Thanks!

Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is opening the lines to public feedback on whether a new national broadband strategy is the right solution to America’s Internet blues.

For four nights, beginning Tuesday on the blog OpenLeft.com, Sen. Durbin will engage in a frank conversation with site visitors. According to the senator, this process will help him draft broadband legislation to be introduced this session.

The goal is to push forward policies that will make the Internet an accessible and affordable engine for free speech and innovation.

Such policies could also help return the U.S. to front-runner status against Western European and Asian countries that now offer their citizens faster speeds at lower costs.

Legislation 2.0

Durbin has publicly committed to writing broadband legislation based on the public discussion that occurs. This is a bold new direction in lawmaking and a leap of faith for any Senator — especially as it defies the conventional wisdom in Washington that media policy is best left to “experts” from the industry.

“I think we need more public participation and transparency in the way Congress crafts significant legislation,” Senator Durbin wrote about the live blogging experiment. “This is an approach to legislation that has never been tried before. If it’s successful — as I believe it will be — it may become the way lawmakers approach drafting bills on other issues like education, health care, and foreign policy.”

We certainly hope so.

By and large our legislative process has been hijacked by corporate interests. No where has this harmed and distorted public policy more than in the telecommunications sector, where large phone and cable companies have bought up legions of lobbyists to hold the line against Net Neutrality and Open Access.

Despite massive public support for these issues most of our legislators stand mute for fear of upsetting the status quo.

Meanwhile, access to this most crucial public resource slips from our hands and into those of a few corporations that seek to maximize profits by stifling competition and innovation and controlling user choice.

“[B]roadband policy is one of the most important public policy issues today,” Durbin wrote. “Frankly, America does not have a national broadband strategy, and we are falling behind.”

Washington Needs a New Boss: You

The Internet is humankind’s single most important invention. Its prospects for engaging more people in the democratic process are only now beginning to be explored. Last night’s YouTube debate opened new territory for public involvement in campaigns. The public must have a seat at the table before legislators attempt to craft any legislation that could affect this openness and accessibility.

“At stake is not a set of wonky policy details, but a fundamental vision of how Americans communicate and relate to each other,” writes Matt Stoller of OpenLeft. “With the internet, we can put everyone and every lobbyist on a level playing field, and have a genuinely open contest of ideas.”

Join the forum. Tell Senator Durbin what you think.

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UPDATE: My summary of the Tuesday night forum with Sen. Durbin. Wednesday night’s discussion is on Net Neutrality. Now would be a good time for everyone to chime in.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.