Category: net neutrality / free the internet!

  • Ted Stevens Goes Postal

    On today’s radioshow I reported on a half-baked pamphlet that Senate Commerce Committee Ted Stevens is distributing to fellow Senators to promote his telecom bill and oppose network neutrality. Click here to take a look at the pamphlet yourself [PDF]. Public Knowledge’s Alex Curis asks some good questions about the pamphlet: Has a congressional committee…

  • Lying Liars on Network Neutrality

    Techdirt properly points the finger at liar Mike McCurry, current mouthpiece for the big telcos, for his farcical Op-Ed attacking network neutrality in the Baltimore Sun: Among the whoppers in the editorial: “The “neutral” proposal that companies like Google are touting will ensure that they never have to pay a dime no matter how much…

  • From Today’s Radioshow: Net Neutrality Debate and Daily Show Segments

    On today’s radioshow we listened to excerpts from a debate on Net Neutrality between two founders of the internet, Vint Cerf, in defense of net neutrality, and Dave Farber, speaking against it. The debate was sponsored by the Center for American Progress, and you can find an mp3 of the whole debate at the Public…

  • OH, the Tubes! or, Why I Don’t MySpace.

    Thanks to everyone’s fake anchorman, Sen. Ted Steven’s tubular understanding of the workings of the Internets is gaining much more popular recognition. Now the NY Times has taken note, as well as the LA Times, and the Washington Post. But one blogger apparently got his MySpace account temporarily suspended because he posted a parody song…

  • Tubes, not Trucks — Sen. Stevens Explains the Internets

    One of the most wonderful things about the Senate Commerce Committee is that it is chaired by a doddering old man from Alaska who rarely demonstrates a clear understanding of the technologies his committee oversees. Not that we should be surprised about relative tech ignorance on Capitol Hill, where enough Congresscritters were willingly bamboozled by…

  • One Step Closer to the Demise of the Record Button?

    In addition to the votes for LPFM and against net neutrality, the Senate Commerce Committee voted in favor of an amendment creating the broadcast flag for both radio/audio and TV/video. If you haven’t heard already, the broadcast flag would allow all content producers to effectively disable the record button on any digital device you own.…

  • Progressives’ Paradox — Senate Commerce Committee Votes Up on LPFM, Down on Net Neutrality

    Oh, those party lines. Senate Commerce Committee Republicans showed themselves to be 92% against ensuring internet freedom, with 11 out of 12 voting against a net neutrality amendment to the big telecom bill (S.2686) today. That was a much narrower loss than a similar amendment suffered in the House, due to the fact that all…

  • Path for LPFM through the Telecom Bill Forest?

    Thursday at 2 PM EDT the Senate Commerce Comittee will begin marking up and possibly voting on the ironically titled Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. It’s the Senate version of the COPE Act, whose primary purpose is to speed the entry of the big telcos, like AT&T and Verizon, into the…

  • Self-Aggrandizement and the Axis of Justice

    I will indulge, momentarily: Jake Sexton is the webmaster for Axis of Justice, the social justice organization formed by Tom Morello of Audioslave and Serj Tankian of System of a Down. Jake did an interview with me on net neutrality which is now featured at the AoJ site. Jake also is the sole proprietor of…

  • Did Your Rep Sell Out the Internet?

    You might be surprised, though it might not be pleasant. My own Congressional Rep, Tim Johnson voted in favor of the COPE Act (even just hours after having skin cancer surgery). His vote isn’t a surprise, he’s a real milquetoast Republican that tends to sway with the party most of the time. But some Chicagoans…