Help Fight Big Telecomms for Net Neutrality

by Clay Burell

categories: Education and Business, Education and Technology, Education Politics, Student Rights

Published June 04, 2009 @ 08:44AM PT

I'm a big supporter of Free Press Action Fund, and their fight for net neutrality. I see it as an education issue - corporate hijacking of internet cables will affect school budgets.

So here's the latest appeal from FreePress. It only asks that you sign a petition to the FCC against big media lobbyists:

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Dear Clay [All],

"I'm a guy who sees nothing good having come from the Internet. Period." Michael Lynton CEO of Sony Pictures

Typical.

The media exec to the right just launched an attack on the Web, saying that he sees "nothing good having come from the Internet. Period."

But Michael Lynton is just the latest in a line of old media bosses who see the open Internet as a threat — something they need to control in order to keep prices high, access limited and users in check.

Those of us who rely upon the Internet every day now have a chance to tell Michael otherwise:

Make Sure Lynton and His Cronies Don't Stifle the Internet

At this very minute, the Federal Communications Commission is crafting America's first national broadband plan. Whether the plan will give more control over our Internet to the likes of Sony Pictures, Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Verizon depends on what we do right now.

These companies' well-heeled lobbyists are flooding the FCC's public docket with comments in support of policies that let them:

• Tilt the Web’s level playing field to favor the Web sites of corporate partners;
• Deploy content-sniffing devices that would randomly open and sift through our private Web communications;
• Impose usage penalties on people who use the Web for more than simple e-mail and Web surfing;
• Block innovative Web services that compete against their phone, cable and entertainment products; and
• Disconnect users for any reason or without justification

Acting FCC chairman Michael Copps has called the creation of the broadband plan "the most formative — indeed, transformative — proceeding ever in the Commission’s history." He added: "The Commission must act to ensure that the genius of the open Internet is not lost."

Copps is right. Michael Lynton is wrong. We need to tell the FCC that a more open open and accessible Internet is a good thing that will revitalize our economy, engage millions more people in our democracy and give new meaning to freedom of speech. And we reject the nonsense that open Internet backers are all conspiring to promote piracy.

It’s time for the FCC to get behind a people-powered vision of 21st-century media media that’s participatory, open and democratic -- and not to hand the keys to the Internet to the old guard.

Tell the FCC: The Internet Is Good for Democracy. Period.

Click on the link above and tell the FCC that our national broadband plan must guarantee an open, fast, affordable and people-powered Internet without corporate gatekeepers.

Thank You,

Timothy Karr
Free Press Action Fund
www.freepress.net

P.S. Tell your friends to file comments with the FCC, too. Share the link on Facebook. Post a tweet. Forward this e-mail. Get the word out.