Save the Internet: Preserve Network Neutrality

This is primarily aimed at DV members in the US, since it is the American Congress who are currently deciding whether to abolish network neutrality - a primary principle upon which the internet was founded and one which has preserved its freedom since inception. However, when a government trades the freedom of its citizens for corporate profit, the consequences have a tendency to spread beyond national borders, so this will likely be of interest to members from other countries who like to shake their heads in disbelief at the sacrifices the US lawmakers will make at the expense of their constituency and for the benefit of their corporate sponsors.

Anyway, here's what's happening:

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Originally posted by MoveOn
Big Internet operators like AT&T and Verizon want the power to decide which Web sites open properly on our computers—giving them control over what we do and where we search online. So far, Congress has caved to their demands...Companies like AT&T are spending millions lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. A House committee voted to go along with AT&T's scheme last week, but we are fighting back hard before next week's full House vote. We want to raise public awareness of this issue and hand Congress 350,000 signatures.

Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, recently explained this issue:

Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other's...Whether a user searches for recipes using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend's MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane.

If companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Google to eBay to MoveOn either pay the equivalent of protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly on your computer. We can't allow the Internet—this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech—to become captive to large corporations.

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This is an issue which goes beyond political affiliations - it is about legislation which compromises the freedoms which we have all enjoyed on the internet, which compromises our access to information, and which, in effect, censors the internet.

If you are a US citizen and believe that network neutrality should be preserved, please sign the online petition below. If you'd like more information about the issue or about MoveOn, the organization which is compiling the signatures, that's available from the link to the petition. If you're not a US citizen, but know people who are, please make them aware of this issue. Obviously anyone who reads this values the internet and the information it has made feely available to us. I know that I certainly wouldn't want to lose access to DreamViews or any other website because my ISP and its parent company demand protection money which the site administrators are unable or righteously-unwilling to pay.

Petition to Preserve Network Neutrality

Signed.

... I hate America... I'm really not looking forward to going back...

I signed, too. I had seen that announced at askaninja.com (of all places :P ) and was glad to sign it.

-Amé

tries to decide whether to sigh or scream and goes for the headshake :shakehead2:

if i were american i'd sign it in a moment...

I saw it (that is, to say, I seen it) on Digg.com, and I totally signed it. Figures the USA would take a page out of communist China's book :shakehead2: I dno if I'll stay in the US when I'm older, but right now it's not looking very likely.

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Originally posted by Dangeruss
I saw it (that is, to say, I seen it) on Digg.com, and I totally signed it. Figures the USA would take a page out of communist China's book :shakehead2: I dno if I'll stay in the US when I'm older, but right now it's not looking very likely.

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well, up in canada we're usually happy to take disatisfied americans and greet them with tolerance, 6% beer, buds the size of a femur, and a minority conservative government...

you can crash on my couch if you need to :D

sounds lovely, wombing. Canadar, here I come! To be honest, Canada's the only place where I could possibly go. I speak french well, but in France people would always know I'm an outsider as soon as I open my mouth. The french I met on my trip were swell folks, and they said I spoke like a native, but after hearing their english teachers speak with heavy french accents, I knew that it was almost impossible to get rid of an old accent. I'd never fit in. At least in Canada they speak english, and they're reputedly accepting of expatriate Americans (quite unlike france), so my chances of integrating there are much better.

Umm... correct me if I'm wrong, but congress doesn't own the internet, so they have no right to do this.

but when has that ever stopped them?

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Originally posted by Dangeruss
but when has that ever stopped them?

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Go go UN... wait. Dammit.

I did my part. Said that the internet is more of a democracy than congress, they should take some notes. No one has the authority to run the internet like that, if congress can't understand that, both telecommunications companies and congress should be thrown to the side of the road.

should be, that's a given. But they still own the bandwidth :shakehead2:

I'm sick of the US. Moving to Canada in a few years.

I signed it.

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Originally posted by Tsen
I'm sick of the US. Moving to Canada in a few years.

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Bleeh. Take me with you.

Thank you to everyone who's already signed!! The internet is definitely a resource which we are all charged with protecting. Our government obviously won't do it for us.

As for the idea of moving to Canada, I’ve been threatening to expatriate for about 6 years now, and if the US were some dinky little egocentric, isolationist principality, I would have already. But since it’s the largest market force in the world and has recently adopted an economic model borrowed from Imperialistic Britain (we all know how well that turned out) and combined it with a socio-cultural dedication to creating an American theocracy, leaving won’t do any good. No one in the world can escape the influence of US policy, and only from within is real change ever enacted. If the thoughtful people, the learned people, the people who care about life beyond themselves and the sphere of their economic influence leave, the others win control. We have no moral authority to chastise from afar the actions and actors which we are too lazy and cowardly to confront and challenge in person.

But I suppose one should never say never. If things continue down this toilet-bowl plunge, I just might end up swallowing my morals and sense of social responsibility and booking a plane, train, or automobile outta here. If you’re old enough to move by then, Dangeruss, maybe we could get a good two-for-one deal on really heavy winter coats. I hear Canada is cold. And we could rent an apartment with Tsen and Courtney right down the street from Wombing. :wink:

Yay! Then we can throw Canadan DV parties! With real CANADIAN BEER! :D

I just had an off-topic thought. I think it would be really hilarious if we have all the Mexicans immigrate to the United States, then all these Americans immigrate to Canada. What would Canada do? Learn to swim?

Peregrunis

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on really heavy winter coats. I hear Canada is cold. [/b]

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Oh yah it's so cold here eh. In fact this summer sucks, because of global warming my igloo has just started to melt and I think I might have to build a shack (at least for the summer) to live in. Also I can no longer use my dog sled as a means of transportation :(.

all the american's coming here?...us Canadians would chase out all the americans, we'd hitch up our polar bear amy and get the canoe navy ready! (I mean kick out just the bad ones... all the republicans and conservativs!) :D

Hey I wanna go to the Candian parties, we should start a lucid dream commune!

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Originally posted by Tsen
Yay! *Then we can throw Canadan DV parties! *With real CANADIAN BEER! *:D

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If we're going for beer, we need to go to Germany! :P :cheers:

And Shark, you're forgetting that you'll no longer have polar bears in a few decades. Those melting ice caps turn into polar bear drowning pools, and you'll have no way to escape. But don't worry, the conservatives won't come up to get you. Like Napoleon, they don't like the cold. However, in 100 - 200 years after global warming has transformed your climate to be more like Texas, watch out!

i hate to be a spoil-sport, and i like the idea of trying to fight against the injustice of corporate america and all that...but when has an internet petition ever been counted for anything? i think it's time to start recruiting the cyber-criminals who can do real damage to cyber-infrastructure.

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Originally posted by mongreloctopus
i hate to be a spoil-sport, and i like the idea of trying to fight against the injustice of corporate america and all that...but when has an internet petition ever been counted for anything? *i think it's time to start recruiting the cyber-criminals who can do real damage to cyber-infrastructure.

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Petitions, whether gathered in person or online, have been an effective medium for communicating to government the desires of the governed for hundreds of years. If you'd actually investigated the link I posted, you'd see that you don't sign this petition with some arbitrary SN - you must provide your legal name and address so that the electronic signatures can later be verified – and the organization compiling this petition is not the temporary brainchild of some high school social studies class, but rather a nationally recognized and active PAC. A hard copy of the petition will be presented to Congress at the end of the week (so, Monday probably). The internet can be a tremendously powerful tool for social change if people are only willing to get off their asses every once in a while and do something about the crap about which they're constantly complaining while watching CNN 24/7. 300,000 signatures is not an unreasonable expectation for a petition compiled online. You'd be hard pressed to organize a petition that large with signatures collected door-to-door across the US in the span of a week as has been done with this one.

Also, destroying the thing you’re trying to save has never been an effective political strategy. It may work for childish siblings who slobber all over their favorite toys and then taunt, “So, bet you don’t want it now!” but playing such games with an infrastructure upon which all global business depends is not only immature, but dangerous.

you'd do better to actually donate money, instead of signing something that no one in the government actually cares about, and probably won't even ever actually see. congress doesn't care what the "public" wants...unless you have a big sack of money.

and as long as we are living in a place where the people in charge enjoy violence and mayhem, it will be the only way to get through to them (unless you have a big sack of money)

Congress doesn't care what its citizens think because its citizens do not care what Congress does. If the congressional body of the United States can sell out the freedom of its people for a quarter percent rise on the stock prices of AT&T while those same people sit at home oblivious and uncaring, glued to the innanities of Desperate Housewives or American Idol, why should they care? Those people will elect them again in 2 or 6 years out of habit, probably not even noticing how their lives have changed and how their freedom has been curtailed one day at a time. My money won't change that. A single average citizen cannot compete with corporate donors, although a million can.

However, we don't need to line the pockets of our Congressmen and women in order to affect change because it is still the people who elect Congress, and because we have that power, latent though it may currently lie, petitions do have an impact. Petitions indicate that people are paying attention, that citizens are watching their government and noting its unethical moves. Each person who takes the time to sign a petition, who takes the time to wake up and take an interest in the current events which will shape the world for decades to come is a person who will not sit quietly at home come election time. People who sign petitions are not the sort who vote out of habit and keep quiet out of disinterested boredom. They phone and write their local press, their neighbors, their Congressmen. They raise the awareness of the others who might lie dormant, and with nearly 400 millions people in this country, that awareness is not something that Congress particularly wants turned its way. So if it comes down to giving the people what they want and foregoing a weeklong trip to the Caymans on the AT&T yacht, they'll give the people what they want, if only out of a sense of personal preservation. And for someone who used to live in this country and does not share its current political stance, you're awfully quick to advocate violence as a solution. Violence has worked so well to solve our problems in the past, hasn't it?

violence is a pretty popular medium of politcal action now and always has been. one day violence probably won't be necessary, and probably won't be very effective, but it's the single most effective tool for inciting change right now--which is why people can't seem to stop killing each other all across the world...however, when i say "violence" i don't mean just violence against people, but rather against buildings, companies, ideas, economy, whatever.

besides, i thought congress didn't even bother reading the patriot act. why would they care about a bunch of online-submitted "signatures?" i've personally never heard of an online petition ever working. i think there are two many middlemen (or flappers, if you're a gulliver fan) for them to feel any sort of pressure about doing what their constituency "wants." once we've put them in office it's free reign. the way the american people are treated by the government proves that the officials have absolutely no respect for americans. sure, we can all keep "participating" in the government and try to change things from "within" the system...but it's set up so that it's impossible to be changed, because almost everyone with enough money to enact real change has no reason to.

I certainly agree to Preserve Network Neutrality.
But my thoughts on bashing the US.
Those who want to stay out. We won't miss you.
Those who want to go. Please do! There are plenty of others coming in.
We have many fault in our system. But I argue that it is the best one out there so far. And when the going gets tuff, the spineless move.

:putemuppunk:

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Originally posted by Distant Clone
I just had an off-topic thought. I think it would be really hilarious if we have all the Mexicans immigrate to the United States, then all these Americans immigrate to Canada. What would Canada do? Learn to swim?

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:bump: :laughhard:

To a certain point, I agree with Howetzer. However, I'm of the opinion that, while the US's system is good, the people aren't, and eventually one of the two will either greatly improve or fail miserably. America's people can't continue on being as ignorant, lazy and selfish as they are and expect their system to continue to uphold them. The system will have to change to motivate the people, or the people will have to change to energize the system. At the current rate of things, though, I'm guessing that things are about to go downhill fast in the USA.

i love the usa and i will never forgive its true enemies...but i've lost my ability to discuss politics--it always ends the same way, and we're taught in america that conviction should replace ignorance.

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Originally posted by Tsen
To a certain point, I agree with Howetzer. However, I'm of the opinion that, while the US's system is good, the people aren't, and eventually one of the two will either greatly improve or fail miserably. America's people can't continue on being as ignorant, lazy and selfish as they are and expect their system to continue to uphold them. The system will have to change to motivate the people, or the people will have to change to energize the system. At the current rate of things, though, I'm guessing that things are about to go downhill fast in the USA.

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I wish I could NOT agree with you. But human nature and greed make a democracy a temporary government!
I really believe the founding fathers had their heads on straight but could only account for so much stupidity.

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Originally posted by mongreloctopus
violence is a pretty popular medium of politcal action now and always has been. one day violence probably won't be necessary, and probably won't be very effective, but it's the single most effective tool for inciting change right now--which is why people can't seem to stop killing each other all across the world...however, when i say "violence" i don't mean just violence against people, but rather against buildings, companies, ideas, economy, whatever.

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So you think that jeopardizing or even destroying the infrastructure of the internet is the way to prevent Congress from giving control of which sites load and which don't over to private corporations? You think that blowing up AT&T headquarters, potentially killing and injuring hundreds of innocent people and endangering the livelihoods of thousands more, or launching DOS attacks, or hacking websites with which you don't agree is the way to incite political change? "Preserve net neutrality or I'll blow you up" - do you honestly think such a tactic would work?

All that would do is cause law enforcement to clamp down on those responsible, and it would cast the entire movement in a disreputable light. You cannot preserve through destruction. Violence begets only more violence - it always has and it always will. Do you wonder why there are people killing each other all over the world? It is because one violent act opens up the possibility of millions more, like the single crack which begets an avalanche. If it's okay for one person, it's okay for every person. By engaging in such behavior, you endorse such behavior, regardless of who perpetrates it.

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Originally posted by mongreloctopus
once we've put them in office it's free reign. *the way the american people are treated by the government proves that the officials have absolutely no respect for americans.

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No, the way the American people are treated by the government shows that the people have no respect for themselves. If we cared enough about ourselves, about the future of our country and the future of the world which we are affecting through our selfish, short-sighted, and ill-conceived policies, we could change the course of our own history. There are nearly 400 million American citizens and less than 600 national elected representatives. Change is not enacted not because those 400 million Americans lack the money to bribe their representatives, but because they lack the will and desire to participate. They do not pay attention to the atrocities committed in their name because such things seem so far away. They think that freedoms taken away from others will never become freedoms taken away from them. It is a tragedy of the human condition that this happens over and over again, that we do not learn from our own history. Good people doing nothing seems to be quite the tradition:

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When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."[/b]

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All it takes to change a democracy is the will of its people. And the United States remains a democracy, despite the fact that so very few of its citizens choose to exercise the powers such a democracy grants them and the responsibilities such a democracy demands of them. We are the stewards of this government. We have allowed corporate interests to infiltrate the democratic process because we haven't cared enough yet to stop it. Maybe we are finally starting to care. But you, by dismissing the validity and effectiveness of the democratic process, by advocating violent action instead of civic action, are only contributing to its impotence.

Petitions are the voice of the people, and when that voice is loud enough, not even the raucous roar of a Capitol Hill hooker, poker party can drown it out. Do nothing if you so desire, but do not dismiss the contributions of those who seek to improve what you are unwilling to.

Bitching, moaning, and advocating blowing shit up from an ocean away is not a strategy for political reform. It's just the jumbled lyrics of some uninformed teenage rock song that can't decide whether it wants to be emo or angry.

like i said, i'm not going to argue. my suggestion stands (donating money is more effective than signing a petition...of course, THEN it requires real sacrifice..).

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Originally posted by mongreloctopus
like i said, i'm not going to argue. *my suggestion stands (donating money is more effective than signing a petition...of course, THEN it requires real sacrifice..).

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Throwing money at problems rarely makes them go away. It just makes your pockets lighter and occasionally your conscience superficially clearer. And as for sacrifice, I don't recall you mentioning having done a single thing in defense of preserving network neutrality or to improve any of the other problems you are so quick to point out about the United States. You criticize the actions of others, yet do nothing yourself except sit around complaining - hardly a respectable position. I posted a link to the petition to make others on this forum aware of an important issue and to encourage them to take action. Signing the petition is the first step. Writing letters and phoning one's congressional representatives are further important actions which should be taken to assure that one's voice is heard and one's opinion is considered. So far, you have done none of that. Bitching about the effectiveness of civic action while advocating violence as a solution to nonviolent political problems is unproductive and juvenile. Actually do something instead of jumping up on your cynical, irresponsible soapbox of inaction and bemoaning the state of things which you are unwilling to expend the effort to change.

:yawn:

My prediction for the next 5-10 years, and I'll wager a months salary on it:
(this is not unfounded america-bashing, either, purely third party observations)

America
Internet hosting and routing in america will be split down into numerous chunks

You will have the crappy public access areas
Each of these chunks will be owned exclusively by corporate entities, with adverts between page loads, heavy censorship on the content viewable, and navigation is easily trackable

The private areas will resemble the net as it is today, however these will be subject to paid subscriptions.

Europe
As for Europe as a whole, I don't know
my gut feeling is that the net will stay pretty much as it is,
but communication to and from the american servers will become troublesome

could be wrong, but I reckon we're set for an america vs. europe stand-off

inside Europe, there could be problems
We (the UK) while being bound by the european initiatives and standards, will try to emulate what the US is doing, with the whole thing being publically funded

The french will not accept anything from brussels, they will want their own slightly different proprietary system

I dunno, I hope I'm wrong

mongreloctopus: Get some maturity before you try to participate in worthwhile discussions.

And sad as it is, I think Ynot is probably correct, at least if things continue along the same course.