Franken tells FCC: Without ‘Net Neutrality’, a ‘handful’ of corporations will control the Web

[cory777]

Source: Raw Story

Since his election in the nail-bitingly close campaign against former Republican Senator Norm Coleman, former Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken has emerged as one of the strongest voices in favor of so-called "Net Neutrality" policies being considered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Franken has called "Net Neutrality" the most pressing free speech issue in modern day America, and supports policies which would require Internet service providers to treat all legal traffic equally.

Speaking Thursday evening before an FCC public hearing on "Net Neutrality," Franken insisted that the U.S. government cannot allow companies to write the rules by which they'll later be forced to play.

"We don't just have a constitution problem here, we have a First Amendment problem, okay?" he said.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0819/watch-live-sen-al-franken-discusses-net-neutrality-internet-forum/

---

Uncensored, Cutting Edge News http://activistnews.blogspot.com

[cosmicone]

1. Al Franken rawks n/t

[Lucian]

2. And Al Franken is right.

[lob1]

3. K&R. He's one of the few good ones in congress.

[lark]

41. He's one of the few worth our active support

He and Alan Grayson in the House are two of the few who I actively support with my donations.

[Iowa]

47. Me too...

I'd like to see a those two at the head of the ticket in 2012.

[LaPera]

4. Inevitably we'll have a bunch of Fox news type corporate sites offering only republican propaganda

much like the republican owned corporate media.....only doing the same thing but with the Internet, blocking most progressive sites and voices....This has always been the republicans and corporations ultimate goal for the Internet!!

Can't allow the FCC to just do nothing nor go along with the republicans & corporate plan.

[Anakin Skywalker]

5. Right On, Frankie!

[Chef Eric]

6. K&R. Net neutrality is necessary to keep information flowing freely.

And freely flowing information is necessary to keep democracy alive.

[Selatius]

7. We should've replaced the 10 most conservative Democrats with 10 Al Frankens.

We could work miracles if we eliminated the most conservative members in the Democratic Senate. Shit, we could've forced through a Public Option.

[JaneFordA]

31. I'm for that! :-)

>>> Posted by Selatius: We should've replaced the 10 most conservative Democrats with 10 Al Frankens.<<<

YES! :-)

[GreenTea]

49. Extremely easy to post "Yes" and how would you do this?

Duh......

[Vincardog]

33. Second that K & R

[bc3000]

70. OR... we could try to replace 10 horrible republicans with 10 moderates.

If the democrats can't have a unified coalition, maybe we should try getting some sane republicans into office. There's got to be a few of them... somewhere?

[Selatius]

76. That doesn't really help anybody.

Because the Republicans are out of power in the Senate. Money is better spent electing left wing Democrats into the Senate where Democrats control the committee chairmanships. Why waste money otherwise?

[Hubert Flottz]

8. The repubs want to make it FOX internet!

[City Lights]

9. K&R.

Senator Franken, :yourock:

[groundloop]

10. That silly comedian has become a damned good Senator

Keep up the good work Al.

[TfG]

27. You got that right

I love a senator that represents the people and fight for what's right. Kudos to Franken for doing just that.

[deacon]

11. I think he's emerged as our best senator. n/t

[rurallib]

12. Franken knows the power of the internet and at least he is fighting

I see no one else that has any where near the passion he has on this.
Ending net neutrality is GOP's #1 or #2 issue. They want to do it quietly because they know it could be an explosive issue.

[Devil_Fish]

63. it would only be an explosive issue untill it is done. with out net neutrality no one would notice.

[woo me with science]

13. Go, Al! nt

[Dinger]

14. I Love Al!

HE should be President.:patriot:

[Iowa]

48. +1... We need a genuine Democrat in 2012 and I would enthusiastically support Al.

[Dinger]

51. :)

:)

[No Elephants]

15. My modest contribution to help Al fight for his seat = some of the best money I ever spent.

Given that Republicans already control all other mass media, I will become a conspiracy theorist if Democrats don't deliver net neutrality.


The theory: corporations are already fully in charge of America, including the "two" major political parties. All else is bread and circus.

I don't subscribe to it yet. For one thing, people just are not that good at keeping secrets.

Let's see what happens with neutrality, though.

[NorthCarolina]

16. Have you all signed Franken's petition to save Net Neutrality?

If not, here's the link: http://bit.ly/dup7fp

[Ohio Metal]

17. I know I have! n/t

[Jefferson23]

38. Yes, but thanks for putting it up for more visibility. Perhaps start a thread

just for this NorthCarolina?

[lob1]

46. Thanks for the link. I just signed.

[geardaddy]

54. Yep. Thanks for posting

[Quantess]

68. Thank you. I will now!

[valerief]

18. Which is what the Corporation of the USA wants. nt

[Raster]

21. United Corporations of America

[valerief]

40. Much better. They want to be the only union. Their union leaders are Congress. nt

[Chicago dyke]

64. luv you sig line

and franken will truly impress me when he stands up and filibusters. i know that sounds harsh, but i'm tired of tough talk not followed by action from "progressive" congresscritters. time and time again they fold, when it's voting time. i know there's little he can do wrt to NN other than organize a petition, but if and when there is some time for him to make a stand, that's how we'll truly know him.

[Overseas]

19. Thank you Senator Franken. K&R. //nt

[liberal N proud]

20. But the corporations need that profit and control over our lives

:sarcasm:

[annm4peace]

22. Please sign petition that goes to FCC and your Senators

https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=356

I spoke at this event last night. I was #64 and there were many after me.

There were over 700 people there last. Minnesota is full of activists, and agencies who advocate for those who will loss internet under this deal. It is the homeless, the elderly, the students, the disabled who have limited income and will be isolated.

But many areas don't have such activists.

I come from Fresno, Ca. that has a newspaper that fails to factcheck.. that censors the real news. The local news does the same.
and of course the only radio station is HATE radio, KMJ.

So in places like Fresno.. it is so important to have Net Neutrality and there are many places like Fresno.

Please sign the above petition/email and put in why net neutrality is important to you.

I will say.. I left at 9:30pm last night and the two FCC commissioners will still listening to the public, that is more than what Senators will do. The two commissioners there, were the ones fighting for Net Neutrality.. it is the others who want to give the internet to the corporations.

[ElectricLightDem]

28. Done

NM

[xxqqqzme]

30. Thanks for that link.

I had signed Franken's petition, the free press appeal I missed even though I get their emails.

[geardaddy]

37. There's also this petition

http://www.alfranken.com/index.php/splash/netneutrality_vid

[Snotcicles]

23. Just emailed Stabenow and Levin my Senators. I asked them

to get out front and get loud on this issue and to not sit back in the safety zone this time.

[Shining Jack]

24. K&R

Thanks Mr.Franken.

[SILVER__FOX52]

25. Thank God for Franken's, clarity. We need 99 more like him.

[jfkraus]

26. We need to just trust them!

They will do the right thing for us! :sarcasm:

[madrchsod]

29. the force of the wellstone is with the young senator....

[demigoddess]

32. another invention gets taken over by corporations

I see 1984 coming up really fast.

[Turborama]

34. Yep, Al nails it again.

:kick: & Rec

Thanks for posting.

[savalez]

35. He's right! We gotta stay on this.

[geardaddy]

36. I'm so glad he represents me.

:applause:

[Uncle Joe]

39. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, cory.:thumbsup:

[sofa king]

42. There will always be an alternative.

At this point, there's scarcely a need for a "service provider" anyway. Individual Americans already own and control millions of unsecured two-way wireless broadcasting devices which can be netted together to form an alternative information sharing system--in fact, it could probably be done without the owners' knowledge and consent. There is probably already an open-source protocol to do that sort of thing, too. All that can work outside of the even more obvious alternative of compromising and subverting the controlling corporations' policies, which is even easier to do as a billion porn-surfing Chinese are proving every day.

There is already a huge culture in place to support an Outlaw-net, too. Many of the kids these days have never paid a dime for digital content of any sort. They're accustomed to acquiring music, films and software as they need it, and discarding it when they don't, and if Verizon or Google tries to control that, they'll simply go somewhere that supports their old habits--or create that place. (They might also decide to tear down the corporations that try to control that content.)

Curiously, there is already a parallel pressure coming from another direction, which is that makers of PC games are increasingly trying (and failing) to control content and the way people play. Starcraft II, which is on a trajectory to becoming one of the biggest games ever, limits map editing and LAN play, unless of course you illegally download the free cracked version. But even then you'll need an alternative Internet over which to play your friends remotely on custom maps.

The Outlaw-net will form at a speed that is proportionate to the level of corporate and government interference so if you want to see such a thing, just let Verizon get what it wants.

[Laelth]

43. k&r for the Great Al Franken. n/t

-Laelth

[defendandprotect]

44. Thanks, Al -- !! Seems too many of our members of Congress are mute --

especially when it comes to the public interest!!

[Blue Owl]

45. Bravo to Sen. Franken for representing "We the People"

n/t

[unpossibles]

50. it saddens me to see the other side present Net Neutrality as "controlling communication"

it boggles the mind. I've had to explain to friends that if by controlling they mean "keeping it open" then maybe, otherwise they need to read up on it.

[boppers]

52. The FCC would never censor television or radio, right?

Right?

:sarcasm:

(Hint: The federal government already tried to exert content control under President Clinton. It was found unconstitutional.)

[unpossibles]

53. so I take it you are against NN?

On the grounds of censorship, I assume, although to me it seems that blocking Neutrality would lead to worse censorship. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter though, as it's a complicated beast.

[boppers]

56. I'm for the general concept, but against governmental Internet control.

The current "system" (such as it is) of self-policing between ISP's seems to work quite well, with a few exceptions:
1) Consumers don't always know what they're getting. If an ISP is selling a bandwidth-limited product (as most are), the consumer should know what they're getting... thus, Comcast (etc.) should publicize and disclose when they're throttling things like BitTorrent traffic, or black-holing spammers/errant ISP's, or blocking consumers from setting up their own local web servers, or whatever.
2) Anti-trust enforcement needs to increase for monopolistic internet abuses, to ensure that consumers have a wide range of options for their internet connections.
3) Something needs to be done about user education and bandwidth costs. In other countries where the norm is to pay for the *amount* of internet usage, rather than a flat rate, there is less of a disconnect about usage and resulting costs. Think, for a second, about the concept of "Electric Neutrality", where every household paid the same flat fee, to get as much, or as little, electricity as they demanded.... doesn't make much sense, does it?

That being said, I'm for the concept of general content neutrality, as long as there is the ability for network operators to protect themselves (and their users) from malicious content, or throttle content that overloads the grid, *provided that their consumers know the boundaries*.

edit: clarify ambiguous wording

[Usrename]

59. Internet access isn't neutral today, at least not in one sense.

I would say that access to public roads is pretty neutral, but access to the internet is structured around wealth. And I'm not talking usage here either. There are still huge swaths of the country (even in some inner-city neighborhoods) where access is super slow because nobody has cable or high-speed land-lines. Probably wifi will change things in the near future, but the government could sure step in and speed things along. We have the technology.

[boppers]

62. We have super slow areas, yes.

We also have inner city "roads" that aren't maintained.

In that sense, the 'net, like the roads, has never been "Neutral".

[Igel]

66. There's an alternative argument, of course.

It makes me agnostic on this question. It's still a first amendment argument.

If I build a means through which people communicate--say, I charge them for the right to use my medium--do I have the right to charge different groups differently? Say, to charge a big "consumer" of my service less per unit than a smaller consumer? What if some of the customers are my own folk, working in-house for me? Do I get to charge them--myself--less?

Currently it's completely legal and lots of people take advantage of the price break every day. Just go and buy advertising with the New York Times. It's part of freedom of the press--if I own the press, I'm relatively free of government influence in how I use my little bit of infrastructure. I can rent it to others, charge them for using my press as a means of communication. But if I built it or bought it, it's my press.

Even if my rate structure does impede others' use of my press, I'm free to use it as I see fit (with some limitations, of course).

Now, controlling the air and how people speak by setting the air in vibration. The content of what they say. That's freedom of speech. Granted, I have freedom of speech over the phones--but if I want a satellite phone for the convenience, I pay more. If I want to squirt more information over the phone line, I pay more. If I want to have super high clarity phone connections, I pay more. Because it's all real-time, it's hard to charge for faster phone lines, so they charge for the amount of data that can be transmitted in real time, for the convenience. So the phones aren't even a freedom of speech issue. They're still freedom of the press, in a real sense.

Still, the Internet is absolutely necessary for having a democracy. Can't have one without the Internet, it seems. Of course, that means Clinton was the first president presiding over a democracy. But the point's well taken. Look at FDR--no Internet, no democracy. (Oh, wait. Maybe that's not to be taken as a valid implication. Gee, doesn't "there exists democracy iff Internet have the contrapositive "if there doesn't exist the Internet then there doesn't exist democracy"?)

Snark aside--the wrongness of the major premise being so obviously wrong snarkiness constituted irresistible low-hanging fruit--the Internet is taken as a public accommodation, unlike the press (unless you're really into personals). Then it's more like the phone--except there are already varying levels of telephone service. Except that we're accustomed to everybody having the same access--well, not really, some have dial-up, some DL, some broadband, and some ISPs are simply faster. But the principle surely holds, that we're all treated equally. (This is heading ad absurdum as well, so I'll change course, I think.)

It's not clear that the opposite of Net Neutrality means shutting down the Internet for some groups. It means a slower Internet. The main argument seems to be rooted in fear of being shut out and not just slowed down. I'm not sure I buy that argument, however much I like giving in to my fears.

[inna]

55. This is some pretty scary stuff. They want the Internet now, too.

[boppers]

65. They built it, they own it, and we paid for it.

Alternately, we built it, we own it, and we paid for it.

Since I was part of the building community, I don't see this as "us vs. them".

[laughingliberal]

57. K & R nt

[pmorlan1]

58. K & R

Way to go Senator Franken!

[RufusTFirefly]

60. I wish Al would team up with a "conservative" Senator on this

Granted, the Corporatists in both parties are hopeless on this issue. We know who their constituents are. But Net Neutrality is, fundamentally, a First Amendment issue, just as Sen. Franken suggests. Control of Internet content by a handful of large corporations will silence the speech of independent voices on all parts of the political spectrum, not just those on the left-hand side. I hope that independent non-corporate conservatives realize this.

[Mimosa]

61. Franken explained the issue better than anybody I've heard.

Thank you to Minnesotans for electing Franken to the senate. I feel he'll keep the interests of ordinary people in mind, foremost.

[unkachuck]

67. you're a good man, Al Franken....n/t

[defendandprotect]

69. k

[Francesca9]

71. A handful’ of corporations already control the Web

So why do we care? They already have control.

[Metal Goddess]

72. Re: Franken tells FCC: Without ‘Net Neutrality’, a ‘handful’ of corporations will control the Web

There are two reasons the corporations want to take over. One is unmitigated greed. They think the Net should just be there for advertising purposes and we're the consumers of what they buy. They don't like the idea of any Joe Blo putting up a website. Doesn't make them any money.

The other is during Chimp Boy's regime, they weren't prepared for the grassroots sites that popped up exposing all the lies we were being told. These corporations rake in massive profits from these wars because after all, that's what wars are fought for. It's all about the money. When people are informed, they get scared because it becomes increasingly difficult to sell wars on motherhood, apple pie, and the American way. They really want to shut up the naysayers.

[Francesca9]

73. Corporations ALREADY own the Internet

[unpossibles]

74. not in the same sense at all

much of the grid is publicly owned, and the variety of content is definitely not corporate owned (or even corporate friendly).

So... unless you can convince me otherwise, I disagree with you. They own it in the sense of the big servers, but again a lot of people have their own private servers too. The fact you can look up plenty of anti-corporate websites is proof of this, in that if they truly owned the content, they would shut that down.

[Francesca9]

75. This has nothing to do with owning content

Huge corporations control important parts of the Web.

Do you claim that we have had net neutrality? Maybe so, but I doubt this.

[unpossibles]

78. of course they own important parts of the web

but the HUGE amount of content on every subject you can imagine and many you can't, show that the net is pretty neutral. And yes, I am referring to content because that is what counts in this discussion - to not allow companies to control access to certain content/bandwidth usage is what the discussion is about.

[underpants]

77. Kicking for later watch

:kick: