Well, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted on the COPE Act (HR5252). It passed with 321 votes in favor and only 101 votes opposed.
A Net Neutrailty amendment was also voted on but was defeated: 269 votes opposed it vs. only 152 in favor of the amendment.
What really gets under my skin and annoys me to no end about the situation are statements like this:
Representative Fred Upton, head of the House telecommunications subcommittee, said competition could mean people save $30 to $40 each month on their net access fees.
-from Defeat for net neutrality backers, BBC News, 09 June 2006.
I don’t know which ‘people’ Upton is referring to because I don’t know any ‘people’ who spend $30-40 dollars each month on their net access fees. I know a lot of businesses and corporations who spend more than that but people? Spend that much a month for Internet access? I don’t think so.
Upton’s stated position is the classic icon of an elected representative who’s representing interests that have little to do with what his constituents—actual people—want. Instead, he’s thinking and speaking for the telecommunications providers who want to charge more for access to certain sites and types of content.
Look at what some others have said in support for the Net Neutrality amendment to the COPE Act:
During the debate House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, said that without the amendment “telecommunications and cable companies will be able to create toll lanes on the information superhighway”.
“This strikes at the heart of the free and equal nature of the internet,” she added. …web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned that the net faced entering a “dark period” if access suppliers were allowed to choose which traffic to prioritise. He also warned that the loss of neutrality could mean a two-tier Internet.
Meg Whitman, eBay chief executive, e-mailed more than one million members of the auction site asking them to back the idea of net neutrality.
Google boss Eric Schmidt called on staff at the search giant to support the idea.
Film stars such as Alyssa Milano also backed the amendment.
net firms worried about the effect of the amendment on their business lobbied hard in favour of the amendment. They fear their sites will become hard to reach or that they will be forced to pay to guarantee that they can get through to web users.
-from Ibid.
All hope is not lost yet, though. The US Senate will now debate the issue where the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will vote later in June on its version of the act, which is thought to focus heavily on the Net Neutrality issue.
If you haven’t communicated your feelings and thoughts about this issue to your elected representatives, won’t you please take the time and make the effort today?
If you don’t spend your time wisely now in voicing your concerns, the telecommunications companies will be more than happy to spend your money on themselves very soon.
Please… exercise your voice on this important issue while you still can:
Want more detail on the bill and the issues? Refer to SaveAccess.org’s page on HR5252, the COPE Act.
Need help contacting your representative? Check out Write Your Representative now. Thank you!
8 responses so far ↓
1 chow-stl // Jun 10, 2006 at 1:43 pm
This is a crock. The net is the only global forum which grants free and unfettered access of informaiont to the masses. I suspect that the politicians, inherently fearful of reall power vested in the people, will use their influance to stifle dissent among the people. The net broke the monopoly of information controlled by mass media in the past. And now, I strongly suspect, politicians [who, on both sides of the isle, enjoyed great influance at the behest of the media conglomerates] will now influance ISP’s to apply the info-superhighway ‘toll’ to sources of unacceptable dissent. And dark day will certainly be upon us should this bill pass.
Best Regards.
2 Richard // Jun 10, 2006 at 1:51 pm
I couldn’t agree more, Chow. I hope everyone who reads this will tell everyone they know how important this issue is, and that they will ask everyone they know to write, call and/or email their Senators without delay!
I hope the link to “Write Your Representative” makes it easy for everyone to discover how to contact their representatives.
3 chow-stl // Jun 11, 2006 at 9:04 am
You know RH. Regarding freedoms in general, what really grates me is that so many people gave their lives for those freedoms. And an apethetic public, many short sighted coperate interests, as well as ploliticians are all to willing to piss away the legacy of those who gave all.
Best Regards.
4 Richard // Jun 11, 2006 at 4:12 pm
I think a large part of this willingness to give it up so easily includes at least two points:
1. The freedoms we’re talking about here are freedoms that apply to everyone; they “level the playing field” so to speak. But the politicians who, as you say, are so willing to “piss away the legacy” are not–as politicians–themselves a part of the “everyone” who benefit from these freedoms; politicians are the supposed elite class, the privelaged class, the powerful class and therefore, protecting “our” freedoms is, I think, less a priority than protecting the favor of the powerful and wealthy lobbies who have the economic muscle to make or break the politicians popularity and, therefore, time in office.
2. The relatively long gap in time between taking an action that is detrimental to freedom and the actual experience/realization of that detriment. This is a critical point that I believe is among the core challenges in raising public concern: if they do something harmful today and they are not harmed immediately, they do not connect the dots of “cause and effect” and, to the short-sighted personality, there is no temporal correlation and, in their short-sightedness, therefore no correlation at all.
These are very challenging dynamics to spot, let alone to challenge/resolve. Even so, there are those of us who believe that the effort is worth the outcome in spite of the sometimes utter lack of feedback that we’re having any measurable effect at all.
Best wishes back to ya’.
5 Paul // Jul 1, 2006 at 12:18 pm
I wrote letters to all of representatives in my district a while back specifically citing net neutrality as my concern. A few days ago, I recieved a letter back from my congressman thanking me for my concern, and informing me that thanks to concerned citizens such as myself, COPE(HR5252) had passed. I was very puzzled when I found the letter to be completely focused on internet and cable TV providers being de-regulated and having greater competition, without so much as a mention of the phrase, ‘net neutrality.’ Something smelled fishy. Thats what led me here only to discover that my suspicions were correct. It’s a whitewash! As Chow had said earlier, this is a crock!
6 Richard // Jul 1, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Hi, Paul. It’s always nice to hear from someone who takes their citizenship seriously. It frustrates me, too, to receive those stock form-letters that never really sound as if they’re addressing the concerns we express in our correspondence to our representatives.
Such form-letter responses hardly resemble the kind of attentive representation one expects from America’s government, yet this response is all I’ve ever received in more than a decade of correspondence with my representatives. I suppose more people aren’t upset because they’re not writing to their rep’s, hence, they don’t have any direct experience with having their own concerns minimized by the process of automated responses.
How sad for American government that the shell of the system remains but the substance of the system seems all but void.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences in this matter.
7 John Casey // Jun 8, 2007 at 7:56 pm
what we need is a carefully controled public financing of elections with a total ban on contribututions to canidates.
Congressional actions reported honestly to the people, in clear language for all to understand, by methods that assure truthful reporting
8 Richard // Jun 11, 2007 at 2:47 am
Hi, John. I agree that transparency in government is generally a good thing and particularly in this arena.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts here — much appreciated!
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