Welcome to the Free Press blog! We post several times a week on everything from Internet access to free speech to media mergers, so check back often to see what we’re up to.
If a new bill gets through Congress,
marketing robots will invade your cellphone.
The bill, called the “Mobile
Informational Call Act of 2011” (H.R. 3035), would amend the Communications
Act of 1934 to allow marketers and bill collectors to make endless calls to
your mobile phone — just like they currently can on your landline, but this
time using minutes that you are paying for.
Opponents of Net Neutrality often argue that Internet
Service Providers need to divide the Internet into fast and slow lanes — providing
a fast lane for those who can pay, a slow lane for everyone else — to invest in
a fast Internet for all.
We have a new report that describes
half a decade of budget battles at the state level that have eroded funding for
public broadcasters around the country. In the last year, governors and state
legislatures have dramatically reduced public media budgets and even zeroed out
all state funding for local stations.
Your phone calls, emails and persistence
have paid off: Today the Senate voted down the resolution that would have
shuttered the open Internet.
This outrageous measure would have stripped
us of our right to communicate freely online and handed control of the Internet
to companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.
This chronically ignored crisis is getting a national spotlight.
And it would never have happened had it not been for the thousands of activists
who spoke out against the practice of covert consolidation and helped us
document its impact on local news broadcasts across the country.
Below is a transcript of the speech Sen. John Kerry delivered today on the Senate floor in opposition to the "resolution of disapproval," a measure that would strip the FCC of its authority to protect consumers and the open Internet.
This is one of those times when on the floor of the United States Senate we hear a proposal that
people characterize as one thing but it is, in fact, anything but what they're
characterizing it as. What Senator — I just heard the good senator from
Mississippi talking about this, “We don't want to slam the brakes on
development,” he said. “We don't want to have the F.C.C. intrusion.”
Sen. John Kerry — a longtime Net Neutrality champion — today
sent out a letter to his Senate colleagues urging them to vote “no” on an upcoming
resolution of disapproval that would wreck our ability to communicate
online.
Next week the Senate is expected to vote on a
measure that could kill the Internet as we know it.
The political process surrounding this
“resolution of disapproval” — which will have a negative impact on small
business owners, entrepreneurs, students, activists and everyone else who
depends on the open Internet — is opaque and complicated.
Everyone loves transparency. (For me, it brings to mind
those “The More You Know” public
service announcements). And as FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn put it at October’s
FCC open meeting, “Disclosure and transparency: words that inspire confidence,
increase the public’s trust and convey good faith. We’re seeing, hearing and
focusing more and more each day on ways to enhance these efforts in both our
public- and private-sector engagement.”
