When do the Christian Coalition and MoveOn agree? When it comes to restoring Net Neutrality.
This post was motivated by another fantastic Bill Moyers show. Here’s what I learned:
– Cable and Phone companies control our access to the internet. It’s a duopoly.
– In 2002, the FCC ruled that net neutrality laws don’t apply to cable-based service.
– In Aug 2005, the FCC replaced net neutrality RULES with PRINCIPLES. Telephone company executives gained the right to charge for access based on content.
– In June 2007, the House refused to reinstate Net Neutrality.
– Cable/Phone companies want customers to pay for faster access. This sucks, because small users can be forced into slower connections. Legally, they can already decide which websites get fast access. They can censor, as Western Union did when they had a telegraph monopoly, or as the railroad barons did in the shipping industry.
– In 2006-2007, phone companies received tax breaks and price deregulations in exchange for building us a fiber optic network (over 100x faster than copper wire). They took the money and never built it.
– The phone companies didn’t get off their ass until Lafayette Louisiana sold bonds and began building their own network – for price and pride. Cable and Phone companies lobbied like crazy and mired them in lawsuits.
– Cable/Phone companies spend $40 million / year lobbying state capitols, and over $75 million / year on Washington. Some states have passed laws FORBIDDING municipalities from building their own fiber optic networks. Cable/Phone preserve their duopoly with great anti-regulation slogans. (See disinformation technique #4)
– Clinton’s Telecommunications act of 1996 is what allowed massive media conglomeration.
– The National Association of Broadcaster is a corporate lackey that convinced Congress to cut back on supporting local, low-power radio, and lobbied the FCC to get rid of it entirely.
author Eric Klinenberg: “I think what Congress and the FCC understand all too well at this point is that the more open and public and democratic a hearing this issue gets, the less support there is for media consolidation. And so the danger is that Congress and the FCC will rush legislation through before anyone has a chance to really participate. I look for the FCC to be rushing to get legislation passed without a democratic process. I’m very concerned about that. It happened in 2003. There’s every sign that it’s about to happen again. . . . In 2003, the FCC said it would do these kinds of hearings. They started. They then aborted the hearings once it became clear that the message, no more consolidation, was not what the then chairman Michael Powell wanted to hear. And then the commission ignored the public input altogether when it came time to crafting legislation. They got reprimanded by the courts. The order got remanded. It’s now back in play. And the question now is whether these kinds of hearings are democracy for show or whether they’re democracy for real. . . . sadly it looks like the FCC has been working in the interest of the small number of companies its charged with regulating.”