Keep the Internet Free/Fast–Oppose COPE
Excerpt from article:
But make no mistake: The telephone and cable companies would like to transform our Internet from a medium that allows people to connect to one another, engage in debate and learn about the world into little more than a portal to sell goods and transmit television programs, films and games.
There’s a dangerous bill called the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE) making its way through the House that could be voted on as early as Wednesday. COPE would make it impossible for certain protections governing Internet freedom to be written into rule or law, leaving all of us vulnerable to companies that would like to ”own” the Internet and mine it for profit. The only communications likely to be ”promoted” and ”enhanced” will be those of the country’s largest phone and cable companies.
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Free Press : Congress : HR 5252 Information
The COPE Act, as currently drafted, fails to protect an open and neutral Internet or to encourage equitable broadband deployment. It establishes only minimal language on network neutrality. It also fails to ensure that broadband providers will extend service to areas they view as less-profitable. The bill lacks what are known as build-out requirements that stop companies from cherry-picking areas to serve. On a positive note, it does allow for municipalities to offer broadband services to their residents.
American Samizdat
Congressman Ed Markey (D, Mass), who sponsored a defeated amendment that would have explicitly preserved neutrality, explains:
The Joe Barton (R-TX) sponsored telecommunications bill that is moving through the Energy &
Commerce Committee in the House would fundamentally change the way the Internet works. … In short, the Barton bill opens the door for the Bells and other ISPs to throw out a key principle of net neutrality and enact a new era of telecom taxes and tolls, roadblocks that would shut down the avenues of innovation that have allowed the Internet to become what it is today.
That bill took a big step toward being enacted into law last week.
A House subcommittee handed phone companies a victory Wednesday by voting 27-4 to advance a bill that would make it easier for them to deliver television service over the Internet and clearing the way for all Internet carriers to charge more for speedier delivery. …
Earlier in the day, the subcommittee voted 23-8 to reject an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., that would have inserted specific language designed to enforce network neutrality and prevent the feared creation of fast and slow lanes on the Internet.
“Members from both sides of the aisle endorsed a plan which will permit cable and phone companies to construct ‘pay as you surf, pay as you post’ toll booths for the Internet” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington.
Originally posted 2006-05-17 10:54:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
