians, buy TV, radio and print ads and fund phony grassroots groups like “Hands off the Internet” and “NetCompetition.”

Despite the telco shopping spree, Whitacre’s talking points remain flimsy.

This is not about AT&T fostering new innovation.

Compared with the computing industry, telecoms invest little money in actual research and development. According to Paul Starr, a Princeton professor and author of the 2005 book, The Creation of the Media, the incumbents in the telecommunications business “invest more in politics than in technology — indeed, they are downright frightened by innovation, whose ultimate effects they can’t control.”

This is not about AT&T providing cheaper and better choice.

The phone companies want to force content providers to pay protection money to get faster services. And it’s consumers who will pay. If Net Neutrality is so bad for consumers, why do ALL the major consumer groups support it and ALL the major phone companies oppose it?

As for choice, the GAO found that the median number of providers available to a given household is just two. That’s all. Cable and DSL systems dominate, holding more than 98 percent of the broadband market. This is hardly a competitive market. In fact, the share of the market held by all the other broadband technologies combined — satellite, fixed wireless, mobile wireless, and broadband over power lines — actually decreased over the past few years, according the FCC.

And the last thing an old-school monopolist like Whitacre wants is to offer choice of non-AT&T services – unless, of course, they’re offered by companies that have paid AT&T’s new access tolls.

This is not about content providers paying their fair share.

They do that already. According to “It’s Our Net” – a coalition representing eBay, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon and other Internet companies – Web businesses already collectively pay billions of dollars per year to network operators for Internet connectivity and transport. That money fully compensates the network operators for their network investment. “Overall, the four Bell companies alone make some $14 billion annually in revenues from selling special access services to Internet content and applications companies, Internet service providers, and other corporate and institutional users of the local network.” FCC figures show that this business returns over 50 percent to the phone companies.

For Ed this is not about creating a faster, smarter, cheaper and more accessible Internet for Americans. It’s simply about increasing returns for AT&T shareholders.

That’s often expected of a CEO. But let’s call it what it is, Ed, and stop pretending that you have the best interests of the Internet at heart.

AT&T and BellSouth mouthpiece Mike McCurry has received a challenge that places his credibility on the line.

In a post at Techdirt, Michael Masnick challenges McCurry to put his money where his mouth is by agreeing to pay Google’s broadband bills. The challenge is a response to McCurry’s fact-challenged op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, in which he asserts that Google’s access to bandwidth doesn’t cost the company a dime.

“That’s a flat out lie,” writes Masnick. “Google pays tremendously large bandwidth bills, and the more they use the more they pay.”

McCurry’s argument is one of the many misleading talking points that he has spread as part of his “Astroturf” effort to discredit Net Neutrality. The Sun editorial mis-identifies McCurry as “co-chair of Hands Off the Internet, a Washington, D.C.-based coalition of technology, media and nonprofit organizations,” without informing readers of the telco money behind this grassroots façade.

Masnick slams the telcos and their anti-Neutrality lobbyists for “trotting out lies” in an effort to win over support for legislation that guts Net Neutrality’s basic guarantees of Internet freedom.

He takes particular exception to the oft-repeated lie that content providers don’t pay for serving up their data via the Web. “If McCurry is going to pretend Google ‘never [has] to pay a dime no matter how much bandwidth they use,’ let’s see him put up or shut up,” Masnick writes.

McCurry, the former White House spokesperson turned corporate sock puppet, has yet to come clean and respond to the challenge by paying Google’s bandwidth bills for the rest of 2006.

I doubt even McCurry has the bank account to cover that cost. So, here’s a compromise. Instead of coughing up the cash, McCurry might simply retract the many untruths he has spread since becoming a paid shill for AT&T and BellSouth.

What do you say, Mike?