Helping Iran Hunt Down Iranians

What more can be said about the Internet's role in the popular uprising that has shaken the Iranian regime since its widely contested election?

The power of open social networks is undisputed. The Internet's three favorite offspring -- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube -- have been heralded by mainstream media as flag-bearers for a new era of citizen journalism and activism.

But the open Internet's power cuts both ways: The tools that connect, organize and empower people can also be used to hunt them down. The companies that profit from sales of this technology need to be held to a higher standard.

Of particular concern is the use -- and easy abuse -- of Deep Packet Inspection. DPI is a content-filtering technology that allows network managers to inspect, track and target content from users of the Internet and mobile phones, as it passes through routers on the information superhighway.

'Lawful Intercepts' in Lawless Regimes

European and North American 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.

Basij forces target computers during a June 14 midnight raid on Tehran University

Nokia Siemens Network reportedly set up a part of this technology in Iran for "lawful intercept," only to have Tehran allegedly use it to stifle free speech, pinpoint the location of online protesters and arrest them.

Nokia Siemens' attempts to dodge responsibility for Iran's reported abuse of their technology is typical corporate hand-washing.

"If you sell networks, you also, intrinsically, sell the capability to intercept any communication that runs over them," a Nokia Siemens spokesman told the Wall Street Journal. He added that the company "does have a choice about whether to do business in any country."

A Growth Industry

Had Nokia Siemens chosen not to sell spying technology to Iran, another global competitor likely would have taken its place. This list of DPI providers includes Zeugma Systems (Canada), Camiant (USA), Openet (Ireland), Procera Networks (USA), Allot (Israel), Ixia (USA), AdvancedIO (Canada), Arbor Networks (USA) and Sandvine (Canada), among others.

These companies typically partner with Internet Service Providers to insert DPI along the main arteries of the Web. (Sandvine, for example, just announced a "global distribution agreement" with -- you guessed it -- Nokia Siemens Network.) All Net traffic in and out of Iran travels through one portal -- the Telecommunications Company of Iran -- easing the use of DPI.

Yankee Group analysts assert that U.S. ISPs are currently deploying advanced DPI equipment, although many do not disclose it publicly. Through these secret arrangements both in the United States and abroad, the DPI industry is experiencing remarkable growth.

The Nature of the Beast

"A company has a nature. Its nature is to produce economic values and wealth for its shareholders," Professor Larry Lessig often says in lectures about corporate ethics and government corruption. "A tiger has a nature, and that nature is not one you trust with your child."

And naturally, the public shouldn't expect corporations to look out for our best interests. Public policy is designed for that role -- to make it profitable for corporations to behave in ways that don't harm the rest of us.

Similarly, the tech and communications companies that are selling content-sniffing tools to governments can't be trusted to safeguard against the horrific state crimes we've witnessed in Iran.

When network operators use Deep Packet Inspection, the privacy of Internet users is compromised. But in government hands, invasion of privacy can lead to human rights violations.

Setting the Bar High for DPI

"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 on Wednesday in a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, 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."

Rep. Bono Mack's letter echoes Free Press' call on June 22 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 U.S. government ought to establish legitimate criteria for authorizing the use such control and surveillance technologies.

The harm to privacy and the power to control the Internet are so disturbing that the threshold for using DPI must be very high.

The use of DPI for commercial purposes would need to meet this high bar. But it is not clear that there is any commercial purpose that outweighs the potential harm to consumers and democracy.

If You Love the iPhone, Set It Free

Do you want to get the new iPhone?

If so, you're in for a disappointment. If not, you should be worried anyway.

Apple just released the new iPhone in a hail of hype, promising that it would be "the Internet in your pocket." If only. The smart phone's groundbreaking technology has been hijacked by AT&T. In a move reminiscent of old Ma Bell, the telephone giant has struck an exclusive agreement with Apple that ties the hands of all iPhone users, restricts their Internet use and prohibits access to any other network.

And the iPhone is not alone. Nine of the 10 most popular phones are locked into exclusive deals with the few wireless carriers that dominate the market. That means that as long as carriers reserve the right to cripple the phone's best features, block full access to the Internet and stick customers with astronomical bills, you're not getting the real Internet from your shiny new handheld.

Congress Examines Handset Shackling

Exclusivity Sucks

These carrier restrictions are also why there's a growing consumer revolt to free the iPhone and other "smart" phones like it from the control of AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile.

The controversy revolves around this simple question:

If we can access the free-flowing Internet via a wireless laptop or desktop computer, why can't we do the same with our new handheld computers?

These "exclusive deals" recall the days when AT&T held a monopoly over all phone communications. For decades, Ma Bell controlled every phone on its grid and banned other companies from connecting new devices or services.

A groundbreaking 1968 policy change, known among tech wonks as the "Carterfone decision," pried open the device marketplace so that numerous new phone products could be introduced -- including answering machines, fax machines, cordless phones and early computer modems. This in turn spawned a flood of innovation in services that greatly benefited consumers.

In 2009, we need to take a serious look at the ways Carterfone rules would open the wireless marketplace to the next wave of innovation. Free Press on Wednesday launched FreeMyPhone, a campaign designed to give new "smart" phone users more control over their handheld Internet experience.

The Mobile Internet

This work is vital because wireless devices are now in the hands of more than 270 million Americans -- that's 87 percent of the population. But as more phones become "Web-enabled," more users are tied to carriers that promise the Internet but don't actually deliver the openness that's its founding principle.

AT&T is a case in point. The carrier just decided to allow Major League Baseball to stream video live to the new iPhone 3Gnetwork, but is blocking consumers from accessing other video services. Had AT&T done the same via it's wired-line services, it would be a stark violation of Net Neutrality, the principle that guarantees users can access any legal application, Web site or service they choose.

Late last year, AT&T's top lobbyist told the Washington Post that open Internet principles should govern wireless communications and that consumers expect unfettered mobile access.

"The same principals [sic] should apply across the board," Jim Cicconi said. "As people migrate to the use of wireless devices to access the Internet, they... certainly expect that we treat these services the same way."

Why then is AT&T now deciding what online video its iPhone customers can and can't watch?

So here we are -- at the dawn of the era of a true mobile Internet with AT&T and the other carriers still playing gatekeepers to the next generation of innovation.

Imagine what the new iPhone would really be if we only set it free.

Bill O'Reilly 'Applauds' Cold-Blooded Murderers

David Neiwert of Crooks & Liars reports on a chilling double-murder allegedly committed by members of the "Minutemen" the loose-knit organization of armed citizens who "guard" our borders.

The killings are chilling enough -- as evidenced by the 911 recording of the mother as she witnessed the execution of her 9-year-old daughter and husband. But what's even more infuriating is the way many prominent right-wing media pundits have made this group the darlings of 21st century patriotism.

Neiwert writes:

Remember how all those right-wing pundits proclaimed the Minutemen as being just like a neighborhood watch? Michelle Malkin called it "the mother of all neighborhood watches." Lou Dobbs labeled it "this country's biggest neighborhood watch program". Bill O'Reilly declared: "Talking Points applauds the Minutemen. They are in the great tradition of neighborhood watch groups."

The accused ringleader is Shawna Forde, who is the executive director of Minutemen American Defense and often served as spokesperson for the Minutemen movement. Here she is in that role, dishing up the hatred in a video for German television.

Frank Rich's most recent New York Times column explains how crimes of this sort are part of a bigger problem egged on by right-wing media:

This homicide-saturated vituperation is endemic among mini-Limbaughs. Glenn Beck has dipped into O’Reilly’s Holocaust analogies to liken Obama’s policy on stem-cell research to the eugenics that led to "the final solution" and the quest for "a master race." After James von Brunn’s rampage at the Holocaust museum, Beck rushed onto Fox News to describe the Obama-hating killer as a "lone gunman nutjob." Yet in the same show Beck also said von Brunn was a symptom that "the pot in America is boiling," as if Beck himself were not the boiling pot cheering the kettle on.

We have a real right-wing media accountability moment. Ask yourself how this compares to the mainstream media's current obsession over David Letterman's apology to Palin.

Shouldn't they be more concerned about the harm caused by the shrill pundits of the right?

I would say there's a strange double standard in effect, but this crime (and the rhetoric that fueled the murderers) is so horrible that it's silly to have to compare it to the Letterman-Palin affair.

And yet the mainstream media seems to think that one deserves more attention than the other.

Grassroots vs. Machine

The machine was in full today as it seemed half of the city's police and fire departments took time off from protecting and serving to pass out glossies of Peter Cammarano.

Some donned blue (the Cammarano campaign T-shirt that is) while others had their Hoboken Police and Fire Department baseball caps, decals and shirts on show.

It's a formidable force for the campaign, though some officers didn't do their candidate well by loitering around ferry and PATH terminals, and NJTransit bus stops in packs of five or six.

Let me paint the scene: four to five guys standing around shooting the bull; one guy actually handing out campaign material.

Does that inspire you to vote Cammarano on Tuesday?

For me it offered up a glimpse into the future of a Cammarano administration. As local resident Oanh Nguyen pointed out in her own flier to citizens: "Cammarano says that he will work towards lowering taxes, but I do not understand how that will happen if in his history as councilman, he has not done much that has helped the City save money."

Nguyen, who like me is getting involved in local Hoboken politics for the first time, has done so by passing out fliers to her neighbors (She slid one under the door of my apartment this evening).

"I am concerned that Peter Cammarano and his machine may fool people into voting for him," she wrote. "And a vote for him is a vote to continue the same old politics as in the past."

I wish I had a link or pdf file to share you the whole of Nguyen's handout. She makes a sincere case for voting down the machine, one that's far more convincing than the blue scrum of Cammarano guys hanging out at the bus stop.

Others should follow Nguyen's example, pick up their phones, call 5 friends and urge them to vote. Nguyen inspired me to do more. Now it's your turn.

Blog Banning an Unexpected Birthday Gift from the Mainland

Mainland China has banned MediaCitizen, according to local browser tests in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

Not certain how I triggered the Great Firewall, but pleased nonetheless.

You can still read from Hongkong though!

Internet Villains and Heroes

If the history of Internet policy were a movie, it would feature the public tied to the tracks before an onrushing train of corporate lobbyists.

The villain, however, is not just the powerful phone and cable companies these lobbyists represent, but the politicians who tightened the knots and then stood smugly by as our interests were crushed.

So how do we change this unhappy ending to one where the power of the Internet remains in the hands of the people who use it?

One politician at a time.

Our policymakers have a civic duty to keep the Internet free and open, tech activist Cory Doctorow writes in Tuesday's Guardian. Internet freedom is essential to our economic recovery, national competitiveness, public health and civic engagement.

"But politicians around the world seem willing to sacrifice their national interest to keep a few powerful phone and telcoms companies happy."

The List of Particulars

By fiddling with the wired Internet -- and walling off content and blocking competing services on wireless networks -- phone and cable companies "are pulling the rug out from under the nations that have sustained them with generous subsidies and regulation," Doctorow said.

The list of particulars isn't pretty.

Comcast was caught red-handed secretly blocking access to popular file-sharing programs. Time Warner Cable is working to impose a metering regime that would impose unfair penalties against those of us who go online for more than simple e-mail and Web surfing.

AT&T is in negotiations with the recording and motion picture industry to sift and filter all Web traffic in search of users they deem inappropriate. This is like letting the post office tear open your mail to determine whether or not it's going to be delivered, or worse, whether to turn you over to the authorities. AT&T's wireless network is crippling innovative new applications that compete with their legacy networks, making the iPhone not quite all it's advertised to be.

All of these network providers reserve the right - via legalese buried deep in their terms of agreement -- to cut off our connections for "any or no reason."

Revolution Limbo

At several points over the past two decades, policymakers have been smack in the middle of decisions to grow the information revolution and safeguard our online rights. But too often, they've stepped aside and allowed good public policy to be undermined by telecommunications giants bent on gaining a stronger hand over the free-flowing Web.

It wasn't meant to be this way.

In 1996, President Bill Clinton made history by signing the Telecommunications Act, which he described as "truly revolutionary" legislation that would "protect consumers against monopolies" and "provide open access for all citizens to the Information Superhighway."

The History of Internet Policy by Derek Turner

But today, over a dozen years later, "Americans are still waiting on the promise of this digital revolution," Derek S. Turner said last week during the Free Press; Changing Media summit in Washington, D.C.
"But before the ink was even dry on the 1996 Act, the powerful telecommunications giants and their army of lobbyists went straight to work obstructing and undermining the competition the new law was intended to create," Turner said.

In his report Dismantling Digital Deregulation: Toward a National Broadband Strategy, Turner details the failed policies at the root of America's broadband woes.

The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the Federal Communications Commission, which over the last decade ignored the Telecommunications Act's blueprint for a better Internet. Instead, it pushed a regime of deregulation that consistently favored short-term industry interests over the long-term goals of universal broadband, market competition and Internet openness.

As a result, ISPs have stuck consumers with higher prices and slower speeds, while repeatedly threatening to throttle the free and open Internet. And our elected and appointed officials have let this happen.

We're Owed Net Neutrality

Doctorow argues that Net Neutrality -- the principle that protects users' freedom of choice online -- is not only crucial for the future of the Internet, but it is what these network providers owe the public.

"If the phone companies had to negotiate for every pole, every sewer, every punch-down, every junction box, every road they get to tear up, they'd go broke," Doctorow wrote in the Guardian. "All the money in the world couldn't pay for the access they get for free every day."

"Governments and regulators are in a position to demand that these recipients of public subsidy adhere to a minimum standard of public interest," Doctorow concludes. "If they don't like it, let them get into another line of work."

That's a change we can all get behind. But the sad reality of our new policy landscape is that it's much the same as the old.

While President Barack Obama has publicly declared his support for universal and open access to the Internet, his ability to turn support into real reform is constrained by the tremendous influence of money over American policymaking.

One thing is clear: To save the Internet from the lobbyists and their bosses, leaders in Washington must be emboldened by broad-based public support.

Special interests should not be allowed to set Internet policy. Congress and the FCC must protect the Internet's democratic nature. And people who care about their online freedom must let their elected officials know about it.

Big Media Myopia

It's hard to empathize with struggling newspapers when those running them continue to suffer from the short-sightedness that got their industry into a mess.

The editors at the Washington Post put on a display of such backward thinking on Saturday, when they published an op-ed by two lawyers from the influential D.C. firm Baker Hostetler.

In writing this op-ed, the lawyers hide certain conflicts of interest that should weigh heavily against their analysis. The Post 's editors might have connected the dots for readers, but didn't.

But the piece is just so stunningly stupid that it falls apart all by itself. In it, Esq. Bruce W. Sanford and Bruce D. Brown call for reactionary legal measures that would stifle access to news and information and return us to the grand old days of consolidated ownership, bloated media giants and information gatekeepers.

To save journalism, Brown and Sanford argue, we must "eliminate ownership restrictions" and open floodgates to a new wave of media concentration.

We should also "grant an antitrust exemption" for consolidated media, allowing them to join together and wall off content from users. "Antitrust immunity is necessary because most individual news sites can't go it alone," they explain in the op-ed. "Readers will simply jump to sites that are still free."

They urge readers to support more stringent copyright restrictions that would bar bloggers, Web sites and all others from the online sharing of even a small portion of mainstream media news content.

Nowhere in this silliness do they see the consolidation and walling off of news for what it is: more the real culprit in the demise of newspapers than is their favorite bogeyman -- the free flowing Internet.

We have nearly survived an era of media mergers that shackled newspapers with massive amounts of debt and high shareholder expectations. Look no further than real estate magnate Sam Zell, who in 2007 purchased the Tribune Company using financial contortions and shifting debt structures that made heads spin among even the most seasoned bean counters.

Zell is not alone. Media consolidation over the last 20 years has been typified by leveraged deals and unserviceable debts.

But consider this. Just a few years ago, the average profit margin for newspapers was 20 percent -- with some raking in twice as much or more.

"Did they use these astronomical profits to invest in the quality of their products or to innovate for the future?" asked Free Press' Craig Aaron on Thursday. "No. They just bought up more newspapers and TV stations." (On May 12 Free Press released a National Journalism Strategy that outlines forward-thinking policies to save journalism, and not merely prop up the creaking old guard.)

This debt-loaded structure began to implode as their monopolies over local advertising revenue were undercut by Internet upstarts such as Craigslist and Google News.

The recent economic downturn was the final straw. And the aftermath has been dire -- at least for journalists. By one count, 24,000 journalism jobs have been lost since 2008. Foreign, Washington and statehouse bureaus have been shuttered. Major news organizations are in bankruptcy. Others, like the Rocky Mountain News, have closed their doors for good. Newspaper circulation is nose-diving. The Seattle Post Intelligencer and Tuscon Citizen have shed their print operations opting (far too late) to take exclusively to the Web.

In Saturday's Post op-ed, both Brown and Sanford are nostalgic for the corporate media oligarchs that predated the Internet. This fantasy is so far removed from the contours of today's media landscape that it's easy to dismiss these two lawyers as ancient barristers who rely on secretaries to print and hand deliver their email.

They aren't. And that is what's disturbing about this article.

Undisclosed by neither Brown and Sanford nor the Washington Post is the A-list of corporate media clients represented by the authors.

Here's what I found from quick scan of the Baker Hostetler Web site: Sanford has been counsel in cases representing publishers E.W. Scripps Co, Tribune Co., the Hearst Corporation, Random House, Simon & Schuster and Bertelsmann, A.G. He also represents consolidated broadcasters Clear Channel Communications, ABC/Disney, NBC, Fox Television as well as AOL/Time Warner. Brown has represented Scripps Howard Broadcasting Co. and the New York Times.

This list is not complete. (I encourage people to use the comment thread to add new names of the firm's mainstream media clients.)

As far as I can tell the Post doesn't seek counsel from Baker Hostetler. But that doesn't preclude the paper's publishers from benefiting from Brown and Sanford's myopia.

That these two lawyers have sold themselves out to corporate media seems no surprise in a city of lobbyists and snake oil. What's disturbing is the lengths to which the Washington Post will go to promote such swill without full disclosure to readers.

Fear-Mongering and the 'Fox Effect'

Last week, conservative factions within the Republican National Committee circulated an e-mail urging party leadership to brand as a "socialist" anyone who advocates even moderate changes to the government's role in society.

It's clear that the overlords at Fox News Channel already got that memo and decided to ratchet the volume up a notch -- to 11.

According to Politico, RNC member James Bopp Jr. proposed a resolution that would acknowledge that President Obama wants "to restructure American society along socialist ideals" and call upon the Democratic Party to rename itself the "Democrat Socialist Party."

The 'Fox Effect' in Action

"Just as President Reagan's identification of the Soviet Union as the 'evil empire' galvanized opposition to communism," Bopp wrote, "we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism."

Red-Baiting Redux

And indeed, April has been a month of red-baiting the likes of which we haven't seen since the reign of a certain senator from Wisconsin. The week before Bopp's memo, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) insisted that "some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists." Bachus says he has already counted 17 of them but that there may be more.

Also keeping a list is Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who in the final days of the 2008 election season questioned then-candidate Obama's patriotism and called for an investigation of Democratic members of Congress for "anti-American views."

Bachmann didn't rest there. During an appearance late last month with Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity, she reiterated her call for a revolution against the tyranny of President Obama and congressional leadership.

"This is economic Marxism," Bachmann said of their economic stimulus plan. "[Obama] is moving the United States away from free-market capitalism and instead he's imprinting socialism deep into our centralized economic planning."

Like most of Bachmann's ranting in the media and on the Hill, these allegations make zero sense. But reality hasn't stopped her from assembling a political career out of comments that fan the flames of fear among the most militantly conservative.

When Socialism Isn't Bad Enough

Bachmann is by no means America's sole demagogue. That she's been given a national stage to insult our collective intelligence, though, is cause for notice.

Bopp, Bachus and Bachmann's rhetoric has been a favorite topic among the tele-pundits of the right -- especially those prophets of doom who have made Fox News Channel their base of operations. But these knuckle-draggers aren't satisfied with fighting mere socialism.

"We're into socialism now. That's not our final destination," Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck said during his radio broadcast. "Our final destination is happy-faced fascism." In another segment on his cable program, Beck repeated this charge over a video backdrop of marching Nazis.

The 'Fox Effect'

This Beck-Hannity obsession has triggered the "Fox Effect," a media phenomenon whereby the repetitive news framing of one 24-hour cable network seeps into the coverage of other outlets -- and, frighteningly, into the political discourse of society as a whole.

Before long, the cable talent at CNN, CNBC and MSNBC had fallen into step, booking right-wing guests intent on pressing the Marxist fear button.

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough has suggested that the Obama administration favors "European-styled socialism." CNBC's Larry Kudlow has made our "march to socialism" a centerpiece of several interviews on his evening program.

For its part, CNN dedicated several news shows to sage analysis of America's political shift, including a segment in which Quinn Hillyer, the editor and columnist of the conservative Washington Examiner and American Spectator, compared Obama's actions in his first hundred days to those of Mussolini in fascist Italy.

(The video above gives some indication of the general tenor of comments across cable news).

Missing from all the crowing is any meaningful reporting that provides context for our current economic situation, or analysis of changing public attitudes about increased government oversight of businesses like the banking sector.

Journalism: the Cause or the Cure?

All of this cable news hyperventilating comes at a moment when journalism is in deep crisis. The migration of news audiences to a free-flowing Internet has led to declines in circulation, subscription and advertising revenues for traditional media.

Falling revenues translate directly into budget cuts, which in turn mean more layoffs. More layoffs mean fewer journalists, and a lower-quality product as evidenced by the torrent of fear-mongering above.

Newsgathering institutions may die off or evolve over time, but one thing must endure: We need to sustain a corps of qualified working reporters who can earn a living delivering the real news and information that is the lifeblood of a healthy American democracy.

That's right, I said "American democracy."

If the so-called journalists of cable news really want to protect us against totalitarianism, real or imagined, they'd do well to follow the examples of better reporting that are a part of our long history of newsgathering -- instead of simply aping the latest scare tactics at Fox News Channel.

Everyone Gets a Bonus from Obama's Net Neutrality Plan

Buried deep in President Barack Obama's American Reinvestment and Recovery Act is a line that should bring a smile to your face -- and a scowl to the faces of phone and cable industry lobbyists.

It says that billions of dollars directed to connect more Americans to broadband must be spent on services that meet "nondiscrimination and network interconnection obligations."

What this really means is the good guys have won one battle in the fight for an open Internet. According to Obama's plan, government must now require that the $4.7 billion in federal grants to build high-speed Internet be spent the right way: on networks that abide by Net Neutrality.

In other words, this money -- your money -- can not be used by powerful companies like AT&T and Comcast to implement plans to "manage," filter or re-route you when you traverse the Web.

They have been angling to do so since it became clear that more people were using the Internet for more than email, ecommerce and search.

No Blank Checks

The good news is that this stimulus money isn't going to be big phone and cable's blank check to do as they please. It comes with strings attached, requiring that all networks built with our money keep control over the Internet in the hands of the people who use it every day -- people like you and me.

AT&T and Verizon can't use our money to invest in content filtering tools like the Deep Packet Inspection software being used by China and Burma to sift through Web traffic. Comcast and Cox Cable can't block file-sharing software or other popular and legal Web applications. None of them can use taxpayer funds to decide what traffic gets priority and what gets shunted to a slower lane.

The only bonus being handed out here is Net Neutrality, a rule that benefits the millions of Americans who rely daily upon the Internet to improve their economic status, better educate their children, connect with friends and family, and participate more fully in our democracy.

A Bid to Undercut Neutrality

But get this: Just as Washington is funneling your tax dollars to build this open Internet, phone and cable company lobbyists are swooping in to rearrange the rules, water down Net Neutrality requirements, and stamp out consumer choice.

They came out into the open during a public meeting Monday in Washington.

"The idea that we should lay additional and unknown regulations on top of the task of the people getting this grant money is, I think, troubling at best," said Jonathan Banks of the U.S. Telecom Association during a meeting at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

James Assey, of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association said that Net Neutrality requirements could create "uncertainty" in the marketplace. Chris Guttman-McCabe, speaking on behalf of the largest wireless carriers, said openness rules take away from the central focus of the stimulus package, which is "creating the most jobs and helping reverse the recession."

The Internet's Bedrock Principle

Such misleading statements are designed to make people think we should hand over control of the Internet to the same companies that pay the salaries of these three lobbyists.

But what Banks, Assey and Guttman-McCabe failed to note is that Net Neutrality rules have always governed their profitable clients, such as when AT&T agreed to run a neutral network as a condition of its merger with BellSouth in 2007; or in 2008 when the FCC decided to disallow Comcast from throttling peer-to-peer protocols such as BitTorrent.

The only "uncertainty" in this marketplace would result from giving mighty network providers new powers to fiddle with our content. To do so would undercut the level playing field that has made the Internet the greatest engine for free speech and commerce in history.

Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott just delivered 15,000 letters to the administration demanding that this basic freedom -- the right to connect to anyone, anywhere -- remains the bedrock principle of any new networks built with federal funds.

The voices of Internet users are clear and unequivocal on this, Scott told the agencies in charge of distributing the Internet stimulus. If you want to use our billions, we need to know that your guaranteeing our online freedom in exchange.

The Future Begins Thru You

Every now and then comes something that is a perfect expression of what the Internet is about.

The latest, if you haven't already heard, comes via Kutiman, an Israeli Web impresario who mashed and mixed video clips of amateur YouTube musicians to create a near-flawless overture to the Twittering masses.

ThruYOU, his resulting record (if you can call it that), has taken the Web by storm, garnering more than a million YouTube views in the seven days since its release.

That's impressive when you consider its humble beginnings. Kutiman sent an e-mail about the project to just 20 friends. They told their friends about it and ThruYOU took on a life of its own, spreading like a netroots brushfire via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and blogs.

Track 3

But the ThruYOU sensation is more than a momentary blip on social media's radar.

After seeing ThruYOU yesterday, Larry Lessig, the author of "Remix," the bible of the free-culture generation, wrote: "Watch this, and you'll understand everything and more than what I try to explain in my book."

Jon Newton of P2P.net added that ThruYOU is "absolutely, 100% guaranteed to inspire artists around the world to produce art which has never been seen before, and never could have been seen without the Internet."

All Bets Are Off

Kutiman, who also goes by the name Ophir Kutiel, has captured the Zeitgeist of the moment - a time when our rapidly evolving Internet culture is toppling old regimes and handing over control of popular information to people like you, me, Kutiman and his YouTube orchestra.

Track 1

What ThruYOU tells us is that all bets are off. The DNA of our media system has mutated so completely that it's only a matter of time before our society changes as well.

In fact, that change is already happening.

In politics, economics, arts and culture, an era of privileged access is giving way to something that's much more decentralized, participatory and personal.

We no longer passively consume media, we actively participate in it. This often means creating content, in whatever form and from whatever sources -- what author Jonathan Zittrain calls "generativity."

We no longer limit our political involvement to television and the polling booth. We organize via Facebook; we "Google" candidates, and we join text-messaging lists and create Twitter hash tags to stay ahead of our issues.

No More 'Mass Media'

This development cuts across our social landscape and enhances core democratic values, empowering more (although not all) members of society. Like the many singers and musicians that make ThruYOU a work of tremendous grace, it prioritizes alternative voices over mainstream pap.

Track 6

It's Sir Tim Berners-Lee's end-to-end principle in action. Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web with the understanding that the freedom to connect to anyone, anywhere was the Internet's First Amendment.

This openness, known to many as Net Neutrality, leaves ultimate control over your online experience with you, the user.

Taming the Dinosaurs

Users of the Internet may take Net Neutrality for granted. But this could change if the dinosaurs of old media (namely, phone, cable, recording and film companies) are successful in taming new media that threaten their twentieth-century fiefdoms.

They've talked about filtering content for perceived violations of copyright and have been caught blocking access to popular Web applications that put control over video more firmly in users' hands. They have deployed their lobbyists, lawyers and PR flacks to paint Net Neutrality as cumbersome regulation that will destroy their plans to enhance your Web experience - as if they knew what that was.

Congress will have the opportunity this year to stop old media's latest plans to remake our Internet in their image. Net Neutrality has the support of several key members, the White House and the incoming FCC leadership; it's only a matter of time before legislation makes it to the floor.

These are hopeful signs for Kutiman and the next genius who seizes upon the Internet to take us all to a new level.

Obama's FCC Pick Another Good Sign for Open Media

As anticipated, Julius Genachowski has been tapped by President Barack Obama to head the Federal Communications Commission.

The move is another indication that incoming leadership in Washington will move decisively to protect the free flowing Internet from those seeking to become gatekeepers to new media.

It also fulfills Obama's promise made on the campaign trail to appoint an FCC chair who shares his support for Net Neutrality.

Genachowski

If confirmed by Senate, Genachowski would replace Kevin Martin, who left the agency the day Obama came into office. He brings two decades of experience from both the industry and policy side, having served as a top-executive in IT and venture capital firms and as former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt's chief legal counsel.

Genachowski also anchored the drafting of Obama's comprehensive media policy agenda that promotes fast and neutral Internet connections, and more competitive choices for the consumer.

"It is clear that he understands the importance of open networks and a regulatory environment that promotes innovation and competition to a robust democracy and a healthy economy," said Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge.

Net Neutrality Momentum

With Genachowski's nomination, the pieces are falling into place for strong Net Neutrality protections under the new administration.

Written into the DNA of President Obama economic stimulus is the requirement that those who build Internet networks (using the nearly $4.7 billion in NTIA grants provided by the legislation) adhere to the nondiscrimination and openness principles at the core of Net Neutrality.

Obama's goals for the FCC

Obama himself pledged to "take a back seat to no one" in his commitment to Net Neutrality. And the administration's technology policies now posted on the White House Web site list Net Neutrality as the top priority.

Also, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) announced last month that he will lead the influential Senate Commerce subcommittee on communications and technology.

Kerry is a longtime supporter of Net Neutrality, who wrote to SavetheInternet.com activists that "Net Neutrality and internet build-out are crucial to building a more modern and fair Information Society."

New v. Old, Open v. Closed

Genachowski will play a central role during a unique time in media history.

Open Internet supporters on the Hill, in the White House and at the FCC are facing off against industry interests who often wield their influence over communications policy to lock down new media innovation and protect their media fiefdoms.

Through a combination of forces -- including remarkable developments in technology, surging user ingenuity, industry turmoil and policy mistakes -- old and new media have arrived at a volatile moment.

It's a conflict that pits new ideas about grassroots and decentralized communications against old ideologies about top-down information control.

The decisions made in the next few years by Genachowski, Obama and their Washington allies will determine the outcome. His appointment should give open Internet supporters confidence that we're on the right track.

Celine Dion is Stalking You

Ever get the feeling that a terrible Celine Dion song is stalking you via the radio? Every time you scan the dial there it is taunting your heart to "go on and on... forever."

You're not being paranoid.

Commercial radio stations everywhere have been swallowed up by a handful of giant corporations, playlists have shrunk, and local and independent acts have been drowned out, as Big Radio soaks listeners in a mind-numbing concoction of saccharine and aspartame.

The good news is that your rescue is at hand. On Tuesday, Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.) introduced a bipartisan bill that would pry open our radio airwaves for thousands of new stations, bringing independent acts like Animal Collective, Rebel Diaz and Bunny's a Swine to the audiences they deserve.

Unleashing Radio's Potential

The Local Community Radio Act would unleash the potential of new music for millions of listeners across the country. The bill tasks Washington with licensing thousands of Low Power FM radio stations (known in radio geekdom as LPFM).

There are about 800 low-power stations already on the air. They're run out of college campuses, garages, backyard shacks, and local churches, and aimed specifically at listeners in their surrounding neighborhood.

And they're not just airing independent music. Some are providing local news and information that in more extreme cases has kept people alive.

Hoarding Air

Why local radio matters

We made a run at getting up to 3,000 more LPFM station on the air in the last Congress; more than 100 members supported a similar bill in 2008.

But it ran afoul of Big Media's lobbying arm, the National Association of Broadcasters, which makes its living off hoarding the public airwaves for a small corporate clientele - including many of the broadcasters that put Celine Dion on your tail.

The prospects for the new bipartisan bill are better. Groups like Free Press, Prometheus Radio Project and the Future of Music Coalition are ready to fight off the lobbyists and their efforts to quash new radio. Already 1,300 people have joined a Facebook group dedicated to "use new media to save old media."

And a new Twitter hash tag (#lpfm) is now generating updates as the Local Community Radio Act moves through Congress.

A Megaphone for the Many

That's something, but it may not be enough to give radio listeners real choices and new voices at every turn of the dial.

We need every member of Congress to support this bill - yes I want unanimous support when it goes to a vote. It could be Congress's first real display of bipartisanship.

What better way to ring in a new era of participatory media than by injecting new blood into a radio system that's been a megaphone for the few, for far too long.

Netroots Nation Panels

I spoke on/moderated these from last July:

This one on big, bad telcos with Cindy Cohn of EFF, Michael Kieschnick of Credo Active, Nancy Keenan of NARAL Pro-Choice America and Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com:



This one on "inside-outside" organizing with Adam Green of Moveon.org, Liz Rose of the ACLU, Andre Banks of ColorofChange, Joan McCarter of DailyKos and my colleague Craig Aaron (moderator):

Obama's Blogger Moment Recalls Darker Episode

News Flash. Huffington Post wasn't the first new media blog to be formally called upon at a presidential news conference.

President George W. Bush and his press secretaries often looked for right-wing blogger Jeff Gannon (aka James D. Guckert) as safe quarter in the White House press room.

Gannon prided himself as "a conservative journalist embedded with the liberal Washington press corps" and would routinely toss the president a lifeline when questions from other correspondents strayed from the official line.

This alliance worked well for a White House press office seeking always to keep the media on message; Gannon was called upon up to a dozen times between 2003, when he secured daily White House credentials, and February 2005.

White House Gannon

But Gannon's run ended after a particularly partisan question about Bush's opinion of congressional Democrats who were, in his words, "divorced from reality."

A blogger investigation of his "reporting" at Talon News found that Gannon often lifted large portions from RNC and White House press releases -- verbatim and without attribution.

But that's not all. We also uncovered Gannon's apparent double life involving gay pornography Web sites that promoted male prostitution -- his own.

Moonlighting Guckert

Gannon soon departed but his residency in the East Wing was one in a history of media low points for an administration that put staged propaganda before real reporting.

So while Monday night's question was a buzz-worthy moment for bloggers -- and a proud accomplishment for the Huffington Post -- its precedent reveals the darker side of a new media world where the line between reporter and propagandist can get blurry.

McCain and Limbaugh's Murky Crystal Ball

Should it be a surprise that a guy who doesn't know how to send e-mail can't grasp why the Internet is important?

Sen. John McCain -- known to have never gone online -- led the charge on Capitol Hill this week to strip the Internet from President Obama's economic stimulus package.

McCain joins media blowhards Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs, who in their latest crusade against reality think that connecting Americans to the information superhighway has nothing to do with getting our economy back on track.

Before anyone else jumps on board to trash the Internet, let's set the record straight.

Getting more people connected to broadband is the kind of stimulus that expands education and opportunity, promotes innovation and makes the United States more globally competitive. Among other things expanding broadband could reduce health care costs, help our kids in school, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and make it easier for citizens take part in our democracy.

Why connecting matters

Building broadband means putting immediately back to work engineers, technicians, equipment manufactures, vendors and construction workers to lay fiber optic cables, raise wireless towers and connect American homes.

And that's just the start. Those who initially developed the Internet never imagined it would become such a tremendous engine for growth across every sector of the economy. The challenge Americans face in the 21st century is to extend this new prosperity to the tens of millions of Americans who can't get connected.

Real Progress

That's why Candidate Obama made promoting open and affordable high-speed Internet a part of his 2008 campaign. It's why President Obama has made it a cornerstone of his recovery plan.

It's the sort of vision for change that got him elected. And it's vital to our long-term survival that we continue to embrace this idea of real American progress.

Obama's stimulus bill has had a bumpy ride through Senate. While it's on track to be signed by the president next week, the Internet piece of the stimulus has come under assault by a series of broadband bozos.

McCain told Fox News Channel that broadband "had nothing to do" with stimulating the economy. Rush Limbaugh told his listeners he hoped Obama's recovery plan would fail calling such infrastructure spending "far-left collectivism."

And CNN's Lou Dobbs said there was not a lot of "real exacting thinking" about the plan. That's certainly true in regard to Dobbs reporting but not in regard to Obama's vision of a better Internet.

Leaving the Dinosaurs Behind

The Stimulus bill is just a first step - a piece of a much larger puzzle to bring the benefits of broadband to everyone -- which is why we need to work overtime to make sure that this attack on reality doesn't go unanswered.

At Free Press, we're fighting to ensure affordable Internet access is a basic right of every American, and that the Internet fosters free speech and openness at a time when information gatekeepers seek total control.

High-speed Internet is the infrastructure of our time. Passing the stimulus bill is only the beginning of the effort to make the Internet as ubiquitous as electricity, water and highways.

But don't tell that to the old guard of Washington politics and media. Outliers like McCain, Dobbs and Limbaugh can only see their own reflections when they peer into their crystal balls.

We have a choice to make. We can remain stuck in the past while these dinosaurs stand in the way of real progress. Or we can put good ideas ahead of old ideologies and get started on building a new era of American opportunity.

More Ghosts in the Machine

Cox Communications, the nation's third-largest cable company, on Tuesday unveiled a plan to monitor and slow Internet content it deems unimportant.

With this news, Cox joins the ranks of other Internet providers willing to tempt legal fate by getting between customers and their access to the free-flowing Web.

Comcast -- which the FCC sanctioned last year for just this type of interference – had secretly blocked access to legal file-sharing applications to users the cable giant deemed “bandwidth hogs.”

Undaunted, Comcast reportedly has now joined AT&T in a new effort to filter Web traffic for files deemed inappropriate by movie and recording industry lawyers.

Cox Communications: Your Friend in the Digital Age

Cox has decided that certain Web traffic is “less time-sensitive,” and will be blocked in favor of other “more timely” content during periods of high congestion. They plan to test this system on their lucky customers in Kansas and Arkansas before rolling it out nationwide.

The Rise of the Deemers

Who decides what’s more sensitive and less sensitive on the Internet? Apparently, the deemers do.

And that’s the problem.

The lesson we learned from Comcast’s misadventures in network management is to be skeptical of any practice that comes between users and the Internet – even if it’s deemed appropriate by those standing behind the curtain.

And while Cox has called its gatekeeper intentions sound, its Web site gives little indication about how these practices will affect Internet users. Nor does it indicate that they plan to comply with the FCC's Internet Policy Statement, which helps guarantee that control of your Internet experience ultimately resides with you – the user.

“As a general rule, we're concerned about any cable or phone company picking winners and losers online,” said Ben Scott, Free Press policy director. “These kinds of practices cut against the fundamental neutrality of the open Internet.” Free Press has urged the FCC to subject Cox’s new practice to close scrutiny.

Internet Juju

“One always has to wonder what kind of juju is going on behind closed doors when a plan such as this is announced,” writes Darren Murph of Endgadget, referring to Cox. But Murph’s comment applies just as easily to the magic behind Hollywood’s plan to police the Internet with the aid of these same ISPs.

It’s a “kind of juju” called deep packet inspection, or DPI, which allows network managers to inspect, track and target user messages as they move along the Information Superhighway.

Simply put, DPI is the Internet equivalent of the mailman opening and reading your mail to decide whether or not to deliver it.

Last year, ISPs declared before Congress that they were siding with Internet users and "keeping their distance" from DPI. But we did our own deep packet inspection and found that the network providers' actions often speak louder than their testimony.

Playing God on the Net

DPI forms the cornerstone of plans to profit from policing Web content. Using this filtering technology, companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast would be able to decide whether a user packet is allowed to pass or be routed to a different lane.

It lets them pry open user's trunks, erect new tolls and sell off or bar privileged access based on what they find inside.

“In a time when information is everything, it's not an Internet provider's place to determine what content is worthy of bandwidth and what content isn't,” writes J.R. Raphael of PC World. “Ranking activities and adjusting their speed is no different. Ultimately, that's called playing God -- and sorry to tell ya, Cox, but your power shouldn't be supreme.”

Change or Cha-ching?

Change has come to America. Well, sort of. On "K" Street - home to Washington's most powerful corporate lobbyists - it's business as usual.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the scrum of lobbyists gathering around President Obama's economic stimulus package. Hearings started yesterday in the House Appropriations Committee and they're already lining the halls outside chambers.

Without a strong public interest voice at the table, lobbyists could steer billions in taxpayer dollars toward a corporate welfare boondoggle. This lost opportunity would be felt most acutely in our efforts to close America's gaping digital divide.

The Internet Economy

Obama's Kids

Obama has set aside $6 billion for broadband deployment and has been outspoken about the Internet's role in jump starting our "21st century economy," allowing small rural businesses to compete in global markets and giving every child a chance to access fast and open Internet technology.

For Ashea Williams, a special education teacher at Washington D.C.'s Arts and Technology Academy, it's a change that couldn't come soon enough for her young students. "A lot of our students do not have Internet access," she said last week. "So a lot of the activities that we do here at school they cannot expand upon at home. So the learning ends here."

If done right - by building an open and affordable network with plentiful service options -- Obama's economic stimulus plan could close the digital divide for many of Williams' students, and also for those living in rural America.

Business as Usual

But don't tell that to the many lobbyists and "analysts" plying their trade in Washington.

In their ears, "economic stimulus" means an opportunity to cash in on lucrative deals shilling for corporate interests.

One of them, Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, has been busy convincing the Beltway that this taxpayer money should be handed over to broadband incumbents like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon -- with few to no strings attached.

"We have got to focus on what this is all about," he said recently at a forum on Internet and the economic stimulus package. "This is not about broadband reform -- this is about stimulus... Stimulus has to have one goal, and that is to get as much investment in as fast a time as possible."

Change, Not 'Cha-ching'

Get out your DC decoder rings to descramble this message. What Atkinson really means is that change isn't needed for America's Internet - not even at a time when our country has slid to 22nd in the world in high-speed Internet adoption.

In Atkinson's view, we merely need to funnel taxpayer dollars to the same phone and cable companies that got us into this problem. They'll pocket the cash and continue to:

1. Exert their near complete control over America's broadband market;
   
2. Stifle new innovation and market entrants; and
   
3. Charge users higher prices for slower speeds than what's available to people in other developed nations.

When Atkinson says: "This is not about broadband reform" he really means it's about business as usual.

And he's not alone. Legions of lobbyists are taking a stand with the phone and cable companies to fight conditions like non-discrimination and open access that would guarantee that this public money actually serves the public good.

Stimulus for Whom?

The stimulus bill as it's drafted sets a different tone. It states that companies receiving broadband grants must allow consumers to access the Internet with no controls placed on their Web traffic or choice of content. Another provision calls for "open access" rules - which guarantee more competition -- to guide this stimulus.

Nowhere does it say that taxpayers should prop up a powerful duopoly that has served us poorly in the past. But this could change if the lobbyists get the ear of Congress and strike these conditions from the bill.

Stimulus is critical and the Internet has an important part to play in spreading economic opportunity. But simply enriching AT&T is not the answer.

We need to preserve these built-in guarantees so that our public money will build a better, more open and affordable system.

But Congress is moving so quickly, and big phone and cable are lobbying so ferociously, that we risk watching this chance turn into yet another corporate handout - one that enriches the phone and cable companies instead of investing in the change that Ashea Williams and her students need.

Back to Business as Usual

A quote caught my attention on this first full day of the Obama Administration. It’s from a story on America’s economic stimulus package.

Our new president plans to set aside $6 billion to connect more Americans to the Internet. And his broadband plan is now on a fast track through Congress. (A House hearing is scheduled for today).

If done right, the plan could help close the digital divide, spread economic opportunity and ensure an open Internet for everyone.

But don’t tell that to the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington think tank that’s a part of Washington’s own economic stimulus racket. Robert Atkinson supports taxpayer money for broadband but prefers it be delivered with no strings attached.

Here’s what Atkinson had to say:

"We have got to focus on what this is all about. This is not about broadband reform -- this is about stimulus... Stimulus has to have one goal, and that is to get as much investment in as fast a time as possible.”

Get out your DC decoder rings folks. What Atkinson really means by this is change ain’t needed – not even at a time when America has slid to 22nd in the world in high-speed Internet adoption.We merely need to funnel taxpayer dollars to the same phone and cable companies that got us into this problem. They’ll pocket the change and continue to:

1. exert their near complete control over America’s broadband market,
   
2. stifle new innovation and market entrants, and
   
3. charge users higher prices for slower speeds than what’s available to people in other developed nations.

When Atkinson says: “This is not about broadband reform” he really means it’s about business as usual.

And he’s telegraphing to companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast that he will stand with them to fight conditions like non-discrimination and open access that would guarantee that public money for broadband actually serves the public good.

Obama’s own tech platform sets a different tone:

"Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Work towards true broadband in every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation's wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives."

Nowhere does it say that taxpayers should prop up a powerful market duopoly that has served us poorly in the past.

Obama also lists Net Neutrality and “the full and free exchange of information through an open Internet” as his top technology priority as president.

Stimulus is critical. And the Internet has an important part to play in spreading economic opportunity. But simply enriching AT&T is not the answer. We need built-in guarantees that our public money will build a better, more open and affordable system.

What you’re witnessing in Atkinson’s comments is his own audition for an economic bailout. ITIF appears to be one in a long list of coin-operated think tanks that strike lucrative deals with industry. The game goes something like this: “You support my little group financially and we’ll churn out ‘analysis’ that you can cite as evidence while you lobby Congress for corporate handouts.”

Despite our new president this still seems to be the real business of Washington, and, sadly, Atkinson is playing his part.

Strong Neutrality Advocate to Lead FCC

President-elect Barack Obama is due to tap Net Neutrality supporter Julius Genachowski to become chair of the Federal Communications Commission.

Genachowski is one of the principal architects of Obama’s pro-Neutrality tech and media platform, which was partially unveiled during a November 2007 event, at which Obama pledged to "ensure a free and full exchange of information" and "take a backseat to no one in my commitment to Network Neutrality."

Genachowski in the front seat

Genachowski is well regarded in the technology community, both as the former chief counsel for Reed Hundt, an FCC chairman under President Bill Clinton, and as a private-sector entrepreneur and venture capitalist.

Expect Genachowski to turn his attention to bringing more choice to a broadband market controlled by a cartel of phone and cable companies.

He’s also expected to pry open valuable spectrum to broadband innovation and access, something his predecessor, the current FCC Chair Kevin Martin, said was a part of his own legacy at the agency. Indeed, more still needs to be done.

Net Neutrality is also a prominent feature in Obama’s plan for his FCC chief.

In October 2007 Obama pledged during a YouTube/MTV interview to reinstate Net Neutrality as the law of the land during his first year in office and to appoint as FCC chair someone who shares this view.

Obama's goals for the FCC

“I am a strong supporter of Net Neutrality,” Obama said. “So as president I’m going to make sure that that is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward.”

Genachowski influence on Obama has already yielded forward-looking policies as part of the change.gov technology and media platform that’s been posted by Obama’s transition team. According to the site, an Obama administration will hold to its campaign promises and “protect the openness of the Internet.”

“A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way,” Obama’s policy team states. “Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.”

Obama's Democracy Stimulus

President-elect Barack Obama this morning delivered his first major speech of the new year, pledging to "put the American Dream within reach of the American people."

A core component of Obama's economic recovery plan is "expanding broadband lines across America" to give everyone the chance to get online.

Historically, presidents have turned to public works projects to jolt new life into flagging economies: Lincoln promoted the railroads; Roosevelt erected dams and strung power lines; Eisenhower built the Interstate highways.

The construction alone put thousands to work. And better infrastructure pumped new energy into the private sector, creating many more jobs and countless long-term economic benefits.

Internet is the infrastructure of our time, so it makes sense for Obama to turn special attention to improving this essential technology.

According to a 2007 study by the Brookings Institution, boosting U.S. broadband adoption by 20 percent -- putting America on par with a country like Denmark -- would create 3 million new jobs. But it doesn't end there.

Building better broadband is not a bailout. It's a buildout for better democracy.

Connecting to the Dream

Economic crisis or not, connecting everyone to a fast, open and affordable Internet will better our democracy as a whole. It's something we should have done well before mortgage bankers drove our economy off a cliff, well before the country fell from fourth to 15th in the world in broadband adoption. And it's something we should continue to prioritize well after this crisis is over.

Millions of people trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide are being deprived of a better education, good jobs and full participation in our democracy.

Obama's "American Dream" is a matter not only of enrichment but of engagement.

Last year, millions of people joined social networks, e-mail lists, online fundraisers and forums to support their favorite candidates and topple politics as usual in Washington. Even if you didn't vote for Obama, the Internet organizing that paved his way to the White House has transformed 21st-century politics.

This Internet movement doesn't end for Obama at the doorstep of the White House. As president, Obama needs to roll up his sleeves and work with all of us to ensure that every American has access to a fast, open and affordable Internet.

My colleague S. Derek Turner has created a detailed plan to use $44 billion in broadband stimulus spending that will help us get there. That's the "how." The "why" is really what's most important about this work.

In 2008, the Internet opened the door to a new kind of political power, one that's more diverse, grassroots and decentralized. In 2009, it's time we put that power in the hands of every American.