On Tuesday, someone claiming to speak for the underground group Anonymous released a video declaration of war against "the system."
The YouTube manifesto is a call to everyone in the online world to get off the couch, pick up their cell phones and laptops and join a revolt against governments and corporations that are intent upon stifling free speech online.
"It's time to hack the planet. It's time to turn the tables on the powers that be and show them that we have had enough," a narrator declares in a computer-generated voice used to mask his or her identity.
"This is our challenge," the narrator continues:
The revolution must take hold as a peaceful revolution. We must build our strength and unity through ideas, ingenuity and creativity. We must tear down the barriers that have existed to this day only because we allowed them to. The revolution must be televised. We must utilize the tools that we have and apply them with existing technology: computers, cell phones, internet and media.
Anonymous consists of a loose-knit collective of underground hackers and Internet freedom advocates that grew out of the 4Chan forum and other online networks of political activists.
The group seeks to unite hackers and culture jammers behind a singular purpose: to tear down digital-age barriers to free expression. With Tuesday's video manifesto, Anonymous has apparently widened its target to wage war against all entities that "are taking steps to make the Internet a less friendly and tolerable place for expression."
Given the elusive nature of the group, it's hard to determine whether this Anonymous manifesto came from the organization's leadership -- if they exist at all -- or simply bubbled up from within its loose structure.
It is, however, something that should not be taken lightly.
Anonymous has launched several successful "operations" to bring down the websites of governments, corporations and political groups it sees as oppressors. Earlier this week a NATO report warned member states of a serious Anonymous threat to their military security.
It has also followed up on WikiLeaks, hacking into the confidential files of these groups and releasing them to the public.
Earlier this year Anonymous released the emails of Aaron Barr, the executive of security firm HBGary, including a PowerPoint proposal to smear writer Glenn Greenwald, who is one of the most outspoken defenders of Wikileaks.
In March, Anonymous released emails it claimed to have obtained from Bank of America, allegedly exposing corruption and fraud related to mortgage foreclosures in the U.S.
The manifesto is pretty compelling stuff, written by someone familiar with the history of seminal political texts. And it's told to a danceable backbeat:
[the revolution] must begin immediately because as you are listening to this address world governments are taking steps to make the Internet a less friendly and tolerable place for expression. This is a direct attack on your rights.
As a response Anonymous calls upon "all those who possess the ability to alter cyber barriers" to hack the oppressors using peaceful means, including art, graffiti, fliers, music, lectures, assembly and protest. It also called upon those with technical know how to use their skills to become "digital warriors of the underground," presumably to help hack into systems of the groups they oppose.
"This is not anarchy this is resistance," the manifesto claims. "The time is now. The revolution has begun."
It's fair to say that media and the public have responded with disgust to news that FCC Commissioner Meredith Atwell Baker had cut short her public duties to lobby for Comcast, the company whose takeover of NBC Universal she had just approved.
Baker's Comcast dash raised the eyebrows of even the most seasoned Beltway insiders -- including those who tend to see public-sector service as the farm league for "K" Street jobs.
But the criticism hasn't been limited to one bureaucrat's shameless decision to abandon her 2009 oath to serve the American people. Baker's move may become the tipping point for new rules to stop Washington's revolving door from tempting any bureaucrat to exchange a light regulatory hand for the promise of a high-salaried job.
The New York Times has called on Congress to pass stronger measures to prevent government employees from jumping ship so soon; more than 55,000 people have already written the chair of the House Oversight Committee demanding action.
Can you blame people for being so angry? With public trust in government at a 30-year low, its time Washington recognized that "business as usual" isn't good enough.
"There's something particularly unsettling about a regulatory official who voted only four months ago to approve the $13.75 billion merger of Comcast and NBCUniversal turning around to take a high-profile job with that firm... [T]he move threatens to further undermine public confidence in the government's ability to make objective decisions that put ordinary citizens' interests first."
"The revolving door has spun in exactly the way that people outside the beltway have long feared it would. And it happened without any rules being broken. Baker may not have known that NBC-Universal or Comcast would be offering her a job when she argued on their behalf. But everyone in town knows that if you stand up for wealthy interests while serving the public interest, chances are there is a nice fat paycheck waiting for you somewhere when you choose to leave government."
"Unseemly does not begin to describe Baker's actions. Even the most jaundiced critic of the FCC should be taken aback by the Republican commissioner's new job and the blink of time between her vote and her announcement. Factor in the time consumed by the hiring process, which apparently began last month, and it's even worse. It is actions like Baker's that turn people against government."
"Congress should expand the definition of lobbying beyond face-to-face encounters to any effort to influence government decisions for their clients. It should also set tight caps on what former officials, including former lawmakers, can earn from lobbying before they must register as lobbyists. Americans don't need any more reasons to mistrust Washington."
"Rarely are revolving-door stories this revolting. Just months ago Meredith Attwell Baker voted -- as a commissioner on the FCC -- to approve Comcast's controversial merger NBC Universal. Baker is now taking a job as a senior vice president in Comcast's lobbying shop in Washington. 'No wonder the public is so nauseated by business as usual in Washington,' said Craig Aaron, chief executive of media watchdog Free Press."
"The revolving door between the public-private sector is now so taken for granted that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski applauded the move... 'I wish her well in her new role at NBC Universal,' Genachowski said in a statement, hours after Baker announced she was 'privileged to have had the opportunity to serve the country.' What's more revolting, Baker's move or Genachowski's reaction? Let us know."
Federal Communications Commissioner Meredith Atwell Baker will reportedly depart the agency in June to occupy a corner office at Comcast-NBC -- the company whose multi-billion mega-merger she approved just months ago.
In so doing she joins a long line of "public servants" who have spun government jobs into gold at the expense of the American people they're supposed to represent.
Many have found the FCC to be a particularly lucrative launching pad. Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell now earns millions as the top lobbyist for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, a trade group that lobbies for the industry he was tasked to regulate.
Commissioner Baker's move to Comcast comes less than four months after she voted to approve the cable giant's takeover of NBC Universal. As recently as March, she gave a speech lamenting that the agency's review of the Comcast-NBC deal "took too long."
"What we didn't know then was that she was in such a rush to start picking out the drapes in her new corner office," Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron said in a statement after news of Baker's new job broke.
With behavior like this it's little wonder that American people are so nauseated by business as usual in Washington. Inside the Beltway, the complete capture of government by industry barely raises any eyebrows. Outside of Washington, people of every political stripe have expressed near unanimous contempt for a system of government that favors powerful corporations at the expense of the many.
A Pew Research Center aggregate poll finds public trust in government to have reached a 30-year low, dipping beneath 20 percent. With shameless moves like Baker's it's surprising that trust is that high.
The continuously revolving door at the FCC and across all DC agencies continues to erode any prospects for common-sense public policy... the kind that's supposed to promote the general welfare and not simply line the pockets of DC careerists.
Let's hope that her replacement will be someone who is not just greasing the skids for their next industry job. (Don't hold your breath).
Coincidentally, this news came on the same day that another massive corporation was working the halls of Capitol Hill for approval of its merger.
A Wednesday Senate subcommittee hearing on AT&T's proposed takeover of T-Mobile had CEO Randall Stephenson glad handing members of Congress and the FCC for approval of a deal many inside Washington see as inevitable despite a growing public outcry.
The outcry is well justified. As GigaOM's Stacey Higginbotham detailed, there is very good reason to believe that regulators are ill prepared to conceive of the impact the AT&T merger would have on everyday cellphone users. They're working from an old playbook, one where Beltway manipulators like AT&T's team of lobbyists know how to work the refs.
But DC isn't worried about doing right, right now. The head of the company that makes more political contributions than any other -- and spends tens of millions on lobbyists each year -- has graced our capital with his presence.
The only question on the minds of many is how to press a resume into Stephenson's hands before he wraps his visit and returns to AT&T headquarters.
AT&T wants you to. The phone giant is trying to make everyone believe that its takeover of T-Mobile would be good for jobs, innovation and the economy, while saving you hundreds of dollars on your smartphone.
The opposite is true. But that didn't stop AT&T from making these claims in a 381-page FCC filing that was so filled with half-truths and fantasies that the Los Angeles Times said it came from Alice in Wonderland.
"The wireless marketplace will be more competitive," AT&T claims in the filing. For those keeping score, the phone company is actually saying that consumers will gain more choice among mobile phone carriers by subtracting T-Mobile from your options.
Gobbling up T-Mobile’s 34 million users and absorbing their workforce will "create new jobs and economic growth," AT&T adds. Never mind the tens of thousands of T-Mobile technicians, customer-service reps and storefront salespeople to be “made redundant” soon after the deal goes through.
Such AT&T mythmaking is part of its shameless campaign to convince Washington that the takeover of T-Mobile would be harmless.
It's now left to Congress, the FCC and the Department of Justice to sort fact from fiction and decide whether the runaway consolidation of America's mobile phone sector is in the interest of the American people.
AT&T has already hired an army of lobbyists to make its case. Next Wednesday, they're marching before the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee to woo support for this disastrous deal from our elected officials – many of whom receive handsome campaign contributions from… that’s right… AT&T.
The Los Angeles Times is not alone in its appraisal of the deal. The word from Wall Street to Main Street is that allowing such runaway consolidation of the mobile sector is pure craziness. T-Mobile customers, who stand to have AT&T jack up their rates more than 20 percent are already raising a stink at the FCC, which recently opened a docket for the public to comment on the proposed merger.
The truth is that consolidation of the scale being proposed by AT&T resembles the old railroad and oil trusts of the 19th century. It seems unthinkable to suggest that turning one of the economy’s most innovative and important sectors into Standard Oil would be good for any of us. But that's pretty much how AT&T adds things up.
And with tens of millions of Americans relying on smarter iPhones, Android systems and Blackberry's to do what we want to do, go where we want to go, and say what we want to say, the impact of this merger would be felt dearly.
So should it be left to Washington and one exceedingly powerful company to decide the fate of our communications? (If you're thinking "no," you can help stop this merger by contacting the members of the Antitrust Subcommittee and urging them to grill AT&T next Wednesday.)
If Congress, the FCC and Department of Justice hear from enough people like you and me, they can muster the courage to ask the right questions of AT&T.
Next Wednesday's hearing on the Hill is our first chance to expose this merger for the nightmare that it is, and save our smartphones from following AT&T down the rabbit hole.
Free speech online has come under withering attack from the astroturf lobby -- corporate front groups that are determined to hand control of the Internet to companies like AT&T and Comcast.
They've joined the forces of the Tea Party with pro-corporate attack groups like Americans for Prosperity to urge weak members of Congress to betray the public interest by voting to strip the Federal Communications Commission of its ability to protect our basic freedom to access an open Internet.
And betray us is exactly what House representatives did earlier this month, passing a "Resolution of Disapproval" (H.J. Res. 37), which is designed to let phone and cable companies block any speech they don't like, charge users anything they can get away with, and hold innovation hostage to their profit margins.
If this resolution gets by the Senate and White House, there will be little anyone could do to stop these companies. The good new is that President Obama has already vowed to veto this resolution. (You can make sure that it doesn't get to his desk by urging your senators to kill H.J Res. 37).
The aim of the front groups supporting this industry agenda is to stoke partisan rancor and fear over a principle called Net Neutrality -- a basic rule that keeps service providers from deciding what content we get to see and share via digital networks.
A favorite line of theirs is to portray Net Neutrality as part of a Marxist conspiracy, dismissing the vast coalition of people of every political stripe who believe that an open Internet is a basic requirement of a healthy, modern democracy.
An article earlier this month at Andrew Breitbart's website Big Government painted Net Neutrality as "oppressive" and "leftists policies" and urged readers to phone up Democrats and urge their vote for a Congressional "Resolution of Disapproval" that had been embraced by Rep. Michele Bachmann and pushed by House Speaker John Boehner.
Americans for Prosperity, the industry-funded astroturf group with deep ties to the Koch Brothers and telecommunications companies, had asked its members to send letters to these and other congressional offices calling Net Neutrality "Obama's Internet takeover."
"Regulating the Internet under the banner of so-called network neutrality has been a far-left obsession for years," argues Americans for Prosperity VP of Policy Phil Kerpen.
Rhetoric aside -- it’s worth noting that companies like AT&T and Comcast have delivered truckloads of money to the re-election campaigns of most of those who voted against Net Neutrality. A recent report by MapLight.org illustrates the corrupting influence corporate donations have had in “convincing” members of Congress to turn against the interests of their constituents on this issue.
In the House, front groups' targeted Democratic Reps. Jason Altmire (PA-4), Sanford Bishop (GA-2), Leonard Boswell (IA-3), Jim Costa (CA-20), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Reuben Hinojosa (TX-15), Tim Holden (PA-17), Rick Larsen (WA-2), Mike McIntyre (NC-7), Jerry McNerney (CA-11), Gregory Meeks (NY-6), David Scott (GA-13), and Heath Shuler (NC-11).
Of these, only two – Reps. Bishop and Scott – caved to industry pressure by voting for the resolution. But most every one has received considerable sums from the phone and cable lobby.
Now members of the Senate are hearing the same.
This push comes at a time when phone and cable companies have begun limiting our ability to connect with others and share information. Some like MetroPCS have already announced plans to block certain video applications via the mobile Web. Corporations like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are seeking to degrade access to competing services or sites that might threaten their bottom line; they’re also moving to penalize users who use their Internet connection for more data-intensive purposes than simple Web surfing.
Net Neutrality, like the First Amendment itself, is an issue that should transcend politics. It has received support from all corners -- from the socially conservative Christian Coalition to the rights advocates at ACLU, from librarians and educators to video gamers, journalists, musicians and even Harry Potter fans.
More than two million Americans have sent letters to the FCC and Congress urging leaders to "stand with the public by protecting Net Neutrality once and for all."
That's what real grassroots look like.
Just last week, Internet pioneer and die-hard Net Neutrality supporter Tim Berners-Lee said that access to the open Internet is a "human right" that we all have a "duty" to protect.
He’s right.
But that won't stop the hyperventilating among Beltway hacks intent on turning this into a divisive and politically charged issue.
Members of Congress without regard to party or ideology should ignore the astroturfing of a few to protect an open Internet that helps so many.
Thank god for science. It's now easy to clone oneself, making the saying "being two places at once" more medical reality than sci-fi fantasy.
And what better opportunity to avail oneself of this new, new thing than the National Conference for Media Reform. With so much on offer, it's humanly impossible to fit it all in... and that's where your clone can come in handy.
My clone -- Let's call him "Tom" -- and I will be splitting time in Boston from April 8-10. If you or your clone run into one or both of us be sure to say hello. (Please don't buy Tom any beer. He's untested there.)
Where you will find at least one of us:
Friday, April 8
8:00am - 9:00am:
Democracy Now! Live Broadcast -- We'll be there as Amy Goodman and crew kick off NCMR with the most independent news production going.
9:00am - 10:30am:
Following the Money: Journalism and the Economic Crisis -- Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz mixes it up with financial reporters and advocates in a post-mortem on the journalism failures that contributed to the global meltdown.
[Tom] Mobile Democracy: Your Phone is Political -- It's not just bedazzling, your phone is a tool of protest, free speech and political organizing, so says moderator Josh Levy and his panel of mobile all-stars.
10:30am - 11:00am:
Book Signings -- Glenn Greenwald latest chronicle of the hypocrisy that lies at the core of zombie politics.
Springtime in the Arab world is looking bleaker now that despots in Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen and reactionary elements in Egypt have gained an upper hand against the pro-democracy protesters who have inspired the world. And the Internet, hailed sometimes in excess as a potent tool for these movements, has itself come under increasing fire from these and other autocratic states seeking to crush popular dissent.
In Libya, the Gaddafi regime plunged the nation into digital darkness during the first week of March, where it has remained. In Bahrain, the kingdom reacted swiftly to pro-democracy demonstrations by filtering sites that let locals share cell phone videos, blocking YouTube pages containing videos of street protests, and taking down a large Facebook group that called for more demonstrations. And even in Egypt, despite the departure of Mubarak, the interim military authority has taken a harsh stand against pro-democracy activists, while trying to stop the sharing of looted state security files, which reveal the extent to which the government uses the Web to spy on Egyptians.
These accounts of Internet abuse have not gone unnoticed. Less known, however, is the degree to which U.S. and European companies have enabled the crackdown.
Corporate Enablers
Egypt’s Internet crackdown appears to have been aided by Narus, a Boeing-owned surveillance technology provider that sold Telecom Egypt "real-time traffic intelligence" software that filters online communications and tracks them to their source.
Israeli security experts founded Narus to create and sell mass surveillance systems for governments and large corporate clients. It is known for creating NarusInsight, a supercomputer system that is allegedly being used by the National Security Agency and other entities to provide a “full network view” of suspected Internet communications as they happen.
Narus has also provided surveillance technology to Libya, according to James Bamford, author of 2008’s The Shadow Factory. In 2005, the company struck a multimillion-dollar agreement with Giza Systems of Egypt to license Narus’ Web-sleuthing products throughout the Middle East. Giza Systems services the Libyan network.
British-owned Vodafone shut down its Egypt-based cellphone network following a request from the Mubarak regime and then restored it only to send pro-Mubarak propaganda to text-messaging customers across the country. When digital rights groups like AccessNow.org protested Vodafone’s actions, the company stated that it could do nothing to stop those texts, because it was forced to abide by the country's emergency laws.
Bahrain reportedly filtered and blocked websites using “SmartFilter” software supplied by the U.S. company McAfee, which Intel acquired late last year. Despite widespread reports of its use, company executives claim that they have “no control over, or visibility into how an organization implements its own filtering policy."
Cisco Systems a leading manufacturer of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) systems , a content-filtering technology that allows network managers to inspect, track, and target content from users of the Internet and mobile phones, is a major partner in Bahrain. In 2009, the San Jose, California-based company joined with the kingdom to open an Internet Data Center in Bahrain’s capital “as an essential component in the drive to improve government services to the populace.”
The extent to which Cisco’s own DPI products are part of this deal remains to be seen. Executives at Cisco would not return our requests for comment on the nature of its involvement in Bahrain.
Nokia and Siemens also support Libya’s cell phone network. A joint venture between these two firms was heavily criticized in 2009 for reportedly assisting the Iranian regime’s crackdown against cyber-dissidents. It’s difficult to know whether they assisted the Libyan government, since Nokia Siemens' PR didn’t return our call, either.
Leading by Action
In mid-February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about a new U.S. Internet freedom policy designed to help democracy movements gain access to open networks and speak out against authoritarian regimes. As part of this initiative, the State Department will provide tens of millions of dollars in new grants to support "technologists and activists working at the cutting edge of the fight against Internet repression."
Secretary Clinton spoke of the Obama administration's belief in our universal "freedom to connect," something the White House sees as a natural extension of our longstanding rights to free speech, assembly, and association.
Yet it's hard to claim the moral high road and lecture other countries on the importance of online freedom when U.S. companies are exporting DPI systems and other technology to regimes intent on spying on their own people and turning the open Internet into a means of repression.
Asking Clinton’s deputy director James Steinberg about this inconsistency during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in February, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)brought up Narus’ dealings with the Mubarak regime. “It is an awful tool of repression,” Smith said, “and Narus, according to these reports, is enabling this invasion of privacy.”
Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) continued the questioning, going so far as to say that "people are losing their lives based on this technology." Keating called on Steinberg to investigate U.S. companies that sell DPI technology overseas. In a subsequent press statement, Keating pledged to introduce legislation "that would provide a national strategy to prevent the use of American technology from being used by human rights abusers."
Earlier this month, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, penned a Politico op-ed slamming the U.S. technology industry for “failing to address serious human rights challenges.” He wrote, “If U.S. companies are unwilling to take reasonable steps to protect human rights," Durbin wrote, “Congress must step in.”
Pledges to act are encouraging, but far less so than action itself. As of now, we have seen little of substance to defend our freedom to connect against companies and their despotic clients that seek to take it away.
-- Clothilde Le Coz is the Washington director of Reporters Sans Frontieres, which just released the 2011Enemies of the Internet report. Timothy Karr is the campaign director of Free Press, the nation’s largest media reform group where he oversees all campaigns and online outreach efforts. Both are contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus.
AT&T's plan to take over T-Mobile has set the stage for Washington's high-tech policy battle of 2011.
But that's not all that's at stake. This proposed deal paints a dark scenario for the future of all communications -- a future that looks increasingly like a bygone era of monopoly control.
If AT&T succeeds, it will form a communications colossus to rival Ma Bell. Two companies, AT&T and Verizon, would control close to 80 percent of the mobile marketplace in America -- a figure that could exceed 90 percent, if, as many anticipate, Verizon buys Sprint.
For the hundreds of millions of American people who rely on handheld phones and wireless Internet devices, this equation spells disaster.
Ma Bell Muscle
As more and more people are turning to handheld devices to go online they face fewer options in a marketplace dominated by massive, vertically and horizontally integrated companies. The net result for consumers is higher prices for fewer choices. Competitors trying to innovate in this space with open networks and devices will face formidable obstacles to entry put in place by a duopoly that sees openness as anathema to profits.
AT&T is poised to exert its full political might to get this merger done, and the communications giant is accustomed to getting its way in Washington.
Its lobbyists have their own hall pass at the FCC, where they've visited the agency more than any other corporation. It has spent more on congressional campaigns than any other corporation in documented history. And AT&T even has the ear of the president -- in the person of telecom-lobbyist-cum-White-House-Chief-of-Staff William Daley.
Merger Myths
AT&T's PR machine is spinning like crazy to convince Americans that they've got our best interests at heart ... and that their friends at the Department of Justice and FCC should rubber-stamp this merger.
AT&T executives and flacks now say the "synergies" of the deal will lower prices and improve "quality of service for customers," and that it will "expand America's workforce" providing thousands of new jobs for our economy.
But when was the last time a merger actually created jobs for Americans and not more pink slips? This merger is no different. It puts the jobs of nearly 40,000 U.S. T-Mobile employees at risk. Many of the jobs at retail stores and call centers will be eliminated, and there will be more jobs lost as the cost-cutting effects of this merger ripple through the broader economy.
They say the T-Mobile takeover "strengthens and expands U.S. mobile broadband infrastructure," and that it helps us "achieve policymaker goals of deploying broadband to 95 percent of the country, including smaller, rural communities."
But according to recent Commerce Department data, wireless services are already available to 95 percent of Americans. If this merger goes through, industry analysts speculate that AT&T will decommission as many as 40,000 wireless towers, reducing the quality of coverage for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
They say the merger "enables the next era of American innovation and continued growth of U.S. high tech industry."
But the merger would allow AT&T to exert even greater gatekeeper control over what happens on the wireless Web. In the past, the company has been caught blocking competing services -- like Skype, Google Voice and Slingbox. AT&T's expanded control over the handset market would stifle innovation in devices. Look no further than AT&T's own record of "crippling" handheld phones - like the Motorola Backflip -- that can do more than what the company wants.
They say the overall average price-per-minute for wireless services has declined 50 percent since 1999, "during a period which saw five major wireless mergers."
But that figure is highly misleading. While the cost to consumers for voice services has dropped, the sum total of charges on mobile phone bills has steadily increased, according to J.D. Power and Associates. Added costs include spiraling rates for texting and data services as well as hidden handset subsidies. With less competition among carriers, we can expect AT&T to charge you even more.
(Those who will feel this worst are the 34 million T-Mobile customers who pay on average 20 percent less for mobile service than AT&T customers. Should AT&T agree to honor existing T-Mobile contracts for their remaining length, these customers will surely see higher prices when those contracts expire.)
There is nothing about having less competition that will benefit the new generation of smart phone users. Before rushing to sign off on yet another mega-merger, the FCC and the Justice Department should confront the very real problems of runaway consolidation in the wireless market.
The Obama administration, which is keenly aware of this deal, has yet to say no to a massive corporate merger ... despite a June 2008 pledge by then-candidate Obama to act "against the excessive concentration of [media] power in the hands of any one corporation, interest or small group."
But the negatives of AT&T's takeover of T-Mobile are too large for even this president to ignore.
As more people learn about -- and speak up against -- this raw deal, politics as usual may take a back seat to the public interest. At last.
Late Wednesday, Republican members of a key House Commerce subcommittee decided to give phone and cable companies absolute, unrestricted power over the Internet.
By a party-line vote of 15 to 8 they passed a "resolution of disapproval" that would strip the FCC of its ability to protect Internet users -- freeing up companies like Verizon and Comcast to block our right to speak freely and share information on the Internet.
This reckless action opens the door even wider to corporate abuse of Net Neutrality, the principle that protects our ability to connect with everyone else online.
Already, cable giants like Comcast are maneuvering to restrict access to competitive video services like Netflix; wireless carrier MetroPCS has unveiled a plan to block users' access to most video and audio sites.
The majority rammed this vote through without weighing widespread concerns -- coming from public interest and consumer advocates, and across the tech industry -- that this resolution is an extreme overreach that gives away our basic Internet freedoms.
The Lies Republicans Tell about the Internet
The House is already set to pass this resolution; it moves next to full committee and the floor. Hopefully, the Senate can muster enough common sense to kill the resolution when it crosses Capitol Hill.
House Republicans, on the other hand, seem determined to give phone and cable companies a degree of power over our Internet that is unprecedented in the history of U.S. telecommunications policy.
"Unfortunately, the debate around [Net Neutrality] has become immune to the calming powers of historical fact," said Free Press research director (and colleague) Derek Turner in testimony before the subcommittee.
The line of questioning from members of the subcommittee bore this out. At one point Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-AT&T) claimed that "there was no federal governance of the Internet" before the FCC moved an open Internet order last December.
I'd like to see Rep. Blackburn prove that right-wing whopper. Unfortunately, her time for questions ran out. Had subcommittee witnesses more time to respond, one of them might have told Blackburn that the Nixon administration put in place strong nondiscriminatory rules to ensure that abuses of market power would not stifle the growth of an infant network computing industry.
This successful framework was later improved upon by both the Carter and Reagan administrations. And with the Telecom Act of 1996, a bipartisan Congress recognized that in order to foster new industries, we needed the FCC to act to ensure everyone had open access to the information superhighway.
These facts are merely unfortunate road bumps for a House majority determined to ignore history.
Will the Senate Step Up?
It's now left to the Senate to stop this resolution. If they fail, the FCC could be barred from preventing these companies from blocking any website, banning any speech, and charging you anything they can get away with.
American Internet users need to choose between the open Internet that lets us view any content, anywhere, and the walled garden that the big phone and cable companies want to build around us.
If you choose openness, you had better do what you can to get your senators to reject this resolution.
Here's the debate last month over whether Internet access and social media are tools for fomenting revolution or facilitating crackdowns. There wasn't much of a debate really as we all agreed that it's very complicated. The debate was moderated by Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at Cato and featured Christopher Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at Cato Institute, Alex Howard, of Gov2.0 and O'Reilly Media, and me.
Beginning at 13:00, I compare the imposing of democracy in Iraq c. 2003 to the bubbling up of democracy in Egypt c. 2011 -- an issue I think deserves more discussion. Watch it and let me know what you think.
On Monday, House Speaker John Boehner (R - AT&T) chose the occasion of his first address outside Washington to take aim at Net Neutrality.
While the speaker may have traveled 650 miles to Nashville to deliver this attack, his speech came from the far reaches of the solar system, detached from the space-time continuum that keeps us earthlings rooted to reality.
"The FCC is creeping further into the free market by trying to regulate the Internet," the speaker said referring to the agency's Open Internet rules issued last December.
"'Network neutrality,' they call it. It's a series of regulations that empower the federal bureaucracy to regulate Internet content and viewpoint discrimination," he imagined, pledging to use the full powers at his disposal "to fight [this] government takeover of the Internet."
The speaker's bold stand for free speech would be inspirational if it were connected to reality in any way. Instead, he is parroting talking points from industry lobbyists, and tea Party front groups to intentionally misleading the public.
Open Internet protections actually prevent Speaker Boehner's dark scenario from happening: They forbid companies from unfairly blocking or degrading Internet websites and applications while keeping control over Internet content in the hands of end users -- people like you and me.
The speaker knows full well that real Net Neutrality has nothing to do with a government takeover of the Internet. He's playing dog-whistle politics and stoking irrational fears of government repression, while raking in campaign contributions from the phone and cable companies.
In the Nashville audience was Marsha Blackburn (R - Verizon), the member of Congress who has introduced legislation to strip the FCC of any Net Neutrality protection powers.
Speaker Boehner is also working alongside Rep. Greg Walden (R - NCTA) who has introduced a congressional resolution of disapproval that would reverse the FCC's past Net Neutrality rules and prohibit the agency from acting in any way as a watchdog of the open Internet.
Their plan to ban Net Neutrality would hand over our freedom to connect and speak freely via the web to Comcast, Verizon and AT&T - with no recourse for the public when they block any content they don't like for any reason.
Speaker Boehner knows this to be true, but telling the truth won't help his patrons on "K" Street.
Netjacking
According to reports on Monday, cable operator and Internet service provider Mediacom has been caught hijacking its users' browsers and injecting unsolicited ads.
Disturbingly the ads themselves seem targeted to the individual user interests of the companies more than 750,000 broadband subscribers. According to Karl Bode of DSLReports, Mediacom "has apparently implemented deep packet inspection and DNS redirection advertising technology our users say is difficult to opt out of."
For those not familiar with deep packet inspection, or DPI, it's a technology that allows network managers to spy on, track and target user Internet content as our communications pass through routers along the Information Superhighway.
Using DPI is akin to having toll booth collectors inspect the contents of your car trunk to determine where you're going and what billboards you will see alongside the highway.
Screen shots taken by Mediacom users show a large banner ad for Mediacom's own discount phone service placed above the top of third-party Web page content, including Apple.com and Google.com.
Mediacom's actions are yet another example of a cable company interfering with its subscribers' use of the Internet.
Like Comcast and Charter before it, Mediacom's actions reveal the gatekeeper tendencies of network operators.
If Boehner and his cronies succeed in eliminating online consumer protections, these corporation won't hesitate to monitor user traffic and meddle with our digital freedoms.
Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Usher pocketed millions in blood money from the Qaddafi family to perform at lavishly corrupt private parties on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.
According to a recent report in the New York Times, Mariah Carey was paid $1 million in 2009 to sing just four songs for Gaddafi's son Seif. One year later Usher and Beyonce received an equally large sum to sing at a New Year's party thrown by the family.
The Qaddafi’s have ransacked the Libyan treasury, making off with billions of dollars in oil money, while imposing a crackdown against any Libyan who speaks out against their corruption and brutality. Former music industry executive Howie Klein put it best: “For very, very wealthy American and British pop stars to take part in this kind of thing makes me want to puke."
If Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Usher have any sense of justice or decency, they should reject the Qaddafi payment and put the dirty money to work in service of a greater good.
There is no question: accepting stolen money from murderous dictators is morally repugnant. Keeping it after the Qaddafi’s engage in the slaughter of democracy protestors is downright unconscionable.
Retweet this Twitter petition to pressure Beyonce, Maria Carey and Usher to put their ill-gotten gains in service of a greater cause: to help relieve the suffering of the people of Libya.
A number of organizations are working to protect democracy movements across the Middle East. They could help save hundreds of lives with the sort of money that’s now sitting in the bank accounts of these three celebrities. (I have listed a few possible recipients below).
To salvage their reputations and make good on a horrible mistake, Beyonce, Maria Carey and Usher should do the same and donate Qaddafi's dirty cash to these well deserving institutions or others.
AccessNow.org: A leader in the new global movement for Digital Freedom.
Reporters Without Borders: Protecting the freedom to be informed and inform others throughout the world.
FreedomBox Foundation: Creating a distributed global network to protect free speech.
Global Voices Advocacy: Seeking to build a global anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists.
Human Rights Watch: Dedicated to defending and protecting human rights worldwide.
UPDATE 1: Earlier on Monday, pop singer Nelly Furtado Tweeted that she would be contributing to charity the $1 million she received from the Qaddafi family for a private performance in Italy in 2007. What say you, Beyonce, Mariah and Usher?
UPDATE 2: Later on Monday, Atlantic Wire and Rolling Stone quoted R.E.M. agent Buck Williams urging the singers to give Qaddafi's payment to charity.
Arcade Fire agent David T. Viecelli adds, "Hopefully donate it to a charity that somehow assists some of the people who have suffered at the hands of that regime."
Denis Afra, the agent for Metallica, Billy Joel, and Rod Stewart, gave a bleak view of musicians who get paid for these types of private performances: "I don't think most artists go into [performing at a party like this] with that kind of in-depth focus, [of] how each country is governed and what goes on inside each country," he says. "Not every artist is a humanitarian. In more cases than not, for people, greed rules."
UPDATE 4 -- Mariah to Donate: Mariah Carey just admitted she felt "horrible and embarrassed" about being paid $1 million to sing for the Qaddafis, She announced plans to donate the proceeds from a new song "Save the Day" to human rights causes and may even set up her own charitable foundation.
"Ultimately we as artists are to be held accountable," she said in a statement. Going forward, this is a lesson for all artists to learn from. We need to be more aware and take more responsibility regardless of who books our shows."
UPDATE 5 -- Usher to Donate: Usher announced on Friday that he would give away the money he received for his performance for Qaddafi's son in 2009. "I am sincerely troubled to learn about the circumstances surrounding the Nikki Beach St. Barts event that took place on New Year's Eve 2009," he said in a statement. "I will be donating all of my personal proceeds from that event to various human rights organizations."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday highlighted new U.S. Internet freedom policy that is designed to help democracy movements gain access to open networks and speak out against authoritarian regimes.
According to Clinton, the program will provide $25 million in new grants to support "technologists and activists working at the cutting edge of the fight against Internet repression."
It will help fund efforts like circumvention and encryption services, which enable users to evade Internet blockades, and technology to wipe sensitive data from cell phones when activists are detained by security forces.
Protecting Our Freedom to Connect
In a speech seen as a follow-up to her 2010 address on the issue, Clinton reasserted the administration's belief in our universal "freedom to connect," something the Secretary of State and the White House see as a natural extension of our longstanding rights to free speech, assembly and association.
Her remarks carried a heightened sense of urgency in light of events still unfolding across the Middle East.
Clinton said the Internet was both an "accelerant of political and social change" and a "force for repression." She called for a global commitment to Internet freedom. "The freedoms to assemble and associate also apply in cyberspace," she said.
Clinton urged countries everywhere to bet that "an open Internet will lead to stronger, more prosperous countries... that open societies give rise to lasting progress."
But her call for unfettered and uncensored access to the Internet around the globe needs to resonate here at home as well.
No Double Standard at Home
The Obama administration's recent failure to stand up for a strong Net Neutrality rules, its slow-footed response to the export of invasive snooping technologies, and apparent reluctance to abandon the idea of an Internet "kill switch" all suggest a double standard in what the administration seeks for foreign governments and what it will accept in the United States.
At the end of 2010, Obama's FCC distanced itself from the president's prior commitment "to take a back seat to no one" in his support for Net Neutrality. Instead of ensuring openness on wireless Internet devices like the iPhone and Droid, the FCC exempted the mobile Internet from vital openness protections.
This move enshrines Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the expanding world of the mobile Web. And both have a checkered past when it comes to protecting our right to connect.
In 2007, Verizon blocked text messages sent by Naral Pro-Choice America to its members. The move put Verizon in the same league as its cohorts at AT&T, which in August that same year censored the live Webcast of a Pearl Jam performance that included criticism of then President George W. Bush.
Comcast, the nation's largest cable Internet provider was caught blocking users' ability to connect to one another and trade files using popular BitTorrent software.
And the issues go beyond the administration's unwillingness to face down corporations that block our connections. Just hours before Secretary Clinton's speech, Justice Department lawyers urged a federal magistrate in Alexandria, Virginia, to uphold a court order requiring Twitter to turn over confidential information about the use of its services by three WikiLeaks supporters.
It's hard to claim the moral high road and presume to lecture other countries on the importance of online freedom when your own promise to defend it at home takes a backseat to corporate meddling and government interference.
And it's even harder to stomach such rhetoric when U.S. companies are exporting deep-packet inspection technology that's used to spy on democracy activists, or the administration seems intent on reserving the power to shut down our communications networks.
While Clinton's call for uninterrupted access to the Internet -- and its now famous offspring Facebook, Twitter and Youtube -- is laudable, we need to be consistent and do better in our policies both at home and abroad.
Since I broke the story on Jan. 28 that the U.S. company Narus has been selling Internet spying software to Egypt, members of Congress and other government officials have become increasingly alarmed -- and some are even calling for investigations.
On Thursday, during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Bill Keating (D-MA) grilled Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg on the sale of this Internet spying technology to an Egyptian Internet provider controlled by the Mubarak regime.
To recap, Narus is a Sunnyvale, California, Internet surveillance and filtering company begun by Israeli security experts, and subsequently bought by Boeing. The company has nefarious links to the NSA, and to AT&T efforts to monitor phone communications domestically.
Among Narus' many cyber-sleuthing products is one called "Hone," which can filter through billions of packets of online data to target individuals on social networks and then link that information to their "VOIP conversations, biometrically identify someone's voice or photograph and then associate it with different phone numbers." Those using cell phones or Wi-Fi connections can then be located geographically.
Narus has sold similar spying technology, not only to Egypt, but also to telecom authorities in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, countries known for their brutal repression of political dissidents.
Over the last two weeks, other journalists -- including those at the San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Times –- have asked Narus to respond to our report, but the company has refused to comment. Al Jazeera sent a correspondent and camera crew to their offices to be turned away at the door. Here’s the video of that encounter.
In yesterday's hearing, Rep. Smith had the following exchange with Deputy Secretary Steinberg:
Rep. Smith:I’d like to ask you about a very disturbing report that an American company, Narus, has sold the Egyptian Government what is called Deep Packet Inspection technology, highly advanced technology that allows the purchasers to search the content of emails as they pass through the Internet routers.
The report is from an NGO called Free Press and it is based on information that Narus itself has revealed about its business.
Now there’s no way of knowing whether this information that the Egyptian Government gleaned from its Narus technology enabled it to identify, track down and harass or detain so many journalists or anybody else in Egypt. I would like to know what we know about this company – and it is part of Boeing, recently bought. What can you tell us about Narus and this invasion of privacy in the Internet?
Deputy Secretary Steinberg:… I’m unfamiliar with the company that you have identified but I’d be happy to see what we know about this.
Smith:Could you dig into that and get back to the committee? It’s very important. It goes to the whole issue of increasingly that U.S. Corporations are enabling dictatorships… It is an awful tool of repression and Narus, according to these reports, is enabling this invasion of privacy...
Rep. Keating continued the questioning, going so far as to say that "people are losing their lives based on this technology."
Keating called on Steinberg to investigate American companies that sell this sort of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology overseas. He expressed particular concern about a "company in California [that] sold the Egyptian state-run Internet provider the technology to monitor the Internet allowing the Egyptian government to crack down on dissent."
Deputy Secretary Steinberg, again, promised to follow up.
In a subsequent press statement, Keating pledged to introduce legislation "that would provide a national strategy to prevent the use of American technology from being used by human rights abusers."
In particular, Keating wants to create a requirement that DPI companies strike "end-user monitoring agreements" with their overseas buyers that would help ensure that the technology does not fall into the hands of repressive regimes intent stifling free speech and repressing Internet protesters.
"We should have the same safeguards -- such as end user monitoring agreements -- that we do when we sell weapons abroad,” according to Keating. Stay tuned for his legislation that could do just that.
"...we must find ways to make human rights a reality. Today, we find an urgent need to protect these freedoms on the digital frontiers of the 21st century... The final freedom, one that was probably inherent in what both President and Mrs. Roosevelt thought about and wrote about [the "Four Freedoms"]: the freedom to connect -- the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate."
"...here are certain core values that we believe in as Americans that we believe are universal, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, people being able to use social networking or any other mechanisms to communicate with each other and express their concerns. And that I think is no less true in the Arab world than it is here in the United States."
“It is [the White House’s] strong belief that inside of the framework of basic individual rights, are the rights of those to have access to the internet and to sites for open communication and social network.”
The power of unfettered Internet access and social network is playing out in the blossoming of freedom movements worldwide -- especially during the 2009 protests in Iran, and in Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year.
But the power of the Internet cuts both ways. The technology that fuels democracy movements worldwide can also be turned against them as a tool of repression:
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak turned off the Internet as soon as it became clear that millions were using the network to organize and speak out against his regime. Earlier, authorities in Nepal and Burma had attempted the same.
China recently and successfully deployed technology to stifle expressions of support for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo among bloggers and users of social media in their country.
North American and European countries are freely selling technology to repressive regimes that allows them to spy on their citizens, cut off their communications and even locate them for arrest; and the list goes on.
Whether Internet access should be a basic human right has been debated among open Internet wonks and advocates for some time now. But we're only now seeing this rhetoric being repeated at the highest levels of U.S. government.
One thing is now beyond debate. The open exchange of information via Internet networks is having a positive impact for freedom movements worldwide. "This is both a practical and ethical belief," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote in the wake of the Egyptian protests.
Let's focus on the practical side. If American leaders agree that Internet access should be a basic human right, what now must we do make that a meaningful reality?
Article 19 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom . . . to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." But do non-binding declarations go far enough?
The open Internet's role in popular uprising is now undisputed. Look no further than Egypt, where the Mubarak regime shut down Internet and cell phone communications -- a troubling predictor of the fierce crackdown that followed.
What's even more troubling is news that one American company is aiding Egypt's harsh response through sales of technology that makes this repression possible.
The Internet's favorite offspring -- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube -- are now heralded on CNN, BBC and Fox News as flag-bearers for a new era of citizen journalism and activism. (More and more these same news organizations have abandoned their own, more traditional means of newsgathering to troll social media for breaking information.)
But the open Internet's power cuts both ways: The tools that connect, organize and empower protesters can also be used to hunt them down.
Telecom Egypt, the nation's dominant phone and Internet service provider, is a state-run enterprise, which made it easy on Friday morning for authorities to pull the plug and plunge much of the nation into digital darkness.
Moreover, Egypt also has the ability to spy on Internet and cell phone users, by opening their communication packets and reading their contents. Iran used similar methods during the 2009 unrest to track, imprison and in some cases, "disappear" truckloads of cyber-dissidents.
The companies that profit from sales of this technology need to be held to a higher standard. One in particular is an American firm, Narus of Sunnyvale, Calif., which has sold Telecom Egypt "real-time traffic intelligence" equipment.
Narus, now owned by Boeing, was founded in 1997 by Israeli security experts to create and sell mass surveillance systems for governments and large corporate clients.
The company is best known for creating NarusInsight, a supercomputer system which is allegedly used by the National Security Agency and other entities to perform mass surveillance and monitoring of public and corporate Internet communications in real time.
Other Narus global customers include the national telecommunications authorities in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- two countries that regularly register alongside Egypt near the bottom of Human Rights Watch's world report.
Anything that comes through (an Internet protocol network), we can record," Steve Bannerman, Narus' marketing vice president, once boasted to Wired about the service. "We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on; we can reconstruct their (Voice Over Internet Protocol) calls."
Other North American and European companies are selling DPI to enable their business customers "to see, manage and monetize individual flows to individual subscribers." But this "Internet-enhancing" technology has been sought out by regimes in Iran, China and Burma for more brutal purposes.
In addition to Narus, there are a number of companies, including many others in the United States, that produce and traffic in similar spying and control technology. This list of DPI providers includes Cisco (USA), Procera Networks (USA), Allot (Israel), Ixia (USA), AdvancedIO (Canada) and Sandvine (Canada), among others.
These companies typically partner with Internet Service Providers to insert DPI along the main arteries of the Web. All Net traffic in and out of Iran, for example, travels through one portal -- the Telecommunications Company of Iran -- which facilitates the use of DPI.
When commercial network operators use DPI, the privacy of Internet users is compromised. But in government hands, the use of DPI can crush dissent and lead to human rights violations.
Setting the Bar High for DPI Sales
Even Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on this problem.
"Internet censorship is a real challenge, and not one any particular industry -- much less any single company -- can tackle on its own, " Rep. Mary Bono Mack wrote in a 2009 letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, then chair of the House Commerce Committee. "Efforts to promote freedom of expression and to limit the impact of censorship require both private and public sector engagement."
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Egypt's government "not to prevent peaceful protests or block communications, including on social media."
Bono Mack's letter and Clinton's statement echo Free Press' call for a congressional inquiry into the issue. But this is just a start.
Before DPI becomes more widely deployed around the world and at home, the Congress ought to establish clear criteria for authorizing the use of such surveillance and control technologies.
The power to control the Internet and the resulting harm to democracy are so disturbing that the threshold for using DPI must be very high.
Today we're seeing the grave dangers of this technology unfold in real time on the streets of Cairo.
= = = = = UPDATE ONE: I appeared on Al Jazeera English. They sent a reporter to the Narus offices only to be turned away at the door. Apparently Narus believes that this issue will go away by simply ignoring the many media inquiries. (Reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle and the Seattle Times have told me that Narus has refused to respond to their inquiries as well.)
= = = = = UPDATE TWO: This article in February 6 Daily Mail indicates that activist Twitter and Facebook accounts are being tracked by the state security police.
= = = = = UPDATE THREE: Gordon Crovitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "Western telecommunications companies were instrumental in closing off the Internet in the country almost entirely," forced to abide by Egyptian telecom law which "gives the country access to networks during a state of emergency."
Then there was this:
In 2009, [Vodafone] gave Egyptian authorities data to identify participants in the previous year's antigovernment riots. More than 20 people were arrested. "Regulation can be a Trojan horse," Annie Mullins, Vodafone's head of global content standards, explained at the time. "For parts of the world that aren't subject to democracy, regulation can be used as a masquerade for state intrusion."
And what of corporate compliance with such crackdowns? Mullins does not answer.
= = = = = UPDATE FOUR: AOL contributor Marty Phillips-Sandy profiles one outspoken online activist who was detained by security forces, allegedly, for using Facebook to organize protests.
= = = = = UPDATE FIVE: Marko Papic and Sean Noonan (of SRATFOR) mention President Obama's YouTube interview where he mentions our basic right to connect. I dug this up and transcribed the Q&A (You can watch it here. The segment begins at 16:50):
YouTube Question: Dear President Obama, Regarding the current situation in the Middle East & Egypt over the past two days, what do you think about the Egyptian Government blocking social networks to prevent people from expressing their opinions?
Obama: Well, let me say first of all that Egypt has been an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues. They made peace with Israel. President Mubarak has always been helpful on a range of tough issues in the Middle East. But I have always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform, on political reform, economic reform is absolutely critical to the long term well-being of Egypt…
I think that it is very important that people have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances. As I said in my State of the Union speech, there are certain core values that we believe in as Americans that we believe are universal, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, people being able to use social networking or any other mechanisms to communicate with each other and express their concerns. And that I think is no less true in the Arab world than it is here in the United States.
