Support the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009

Early this week, Representatives Ed Markey and Anna Eshoo introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009. It's common sense and it's fair, but just watch as the telecoms now do everything they can to destroy it. Why do we need this Act? Here are a few recent examples:

The issue of unrestricted Internet access has gained new traction on Capitol Hill in the wake of reports that Apple and AT&T are each blocking or preventing users from accessing services for the mega-popular iPhone, which is exclusive to AT&T at the moment. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski recently sent letters to Apple, AT&T, and Google asking why Google Voice, the company's popular free calling service, was rejected for use on the iPhone.

Representatives Markey and Eshoo made this statement about the need for this net neutrality bill:

The Internet is a success today because it was open to everyone with an idea,” said Rep. Markey. “That openness and freedom has been at risk since the Supreme Court decision in Brand X. This bill will protect consumers and content providers because it will restore the guarantee that one does not have to ask permission to innovate. The Internet has thrived and revolutionized business and the economy precisely because it started as an open technology,” Rep. Eshoo said. “This bill will ensure that the non-discriminatory framework that allows the Internet to thrive and competition on the Web to flourish is preserved at a time when our economy needs it the most.”

Here's a summary of the bill:

H.R. 3458, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, is designed to assess and promote Internet freedom for consumers and content providers. The bill states that it is the policy of the United States to protect the right of consumers to access lawful content, run lawful applications, and use lawful services of their choice on the Internet while preserving and promoting the open and interconnected nature of broadband networks, enabling consumers to connect to such networks their choice of lawful devices, as long as such devices do not harm the network. The legislation also directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to promulgate several rules relating to enforcement and implementation of the legislation, including rules to ensure that providers of Internet access service fulfill the duties and disclose meaningful information to consumers about a provider’s Internet access service in clear, uniform, and conspicuous manner.

To do your part, click on this tool to determine the phone number of your representative, then call to ask for his or her position on this bill. You are then given a further option to report the result to Free Press/Save the Internet. I made the call and spoke directly with a legislative assistant. She didn't know the answer (re Representative Russ Carnahan), but promised to find out and report back to me. The entire process only took a couple minutes. You can also sign a Petition that will be delivered to Congress by visiting Save the Internet. Again, it only takes a minute. Your grass roots investment of a few minutes can counteract tens of millions of dollars the telecoms will spend on lobbyists, misleading media campaigns and wads of cash that the are putting into the palms of your elected representatives. Be empowered!

Continue ReadingSupport the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009

Who needs a public option anyway?

One of my republican friends asked me"who needs a public option, anyway?"over a beer the other evening. He was responding to my shout of dismay over Ms Sibelius statement that the public option was "not really necessary" to health care reform.

So who needs a public option?

People who are currently uninsured, of course. Most of them are not uninsured by their own choice, but by the choice of an insurance company. A few may have elected to remain uninsured even when eligible, due to cost of premiums, etc . Many younger colleagues fall into this latter group, which has the effect of raising insurance rates for everyone else (since the remaining population are older and higher risk)

People who cannot afford to lose their insurance. Many people maintain are locked in to their insurance because of conditions that would be considered 'pre-existing' by a new insurer. Even if able to be covered by a new insurer, their premiums would likely be higher, or their coverage would carry many more restrictions. Health costs are already high - who would choose to voluntarily increase their expenses while reducing benefits?

And people like me. I have a job. I am in reasonably good health, and have decent employer-based health insurance for myself and my family. But I am effectively locked into my current employment. I would love to start my own business, but I cannot afford to be without healthcare. Private healthcare is so expensive, my baseline operating costs would be simply exorbitant. The risk of starting a business is already high. The penurious cost of private healthcare makes a high risk venture, insanely high.

In my travels I meet a great many people - and many people feel equally locked into employment: "I'd love to quit this job and go do X but I can't afford to give up my healthcare".

Lack of a public option is killing America's spirit of entrepreneurship. It's killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The ability of common Americans to start their own ventures without hindrance is central to the spirit of independence and vitality that made this country an economic powerhouse in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The fact that republicans are most viscerally against a public option demonstrates that they are not "for business", but are simply and solely for "big business".

Continue ReadingWho needs a public option anyway?

People bringing guns to locations of Obama speeches. NRA: no comment

The AP reports that increasing numbers of people are bringing guns to locations of Obama speeches. These well-armed citizens include several with assault-type weapons. The article ends with the reporters note that the National Rifle Association offered "no comment." I'm just amazed that it is legal to hang around near a high-profile political event with a gun. Next thing you know, the Supreme Court is going to declare bearing weapons as a form of speech.

Continue ReadingPeople bringing guns to locations of Obama speeches. NRA: no comment

The My Of It

Listening to the harangue over the health care reform squabble, I can't help thinking---even I saw a few episodes of West Wing, I who do not watch television, so of all the Lefties out there who probably hung on every second of that show, why is it so hard to grasp how things don't get accomplished in D.C. ? Yeah, it was fiction, but it was, in my opinion, pretty accurate in terms of the culture. But people complain and wonder why Obama doesn't just "ram his reforms through." Well. The man is a consensus builder. We just got done with a president who wasn't. Obama has not yet been in office a year and already people are ready to jump ship because he's not the second coming of FDR. How thoughtless, ill-informed, and shallow supposedly intelligent people can be. It should not be surprising, yet... First off, instead of presenting his reform package, he handed it to Congress---which is where all the arguing was going to happen anyway. Suppose he had presented a package. What is happening now would have happened anyway, and then he would be directly blamed for having drafted a lame plan. His plan would have been eviscerated and Congress wouold then proceed to draft something possibly worse than what it emerging now since Obama's plan would have been discredited through failure. As it is, the plan being touted is All Congress's. Anything wrong with it, it's on them. Obama has been arguing that regardless what happens, things have to change---which is frightening. With the stimulus package, things were already broken. With health care they are merely on the verge. Secondly, he's got lots of balls in the air just now. A lot. Most of them are disasters he inherited. Now, the metaphor has been used before, but that doesn't make it any less true---this country is a Big Ship and you don't turn it around on a dime. If you do that, you break more than you fix. Maybe that's what needs to happen, and sometimes we've had leaders who did that when there was but one maybe two major things that needed to be tended to. But that's not the case just now. Everything is in a mess. I'm not going to fault the man for failing to meet impossible expectations. Let's assume he did just start "ramming things through" and taking a dump all over Congress in the process, and things would inevitably get worse. For the ideologues who are displeased with what they perceive as half-measures just now, he might be a hero. Maybe, but quite certainly he would be a one-term hero. The Republicans could make good book on a spectacular failure and be right back in power, at least in Congress, and then what? So I think it a stupid thing to start bailing on him this soon into his term when he is possibly the most unifying, certainly the most intelligent and well educated president we've had since...hm. Here's what's going to happen. Congress will put together a lame package. It will pass. Then likely as not it will fail. The system will collapse. On its own. Then the big fix will come in. Congress will be discredited and Obama will be able to present a plan with legs and the public will back it because they will already have seen what happens when the really necessary steps are not taken. Right now, the reality is that health care costs too damn much.

Continue ReadingThe My Of It

12 Reasons why the U.S. government should not mandate clean water or clean air.

12 Reasons why the U.S. government should not mandate clean water or clean air.

1. Clean air and clean water are not a right. As such, they not the responsibility of government. 2. Government efforts to mandate clean air and clean water do not in practice guarantee universal access clean air and clean water. Many countries have laws to require clean air and clean water but don’t actually have clean air and clean water. 3. Eliminating the profit motive will decrease the rate of innovation regarding clean air and clean water. 4. When a government mandates clean air and clean water, it slows down innovation and inhibits new technologies from being developed and utilized. This simply means that technologies regarding clean air and clean water are less likely to be researched and manufactured, and technologies that are available are less likely to be used. 5. Publicly-mandated clean air and clean water leads to greater inefficiencies and inequalities. Government agencies promoting clean air and clean water are less efficient due to bureaucracy. Universal clean air and clean water would reduce efficiency because of more bureaucratic oversight and more paperwork. 6. Converting to a national clean air and clean water system could be a radical change, creating administrative chaos.

Continue Reading12 Reasons why the U.S. government should not mandate clean water or clean air.