Dear MoveOn member,
Your senator, Conrad Burns, was the deciding vote AGAINST Internet freedom during a key vote yesterday in the Senate Commerce Committee.
The committee voted 11 to 11 on the Snowe/Dorgan proposal to preserve Net Neutrality -- one vote shy of passage. Your senator voted to let companies like AT&T put tollbooths on the Internet and gain more control over what you see and do online. The fight to preserve the free and open Internet now moves to the full Senate.
Please call Sen. Burns today and say "shame on you" for opposing the Snowe-Dorgan Internet freedom proposal. Tell him to oppose any bill in the full Senate that doesn't protect Net Neutrality. Here is the number:
Senator Conrad Burns
Phone: 202-224-2644
Phone: 202-224-2644
Senator Burns took $162,600 in contributions this election cycle from big telecommunications companies, according to www.opensecrets.org, and then sided with them in yesterday's vote.
Senators who voted yesterday had a clear choice between siding with big money or siding with their constitutents. While 1 million everyday people petitioned Congress to save Net Neutrality, big telecommunications companies like AT&T gave nearly 1 million dollars in campaign contributions to members of the Senate Commerce Committee this election cycle. Politicians need to be held accountable for making the wrong choice.
From MoveOn.org ('cause I'm too lazy to write it myself).
7 Comments:
Well, this changes how I look at things now....
*sigh*
Shame on Senator Burns because MoveOn says so? There should be room for differing opinions without this kind of empty rhetoric being thrown around.
I'm writing from the other side of the issue, working with Hands Off the Internet. Senator Stevens has provisions in the current teleocom bill to prevent any websites from being blocked and the telecos have said they wouldn't do that anyway.
These net neutrality regualtions would only allow for further intrusive regualtion of the internet based on hypothetical doomsday scenarios. I prefer to not have this innovative and fast paced technology burdended with unecessary red tape.
Oh, yeah. Because I'm sure telecom companies have our best interests at heart.
Whether you believe that or not, it isn't in the best interests of the ISPs to block access, from both a business and customer relations angle. Hypothetically, if they were to block access you could switch providers and they would lose customers and receive tremendous negative publicity.
As I mentioned, the current version of the telecom bill prevents such action and the FCC has the authority to step in should such an incident ever occur. Even the Chairman of the FCC, Kevin Martin, has stated that additional net neutrality regualtions aren't needed.
Rolfe, are you a paid PR person for Sen. Stevens or one of the telecom companies? Sure sounds like you have a stake in getting Stevens' bill passed.
From the Washington Post:
A proposal to prevent Internet service providers from charging Web firms more for faster service to consumers failed yesterday to clear a Senate committee.
The vote was a setback for such companies as Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Skype Technologies SA, which had pushed for rules that would prohibit telecommunications companies from controlling the flow of online content.
From Sci-Tech Today:
Get Ready for Internet Toll Roads
"A Verizon Communications executive has called for an 'end to Google's free lunch,'" [Sen. Ron Wyden] said. "A Bell South executive has said that he wants the Internet to be turned into a 'pay-for-performance marketplace.'"
From the Seattle Times:
Hundreds of interest groups, ranging from the Christian Coalition to Moveon.org., joined bloggers and the big content providers such as Google Inc. and Amazon seeking protections from Congress against owners of high-speed broadband networks.
Republicans argued against interfering in a system that so far has worked well without government regulation.
Seems to me like a pretty clear case of big money vs. freedom of information.
Thanks for this information. Maybe we should all send a $1 in contributions to the senators involved and make our voice heard. If money is the only issue and with a million or more of us on the side of freedom, we can make as big as impact as a lobby. No, we shouldn't have to do something like that, but it would take money out of the equation in the same way telling the truth puts a blackmailer out of business and would sure get attention on the fact that a lobbist buys votes.
Patia, as I mentioned in my first comment, I work with the Hands Off the Internet Coalition, http://www.handsoff.org/. Hands Off The Internet is a nationwide coalition of Internet users united together in the belief that the Net's phenomenal growth over the past decade stems from the ability of entrepreneurs to expand consumer choices and opportunities without worrying about government regulation. Included in our member organizations are AT&T, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Citizens Against Government Waste, and many others.
As for your claim of big money versus freedom of information, I would certainly consider Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Ebay to be "big money." There is a reason they support net neutrality regualtions becuase it would save them from having to pay their share of the inftastructure upgrades. As for the freedom of information aspect, as I saif content will not be blocked. However if content providers using huge amounts of bandwidth for VOIP or video streaming want higher quality and uninterrupted service (due to high volume of traffic) they will need to pay more for it.
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