Network neutrality--the idea that all data on the internet should be given equal priority (and
not, for example, that Nabisco's site loads quickly, while
Eat Local Challenge takes ten minutes)--is under attack by telecommunications companies and their legions of lobbyists. Back in May,
Pim organized a
Day without Food Blogs and had
many participants. Two weeks later,
Sam posted
an optimistic update about a committee vote. Since then, however, things have taken a turn for the worse. Last Thursday, the House of Representatives voted down an amendment to preserve network neutrality (152-269. See how your Representative voted
here). TPMCafe posted an
analysis of the vote's implications.
So now the battle moves to the Senate. If you are wondering where your Senators stand on Net Neutrality, you can find out at
Talking Points Memo. The ever-diligent TPM team has started tracking Senators' positions on a bill authored by Sen. Snowe (R-ME) and Sen. Dorgan (D-ND), and will update the list as new information arrives. If your Senators aren't in the "Support" category, write a
letter or give their office a
call.
This post was written by Marc of
Mental Masala.
2 comments:
I see that my senators are both in the "no information" column. Considering they are both big business fans, it could be worse. Anyway, I got an e-mail from Moveon.org and called both their offices to urge them to support net neutrality. At both offices the person who answered the phone did not seem to exactly know what I was talking about. I don't know if that's bad or good.
thanks for pointing all this out Marc. It is very scary. I thought we were through the worst of it but as I was away last week my email reading got behind and I missed this development.
Those of you who have unagreeable senators, please, please find it in yourselves to take a little action before it is too late for all of us.
Taking action now could save a riot later.
(I believe there might be riots if this really does come to pass)
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