Net Neutrality and Corporations' Info Censorship

"The Whole World Is Watching!"

If you remember that slogan, you won't have to be told how important real-time, uncensored global communication is to citizens' freedom from government or multinational corporatist oppression.

So maybe you've heard the phrase "Net Neutrality" and wondered what it means.

Bottom line: With Net Neutrality, the companies that provide access to the Internet cannot give prefer some sites over others for any reason, including site content, ownership, or information destination.

Powerful interests would like to end that.

At the moment, you and I can access any site on equal terms with any other site. Some may take longer than others to download, but owners of slow sites can fix that if and when they want to. Nobody's discriminating against them based on who they are, what they have to say, or who wants to know.

If Net Neutrality is ended, that will change. Owners of the pipelines we use to access the Net will be able to reserve the fast lanes for deep-pocket sites and relegate the rest of us to the bike path. They'll charge usage taxes. Higher payers will download faster; bitty sites like this one may as well pack it in.

SavetheInternet.com puts it better:

Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It protects the consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

Learn more in Net Neutrality 101.

Who wants to get rid of Net Neutrality?

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

The one thing that has forced mainstream media to do even the crappy job they've done covering the war, BushCo, crimes of the connected, and so on, has been the Internet--chiefly the blogosphere. Investigative journalistic, alternative news, and analytical sites like Daily Kos, TruthDig, Alternet, Consortium, Raw Story, and so many others have forced a degree of accuracy on cable and network news by creating a competing standard that is accessible to millions.

If that changes, if the Net ceases to be neutral and service providers become gatekeepers, we can kiss goodbye to freedom of information. Without freedom of information, we lose the means to act in our own best interests. Without knowing facts, we can't evaluate what we're told, or even determine that we're not being told all we need to know.

A few days ago, you may remember that Verizon caused a righteous rebellion when it censored text messages from NARAL, a leading abortion freedom-of-choice organization. We know about this effort to block NARAL only because of the Internet, and we were able to force Verizon to back off censoring NARAL only because of the Internet.

But it's worse than that. As Huffington Post reported, already AT&T and Verizon include clauses in their terms of service that allow them to decide when to provide the content you pay for, and when not to:

Censorship Is in the Details
Deep in its 'terms of service' for high-speed services AT&T had buried this tidbit: The phone company may 'immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your service ... without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes ... tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.'

We have since sifted the agreements of other access providers and found even more explicit language over at Verizon: The company 'reserves the right and sole discretion to change, limit, terminate, modify at any time, temporarily or permanently cease to provide the Service or any part thereof to any user or group of users, without prior notice and for any reason or no reason.'

That's nice. Any reason, no reason, White House reason, senator reason, coup d'etat reason, insane reason . . . .

Getting it now? Imagine your world if companies like Verizon and AT&T, or administrations dependent on, say, certain cranky and ultra-repressive constituencies, were able to turn information on and off at will. Click! You're in the dark, and we plan to keep you there!

Not good.

So. The next time Net Neutrality comes up, remember. Your freedom depends on keeping the Internet a level playing field for all sites. Fight like hell to keep it.

Anti-War Press Conference Disrupted, 3 Arrested

Calling the announced press conference “a threat to the national security,” police officers in Washington, DC, arrested three organizers of the upcoming September 15 anti-war march, at one point using a mounted policeman to disperse some 20 journalists and other observers.

In addition to the frontal assault on constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans, the charge – clearly audible on the YouTube video to the right—that the small press conference was “a national security threat” is a grave concern. The preposterous allegation should signal to all of us that this Administration will use Patriot Act entitlements to intimidate, harass, and attempt to silence even peaceful, lawful opponents.



This is not the first time that administration agents have arrested peaceful opponents using Patriot Act powers. From Wikipedia:

On March 9, 2007, a Justice Department audit found that the FBI had "improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information" about United States citizens. [1]
On June 15, 2007, following an internal audit finding that FBI agents abused a Patriot Act power more than 1000 times, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ordered the agency to begin turning over thousands of pages of documents related to the
agency's national security letters program.[2]

Three persons were arrested at yesterday’s assault on America: Tina Richards, the mother of a Marine who did two tours of duty in Iraq; Adam Kokesh, a leader of the Iraq Veterans Against the War group; and lawyer Ian Thompson, who is an organizer for ANSWER in Los Angeles.

The conference was called to heighten public awareness of the ongoing fining and harassment of march organizers for the lawful activity of putting up anti-war posters in downtown Washington. Event speakers even demonstrated that the water-soluble, bio-degradable wheat paste used to mount the posters is in compliance with city and Park Service requirements.

Postering for permitted public events is legal in Washington when compliant with applicable regulations, and a time-honored tradition in the nation's capital. But agents of the Bush administration’s Department of the Interior (US Park Service) and the DC police, and possibly US Secret Service agents, are using arrests, fines, and free-speech suppression tactics to disrupt publicity for the September 15 event.

It remains to be seen what tactics will be applied at the September 15 event itself, but in light of yesterday's actions and as a veteran of many major demonstrations in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, I'll pray for the best but won't be surprised at anything. (Don't hold your breath looking for major network or cable coverage of the event, much less of any violations of Americans' constitutional rights. Most Americans still haven't seen media coverage of the massive protests against Bush at his first inaugural.)

Note Well: The US Constitution gives American citizens the freedoms of assembly and speech, and the right to peaceful protest and to demand redress from its government. Use them or lose them.