Monday, February 13, 2006

China Syndrome

Nothing good and nothing free lasts forever. The internet has been a bastion of freedom in its tawdry and lawless way for too long according to those who want to restrict it and they want to restrict it not to protect your innocence, but to profit them.

According to news magazine The Nation, corporate media giants are working behind the scenes to convince a Republican controlled Congress to privatize the Internet. The telecom and cable giants want to fence off the Internet with one area for the haves--who will pay a premium to enjoy life in the fast lane--and the other for the have-nots. Jeff Chester writes:

"The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online."


Sound typical? So far the corporate puppets in Congress like Rick Santorum haven’t succeeded in making you pay for the weather information your taxes already pay for, but this issue has more going for it than a benefit to one or two companies. Corporate censorship benefits the Republicans as anyone who compares the type and number of stories available on the net versus what’s on the mainstream media.

An unlikely coalition of groups like Common Cause and Free Press, along with new media companies like Amazon.com, are calling for federal policies requiring "network neutrality" that would prohibit broadband providers from discriminating against any forms of digital content. Internet service providers would be regulated like telephone companies, and couldn't simply decide to block their customers' access to legal websites.

You can make your demand for Network Neutrality heard by your congressmen through the Common Cause website. Big Brother is already watching and listening, don’t let him tell you what you can read.

2 comments:

Crankyboy said...

Big brother is watching and listening but is he smelling?

Capt. Fogg said...

Like catfish bait on a hot August afternoon.