I'm not sure that net neutrality is a non-partisan issue, Matt. The right has a near-endless font of cash (Scaif, Coors, etc.), which would allow people like Reynolds and Malkin to pay the extra money required to deliver their tripe to the masses. The right already props up vanity presses like Regnery and I think it's likely they'll just do the same thing with the web.

It'll be interesting to see which of the right-wing bloggers actually jumps on this issue. My guess is that the right has no need to worry but we certainly do.

The EFF is nearly as bad at the FSF as a front for very large corporations and their interests.

one of the ways...  not the only way.

Matt,

I think he just misses the daily give and take of the White House press operation.  Maybe he's auditioning to replace Scott McClellan?

The chairman of the EFF has a blog, and wrote an essay stating that attacks on network neutrality are attacks on what makes the internet work:

"I wrote an essay here a year ago on the internet cost contract and how it was the real invention (not packet switching) that made the internet. The internet cost contract is "I pay for my end, you pay for yours, and we don't sweat the packets." It is this approach, not any particular technology, that fostered the great things that came from the internet. (Though always-on also played a big role.)

It's time to re-read that essay because two recent big issues uncover attacks on the contract, and thus no less than the foundation of the internet...

[example of an attack on this foundation- a proposal to charge per message for email]

"The charging per message sets a nasty precedent which is an attack on the internet cost contract. It violates the rule about not sweating the individual traffic. I pay for my end, you pay for yours. As soon as we start deciding some traffic is good and bad, and some traffic has to pay to transit the pipes or get through the filters, we've taken a step backwards to the settlement based networks that the internet defeated decades ago.

"In the 70s and 80s the world had many online services you paid for by the hour. It had MCI mail, which you paid to send. It had packet switched X.25 networks you paid for by the kilopacket. They were all crushed by the internet, not just in cost, buy in innovation. AOL, the last of the online services, had to adopt the internet model in almost all respects to avoid a slope to doom.

"The idea of a two-tier internet, which many have been writing about recently, has generated the debate on a subject called network neutrality. Sometimes the problem is attempts to block services entirely based on what they are (such as blocking VoIP(o) that competes with the phone service of the company that owns the wires.) Other times it's a threat that companies providing high-bandwidth services, like video and voice, should "pay their share" and not get a "free ride" on the pipes that "belong" to the telco or cable ISPs.

"Once again, the goal is to violate the contract. The pipes start off belonging to the ISPs but they sell them to their customers. The customers are buying their line to the middle, where they meet the line from the other user or site they want to talk to. The problem is generated because the carriers all price the lines at lower than they might have to charge if they were all fully saturated, since most users only make limited, partial use of the lines. When new apps increase the amount a typical user needs, it alters the economics of the ISP. They could deal with that by raising prices and really delivering the service they only pretend to sell, or by charging the other end, and breaking the cost contract. They've rattled sabres about doing the latter.

"The contract is worth defending not just because it gives us cheap internet or flat rates. It is worth defending because it fosters innovation. It lets people experiment with services that would get shut down quickly if people got billed per packet. Without the cost contract, great new ideas will never get off the ground. And that would be the real shame.
http://ideas.4brad.com/node/373

Remember how Karl Marx wanted to restore the means of production to the people?  If Marx were alive today, he'd say, "screw the means of production - the people who control the means of communication are the ones who call the tune."

Just as the moneymen finally got a stranglehold on the old print, broadcast, and cable media, a new medium - which will ultimately be THE medium - has grown up outside of their control.

If we let them own this medium too, we're screwed.  The independence of the Web is the one thing we've got going for us in this country - the one medium where ideas can't be overwhelmed by money.  If the telecoms win this battle, they can shut us up - and if they do, where will we complain about it?

You know, I've been trying to follow this issue, but as far as I can tell, there's a lot more heat, shouting, namecalling, and paranoia than actual substance to this controversy. I listened to Anna Eshoo spend twenty minutes on C-SPAN recently talking about net neutrality, unable even to explain what it was beyond saying she was for it.

There are actual technical issues at stake here, and  proponents of net neutrality who are unable to raise the dialogue above the level of the oversimplifications and namecalling I've heard risk being perceived by those with a command of the technology as uninformed, paranoid Luddites.

There is a third way, a middle way, here. If we can engage in informed dialogue, we can have the innovations that the telecoms want to bring about, innovations that will result in more responsible, more efficient use of bandwidth, while maintaining the kind of open access we have today. I encourage those who really want to understand the technical issues at stake to read the discussion here.

Broadcasting on the internet is not cheap or free. It never has been. A large part of that is because the Internet architecture we have today requires a live broadcaster to buy thousands of times more bandwidth than would be necessary were we to make some simple architectural changes in intercarrier peering arrangements. If the discussion going on in Washington were being carried on by level-headed technologists rather than propagandists with axes to grind, we would have some chance of seeing those changes implemented in a way that preserves flat-rate subscriber access.

Please, people, inform yourselves.

Agreed, inform yourselves. Firstly, understand the First Amendment. It says that government shall not dictate the means of communication. Net neutrality legislation intends to do exactly that.

The First Amendment does not ask government to guarantee a platform for anyone that wants to speak, or what form speech can or cannot take. It says, government has no say.

It is not a question of finding the right laws for the 'net, it is a question of whether you believe it to be within the government's purview. The 'net is private bits flowing over private networks. It is the speech of private citizens. Neutrality legislation takes that speech and makes it the government's business.

Mike,

Change "Net Neutrality" to something that gets peoples attention:
What about, "STAMP OUT PAY-FOR-VIEW INTERNET!"

That says it all. Get out and support your congressman to vote against having to PAY to view the Internet.

'Nuff said,

Bob Jennings
San Antonio