Net Neutrality Fight

Net Neutrality Fight

Mr. \”Bridge to Nowhere\” Stevens holds the Internet in his hands. Feeling nervous yet?

I was going to lay this out in my own inimitable way. However, then I saw what
Matt Stoller wrote about the issue. What he said!

Ok, it's March, 2008. You go to your computer and open your Verizon-supertier browser, and everything comes at you with blazing speed. You access your bank, NBC news, Andrew Sullivan's blog through Time.com, and check your email. You watch the last five minutes of Scary Movie 7, which you fell asleep watching the night before. Pretty cool. Then you remember your best friend set up a new blog about her band and asked you to check it out. It's kind of irritating, because she set it up on the slow tier. You minimize the Verizon browser, open up Firefox, and type in the web address. It takes thirty seconds to load. Ugh. The site's fine, and there are some cute pictures of her band performing in a dive bar. You click on a song, and the browser begins loading the first minute of the song. After twenty seconds, you curse the fact that she didn't pay to be on Verizon's internet, and you close the browser. You're even thinking of canceling your slow-tier internet account, since shelling out the $45/month for that plus the $29/month for Verizon super-tier isn't worth it. Welcome to a non-neutral internet. What Could a Non-Neutral Internet Look Like?

The Senate is set to mark up the bill that's in the Commerce Committee on Thursday.
If you've got a senator on this list get on the phone.

Chairman Ted Stevens (AK), (202) 224-3004 John McCain (AZ), (202) 224-2235 Conrad Burns (MT), Main: 202-224-2644 Trent Lott (MS), (202) 224-6253 Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), 202-224-5922 Gordon H. Smith (OR), 202.224.3753 John Ensign (NV), (202) 224-6244 George Allen (VA), (202) 224-4024 John E. Sununu (NH), (202) 224-2841 Jim DeMint (SC), 202-224-6121 David Vitter (LA),(202) 224-4623 Co-Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (HI), 202-224-3934 John D. Rockefeller (WV), (202) 224-6472 John F. Kerry (MA), (202) 224-2742 Barbara Boxer (CA), (202) 224-3553 Bill Nelson (FL), 202-224-5274 Maria Cantwell (WA), 202-224-3441 Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ), (202) 224-3224 E. Benjamin Nelson (NE), (202) 224-6551 Mark Pryor (AR), (202) 224-2353

And on an election 2006 note, hey, George Allen. What are you going to do about this
one, huh? If Webb comes out on our side of this issue, Allen could certainly prove where he lives and breathes. He also could be toast.