Chris, McGreal, a reporter for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, took to the road last month to report on how Americans living along Route 66–made famous in John Steinbeck’s fictional Grapes of Wrath journey–are faring during the recession.

You might think McGreal quickly encountered “real Americans” protesting President Obama’s “socialist” healthcare agenda by hurling insults at town hall meetings. Cable news channels are full of these images, which together portray the United States as a giant angry grassroots rally against reform-minded policies.

Odd, then, that McGreal reports this:

The outbursts against President Obama’s healthcare plans filling television screens, with opponents calling him a Nazi and accusing him of planning death committees to do in old people, are to a large degree manufactured by the same people who use similar tactics to oppose abortion.

(continue reading…)

FCC

The Federal Communications Commission has turned up the heat on the wireless industry expanding its probe of mobile phone practices following widespread complaints about a lack of competition, openness and innovation.

The “Notice of Inquiry,” announced during a Thursday agency meeting, expands on open FCC proceedings, including a look into exclusive contracts that lock phones to provider networks, and the anti-competitive blocking of applications and services.

With the new inquests the agency is broadening its investigation into innovation and consumer choice in the wireless marketplace. Issues that will come under consideration in this proceeding will likely include exorbitant text-messaging and termination fees, device and application blocking, and others.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless are the two largest carriers in the marketplace controlling more than 60 percent of mobile phone accounts in the U.S. (continue reading…)

NY Times

The New York Times gets Net Neutrality right again, and again, and again. In their fourth editorial in support of Net Neutrality the newspaper’s editors write:

“A good bill that would guarantee so-called net neutrality has been introduced in the House. Congress should pass it, and the Obama administration should use its considerable power to make net neutrality the law. “

Why? According to the Times, we can’t let Internet service providers prioritize certain content over others.

Allowing these companies to become the Internet’s gatekeepers would undermine the democratic nature of the Web, which has made it such a great engine for free speech and economic growth.

(continue reading…)

Carrie Lowe

At last month’s American Library Association annual conference in Chicago, I served on a Sunday morning panel presentation on the topic of Network Neutrality. On that day, there was no Network Neutrality legislation in Congress (like there is today, thanks to Reps. Markey and Eshoo). There was no flashy evening news piece on the topic, no rock stars on the Hill advocating for a free and open Internet. Yet 500 librarians showed up on a spectacular Chicago summer morning to hear Cliff Lynch, Greg Jackson and me talk about Network Neutrality.

If you are not familiar with librarians, this story might surprise you. But if you have ever found yourself on the business end of a discussion of intellectual freedom issues with someone from our community, you can predict what I am going to say next: The audience asked incredibly thoughtful questions and challenged some basic assumptions.

You see, Network Neutrality is, at its core, an issue central to librarians’ professional hearts. Like other issues that we’ve dealt with – such as censorship or book banning – Network Neutrality is fundamentally about having access to ideas.

Libraries’ Position on Network Neutrality

The ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy laid out its position on Network Neutrality in an issue brief published in 2006. In that paper, we argued that libraries’ interest in Network Neutrality is twofold.

First, Network Neutrality is an intellectual freedom issue. The ALA defines intellectual freedom as the right of all people to seek and receive information from all points of view, without restriction. Unfortunately, there is no law that protects intellectual freedom on the Internet today. Internet service providers (such as the cable and telephone companies) have the ability to block or degrade information or services travelling over their networks. If these companies discriminate against certain kinds of information based on the content of the message being delivered, this would represent a severe violation of intellectual freedom.

Second, Network Neutrality is a competition issue. Libraries in the digital age are providers of online information of all kinds. Among hundreds of examples, public libraries are developing online local history resources, and academic libraries allow the online public to explore some of their rarest treasures. Libraries, as trusted providers of free public access to information, should not compete for priority with for-profit history or literature Web sites that might be able to afford to strike deals with service providers. This makes the Network Neutrality debate not only a matter of philosophy and values for librarians, but also of livelihood.

In addition, librarians value innovation. Many of the technologies most central to the Internet are founded in principles of librarianship. Metadata? We call it cataloging. Online search? May I point you to the online public access catalog (OPAC)? Linked content? Cross references in the card catalog. Indexes, full-text search – the list goes on and on. We understand that in the context of the Internet, innovation begins at the edges; a killer app is more likely to be developed by two guys in a garage than by a highly paid executive in an industrial park. It is vital to preserve and encourage this innovation that has built the Internet. Network Neutrality is central to achieving this goal.

So What Do Libraries Want?

While our profession is built on some lofty principles – and librarians are among the fiercest free speech and intellectual freedom advocates you’ll meet – we are also a community of pragmatists. We believe that there is a way to strike a balance on Network Neutrality.

There oughtta be a law. The FCC changed the rules in 2005, removing the legal protections that guaranteed consumers the right to send and receive communications and content of their choosing over the Internet. Legal protections to prevent discrimination by ISPs and to protect intellectual freedom and innovation on the Internet should be restored. There are two ways to do this:

1. The “fifth principle”of nondiscrimination is right on the money. The language of the nondiscrimination condition the FCC applied to the AT&T/BellSouth merger (and echoed in the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program rules) is rational and appropriate. We urge the FCC to make this principle official.

2. Congress should act to preserve the neutral and open nature of the Internet. The Internet Freedom Preservation Act is the right bill at the right time. We urge Congress to pass this legislation.

Tiered pricing structures are both fair and unrelated to the central debate. We strongly agree that any Web site or organization (including libraries – nearly all public libraries provide no-cost access to the Internet) with a high-bandwidth connection should pay more for that service than a home user or a smaller organization. This is a traditional tiered pricing structure, and it is a fair and proven model. However, once a user has purchased bandwidth, there should be no artificial restraints on the legal content that he or she receives.

The Network Neutrality debate shows no signs of slowing down, and as I witnessed in Chicago, librarians show no sign of losing interest in this topic. We look forward to working with policymakers to protect the free and open nature of the Internet. Our libraries – and our nation – deserve nothing less.

via savetheinternet.com

Tim Karr

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.

via Tim Karr @ savetheinternet.com