Net Neutrality

From What If They Gagged Gutenberg? (by Craig Newmark, San Francisco Chronicle, June 11th): ( quick excerpt )

In a June 10th commentary, he offered a couple of other metaphors: ( quoted behind the cut )

House Ignores Public, Sells Out the Internet through Passage of COPE Act (press release at savetheinternet.com): ( quick excerpts )

From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo...

June 12th:

The fight is already over in the House. Now it goes to the senate. A new telecommunications bill is being moved through the Senate Commerce Committee by Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK).

The question is whether the new bill will include Net Neutrality language or not.

The pro-Net Neutrality legislation is co-sponsored by Sens. Snowe (R-ME) and Dorgan (D-ND) -- the Snowe-Dorgan bill (S-2917).

So if you're interested in trying to find out where your senator stands, the key question is whether they support and plan to vote for the Snowe-Dorgan bill. A supporter of Net Neutrality should say 'yes', an opponent 'no'.

And June 9th:

Okay, so Dorgan, Inouye, Leahy, Boxer, Clinton, Obama and Wyden are down for Net Neutrality. Just because someone's not a cosponsor, you can't infer from that that they're not for it. But it does give a list to start with of who's on the right side.

Now, here's what I'd like to do. Many of you out there are working this debate and you know which senators are leaning which way. But everybody can get on the Net and start googling. So I want your help in putting together a list of where the different Democrats stand on this issue. Let us know what you find out.

Public Broadcasting Funding Petition

GOP Takes Aim at PBS Funding (Boston Globe, June 8)

Statements of Public Broadcasters on House Subcommittee's Vote To Cut Federal Funding for Public Broadcasting by 23 Percent (NPR.org pressroom, June 7)

CPR Responds to House Appropriations Subcommittee's Proposed Funding Levels for Public Broadcasting (Corporation for Public Broadcasting pressroom, June 7)

Public Broadcasting Under Assault (Freepress.net)

Bush Budget Pumps Propaganda, Slashes PBS (MediaCitizen, February 7)

From MoveOn's email today:

Over the last couple of days, over 300,000 people (including 80,000 who are totally new to MoveOn) have signed on to our petition to save NPR and PBS. That brings the total number of signers to over 1,400,000—making this not only our largest petition ever, but one of the largest petitions anyone's done.

But the next vote in Congress will be as soon as tomorrow. To stop Congress' budget cuts, we need to go even bigger: we're aiming for 1.5 million of us to sign on by tomorrow.

From MoveOn's June 8 email:

Everyone expected House Republicans to give up efforts to kill NPR and PBS after a massive public outcry stopped them last year. But they've just voted to eliminate funding for NPR and PBS — unbelievably, starting with programs like "Sesame Street."

Public broadcasting would lose nearly a quarter of its federal funding this year. Even worse, all funding would be eliminated in two years—threatening one of the last remaining sources of watchdog journalism.

Petition at MoveOn.org.