Bill Moyers did an excellent piece on this a few years ago. Look it up and you can watch a video of the show that investigated. He also did one on media consolidation that’s vitally connected to this issue in this way: If a media conglomerate can gain control over the newspapers and tv and radio stations in a given market, the consumer may be unknowingly getting all his information from one corporate source. There used to be rules against this, but they were removed by the FCC under the Bush Adminstration. The internet remains the one source of information that still has the potential to be independent in this scenario. If Net Neutrality is not reinstated (it was struck down after being in place since the days of the early railroads and telecoms when it was called Common Carrier), then wealthy corporate content providers who also own the newspapers etc can pay an ISP for faster delivery than independent content providers. We all know that users prefer web sites that load more quickly, so smaller startups and those without huge financial resources can’t compete. Small independent voices can’t compete.

It’s yet another step in dismantling your ability to gain information from multiple independent sources. Do you really want your ISP determining which sites you can and can’t access, or which ones load more quickly or slowly? Those who are trying to prevent this are being painted as communists (naturally) by whom? Large media outlets who know they can rely on readers of blogs like this to rabidly repeat their talking points. In reality, democracy only works when EVERYONE has equal access to information, not just those with money.

Do yourself a favor and look up and watch the Bill Moyers show, even if it’s just a starting point. Find and evaluate the (rational) arguments on both sides and decide for yourself. Even Wikipedia has a pretty informative and balanced bit of information. This is an incredibly important issue and everyone should be as informed as possible.

Net Neutrality simply forces ISP’s to treat all traffic coming from content providers to the end users equally (The ISP is neutral with regard to the sender). The main question is, “do you want your ISP deciding which companies are able to deliver their content to you fastest?” (or at all).

This is a holdover from Common Carriage, which placed the same regulation on railroads and telecoms since the beginning.

Good post Neil. We need to keep the pressure on. I still haven’t decided whether or not I support the original proposals for net neutrality, but I sure don’t support this. It strikes me that on some level you need to guarantee that all the packets sent eventually get delivered, but I don’t have a problem with networks setting up tiers that prioritize something along the lines of:

1. Voice
2. Text and pictures
3. Downloads

Although I’m not quite sure what to do with streaming video. On the one hand it seems to require the priority of voice, but on the other its probably more of a congestion drag than downloads. In any event, it certainly requires a threshold bandwidth before being viable, and if you aren’t willing to pay for the bandwidth, I don’t see any reason why those who do work should pay it for you.

The Big 0 and his minion czars are working a complex interaction scheme so you can’t see what’s happening. Think of it as a three part liquid explosive; none of the components alone is dangerous, but when you put all three of them together, kaboom.

Looking at the people behind this, even if I agreed with the end point of what they wanted to do, I’d opt against doing until they were WELL out of the picture.

Oh, and when I did the Google search for the Beck segments, the only things that appeared on my first search were “debunking” pieces from outfits like Think Progress. You want to see corporate censorship in action, that’s a good example.

You can take that to the bank.

We post using aliases to protect our privacy. On the other hand, computer genuises spend their time finding ways to bypass our privacy and hack our computers, then help themselves to our private information.

The dangers of net neutrality far outweigh any “benefit,” as this seems to be an “end justifies the means” thing, the means being the ability for the most powerful in our government to have the identity of anyone they please at the speed of light (okay, the speed of electricity).

I read that early in the new century, the mention of several words relating to terrorism or might seem to be in furtherance of terrorism would route a copy of your email into DC computers. Given the variety of meanings words can have (a performer “kills” the audience or perhaps “blows them away,” but no violence is intended), there’s no telling just WHAT might trip some trigger that sends your personal info to a DC computer.

This is about as close to Big Brother as I can imagine.

Those who aren’t paranoid aren’t paying attention. We put doors and windows in our houses and lock them. But if someone wants to get in your house badly enough, …

God bless and be safe

The Founding Fathers did not pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor because they weren’t getting enough porn in the Old Country.

They risked everything to, among other things, protect the people’s right to engage in freewheeling political discussion such as is found on the internet everyday.

“Dropoutpolitician” sounds like my accountant, a nice guy, but a little liberal, who thinks it outrageous that people who inherit properties or businesses which have increased in value since origially purchased, built or started do not have to pay a tax on amount of increase as well as a capital gains tax on the current value. He thinks these people are somehow “getting away with something.” Indeed they are. They are “getting away” with their own property nearly intact.

I simply cannot fathom people who sit around dreaming up ways for the gubmint to tax them MORE. Incredible…

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him think.

The result of this meddling is that hackers, down-loaders, spam blogs and other nuisances would get to use up most of the band width and continue to slow down service for everyone.

Also, if you didn’t like Bush’s regulations per online gambling (full disclosure: I despise that Pres. Bush signed that bill), then why would you argue that censorship’s really not a bad thing? It’s bad enough that you’re naïve and foolish; at least be intellectually honest enough to be consistent.