New Mexicans Urge Senator to Save the Internet
August 22nd, 2006 by tkarr |
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.
