Follow is my Sept. 29 testimony before the New York City Council:
Free Press is grateful for the opportunity to testify before the Council today. We have nearly 500,000 members nationwide. More than 17,000 of them are New Yorkers, living within the five Burroughs. As public advocates on Internet rights, we strongly support policies that ensure everyone has access to a fast affordable and open Internet.
As you may have guessed by now, “white spaces” are very political. And when lobbyists muddy up the debate the results are rarely productive. In reality, it boils down to this: The white spaces issue pits those who have access to spectrum, and want to keep it for themselves, against those who don’t, and want spectrum to be used to serve other purposes as well. These purposes include high-speed Internet access for those who have been bypassed by the broadband incumbents – or who simply cannot afford access.
In the middle of it all is developing technology, which (despite what you have heard from some of the spectrum haves here today) can and will meet acceptable and certifiable standards of non-interference. Federal Communications Commission engineers are sorting that out at the moment, as they should. And we can all foresee a day in the not-so-distant future when both the haves and the have nots will be able to enjoy this spectrum in ways that benefit us all.
Politics should not stand in the way of better technology, especially technology that could bring vast benefits to so many. So let’s put the politics of white spaces aside for a moment to look at the problem, and the opportunity.
The Problem: U.S. Broadband Falling Behind
The divide is wide. Since Internet access became publicly available in the 1990s, America has failed to deliver the Internet's tremendous benefits to everyone. As a result, millions still stand on the wrong side of the "digital divide."
Since 2001, the United States has fallen from fourth in the world in broadband penetration to 15th in the world today. Worse, our growth rate over the past year ranks us 20th out of the 30 countries.
The divide is economic. In America, only 35 percent of homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed Internet connection. Moreover, nearly 20 million Americans live in areas that are not served by a single broadband provider; tens of millions more live in places where there is just a single provider of high-speed Internet service.
And it's racial. Broadband's promise is not being realized equally across all racial and ethnic groups in our country. Only 40 percent of racial and ethnic minority households have access to broadband, while 55 percent of non-Hispanic white households are connected.
American consumers pay far too much for far too little compared to citizens in other countries. We have the eighth-highest monthly rates for broadband service among leading developed nations. In real terms, this means Internet users in Japan pay about half the price for an Internet connection that's 20 times faster than what's commonly available to people in the United States.
In New York City, these problems are acute. A July 2008 report for the city by Diamond Management & Technology Consultants found that nearly three out of four low-income New Yorkers lack a high-speed Internet connection in their home. That's more than 666,000 households, according to the report, or literally millions of New Yorkers. The problem is concentrated in public housing, and especially among public housing residents over the age of 65 -- less than 5 percent of whom are connected to broadband.
The Opportunity: Unlicensed White Spaces in New York City
Free Press analyzed the availability of frequencies in the television band for the five Burroughs of the city (see attached). We found that after the February 2009 digital transition there will be ten vacant channels in New York City.
That means that 20 percent of the entire TV band will be sitting idle. This is amazing given the usual spectrum crowding that occurs in heavily populated areas. By way of contrast, in Juneau, Alaska, 74 percent of the same band will be vacant.
Still, 20 percent is a lot of airspace and it can be put to good use.
White spaces are especially suitable for low-power broadband use. Better than WiFi, white spaces are capable of transmitting high-speed Internet signals great distances and through concrete buildings.
Important, if we were to limit this spectrum to licensed use, there would be NO white spaces for use in New York City – none at all. This is because unlicensed use permits low-power smart devices, such as those being created by engineers at Phillips and Motorola. Licensed use does not.
This underscores an important point: Licensing of this spectrum in New York City means no new broadband providers. Opening white spaces on an un-licensed basis represents one of the last, best hopes we have to deliver vital broadband services to New Yorkers who need them most.
For the promises of the Internet to be met, we need to make sound decisions that encourage faster, more open and affordable access for everyone. The successful use of new broadband technologies are vital to the future of our country, whether you live in Juneau, Alaska, New York City or all places in between. Opening white spaces for unlicensed access is the right decision for the right technology.
It's important that the Council of the City of New York not stand in the way of this important innovation. As it is written, this resolution is not only unnecessary, but also a step in the wrong direction.
Instead, we urge you to ask the FCC to decide in the public's best interest, and that is to move rapidly to open white spaces for everyone.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Better than Lipstick on a Pig
If you feel that pigs with lipstick and Paris Hilton have hijacked our political discourse this election season, you're not alone.
Mainstream news shows have devoted too much attention to trivia, and too little to information that voters say matter most.
This Friday's presidential debate with Jim Lehrer of PBS moderating may be a chance to get the media back on track. But if past is prologue, we can expect another parade of the petty.
Media Matters analyzed the 2,304 questions asked during the 31 primary debates earlier this year. Of these, only 9 percent of the questions addressed the economy -- counted by Americans as the most important issue today, followed by the war, healthcare, energy policy and jobs.
Meanwhile, debate moderators piled on the fluff, asking questions about personality and other "non-substantive" matters more than 30 percent of the time.
The final Democratic primary debate, with ABC News' Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, was a low point. The moderators devoted the first 45 minutes to questions about flag pins, former pastors and candidate sniping before raising a single question about Iraq or the economy.
Free Press hopes to help remedy this during this Friday's debate. We have devised a "Citizens Media Scorecard" that will allow thousands of debate watchers to "score" the performance of the media moderators during the final four presidential and vice presidential debates.
These real-time ratings will be analyzed by esteemed media researcher Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report and immediately fed back to hundreds of political and media reporters as soon as the debates are finished -- allowing the public to weigh in before the media spin cycle gets out of control.
Debates are marquee moments in American elections. The few journalists selected to participate -- and the media narrative that follows -- will play a defining role in determining our next president.
Before Americans close the curtains on this election, we deserve real political discourse from our media. If the news organizations aren't up to the task, it's up to us to hold our media -- and through them, our leaders -- accountable.
Mainstream news shows have devoted too much attention to trivia, and too little to information that voters say matter most.
This Friday's presidential debate with Jim Lehrer of PBS moderating may be a chance to get the media back on track. But if past is prologue, we can expect another parade of the petty.
Media Matters analyzed the 2,304 questions asked during the 31 primary debates earlier this year. Of these, only 9 percent of the questions addressed the economy -- counted by Americans as the most important issue today, followed by the war, healthcare, energy policy and jobs.
Meanwhile, debate moderators piled on the fluff, asking questions about personality and other "non-substantive" matters more than 30 percent of the time.
The final Democratic primary debate, with ABC News' Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, was a low point. The moderators devoted the first 45 minutes to questions about flag pins, former pastors and candidate sniping before raising a single question about Iraq or the economy.
Free Press hopes to help remedy this during this Friday's debate. We have devised a "Citizens Media Scorecard" that will allow thousands of debate watchers to "score" the performance of the media moderators during the final four presidential and vice presidential debates.
These real-time ratings will be analyzed by esteemed media researcher Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report and immediately fed back to hundreds of political and media reporters as soon as the debates are finished -- allowing the public to weigh in before the media spin cycle gets out of control.
Debates are marquee moments in American elections. The few journalists selected to participate -- and the media narrative that follows -- will play a defining role in determining our next president.
Before Americans close the curtains on this election, we deserve real political discourse from our media. If the news organizations aren't up to the task, it's up to us to hold our media -- and through them, our leaders -- accountable.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Why DC Lobbyists Fear 'White Spaces'
What if I told you we could use empty TV channels to connect millions of people to the Internet?
The technology exists to do just that. But a powerful corporate lobby is standing in the way with a multimillion-dollar misinformation campaign aimed at Congress and the Federal Communications Commission.
This month and next Washington will face a critical choice: Use new technology to open the Internet for everyone, or side with the lobbyists and prevent millions from getting connected.
This latest front in the battle over the future of the Internet is about "white spaces" -- empty frequencies between TV channels on the public airwaves.
If you remember the days of rabbit ears on your set, white spaces are the static between the network channels as you turned the dial.
New technology can open this unused spectrum to powerful high-speed Internet services -- sending open and ubiquitous broadband signals over mountains and through buildings, potentially connecting tens of millions of Americans now left off the grid.
Washington Smoke Screens
Here's the problem: The National Association of Broadcasters and cell phone companies want to hoard this publicly owned resource. Their lobbyists have been blitzing Washington with misinformation to prevent white spaces from being used to benefit millions of people.
Unfortunately, many key decision makers in simply lack the bandwidth to look into white spaces technology and decide for themselves. Instead they rely upon the lobbyists who come knocking with lies and spin meant to paint this technology as a danger to mankind.
But broadcasters are simply blowing smoke to protect their FCC granted broadcast fiefdoms. As a result, we're being kept from using airwaves that could help fill one of the biggest holes in our national infrastructure.
Spanning the Divide
Too many Americans have been left on the wrong side of the digital divide -- sidelined in a nation that increasingly demands high-speed Internet access to get things done, keep up in school and find out what's happening in the world. The answer to this problem is right in front of us.
This week tens of thousands of people have signed a letter urging Congress and the FCC to skewer the industry spin and serve the public by opening white spaces to unlicensed, high speed Internet services.
Members of the Wireless Innovation Alliance (including Free Press) have declared Wednesday "White Spaces Day." We will bring your letters to the Hill and deliver them to your member of Congress.
Unless we urge Congress and the FCC to push back against industry and open up white spaces, Washington could side with the lobbyists and deny us one of our last, best opportunities to build a better Internet.
It's a familiar story. Big media companies use any means possible to squash new ideas that threaten their control over information.
It's time we changed that status quo and opened up white spaces for everyone.
The technology exists to do just that. But a powerful corporate lobby is standing in the way with a multimillion-dollar misinformation campaign aimed at Congress and the Federal Communications Commission.
This month and next Washington will face a critical choice: Use new technology to open the Internet for everyone, or side with the lobbyists and prevent millions from getting connected.
This latest front in the battle over the future of the Internet is about "white spaces" -- empty frequencies between TV channels on the public airwaves.
 |
New technology can open this unused spectrum to powerful high-speed Internet services -- sending open and ubiquitous broadband signals over mountains and through buildings, potentially connecting tens of millions of Americans now left off the grid.
Washington Smoke Screens
Here's the problem: The National Association of Broadcasters and cell phone companies want to hoard this publicly owned resource. Their lobbyists have been blitzing Washington with misinformation to prevent white spaces from being used to benefit millions of people.
Unfortunately, many key decision makers in simply lack the bandwidth to look into white spaces technology and decide for themselves. Instead they rely upon the lobbyists who come knocking with lies and spin meant to paint this technology as a danger to mankind.
But broadcasters are simply blowing smoke to protect their FCC granted broadcast fiefdoms. As a result, we're being kept from using airwaves that could help fill one of the biggest holes in our national infrastructure.
Spanning the Divide
Too many Americans have been left on the wrong side of the digital divide -- sidelined in a nation that increasingly demands high-speed Internet access to get things done, keep up in school and find out what's happening in the world. The answer to this problem is right in front of us.
This week tens of thousands of people have signed a letter urging Congress and the FCC to skewer the industry spin and serve the public by opening white spaces to unlicensed, high speed Internet services.
Members of the Wireless Innovation Alliance (including Free Press) have declared Wednesday "White Spaces Day." We will bring your letters to the Hill and deliver them to your member of Congress.
Unless we urge Congress and the FCC to push back against industry and open up white spaces, Washington could side with the lobbyists and deny us one of our last, best opportunities to build a better Internet.
It's a familiar story. Big media companies use any means possible to squash new ideas that threaten their control over information.
It's time we changed that status quo and opened up white spaces for everyone.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
St. Paul in the Hot Seat over Journalist Arrests
Journalists and St. Paul citizens assembled outside St. Paul City Hall today to deliver more than 60,000 letters to Mayor Chris Coleman and prosecuting attorneys demanding that they immediately drop charges against all journalists arrested this week as they covered the Republican National Convention
By Friday morning, dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers had been booked by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office in what appears to have been an orchestrated round-up of media makers covering protests during the convention.
"From the pre-convention raids to the ongoing harassment and arrests of journalists, these have been dark days for press freedom in the United States," said Nancy Doyle Brown of the Twin Cities Media Alliance, who delivered the letters on behalf of the nonpartisan media reform group Free Press.
Stories That Will Never Be Told
She was joined by a crowd of local activists and journalists, including Amy Goodman and Nicole Salazar of Democracy Now!, KFAI-FM radio host Andy Driscoll and Mike Bucsko, executive director of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild.
"Tragically, there are stories that the world needed to hear this week that will never be told," Brown said. "They won't be told because reporters working on them were sitting in the back of squad cars, were stripped of their cameras, or were face down on the pavement with their hands cuffed behind their backs."
On Thursday, the final night of the convention, it appears that authorities ratcheted up their attacks on both protesters and credentialed journalists, lobbing tear gas and percussion grenades into crowds and arresting student journalists, local TV photographers, Associated Press reporters, and two MyFox journalists, among others.
Other journalists have also been pepper-sprayed, and reporters with I-Witness were held at gunpoint during a "pre-emptive" raid aimed at disrupting protesters last weekend.
Mayor Chris Coleman has refused to reply to my repeated calls and e-mails asking for his response to allegations that journalists were specifically targeted by authorities.
Post-Mortem
A crowd of journalists -- many of whom were arrested earlier in the week -- entered City Hall and delivered the letters into the hands of St. Paul Deputy Mayor Ann Mulholland and City Attorney John Choi, who briefly told them that the legal system will sort out their concerns.
The mayor and public officials "need to do a post-mortem to examine the circumstances" of these arrests, said Bucsko, who represents reporters at the Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "I hate to think that journalists were being targeted," adding that it appeared that "there was discrimination based upon their jobs."
The signatures were collected in less than 72 hours as people nationwide expressed their outrage over St. Paul's attempts to stifle the many journalists documenting events surrounding the tightly scripted spectacle in the city's Xcel Center.
Wellstone's Worst Nightmare
Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, The Newspaper Guild, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Writers Guild of America, East have also sounded the alarm over the unusually harsh treatment by city authorities.
"The city of St. Paul has a black eye right now, and I must say that Paul Wellstone would be rolling in his grave," said Denis Moynihan of Free Speech TV, who spoke outside City Hall today.
"Mayor Coleman must salvage the damaged reputation of the state and the city by dropping charges against all journalists immediately."
By Friday morning, dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers had been booked by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office in what appears to have been an orchestrated round-up of media makers covering protests during the convention.
"From the pre-convention raids to the ongoing harassment and arrests of journalists, these have been dark days for press freedom in the United States," said Nancy Doyle Brown of the Twin Cities Media Alliance, who delivered the letters on behalf of the nonpartisan media reform group Free Press.
Stories That Will Never Be Told
She was joined by a crowd of local activists and journalists, including Amy Goodman and Nicole Salazar of Democracy Now!, KFAI-FM radio host Andy Driscoll and Mike Bucsko, executive director of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild.
"Tragically, there are stories that the world needed to hear this week that will never be told," Brown said. "They won't be told because reporters working on them were sitting in the back of squad cars, were stripped of their cameras, or were face down on the pavement with their hands cuffed behind their backs."
On Thursday, the final night of the convention, it appears that authorities ratcheted up their attacks on both protesters and credentialed journalists, lobbing tear gas and percussion grenades into crowds and arresting student journalists, local TV photographers, Associated Press reporters, and two MyFox journalists, among others.
Other journalists have also been pepper-sprayed, and reporters with I-Witness were held at gunpoint during a "pre-emptive" raid aimed at disrupting protesters last weekend.
Mayor Chris Coleman has refused to reply to my repeated calls and e-mails asking for his response to allegations that journalists were specifically targeted by authorities.
Post-Mortem
A crowd of journalists -- many of whom were arrested earlier in the week -- entered City Hall and delivered the letters into the hands of St. Paul Deputy Mayor Ann Mulholland and City Attorney John Choi, who briefly told them that the legal system will sort out their concerns.
The mayor and public officials "need to do a post-mortem to examine the circumstances" of these arrests, said Bucsko, who represents reporters at the Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "I hate to think that journalists were being targeted," adding that it appeared that "there was discrimination based upon their jobs."
The signatures were collected in less than 72 hours as people nationwide expressed their outrage over St. Paul's attempts to stifle the many journalists documenting events surrounding the tightly scripted spectacle in the city's Xcel Center.
Wellstone's Worst Nightmare
Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, The Newspaper Guild, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Writers Guild of America, East have also sounded the alarm over the unusually harsh treatment by city authorities.
"The city of St. Paul has a black eye right now, and I must say that Paul Wellstone would be rolling in his grave," said Denis Moynihan of Free Speech TV, who spoke outside City Hall today.
"Mayor Coleman must salvage the damaged reputation of the state and the city by dropping charges against all journalists immediately."
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
St. Paul Mayor and Media Mum on Journalism Crackdown
In St. Paul this week, a new generation of media makers is under assault by the city's mayor and law enforcement officers.
These local officials think freedom of the press extends only to their allies in mainstream media.
For the rest of us, practicing journalism is a crime.
While reports of brutal police arrests and home invasions are still coming in, by Tuesday night the picture became clear. Dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers had been arrested in an orchestrated round up of independents covering the Republican National Convention.
Targeting the New Press
The list of those detained ranges from the well-known (Democracy Now's Amy Goodman) and well-established (Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke) -- to the bootstrapping bloggers and video makers who are covering local protests for TheUptake.org, Twin Cities Indymedia, I-Witness and other outlets.
Police -- with firearms drawn -- raided a meeting of the video journalists and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. Journalists covering protests have been pointed out by authorities, blasted with tear gas and pepper spray, and brutalized while in custody.
Democracy Now's Goodman reports that a U.S. Secret Service agent ripped her press credentials from her neck the moment she identified herself to him as a member of the media. Her producers emerged yesterday from their jail cells bloodied and scarred, reporting unusually harsh treatment at the hands of local and federal authorities.
Mayor Coleman's Silence
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman hasn't responded to repeated phone and e-mail requests for comments on the targeting of journalists. Instead he praised the work of Police Chief John Harrington and painted those arrested as a small band of outsiders and vandals intent upon committing felonies against the good people of his city.
In less than a day, more than 35,000 people have signed a letter from Free Press (my employer) to Mayor Coleman condemning the arrests and demanding that he and local prosecutors immediately "free all detained journalists and drop all charges against them."
But when Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald pressed Harrington and Coleman to respond to widespread reports of journalist arrests, Harrington claimed ignorance while Coleman stood silent at his side.
Police spokesman Don Walsh intervened only to say that "arrest have been made" and that all those arrested were involved in criminal activities and not "simply non-participants."
Strib Forgets About Free Speech
In a bizarre editorial on Tuesday, the Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune hailed the police crackdown as "appropriate," blaming unrest on outsiders from beyond the Twin Cities.
"Many of those arrested in St. Paul weren't carrying IDs or wouldn't give their names. Those who were identified came from Lexington, Ky.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; Portland, Ore., and dozens of other U.S. cities," they wrote. "These weren't the sons and daughters of Highland Park and south Minneapolis."
The Star Tribune itself is owned by out-of-towners from Avista Capital Partners, a New York City private equity firm specializing in energy, healthcare and media investments.
Other than a brief story about Goodman's arrest, the paper has failed to report on the apparent targeting of independent reporters, even though groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have sounded the alarm.
Sweeping Real Journalism Under the Carpet
Here we have every indication of an orchestrated assault by federal and local law enforcement agencies to stifle independent sources of information. As shocking as this conduct is, more disturbing is the fact that the mayor's office and the local daily seem so unconcerned.
It's not difficult to understand why. With local leaders making every effort to roll out the welcome mat for mainstream media and the GOP, they'd rather sweep beneath the carpet those pesky independents who are showing us a side of the spectacle that is less scripted for prime time.
As an elected representative, Mayor Coleman should take a stand on behalf of a free press, rein in aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement, stop the targeting of journalists and immediately drop all charges against them.
As a powerful news organization, the Star Tribune should know better, and should be sticking up for a free press, regardless of the form it takes.
For now, the democratic spirit of journalism is alive not in the Star Tribune newsroom, but among the video-blogs and cellphone reports that are bubbling up from outside the convention.
These local officials think freedom of the press extends only to their allies in mainstream media.
For the rest of us, practicing journalism is a crime.
While reports of brutal police arrests and home invasions are still coming in, by Tuesday night the picture became clear. Dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers had been arrested in an orchestrated round up of independents covering the Republican National Convention.
Targeting the New Press
The list of those detained ranges from the well-known (Democracy Now's Amy Goodman) and well-established (Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke) -- to the bootstrapping bloggers and video makers who are covering local protests for TheUptake.org, Twin Cities Indymedia, I-Witness and other outlets.
Police -- with firearms drawn -- raided a meeting of the video journalists and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. Journalists covering protests have been pointed out by authorities, blasted with tear gas and pepper spray, and brutalized while in custody.
Democracy Now's Goodman reports that a U.S. Secret Service agent ripped her press credentials from her neck the moment she identified herself to him as a member of the media. Her producers emerged yesterday from their jail cells bloodied and scarred, reporting unusually harsh treatment at the hands of local and federal authorities.Mayor Coleman's Silence
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman hasn't responded to repeated phone and e-mail requests for comments on the targeting of journalists. Instead he praised the work of Police Chief John Harrington and painted those arrested as a small band of outsiders and vandals intent upon committing felonies against the good people of his city.
In less than a day, more than 35,000 people have signed a letter from Free Press (my employer) to Mayor Coleman condemning the arrests and demanding that he and local prosecutors immediately "free all detained journalists and drop all charges against them."
But when Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald pressed Harrington and Coleman to respond to widespread reports of journalist arrests, Harrington claimed ignorance while Coleman stood silent at his side.
Police spokesman Don Walsh intervened only to say that "arrest have been made" and that all those arrested were involved in criminal activities and not "simply non-participants."
Strib Forgets About Free Speech
In a bizarre editorial on Tuesday, the Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune hailed the police crackdown as "appropriate," blaming unrest on outsiders from beyond the Twin Cities.
"Many of those arrested in St. Paul weren't carrying IDs or wouldn't give their names. Those who were identified came from Lexington, Ky.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; Portland, Ore., and dozens of other U.S. cities," they wrote. "These weren't the sons and daughters of Highland Park and south Minneapolis."
The Star Tribune itself is owned by out-of-towners from Avista Capital Partners, a New York City private equity firm specializing in energy, healthcare and media investments.
Other than a brief story about Goodman's arrest, the paper has failed to report on the apparent targeting of independent reporters, even though groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have sounded the alarm.
Sweeping Real Journalism Under the Carpet
Here we have every indication of an orchestrated assault by federal and local law enforcement agencies to stifle independent sources of information. As shocking as this conduct is, more disturbing is the fact that the mayor's office and the local daily seem so unconcerned.
It's not difficult to understand why. With local leaders making every effort to roll out the welcome mat for mainstream media and the GOP, they'd rather sweep beneath the carpet those pesky independents who are showing us a side of the spectacle that is less scripted for prime time.
As an elected representative, Mayor Coleman should take a stand on behalf of a free press, rein in aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement, stop the targeting of journalists and immediately drop all charges against them.
As a powerful news organization, the Star Tribune should know better, and should be sticking up for a free press, regardless of the form it takes.
For now, the democratic spirit of journalism is alive not in the Star Tribune newsroom, but among the video-blogs and cellphone reports that are bubbling up from outside the convention.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Networks Sleep While Democracy Burns
Sometimes mainstream media reveal their failures in displays so stark that it makes the job of media critics too easy.
NBC, ABC and CBS frequently forget to serve their viewers, to be sure, but certain miscues are a special boon for bloggers and media reformers, who work tirelessly to show that the titans of the mainstream consistently miss the most important stories of our time.
Network coverage of the political conventions this week and next is a case in point, as American politics takes a back seat to mainstream media reality.
The "Big Three" have decided that democracy is bad for business, and are treating viewers to excited hormones (ABC's "High School Musical"), miniskirts (NBC's "Deal or No Deal") and bachelor hi-jinks (CBS's "Two and a Half Men") instead of Democratic and Republican convention coverage in Denver and Minneapolis.
Citizens v. Consumers
At PBS, where "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" still thinks of its audience as "citizens rather than consumers," the conventions will be covered from gavel to gavel. ABC, CBS and NBC are yielding little more than an hour of prime time on most convention nights.
This is the sad reality of a corporate media that prefer laugh-tracks and the bottom line to political discourse.
While the networks yuk it up with sitcoms and teen libido, the message they're sending the American public is that the most important political gatherings of the last four years don't merit the nation's full attention - and certainly matter less than the standard prime-time fare offered up on any other night.
Television and the Age of Apathy
The damage goes beyond that: In the era of television elections voter turnout has been stuck between 50 and 55 percent. Over the same period, many young voters (aged 18 to 24) have increasingly passed on voting altogether - there's been a steady decline in youth turnout, despite spikes during the 1992 and 2004 general elections.
Even when they tune in network news, the public is spoon-fed coverage that rarely reflects the viewing public's political interests.
NBC, ABC, CBS and their cable counterparts overwhelmingly portray the elections as a horse race pitting TV-ready personalities against one another. Obama is the inexperienced firebrand, McCain the seasoned, straight-talking maverick. This drama may play well on the small screen, but it accomplishes little towards informing voters about the candidates' political views.
According to MediaTenor research from the 2004 presidential elections, less than 5 percent of networks newscasts dealt with candidates' positions on policy issues, such as health care, education, the war in Iraq, the economy and employment -- even though American voters consistently rank these topics as the "most important issues for the government to address."
The same pattern can be seen on the news in 2008. Candidates are not being identified according to their stances on the issues, but by their posture of the day. As a result, too much coverage emphasizes immediacy and spin over substance and issues. Who's up in the latest polls? Who scored the latest zinger on the campaign trail?
In 2004: Worm Munching Trumps Obama
In the face of this critique, network executives have circled their news vans and lobbed criticism at the conventions themselves.
In 2004, NBC's then anchor Tom Brokaw called the conventions heavily scripted "infomercials" not worthy of news. That year, NBC fed viewers a prime-time diet of worm munching on "Fear Factor" instead of featuring the debut of rising political star Barack Obama, who took the stage in Boston, delivered an electrifying speech and launched his political prospects.
NBC was not alone. ABC and CBS also deemed that historic moment as "too scripted" for prime time.
To be fair, conventions are designed by the parties to spin their candidate before the media, but it's up to the networks to unpack the hype and deliver real political analysis and breaking news to their audience.
Turning their cameras on is a start.
NBC, ABC and CBS frequently forget to serve their viewers, to be sure, but certain miscues are a special boon for bloggers and media reformers, who work tirelessly to show that the titans of the mainstream consistently miss the most important stories of our time.
Network coverage of the political conventions this week and next is a case in point, as American politics takes a back seat to mainstream media reality.
The "Big Three" have decided that democracy is bad for business, and are treating viewers to excited hormones (ABC's "High School Musical"), miniskirts (NBC's "Deal or No Deal") and bachelor hi-jinks (CBS's "Two and a Half Men") instead of Democratic and Republican convention coverage in Denver and Minneapolis.
Citizens v. Consumers
At PBS, where "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" still thinks of its audience as "citizens rather than consumers," the conventions will be covered from gavel to gavel. ABC, CBS and NBC are yielding little more than an hour of prime time on most convention nights.
This is the sad reality of a corporate media that prefer laugh-tracks and the bottom line to political discourse.
While the networks yuk it up with sitcoms and teen libido, the message they're sending the American public is that the most important political gatherings of the last four years don't merit the nation's full attention - and certainly matter less than the standard prime-time fare offered up on any other night.
Television and the Age of Apathy
The damage goes beyond that: In the era of television elections voter turnout has been stuck between 50 and 55 percent. Over the same period, many young voters (aged 18 to 24) have increasingly passed on voting altogether - there's been a steady decline in youth turnout, despite spikes during the 1992 and 2004 general elections.
Even when they tune in network news, the public is spoon-fed coverage that rarely reflects the viewing public's political interests.
NBC, ABC, CBS and their cable counterparts overwhelmingly portray the elections as a horse race pitting TV-ready personalities against one another. Obama is the inexperienced firebrand, McCain the seasoned, straight-talking maverick. This drama may play well on the small screen, but it accomplishes little towards informing voters about the candidates' political views.
According to MediaTenor research from the 2004 presidential elections, less than 5 percent of networks newscasts dealt with candidates' positions on policy issues, such as health care, education, the war in Iraq, the economy and employment -- even though American voters consistently rank these topics as the "most important issues for the government to address."
The same pattern can be seen on the news in 2008. Candidates are not being identified according to their stances on the issues, but by their posture of the day. As a result, too much coverage emphasizes immediacy and spin over substance and issues. Who's up in the latest polls? Who scored the latest zinger on the campaign trail?
In 2004: Worm Munching Trumps Obama
In the face of this critique, network executives have circled their news vans and lobbed criticism at the conventions themselves.
In 2004, NBC's then anchor Tom Brokaw called the conventions heavily scripted "infomercials" not worthy of news. That year, NBC fed viewers a prime-time diet of worm munching on "Fear Factor" instead of featuring the debut of rising political star Barack Obama, who took the stage in Boston, delivered an electrifying speech and launched his political prospects.
NBC was not alone. ABC and CBS also deemed that historic moment as "too scripted" for prime time.
To be fair, conventions are designed by the parties to spin their candidate before the media, but it's up to the networks to unpack the hype and deliver real political analysis and breaking news to their audience.
Turning their cameras on is a start.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
A Major Milestone in the Fight for an Open Internet
It's official. The Federal Communications Commission delivered its order on Wednesday lowering the hammer on Comcast for derailing Internet users' Web access and then pretending that the cable giant was doing nothing wrong.
The order, approved by a bipartisan FCC majority at the beginning of the month, demands that Comcast "must stop" its ongoing practice of blocking Internet content by year's end.
As I have written before, this action carries considerable weight.
It's the first time the FCC has gone to such lengths to assert users' right to an open Internet and Net Neutrality. And it sends a warning shot across the bow of other major ISPs that are flirting with the idea of blocking, filtering or degrading content, or favoring certain Web sites and services over others.
The FCC Delivers
"This order marks a major milestone in Internet policy," says Ben Scott, Free Press policy director. "For years, the FCC declared that it would take action against any Internet service provider caught violating the online rights guaranteed by the agency. The commission has delivered on that promise."
The order concludes the FCC's months-long investigation, which included two public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities -- and more than 25,000 public comments.
"This clear legal precedent signals that the future of the Net Neutrality debate will be over how, not whether, to protect users' right to an open Internet," Scott says.
Comcast's Smokescreen
Comcast and its Astroturf allies swamped the FCC with filings that challenged the agency's authority and outright denied any wrongdoing. But the smackdown of Comcast's claims issued today makes clear that the agency is on solid legal footing, and Comcast clearly in the wrong.
"The Communications Act has long established the federal agency's authority to promote the competition, consumer choice, and diverse information across all communications platforms," explains Marvin Ammori, Free Press' legal counsel, who authored the 2007 complaint against the cable giant.
In 2005, the agency unanimously adopted an Internet policy statement that "extended these rights to Internet users - including the right to access the lawful content, applications and services of their choice."
That statement served the basis for the Free Press complaint, which set the wheels of the FCC churning towards Wednesday's welcome result.
A Scathing Rebuke
The FCC was unconvinced by Comcast's attempts to evade accountability. The order finds that Comcast's repeated "verbal gymnastics" and attempts to muddy the issue of blocking were "unpersuasive and beside the point."
The commissioners were especially outraged by Comcast's lies and deception. When it first got caught blocking the Internet, the cable giant "misleadingly disclaimed any responsibility for its customers' problems," according to the FCC order, followed by "at best misdirection and obfuscation."
Contrary to the spin of Comcast's lawyers, the FCC can protect the rights of Internet users, and promote openness, free speech and competition on the Web.
ISPs Don't Own the Internet
"The Internet is a world-wide system that does not belong to any one operator," wrote David Reed, a pioneer in the design of the Internet's fundamental architecture. "The design of the Internet Protocols specifies clear limits on what operators can and cannot do... Happily, the FCC recognized and exposed Comcast's transgressions of those limits."
[Read what other Net luminaries are saying about the order.]
Still, the FCC cannot act without first receiving complaints from users. Cable and phone companies would now be wise to obey the order and resist their gatekeeper tendencies.
But the public also needs to continue to keep watch over the Internet, and to call for FCC action against abuse of our Internet rights.
The order, approved by a bipartisan FCC majority at the beginning of the month, demands that Comcast "must stop" its ongoing practice of blocking Internet content by year's end.
As I have written before, this action carries considerable weight.
It's the first time the FCC has gone to such lengths to assert users' right to an open Internet and Net Neutrality. And it sends a warning shot across the bow of other major ISPs that are flirting with the idea of blocking, filtering or degrading content, or favoring certain Web sites and services over others.
The FCC Delivers
"This order marks a major milestone in Internet policy," says Ben Scott, Free Press policy director. "For years, the FCC declared that it would take action against any Internet service provider caught violating the online rights guaranteed by the agency. The commission has delivered on that promise."
The order concludes the FCC's months-long investigation, which included two public hearings at Harvard and Stanford universities -- and more than 25,000 public comments.
"This clear legal precedent signals that the future of the Net Neutrality debate will be over how, not whether, to protect users' right to an open Internet," Scott says.
Comcast's Smokescreen
Comcast and its Astroturf allies swamped the FCC with filings that challenged the agency's authority and outright denied any wrongdoing. But the smackdown of Comcast's claims issued today makes clear that the agency is on solid legal footing, and Comcast clearly in the wrong.
"The Communications Act has long established the federal agency's authority to promote the competition, consumer choice, and diverse information across all communications platforms," explains Marvin Ammori, Free Press' legal counsel, who authored the 2007 complaint against the cable giant.
In 2005, the agency unanimously adopted an Internet policy statement that "extended these rights to Internet users - including the right to access the lawful content, applications and services of their choice."
That statement served the basis for the Free Press complaint, which set the wheels of the FCC churning towards Wednesday's welcome result.
A Scathing Rebuke
The FCC was unconvinced by Comcast's attempts to evade accountability. The order finds that Comcast's repeated "verbal gymnastics" and attempts to muddy the issue of blocking were "unpersuasive and beside the point."
The commissioners were especially outraged by Comcast's lies and deception. When it first got caught blocking the Internet, the cable giant "misleadingly disclaimed any responsibility for its customers' problems," according to the FCC order, followed by "at best misdirection and obfuscation."
Contrary to the spin of Comcast's lawyers, the FCC can protect the rights of Internet users, and promote openness, free speech and competition on the Web.
ISPs Don't Own the Internet
"The Internet is a world-wide system that does not belong to any one operator," wrote David Reed, a pioneer in the design of the Internet's fundamental architecture. "The design of the Internet Protocols specifies clear limits on what operators can and cannot do... Happily, the FCC recognized and exposed Comcast's transgressions of those limits."
[Read what other Net luminaries are saying about the order.]
Still, the FCC cannot act without first receiving complaints from users. Cable and phone companies would now be wise to obey the order and resist their gatekeeper tendencies.
But the public also needs to continue to keep watch over the Internet, and to call for FCC action against abuse of our Internet rights.
Friday, August 01, 2008
TKO of Comcast Sets Stage for a Better Internet
They tried to shut us out. Their flacks and shills tried to discredit us. Their media lapdogs tried to attack us. But nothing could prevent a people-powered movement from stopping one of Washington's most powerful corporations.
Today the FCC delivered a technical knock-out to Comcast. In a landmark decision, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein approved an "enforcement order" that would require Comcast to stop interfering with the use of popular peer-to-peer applications by people on its network.
Today's FCC move is precedent-setting. It sends a powerful message to phone and cable companies that blocking access to the Internet will not be tolerated.
It also gives the FCC (one still controlled by industry-friendly Republicans) the teeth to stop powerful companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from getting between you and what you want to do online.
And it wouldn't have happened without the strong public backlash against phone and cable companies and their gatekeeper ambitions. Activists, bloggers, consumer advocates and everyday people who love an open Internet took on entrenched corporate power and won -- defying every ounce of conventional wisdom in Washington.
The Comcast Mafia
Through its D.C. mafia, Comcast had been exerting intense political and financial pressure on the FCC's Martin, who in July had announced his intention to sanction Comcast for mucking with the Web.
But the Republican chairman stood his ground , alongside Democratic Commissioners Copps and Adelstein, and instilled some hope that, even in a divided city, the public's interest can win out over partisanship and corruption.
It also follows more than two years of intense organizing by a coalition of organizations dedicated to preserving the democracy of the Internet. During this time, more than 1.6 million people sacrificed time and energy to contact Congress and the FCC, speak out at town meetings, collect signatures on street corners and on campuses, and spread the gospel of an open Internet via blogs, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.
A Movement Milestone
A people-powered movement for a free and open Internet is taking shape around issues of Net Neutrality, open access, online privacy and digital inclusion.
Today's FCC victory is a milestone for the movement, but the work of creating a more accessible, open and affordable Internet is really only just beginning.
Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are continuing to fight Net Neutrality using lobbyists, lawyers and campaign contributions. They're aligning with powerful forces in Washington to spy on their users without warrant - and then gain retroactive immunity via Washington. They're looking working with the Hollywood industry associations to sift through information we send and download online to impose a draconian copyright regime on the Web, They're quietly snooping for data about our private online choices to turn over to advertisers.
Telco Doublespeak
Inside the Beltway, Big Telco and Cable are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create special rules written in their favor.
For all of their talk of "deregulation" and "free markets," cable and telephone lobbyists work aggressively behind the scenes to force through regulations that protect their local monopolies and duopolies, stifle new entrants and competitive technologies in the marketplace, and increase their control over the content that travels over the Web.
It's only recently that the well-heeled phone and cable lobby have been beaten back by a well-organized public. We are coming together in increasing numbers to see that these special interests are not allowed to set Internet policy for the nation.
The Internet's true greatness lies in those of us who use its level playing field to challenge the status quo, create and share new innovation and ideas, take part in our democracy and connect with others around the world -- without permission from any gatekeepers.
As we continue to mobilize to save the Internet, Washington should start to follow the public's lead. Change may be on the horizon for American politics, and this recent FCC decision may have offered up our first glimpse.
Today the FCC delivered a technical knock-out to Comcast. In a landmark decision, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein approved an "enforcement order" that would require Comcast to stop interfering with the use of popular peer-to-peer applications by people on its network.
The FCC Hammers Comcast |
It also gives the FCC (one still controlled by industry-friendly Republicans) the teeth to stop powerful companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from getting between you and what you want to do online.
And it wouldn't have happened without the strong public backlash against phone and cable companies and their gatekeeper ambitions. Activists, bloggers, consumer advocates and everyday people who love an open Internet took on entrenched corporate power and won -- defying every ounce of conventional wisdom in Washington.
The Comcast Mafia
Through its D.C. mafia, Comcast had been exerting intense political and financial pressure on the FCC's Martin, who in July had announced his intention to sanction Comcast for mucking with the Web.
But the Republican chairman stood his ground , alongside Democratic Commissioners Copps and Adelstein, and instilled some hope that, even in a divided city, the public's interest can win out over partisanship and corruption.
It also follows more than two years of intense organizing by a coalition of organizations dedicated to preserving the democracy of the Internet. During this time, more than 1.6 million people sacrificed time and energy to contact Congress and the FCC, speak out at town meetings, collect signatures on street corners and on campuses, and spread the gospel of an open Internet via blogs, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.
A Movement Milestone
A people-powered movement for a free and open Internet is taking shape around issues of Net Neutrality, open access, online privacy and digital inclusion.
Today's FCC victory is a milestone for the movement, but the work of creating a more accessible, open and affordable Internet is really only just beginning.
Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are continuing to fight Net Neutrality using lobbyists, lawyers and campaign contributions. They're aligning with powerful forces in Washington to spy on their users without warrant - and then gain retroactive immunity via Washington. They're looking working with the Hollywood industry associations to sift through information we send and download online to impose a draconian copyright regime on the Web, They're quietly snooping for data about our private online choices to turn over to advertisers.
Telco Doublespeak
Inside the Beltway, Big Telco and Cable are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create special rules written in their favor.
For all of their talk of "deregulation" and "free markets," cable and telephone lobbyists work aggressively behind the scenes to force through regulations that protect their local monopolies and duopolies, stifle new entrants and competitive technologies in the marketplace, and increase their control over the content that travels over the Web.
It's only recently that the well-heeled phone and cable lobby have been beaten back by a well-organized public. We are coming together in increasing numbers to see that these special interests are not allowed to set Internet policy for the nation.
The Internet's true greatness lies in those of us who use its level playing field to challenge the status quo, create and share new innovation and ideas, take part in our democracy and connect with others around the world -- without permission from any gatekeepers.
As we continue to mobilize to save the Internet, Washington should start to follow the public's lead. Change may be on the horizon for American politics, and this recent FCC decision may have offered up our first glimpse.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Two Voices at the FCC for a Free and Open Internet
It's unusual for federal bureaucrats to achieve rock star status, but two commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission have amassed an enthusiastic fan base among the emerging "Open Internet" movement.
For several years, Democratic Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps have stood up, spoke out and worked all the angles at the cavernous FCC in defense of an Internet that is open, neutral, accessible and affordable to everyone.
These are the bedrock principles of a growing movement of bloggers, media makers, online activists and organizers who are fighting for unfettered access to the Net.
While in the minority, Adelstein and Copps have been joined by a somewhat unlikely ally in Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. The three of them are now poised to deliver a major victory to the little guys against one of the country's biggest and most ruthless media companies.
The Making of the Movement
Adelstein and Copps' crusade on the Internet's behalf hasn't been easy.
Lining up against them in Washington is an army of hired legal guns and lobbyists working for the likes of Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. Every day, they swarm the FCC and Capitol Hill to blast away at any rule that would prevent their clients from becoming the new gatekeepers to the Web.
Who ultimately controls the Internet is a question that has galvanized millions of Internet activists in recent years.
Grassroots groups like SavetheInternet.com, Free Press (my employer), Public Knowledge, ACLU, MoveOn.org, Common Cause and Electronic Frontier Foundation see the Internet as the future of all media -at a time when more and more people are taking charge of their TV watching, music listening and other rich media experiences via a high-speed connection.
Using the Internet to Save the Internet
Millions of their supporters have used the tools of the Internet to send Washington a powerful political message: "Don't side with special interests and strip away our online freedoms."
In 2006, Capitol Hill was poised to pass a telco-friendly communications bill opposed by public advocacy groups for lacking basic consumer protections. More than 1.5 million people wrote letters to Congress, attended protest rallies across the country and organized using MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. The bill died on the Senate floor.
In 2007, the FCC was poised to hand over a valuable chunk of spectrum with no strings attached to powerful wireless companies. More than a quarter million people wrote the FCC demanding "open access" to these airwaves. The FCC attached some openness conditions before putting the spectrum out for bid.
When Verizon Wireless censored text messages by NARAL Pro-Choice America in late 2007, they sent tens of thousands of letters to Washington. Under intense public and media scrutiny, Verizon reversed its decision and let the NARAL messages through.
New Media Democracy
"Consumers don't want the Internet to become another version of old media -- dominated by a handful of companies," Adelstein told an enthusiastic audience during a FCC hearing in Pittsburgh earlier this week. "They want choice."
In June, Commissioner Copps asked a crowd at the National Conference for Media Reform: "If you want to blog about local politics, should you really have to pay some huge gatekeeper for every reader you get? Should anyone be telling you what you can read and see and hear on the Internet? Which applications you can run? Which devices you can use?"
He pledged alongside Commissioner Adelstein to "do everything we can" to ensure that the Internet looks like "real media democracy."
Adelstein and Copps' tenure in Washington has come under a Republican-led FCC, which has routinely supported industry efforts to whittle away many of the user freedoms that are fundamental to preserving the Internet's democratic character.
The agency has become embroiled in an issue called "Net Neutrality" -- the fundamental safeguard for users' ability to go where they want, do what they choose and connect with whomever they like every time they boot up the Internet.
Net Neutrality has pitted Internet rights advocates from across the political spectrum against powerful phone and cable companies, which now control broadband access for nearly 99 percent of American users. But Adelstein and Copps have broken with the well-heeled lobbyists to take a principled stand for a people-powered Internet.
Beating Back Comcast
When AT&T announced its plans to merge with BellSouth in 2006, it was the two Democrats who attached Net Neutrality as a two-year condition of the merger and then strong armed Republican members of the commission to sign off on the terms.
Now the FCC faces a new opportunity to establish Net Neutrality as the guiding principle of the Internet.
Earlier this month Chairman Martin announced that he would recommend punishing Comcast Corp. for violating Net Neutrality and blocking subscribers' Internet traffic.
While the final order hasn't come out yet, it's worthwhile to look at how we got here. The Republican Chairman should get a lot of credit for his handling of the Comcast case, including holding public hearings on the issue.
But Adelstein and Copps have walked with the public every step of the way on Net Neutrality.
Now they stand ready to join with Martin against Comcast (Their vote is expected to happen during the August 1 monthly meeting of the five commissioners). This decision would set an historic legal precedent for all those fighting to keep the Internet free of corporate gatekeepers.
"Both commissioners have really shown their mettle on this issue," blogger Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com said during last week's Netroots Nation conference in Austin. "Copps has been a visionary and a firebrand for the netroots. Adelstein has shown bravery by breaking with the conventional wisdom of Washington for the good of everyone else."
For several years, Democratic Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps have stood up, spoke out and worked all the angles at the cavernous FCC in defense of an Internet that is open, neutral, accessible and affordable to everyone.
These are the bedrock principles of a growing movement of bloggers, media makers, online activists and organizers who are fighting for unfettered access to the Net.
 Adelstein joins the North Mississippi All-Stars at the National Conference for Media Reform |
The Making of the Movement
Adelstein and Copps' crusade on the Internet's behalf hasn't been easy.
Lining up against them in Washington is an army of hired legal guns and lobbyists working for the likes of Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. Every day, they swarm the FCC and Capitol Hill to blast away at any rule that would prevent their clients from becoming the new gatekeepers to the Web.
Who ultimately controls the Internet is a question that has galvanized millions of Internet activists in recent years.
Grassroots groups like SavetheInternet.com, Free Press (my employer), Public Knowledge, ACLU, MoveOn.org, Common Cause and Electronic Frontier Foundation see the Internet as the future of all media -at a time when more and more people are taking charge of their TV watching, music listening and other rich media experiences via a high-speed connection.
Using the Internet to Save the Internet
Millions of their supporters have used the tools of the Internet to send Washington a powerful political message: "Don't side with special interests and strip away our online freedoms."
In 2006, Capitol Hill was poised to pass a telco-friendly communications bill opposed by public advocacy groups for lacking basic consumer protections. More than 1.5 million people wrote letters to Congress, attended protest rallies across the country and organized using MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. The bill died on the Senate floor.
In 2007, the FCC was poised to hand over a valuable chunk of spectrum with no strings attached to powerful wireless companies. More than a quarter million people wrote the FCC demanding "open access" to these airwaves. The FCC attached some openness conditions before putting the spectrum out for bid.
Two DC bureaucrats stand up to the powerful phone and cable lobby, and inspire an emerging 'netroots' movement. |
New Media Democracy
"Consumers don't want the Internet to become another version of old media -- dominated by a handful of companies," Adelstein told an enthusiastic audience during a FCC hearing in Pittsburgh earlier this week. "They want choice."
In June, Commissioner Copps asked a crowd at the National Conference for Media Reform: "If you want to blog about local politics, should you really have to pay some huge gatekeeper for every reader you get? Should anyone be telling you what you can read and see and hear on the Internet? Which applications you can run? Which devices you can use?"
He pledged alongside Commissioner Adelstein to "do everything we can" to ensure that the Internet looks like "real media democracy."
Adelstein and Copps' tenure in Washington has come under a Republican-led FCC, which has routinely supported industry efforts to whittle away many of the user freedoms that are fundamental to preserving the Internet's democratic character.
The agency has become embroiled in an issue called "Net Neutrality" -- the fundamental safeguard for users' ability to go where they want, do what they choose and connect with whomever they like every time they boot up the Internet.
Net Neutrality has pitted Internet rights advocates from across the political spectrum against powerful phone and cable companies, which now control broadband access for nearly 99 percent of American users. But Adelstein and Copps have broken with the well-heeled lobbyists to take a principled stand for a people-powered Internet.
Beating Back Comcast
When AT&T announced its plans to merge with BellSouth in 2006, it was the two Democrats who attached Net Neutrality as a two-year condition of the merger and then strong armed Republican members of the commission to sign off on the terms.
Now the FCC faces a new opportunity to establish Net Neutrality as the guiding principle of the Internet.
Earlier this month Chairman Martin announced that he would recommend punishing Comcast Corp. for violating Net Neutrality and blocking subscribers' Internet traffic.
While the final order hasn't come out yet, it's worthwhile to look at how we got here. The Republican Chairman should get a lot of credit for his handling of the Comcast case, including holding public hearings on the issue.
But Adelstein and Copps have walked with the public every step of the way on Net Neutrality.
Now they stand ready to join with Martin against Comcast (Their vote is expected to happen during the August 1 monthly meeting of the five commissioners). This decision would set an historic legal precedent for all those fighting to keep the Internet free of corporate gatekeepers.
"Both commissioners have really shown their mettle on this issue," blogger Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com said during last week's Netroots Nation conference in Austin. "Copps has been a visionary and a firebrand for the netroots. Adelstein has shown bravery by breaking with the conventional wisdom of Washington for the good of everyone else."
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Beware of Cable Guys Making Promises
Comcast can't seem to get it straight.
On the one hand, the cable giant blocks access to certain Web applications. On the other, Comcast executives extol the virtues of a "free market" to safeguard against any abuse of users' right to choose online.
So which is it?
What the cable giant really wants is to thwart any policies that would stop it from doing whatever it pleases. And at this moment the company wants to play gatekeeper -- "managing" its network in a way that prevents users from gaining access to the Open Internet.
Of course, Comcast's executives will never admit this. But their true intentions lurk in the fine print of statements and filings they have made at the Federal Communications Commission over the years.
These filings reveal a familiar pattern. The company uses free-market rhetoric and pledges of good corporate citizenship to exact favorable rule changes from the federal agency. Once those rulings are in place, it does an about face -- breaking promises and creeping further towards throttling our Web experience and dominating the access market.
As the FCC weighs how to sanction the company for blocking access to applications like BitTorrent, it's worth looking into Comcast's Washington history of bait and switch.
A little digging through FCC's archives tells the tale.
Exhibit A: Open Access
Back in early 2002 Comcast was engaged in the debate over whether cable companies should share “their pipes” with competing Internet service providers. Such "open access" requirements were the law during the age of dial-up Internet, resulting in dozens of competing ISPs delivering services via a single phone line into the home.
Comcast was set against open access rules being extended to cable Internet and deployed legions of lobbyists in Washington to fight the notion. But when they worried their purchase of (the old) AT&T’s broadband service might be derailed, they pledged to offer open access to competing services.
In an "ex parte" letter filed at the Commission in February of that year, Comcast's attorney James L. Casserly touted this promise as:
In a subsequent filing Comcast promised that the merged entity "will have a significant incentive to continue to work with independent ISPs." And in another filing still, the company pledged: "Comcast is committed to negotiating mutually beneficial commercial arrangements with independent ISPs."
Comcast coupled these filings with press releases heralding the company’s partnership with independent ISPs like NetZero, Juno and Earthlink (remember them?) as a sign of their commitment to open access.
Comcast Changes its Tune
So what happened? Based upon Comcast's promises of good behavior, the Commission exempted cable companies from open access rules – opening the door to the court decision and subsequent FCC rulings that put Net Neutrality in jeopardy.
On the heels of the FCC decision against open access, Comcast did a 180. In October 2003, the Washington Post reported that "Comcast officials say they are no longer so keen on the idea" of agreeing to provide access to other services. Joe Waz, a Comcast vice president, added: "If you don't need ISPs for basic connectivity to the Internet, what value do they bring to our customers?"
In other words, as soon as Comcast execs got what they wanted from the FCC, the promises to share their wires at a fair price were forgotten. The press releases touting their deals with competing provider weren’t worth the paper on which they were written.
The end result is that, today, a Comcast customer has no other choice but Comcast for Internet service via their exclusive cable connection. They're stuck with one option, and the "free market" – little more than a chimera in America's high speed Internet world -- had nothing to do with it.
Exhibit B: The Open Internet
Fast forward to 2008. Comcast is now making promises to work with competing video and Internet telephony services and stop blocking popular file-sharing applications. They insist there’s no need for FCC oversight to protect our right to use services of our choice every time we connect to the Web.
Washington should "rely on the marketplace rather than government regulation to advance the provision of Internet services," wrote Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen in a March filing with the agency. Cohen points to a press release -- issued jointly by BitTorrent, Inc. and Comcast -- as evidence of the "fundamental wisdom of this approach."
In a July filing with the Commission, Vice President Kathryn Zachem pledges Comcast's commitment "to provide network management solutions that benefit consumers and competition."
If past is prologue, why should we expect things to be any different?
Trust the Profit Motive Only
The Comcast message, in case you’ve missed it, sounds like this: "With the free market, we can solve our own problems and deliver to end users the Internet experience that they desire. Trust us."
"A company has a nature," Professor Larry Lessig said earlier this year. "Its nature is to produce economic values and wealth for its shareholders." That one essential truth is about as much trust that we need to extend to corporations, Lessig adds.
Public policy, on the other hand, is designed to make it profitable for corporations to behave in ways that serve the public interest.
With Chairman Martin's latest move to hold the cable company accountable, it seems some at the federal agency have learned this valuable lesson.
On the one hand, the cable giant blocks access to certain Web applications. On the other, Comcast executives extol the virtues of a "free market" to safeguard against any abuse of users' right to choose online.
So which is it?
What the cable giant really wants is to thwart any policies that would stop it from doing whatever it pleases. And at this moment the company wants to play gatekeeper -- "managing" its network in a way that prevents users from gaining access to the Open Internet.
Of course, Comcast's executives will never admit this. But their true intentions lurk in the fine print of statements and filings they have made at the Federal Communications Commission over the years.
These filings reveal a familiar pattern. The company uses free-market rhetoric and pledges of good corporate citizenship to exact favorable rule changes from the federal agency. Once those rulings are in place, it does an about face -- breaking promises and creeping further towards throttling our Web experience and dominating the access market.
As the FCC weighs how to sanction the company for blocking access to applications like BitTorrent, it's worth looking into Comcast's Washington history of bait and switch.
A little digging through FCC's archives tells the tale.
Exhibit A: Open Access
Back in early 2002 Comcast was engaged in the debate over whether cable companies should share “their pipes” with competing Internet service providers. Such "open access" requirements were the law during the age of dial-up Internet, resulting in dozens of competing ISPs delivering services via a single phone line into the home.
 Casserly: Friend to Open Access? |
In an "ex parte" letter filed at the Commission in February of that year, Comcast's attorney James L. Casserly touted this promise as:
Concrete evidence of Comcast's intention to afford high-speed Internet customers a choice of ISPs and of the ability of industry participants to make the necessary arrangements through voluntary, commercial negotiations.
In a subsequent filing Comcast promised that the merged entity "will have a significant incentive to continue to work with independent ISPs." And in another filing still, the company pledged: "Comcast is committed to negotiating mutually beneficial commercial arrangements with independent ISPs."
Comcast coupled these filings with press releases heralding the company’s partnership with independent ISPs like NetZero, Juno and Earthlink (remember them?) as a sign of their commitment to open access.
Comcast Changes its Tune
So what happened? Based upon Comcast's promises of good behavior, the Commission exempted cable companies from open access rules – opening the door to the court decision and subsequent FCC rulings that put Net Neutrality in jeopardy.
 Waz: The Old Bait and Switch |
In other words, as soon as Comcast execs got what they wanted from the FCC, the promises to share their wires at a fair price were forgotten. The press releases touting their deals with competing provider weren’t worth the paper on which they were written.
The end result is that, today, a Comcast customer has no other choice but Comcast for Internet service via their exclusive cable connection. They're stuck with one option, and the "free market" – little more than a chimera in America's high speed Internet world -- had nothing to do with it.
Exhibit B: The Open Internet
Fast forward to 2008. Comcast is now making promises to work with competing video and Internet telephony services and stop blocking popular file-sharing applications. They insist there’s no need for FCC oversight to protect our right to use services of our choice every time we connect to the Web.
 Cohen: Free Market Wise Guy |
In a July filing with the Commission, Vice President Kathryn Zachem pledges Comcast's commitment "to provide network management solutions that benefit consumers and competition."
If past is prologue, why should we expect things to be any different?
Trust the Profit Motive Only
The Comcast message, in case you’ve missed it, sounds like this: "With the free market, we can solve our own problems and deliver to end users the Internet experience that they desire. Trust us."
"A company has a nature," Professor Larry Lessig said earlier this year. "Its nature is to produce economic values and wealth for its shareholders." That one essential truth is about as much trust that we need to extend to corporations, Lessig adds.
Public policy, on the other hand, is designed to make it profitable for corporations to behave in ways that serve the public interest.
With Chairman Martin's latest move to hold the cable company accountable, it seems some at the federal agency have learned this valuable lesson.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Internet Users Stop Comcast, Net Neutrality Win on the Horizon
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is taking action against Comcast for illegally violating Net Neutrality, after a coalition of Net users and activists caught the cable giant blocking open access to the Internet.
Martin told the Associated Press last night that Comcast had "arbitrarily" blocked Internet access and failed to disclose to consumers what it was doing. "We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles."
The move is the agency's response to a complaint filed by Free Press and members of SavetheInternet.com, which called for severe action against Comcast for jamming people using popular "file-sharing" applications. But the story goes back further than that.
Organized People Beat Organized Money
Martin's action -- to be voted on by the full FCC in three weeks - would be a major milestone for the growing open Internet movement, marking another defeat of entrenched corporate interests in Washington and a stunning victory for ordinary people who want to control their Internet experience.
If adopted by the FCC, Martin's order could set an historic precedent for protecting the future of the open Internet. Against every ounce of conventional wisdom in Washington, everyday citizens and consumer advocates have taken on a major corporation and won a major victory.
The decision follows nearly a year of organizing and action by a growing alliance of bloggers, Internet innovators, consumer groups, organizations from across the political spectrum, and Net activists from all walks of life.
In that time, tens of thousands of people wrote the FCC in support of Net Neutrality after Free Press filed its complaint against Comcast and asked the agency to levy the largest fine in its history.
Hundreds of others packed public hearings to speak out against would-be gatekeepers (even after Comcast notoriously attempted to keep them out by hiring drowsy seat warmers in Boston).
The Power of One
But it all started with one person. When barbershop quartet enthusiast Robb Topolski found Comcast was preventing him from sharing legal music files with other fans, he took to his computer and launched a one-man investigation.
Topolski uncovered conclusive evidence that Comcast was secretly blocking his uploads. His concerns echoed those of hundreds of other Comcast users, who had taken to the blogs and chat rooms to express their dismay.
He posted his findings on a single tech blog. This had a cascading effect, and soon dozens of others were writing about his findings. The Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation conducted their own investigations with similar results. The evidence was indisputable: Comcast was blocking the Internet.
The wheels of government started churning. This time for the better.
The Fight Continues
Martin's move is a major victory. But this fight is far from over. His order has yet to pass, though it seems likely. The cable companies -- and the phone companies, too, even though they're trying to distance themselves from Comcast -- will be back with their money, lawyers and phony grassroots groups to try to take control of the Internet and establish themselves as gatekeepers.
Companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lobby Washington to gut Net Neutrality and hand over control of the Internet to them. But they so far have failed to overcome widespread and organized public opposition.
Today we can celebrate a huge victory for real people, but we need to continue this fight to send a clear signal to the next Congress and White House that standing with regular people for a free and open Internet is a winning proposition.
Martin told the Associated Press last night that Comcast had "arbitrarily" blocked Internet access and failed to disclose to consumers what it was doing. "We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles."
Topolski Ignites the Fire |
Organized People Beat Organized Money
Martin's action -- to be voted on by the full FCC in three weeks - would be a major milestone for the growing open Internet movement, marking another defeat of entrenched corporate interests in Washington and a stunning victory for ordinary people who want to control their Internet experience.
If adopted by the FCC, Martin's order could set an historic precedent for protecting the future of the open Internet. Against every ounce of conventional wisdom in Washington, everyday citizens and consumer advocates have taken on a major corporation and won a major victory.
The decision follows nearly a year of organizing and action by a growing alliance of bloggers, Internet innovators, consumer groups, organizations from across the political spectrum, and Net activists from all walks of life.
In that time, tens of thousands of people wrote the FCC in support of Net Neutrality after Free Press filed its complaint against Comcast and asked the agency to levy the largest fine in its history.
Comcast's "Shame" |
The Power of One
But it all started with one person. When barbershop quartet enthusiast Robb Topolski found Comcast was preventing him from sharing legal music files with other fans, he took to his computer and launched a one-man investigation.
Topolski uncovered conclusive evidence that Comcast was secretly blocking his uploads. His concerns echoed those of hundreds of other Comcast users, who had taken to the blogs and chat rooms to express their dismay.
He posted his findings on a single tech blog. This had a cascading effect, and soon dozens of others were writing about his findings. The Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation conducted their own investigations with similar results. The evidence was indisputable: Comcast was blocking the Internet.
The wheels of government started churning. This time for the better.
The Fight Continues
Martin's move is a major victory. But this fight is far from over. His order has yet to pass, though it seems likely. The cable companies -- and the phone companies, too, even though they're trying to distance themselves from Comcast -- will be back with their money, lawyers and phony grassroots groups to try to take control of the Internet and establish themselves as gatekeepers.
Companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lobby Washington to gut Net Neutrality and hand over control of the Internet to them. But they so far have failed to overcome widespread and organized public opposition.
Today we can celebrate a huge victory for real people, but we need to continue this fight to send a clear signal to the next Congress and White House that standing with regular people for a free and open Internet is a winning proposition.
America's Next Moon Shot: Internet for Everyone
Almost every great public initiative in America's history, the electrification of rural communities, the creation of the interstate highway system or the 60s-era mission to the moon, started with a powerful vision and the political leadership to get it done.
We need both as we face a challenge to reawaken our democracy and drive economic growth in a world where America's greatest commodity is its people.
This challenge, of course, is delivering high-speed Internet access to everyone.
And it's no small lift as we have already dug ourselves a hole. Access to broadband today is held in the grip of the cable and phone cartel. This duopoly controls access for more than 98 percent of online American homes. And it's the main reason why American pay far more for much slower speeds than what's available in the rest of the developed world.
Sharing the Broadband Dividend
It has put us at a tremendous disadvantage - one that has been widely documented. But what's alarming is new information about the demographics of access - the so-called "digital divide." According to new analysis by Free Press (my employer), only 35 percent of U.S. homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed Internet connection.
And the broadband dividend is not paying out equally. Only 40 percent of racial and ethnic minority households in the United States have access to broadband, while 55 percent of non-Hispanic white households are connected.
"The digital divide is alive and well," Van Jones, the founder of Green For All, said during yesterday's launch of InternetforEveryone.org - a new initiative to solve America's gaping broadband access problems. "There's a whole section of people who have not even caught up to where we are now and are in grave danger of being left behind."
According to Jones, this has dire consequences for one's ability to vote, to be a part of the economy and, even, to survive - he mentioned the deaths of migrant farm workers, who didn't receive Web-based emergency notices in time to escape last year's wildfires in California.
Like Hot Water
"Why Internet for all? I think Internet access is required for full participation in society today. Maybe it's not as basic as water, but it's definitely as basic as hot water," Robin Chase, the founder of Zipcar, said.
According to Chase, Internet access is fundamental to maintaining a high quality of life and for addressing such pressing social problems as America's energy dependency.
Getting Beyond Rhetoric
Returning to the top of international rankings would translate into millions of new jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in increased economic activity for the United States.
For good reason, other developed countries have enacted comprehensive national plans to connect more of their citizens to a fast, affordable and open Internet. The U.S. doesn't have a plan or the leadership to get it done.
We do have national broadband rhetoric, though. In 2004, President Bush pledged "to have a universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007."
As if on cue, last year, Mr. Bush's chief Internet officer, John Kneuer, declared "mission accomplished" -- that all the international surveys were misleading and that the "free market" had ensured that Americans across the country enjoy real choice in high-speed Internet access.
What he and his White House compatriots refuse to acknowledge, though, is that a free market approach for Internet services in the U.S. is a chimera. The only hand in play here belongs to the phone and cable duopoly and a government that's been held in their thrall for too long.
The real solution is a little more nuanced.
Neanderthals and the Three Legged Stool
During the launch of InternetforEveryone.org, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein described himself as a "frustrated policymaker" in Washington. "At the FCC I have a stack of proposals on my desk about a national broadband policy," he said. "What we're lacking is the leadership to actually implement those policies."
Adelstein looks at a successful broadband plan as a three-legged stool:
"You have businesses, who will invest and drive deployment, you have the government on all levels hopefully working in concert, and then you have the public both directly involved and through public interest groups like this coalition."
"This is social infrastructure," Professor Larry Lessig said:
Making it Happen
InternetforEveryone.org is bringing together public interest and for-profit institutions to raise public awareness of the digital divide and spark the political will to address this massive problem.
Closing the broadband digital divide should have been a real national priority for the past eight years. We can't afford NOT to make it a priority for the next eight. While our status as world technology leader went into free fall, Congress sat on the sidelines and the White House ducked and dodged.
There's a reason for that. Getting everyone connected is a political issue at its core. The policy process has been dominated thus far by the broadband incumbents and their well-heeled lobbyists. These companies prefer our lagging Internet status quo to public involvement, choice and real innovation.
And the community that uses the Internet is only now beginning to get organized to guide the debates that will shape its future. We clearly need to do more organizing with the tens of millions of people in communities that can't access the Web.
Getting us back on top will require a national broadband framework that is supported by those beyond the Beltway - who stand to gain the most from a national broadband agenda that promotes access, choice, openness and innovation. And we need bold leadership willing to reject the conventional political wisdom and explore real solutions.
We need both as we face a challenge to reawaken our democracy and drive economic growth in a world where America's greatest commodity is its people.
This challenge, of course, is delivering high-speed Internet access to everyone.
Internet luminaries speak out for Internet for everyone |
Sharing the Broadband Dividend
It has put us at a tremendous disadvantage - one that has been widely documented. But what's alarming is new information about the demographics of access - the so-called "digital divide." According to new analysis by Free Press (my employer), only 35 percent of U.S. homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed Internet connection.
And the broadband dividend is not paying out equally. Only 40 percent of racial and ethnic minority households in the United States have access to broadband, while 55 percent of non-Hispanic white households are connected.
"The digital divide is alive and well," Van Jones, the founder of Green For All, said during yesterday's launch of InternetforEveryone.org - a new initiative to solve America's gaping broadband access problems. "There's a whole section of people who have not even caught up to where we are now and are in grave danger of being left behind."
According to Jones, this has dire consequences for one's ability to vote, to be a part of the economy and, even, to survive - he mentioned the deaths of migrant farm workers, who didn't receive Web-based emergency notices in time to escape last year's wildfires in California.
Like Hot Water
"Why Internet for all? I think Internet access is required for full participation in society today. Maybe it's not as basic as water, but it's definitely as basic as hot water," Robin Chase, the founder of Zipcar, said.
According to Chase, Internet access is fundamental to maintaining a high quality of life and for addressing such pressing social problems as America's energy dependency.
Getting Beyond Rhetoric
Returning to the top of international rankings would translate into millions of new jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in increased economic activity for the United States.
For good reason, other developed countries have enacted comprehensive national plans to connect more of their citizens to a fast, affordable and open Internet. The U.S. doesn't have a plan or the leadership to get it done.
We do have national broadband rhetoric, though. In 2004, President Bush pledged "to have a universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007."
As if on cue, last year, Mr. Bush's chief Internet officer, John Kneuer, declared "mission accomplished" -- that all the international surveys were misleading and that the "free market" had ensured that Americans across the country enjoy real choice in high-speed Internet access.
What he and his White House compatriots refuse to acknowledge, though, is that a free market approach for Internet services in the U.S. is a chimera. The only hand in play here belongs to the phone and cable duopoly and a government that's been held in their thrall for too long.
The real solution is a little more nuanced.
Neanderthals and the Three Legged Stool
During the launch of InternetforEveryone.org, FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein described himself as a "frustrated policymaker" in Washington. "At the FCC I have a stack of proposals on my desk about a national broadband policy," he said. "What we're lacking is the leadership to actually implement those policies."
Adelstein looks at a successful broadband plan as a three-legged stool:
"You have businesses, who will invest and drive deployment, you have the government on all levels hopefully working in concert, and then you have the public both directly involved and through public interest groups like this coalition."
"This is social infrastructure," Professor Larry Lessig said:
"What's bizarre about where we are in the history of building infrastructure is that this is the first time we have tried to undertake the building of fundamental social infrastructure against the background of a Neanderthal philosophy, which is that you don't need government to do anything.
"That Neanderthal philosophy has governed for about the last eight years, and it has allowed us to slide from a leader in this field to an abysmal position. And it's about time when people recognize that of course the private sector has a role, a central role, maybe the most important role, but it's never enough.
Making it Happen
InternetforEveryone.org is bringing together public interest and for-profit institutions to raise public awareness of the digital divide and spark the political will to address this massive problem.
Closing the broadband digital divide should have been a real national priority for the past eight years. We can't afford NOT to make it a priority for the next eight. While our status as world technology leader went into free fall, Congress sat on the sidelines and the White House ducked and dodged.
There's a reason for that. Getting everyone connected is a political issue at its core. The policy process has been dominated thus far by the broadband incumbents and their well-heeled lobbyists. These companies prefer our lagging Internet status quo to public involvement, choice and real innovation.
And the community that uses the Internet is only now beginning to get organized to guide the debates that will shape its future. We clearly need to do more organizing with the tens of millions of people in communities that can't access the Web.
Getting us back on top will require a national broadband framework that is supported by those beyond the Beltway - who stand to gain the most from a national broadband agenda that promotes access, choice, openness and innovation. And we need bold leadership willing to reject the conventional political wisdom and explore real solutions.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
The Cure for America's Internet
You can see them parked outside of libraries and coffee shops in towns scattered across the hills of Western Massachusetts. They're identified by the blue glow emitting from inside their cars.
Across the state, 95 towns have limited or no access to high-speed Internet. People in Massachusetts' more rural western half have had to resort to a game of Internet hide and seek -- searching out wireless hotspots, laptops plugged into car lighters and nestled in their laps.
Maureen Mullaney of Ashfield, Massachusetts, lives in one of these under-served towns. She seeks out these roadside hotspots so her children can do research for school projects. "How silly is it that in this day and age you have to get in your car, drive to the general store so your daughter can researchers the rivers and traditional clothing of Chile?" she asks.
"Even if every person in my town is screaming out loud for high-speed Internet that would still just be 1,800 people."
But Maureen and her neighbors are not alone. While a generation of Americans can barely remember life without a Google search at our fingertips, millions of households still can't send an e-mail, let alone pay bills online, check the weather or conduct research for school.
A Broadband Backwater
The shortcomings of the U.S. broadband market are tremendous - more than 10 million U.S. households remain un-served, while nearly 50 million homes are priced out of subscribing to broadband services - and the social and economic consequences are dire.
Late last month, yet another global survey confirmed this, showing the U.S. to be more of an Internet backwater than a world leader. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Internet access and services in America have slid to 15th place among 30 developed nations, a drop from our 12th place ranking in 2006, and from fourth in 2001 when the OECD began its international survey.
In real terms this means Internet users in Japan pay little more than half the price (65 cents to the dollar) for an Internet connection that's 20 times faster than what's commonly available to people in the United States.
Yet people in the U.S. are still stuck off the grid, or with unreliable and slow dial-up, with little relief in sight.
A Man, No Plan, The Internet
The reasons for America's digital decline are many. But first is this: Other developed countries have enacted comprehensive national plans to connect more of their citizens to a fast, affordable and open Internet. The U.S. stands alone among OECD countries without a national broadband program.
We do have national broadband rhetoric, though -- and an army of well-heeled apologists to trumpet "successes" and gloss over problems. And the damage is now beginning to show.
In 2004, President Bush pledged "to have a universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007."
As if on cue, last year, Mr. Bush's chief Internet officer John Kneuer declared "Mission Accomplished" -- that all the international surveys were misleading and that the "free market" had ensured that Americans across the country enjoy real choice in high-speed internet access.
The Hand of the Duopoly
Kneuer's Pontius Pilate approach is now familiar to the Bush administration -- America's problems will disappear with a wave of the magical hand of the free market.
What he and his White House compatriots refuse to acknowledge, though, is that a free market approach for Internet services in the U.S. is a chimera. The only hand in play here belongs to the phone and cable duopoly, which controls broadband access for more than 98 percent of homes.
The net effect of this duopoly is a dearth or real choices; allowing providers like AT&T and Comcast to exact high prices from Internet users, while delivering connections that are too slow -- and, often in the case of cable, too congested - to meet growing demand.
The market imbalance is beginning to take its toll. A Brookings Institution study counts 300,000 new American jobs each year for every 1 percent increase in broadband adoption.
Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president, put it a different way. "We're pretty far behind and for us it's a big problem because we have our main headquarters in the U.S. and our employees have only a one megabit service," he told me during his recent visit to Washington.
"If we're thinking about building the next generation of Internet services they're not going to be on one megabit services, they're going to be 100 megabit services and we're not going to end up developing those... In terms of the U.S. being competitive, it's very important for us to be leading that rather than following. And we show no signs of being able to do that."
Free Market Mumbo Jumbo
Our inability to truly wire the nation is itself the result of poor policy decisions. For decades, U.S. communications legislation has been held captive by lobbyists working for--you guessed it-- the phone and cable companies.
These Internet service providers are among the most prolific spenders in Washington. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists, campaign contributions, P.R. firms and paid junkets to help ensure that special rules are written in their favor.
For all their talk about the free market, the cable and telephone giants work aggressively to force through regulations that protect their market duopoly, close the door to new market entrants and competitive technologies, and increase their control over the content that travels across the Web
Japan Pries Open Its Market
In 2000, Japan faced a similar dilemma -- an Internet industry stifled by the heavy hand of a few network gatekeepers. But the government responded by pulling together the nation's leaders from the pubic and private sector to launch an "e-Japan strategy" aimed at connecting 40 million of Japan's 46 million households within five years.
The Japanese government quickly moved to create a highly competitive private sector by compelling regional telephone companies to open their residential lines to wholesale access by other competitors. They also adopted policies to prevent the type of online discrimination that has reared its head recently in the U.S.
In 2001, Japan counted only 2.2 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. By mid-2004, ultra-high-speed broadband connections were available to more than 80 percent of Japan's citizens. By 2006, Japan declared that it had surpassed the broadband goals of e-Japan and was ready to launch its next national strategy, called "u-Japan". The "u" takes the nation's broadband beyond "ubiquitous," to become "universal," "user-oriented," and "unique."
Getting Behind a Big American Idea
Free Press' own research found that most of the countries with similar universal and open access policies had nearly twice the level of broadband penetration as those that did not.
The OECD seems to agree. "Governments providing money to fund broadband rollouts should avoid creating new monopolies," according to its report summary. They recommended that any public broadband infrastructure "should be open access, meaning that access to that network is provided on non-discriminatory terms to other market participants."
Public policy should be designed to make it profitable for corporations to behave in ways that better serve both the free market and the public interest. And we're seeing more and more from international examples that that requires a shared vision with a light but clear legislative touch. (This issue will be widely discussed this coming weekend as Internet activists, visionaries and innovators come together in Minneapolis at the National Conference for Media Reform).
When President Eisenhower set Americans to work building the nations' Interstate Highway System he mobilized members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to appropriate federal funds and create corporate incentives for the construction of 41,000 miles of new roads. It was the largest infrastructure project in American history to that point, but the $25 billion in federal money set aside to build the nations main arteries yielded an almost immediate return to our nation's economy.
The construction of a universally accessible Internet superhighway ranks as important today, and it can be accomplished with even stronger collaboration between the public and private sector.
Future policymakers who are serious about America's well-being should learn from our failings and from success in other countries so we can deliver the vast benefits of an open connection to every American. It's time we started construction.
(photo Courtesy of Pete and Genevieve on Flickr)
Across the state, 95 towns have limited or no access to high-speed Internet. People in Massachusetts' more rural western half have had to resort to a game of Internet hide and seek -- searching out wireless hotspots, laptops plugged into car lighters and nestled in their laps.
 Building the Net Superhighway |
"Even if every person in my town is screaming out loud for high-speed Internet that would still just be 1,800 people."
But Maureen and her neighbors are not alone. While a generation of Americans can barely remember life without a Google search at our fingertips, millions of households still can't send an e-mail, let alone pay bills online, check the weather or conduct research for school.
A Broadband Backwater
The shortcomings of the U.S. broadband market are tremendous - more than 10 million U.S. households remain un-served, while nearly 50 million homes are priced out of subscribing to broadband services - and the social and economic consequences are dire.
Late last month, yet another global survey confirmed this, showing the U.S. to be more of an Internet backwater than a world leader. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Internet access and services in America have slid to 15th place among 30 developed nations, a drop from our 12th place ranking in 2006, and from fourth in 2001 when the OECD began its international survey.
In real terms this means Internet users in Japan pay little more than half the price (65 cents to the dollar) for an Internet connection that's 20 times faster than what's commonly available to people in the United States.
Yet people in the U.S. are still stuck off the grid, or with unreliable and slow dial-up, with little relief in sight.
A Man, No Plan, The Internet
The reasons for America's digital decline are many. But first is this: Other developed countries have enacted comprehensive national plans to connect more of their citizens to a fast, affordable and open Internet. The U.S. stands alone among OECD countries without a national broadband program.
We do have national broadband rhetoric, though -- and an army of well-heeled apologists to trumpet "successes" and gloss over problems. And the damage is now beginning to show.
In 2004, President Bush pledged "to have a universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007."
As if on cue, last year, Mr. Bush's chief Internet officer John Kneuer declared "Mission Accomplished" -- that all the international surveys were misleading and that the "free market" had ensured that Americans across the country enjoy real choice in high-speed internet access.
The Hand of the Duopoly
Kneuer's Pontius Pilate approach is now familiar to the Bush administration -- America's problems will disappear with a wave of the magical hand of the free market.
What he and his White House compatriots refuse to acknowledge, though, is that a free market approach for Internet services in the U.S. is a chimera. The only hand in play here belongs to the phone and cable duopoly, which controls broadband access for more than 98 percent of homes.
The net effect of this duopoly is a dearth or real choices; allowing providers like AT&T and Comcast to exact high prices from Internet users, while delivering connections that are too slow -- and, often in the case of cable, too congested - to meet growing demand.
The market imbalance is beginning to take its toll. A Brookings Institution study counts 300,000 new American jobs each year for every 1 percent increase in broadband adoption.
Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president, put it a different way. "We're pretty far behind and for us it's a big problem because we have our main headquarters in the U.S. and our employees have only a one megabit service," he told me during his recent visit to Washington.
"If we're thinking about building the next generation of Internet services they're not going to be on one megabit services, they're going to be 100 megabit services and we're not going to end up developing those... In terms of the U.S. being competitive, it's very important for us to be leading that rather than following. And we show no signs of being able to do that."
Free Market Mumbo Jumbo
Our inability to truly wire the nation is itself the result of poor policy decisions. For decades, U.S. communications legislation has been held captive by lobbyists working for--you guessed it-- the phone and cable companies.
These Internet service providers are among the most prolific spenders in Washington. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists, campaign contributions, P.R. firms and paid junkets to help ensure that special rules are written in their favor.
For all their talk about the free market, the cable and telephone giants work aggressively to force through regulations that protect their market duopoly, close the door to new market entrants and competitive technologies, and increase their control over the content that travels across the Web
Japan Pries Open Its Market
In 2000, Japan faced a similar dilemma -- an Internet industry stifled by the heavy hand of a few network gatekeepers. But the government responded by pulling together the nation's leaders from the pubic and private sector to launch an "e-Japan strategy" aimed at connecting 40 million of Japan's 46 million households within five years.
The Japanese government quickly moved to create a highly competitive private sector by compelling regional telephone companies to open their residential lines to wholesale access by other competitors. They also adopted policies to prevent the type of online discrimination that has reared its head recently in the U.S.
In 2001, Japan counted only 2.2 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. By mid-2004, ultra-high-speed broadband connections were available to more than 80 percent of Japan's citizens. By 2006, Japan declared that it had surpassed the broadband goals of e-Japan and was ready to launch its next national strategy, called "u-Japan". The "u" takes the nation's broadband beyond "ubiquitous," to become "universal," "user-oriented," and "unique."
Getting Behind a Big American Idea
Free Press' own research found that most of the countries with similar universal and open access policies had nearly twice the level of broadband penetration as those that did not.
The OECD seems to agree. "Governments providing money to fund broadband rollouts should avoid creating new monopolies," according to its report summary. They recommended that any public broadband infrastructure "should be open access, meaning that access to that network is provided on non-discriminatory terms to other market participants."
Public policy should be designed to make it profitable for corporations to behave in ways that better serve both the free market and the public interest. And we're seeing more and more from international examples that that requires a shared vision with a light but clear legislative touch. (This issue will be widely discussed this coming weekend as Internet activists, visionaries and innovators come together in Minneapolis at the National Conference for Media Reform).
When President Eisenhower set Americans to work building the nations' Interstate Highway System he mobilized members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to appropriate federal funds and create corporate incentives for the construction of 41,000 miles of new roads. It was the largest infrastructure project in American history to that point, but the $25 billion in federal money set aside to build the nations main arteries yielded an almost immediate return to our nation's economy.
The construction of a universally accessible Internet superhighway ranks as important today, and it can be accomplished with even stronger collaboration between the public and private sector.
Future policymakers who are serious about America's well-being should learn from our failings and from success in other countries so we can deliver the vast benefits of an open connection to every American. It's time we started construction.
(photo Courtesy of Pete and Genevieve on Flickr)
Saturday, May 31, 2008
McClellan and the 'Enablers'
For all the press attention swirling around Scott McClellan's explosive tell-all, there's a brewing back story that's making Katie Couric and Charles Gibson squirm. And they're not alone.
Few were surprised that McClellan's book exposed a Bush administration "political propaganda campaign" that mislead the American public about the war in Iraq. Some question the former press secretary's loyalty and timing, but no one -- with the obvious exception of the White House and its apologists -- questions the factual basis of his claim.
But McClellan takes it one further, implicating mainstream media for its role in "enabling" this propaganda. "The national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House" in spreading the president's case for the war, McClellan writes. The mainstream media didn't live up to its watchdog reputation. "If it had, the country would have been better served."
This should be a shock to everyone. The president's own spokesman (whose hands aren't clean by any means) lays a large share of the blame for Bush's pro-war propaganda on the media's "deferential" treatment of White House spin.
Still, many in the media refuse to admit that they were anything but dogged in challenging the White House's case for the war after September 11. Some, however, are starting to see things differently.
Media Culpa?
Thursday night, CBS anchor Katie Couric confronted McClellan' during an interview. She claimed that, while still at NBC, she asked a tough question about the Iraq war and was rebuffed by McClellan. According to Couric, the press secretary then called one of her bosses and threatened to deny her future access to the White House press gaggle.
But earlier Couric told her colleagues on the CBS News Early Show that McClellan's indictment of a complicit media is "a very legitimate allegation."
"I think it's one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism," she said. "And I think there was a sense of pressure from corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it. I think it was extremely subtle but very, very effective."
On Wednesday night, CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin said that network executives at MSNBC had pushed her not to do hard-hitting pieces on the Bush administration as the nation readied for war.
"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation," Yellin told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
ABC News' Charles Gibson isn't admitting as much. "I think that the media did a pretty good job of focusing and asking the questions," he said. "It was just a drum beat from the government, and I think it's convenient now to blame the media, but I don't," he added. (This from the same anchor who called his questioning during ABC's now infamous April 16 debate "tough and intelligent").
It's the System, Stupid
It's telling that mainstream journalists are in a quandary over the role their media organizations played to "enable" propaganda, and whether they individually are indeed a part of the problem. Many genuinely are trying to do their jobs but are constrained by a corporate structure that promotes reporters with cozy access to political and economic power, while discouraging those whose questions and investigative reporting might rock the boat.
The roots of the problem extend beyond the performance of one or another reporter to a news industry that allows itself to be manipulated and cajoled by dishonest leadership. "Too many media outlets continue to tell the politically and economically powerful, 'Lie to me!'" write Bob McChesney and John Nichols in a Nation op-ed to be published next week.
According to McChesney and Nichols, responsible journalists have little say in setting the lead stories for large outlets. "The calls are being made by consultants and bean counters, who increasingly rely on official sources and talking-head pundits rather than news-gathering or serious debate."
The Situation Right Now
For all of their posturing, the Courics and Gibsons of the network newscasts are the fading faces of a system that's perilously broken. It's not just reflected in the declining audience for traditional news formats, but in the issues that they cover -- and those that they choose to ignore.
This gathering problem can no longer be shrugged off by prominent members of the media.
McClellan's memoir comes on the heels of an April 20 New York Times exposé, which revealed an extensive -- and likely illegal -- Pentagon program to recruit pro-war "military analysts" for nearly every major news outlet in America. Many in the newsrooms knew of these pundits' ties to the Pentagon -- as well as their involvement in lucrative military contracts -- but didn't bother to reveal the obvious conflicts of interest to their viewers.
While the story received scant coverage in the mainstream media, more than 100,000 activists have written their members of Congress to urge an investigation into the media's role in spreading pro-war propaganda. Bloggers and independent media are also still covering this issue, refusing to let Big Media off the hook
Congress has promised to investigate the Pentagon's role in the scandal, but it shouldn't end there. People should demand more of the companies that assume the mantle of journalism, but fall far short of its ideals.
Our democracy is in peril when mainstream media fail to question the official view and put the interests of ordinary Americans first.
This watchdog role is especially critical during a time of war and elections -- the time that we're in right now.
Few were surprised that McClellan's book exposed a Bush administration "political propaganda campaign" that mislead the American public about the war in Iraq. Some question the former press secretary's loyalty and timing, but no one -- with the obvious exception of the White House and its apologists -- questions the factual basis of his claim.
But McClellan takes it one further, implicating mainstream media for its role in "enabling" this propaganda. "The national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House" in spreading the president's case for the war, McClellan writes. The mainstream media didn't live up to its watchdog reputation. "If it had, the country would have been better served."
This should be a shock to everyone. The president's own spokesman (whose hands aren't clean by any means) lays a large share of the blame for Bush's pro-war propaganda on the media's "deferential" treatment of White House spin.
Still, many in the media refuse to admit that they were anything but dogged in challenging the White House's case for the war after September 11. Some, however, are starting to see things differently.
Pro-War Pressure from Execs |
Thursday night, CBS anchor Katie Couric confronted McClellan' during an interview. She claimed that, while still at NBC, she asked a tough question about the Iraq war and was rebuffed by McClellan. According to Couric, the press secretary then called one of her bosses and threatened to deny her future access to the White House press gaggle.
But earlier Couric told her colleagues on the CBS News Early Show that McClellan's indictment of a complicit media is "a very legitimate allegation."
"I think it's one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism," she said. "And I think there was a sense of pressure from corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it. I think it was extremely subtle but very, very effective."
On Wednesday night, CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin said that network executives at MSNBC had pushed her not to do hard-hitting pieces on the Bush administration as the nation readied for war.
"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation," Yellin told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
ABC News' Charles Gibson isn't admitting as much. "I think that the media did a pretty good job of focusing and asking the questions," he said. "It was just a drum beat from the government, and I think it's convenient now to blame the media, but I don't," he added. (This from the same anchor who called his questioning during ABC's now infamous April 16 debate "tough and intelligent").
It's the System, Stupid
It's telling that mainstream journalists are in a quandary over the role their media organizations played to "enable" propaganda, and whether they individually are indeed a part of the problem. Many genuinely are trying to do their jobs but are constrained by a corporate structure that promotes reporters with cozy access to political and economic power, while discouraging those whose questions and investigative reporting might rock the boat.
The roots of the problem extend beyond the performance of one or another reporter to a news industry that allows itself to be manipulated and cajoled by dishonest leadership. "Too many media outlets continue to tell the politically and economically powerful, 'Lie to me!'" write Bob McChesney and John Nichols in a Nation op-ed to be published next week.
According to McChesney and Nichols, responsible journalists have little say in setting the lead stories for large outlets. "The calls are being made by consultants and bean counters, who increasingly rely on official sources and talking-head pundits rather than news-gathering or serious debate."
The Situation Right Now
For all of their posturing, the Courics and Gibsons of the network newscasts are the fading faces of a system that's perilously broken. It's not just reflected in the declining audience for traditional news formats, but in the issues that they cover -- and those that they choose to ignore.
This gathering problem can no longer be shrugged off by prominent members of the media.
McClellan's memoir comes on the heels of an April 20 New York Times exposé, which revealed an extensive -- and likely illegal -- Pentagon program to recruit pro-war "military analysts" for nearly every major news outlet in America. Many in the newsrooms knew of these pundits' ties to the Pentagon -- as well as their involvement in lucrative military contracts -- but didn't bother to reveal the obvious conflicts of interest to their viewers.
While the story received scant coverage in the mainstream media, more than 100,000 activists have written their members of Congress to urge an investigation into the media's role in spreading pro-war propaganda. Bloggers and independent media are also still covering this issue, refusing to let Big Media off the hook
Congress has promised to investigate the Pentagon's role in the scandal, but it shouldn't end there. People should demand more of the companies that assume the mantle of journalism, but fall far short of its ideals.
Our democracy is in peril when mainstream media fail to question the official view and put the interests of ordinary Americans first.
This watchdog role is especially critical during a time of war and elections -- the time that we're in right now.
Monday, May 19, 2008
A House Divided, United or Just Confused
 |
I've been wanting to test Vizu's free polling tool. Yesterday I found my first question when I came across this Hoboken brownstone. It got me wondering whether this was more than just one house divided -- that perhaps there was another message behind the posters. (Click here to see an enlarged version)
Take the poll below, add your comments to the thread, tell me what you think.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Free Speech in the 21st Century
Freedom of the press extends only to those who own one -- or so the saying goes. It once rang true in a world ruled by newspaper chains, radio and television broadcasters, and cable networks.
But the Internet has changed all that, delivering the press -- and in theory its freedoms -- to any person with a good idea and a connection to the Web.
This extraordinary twist to "mass media" has catapulted many an everyday YouTube auteur to celebrity-status while turning ideas born in a garage or dorm room into Fortune 500 companies. It is the reason so many Americans are now passionate about protecting their right to choose on the Internet. But it's also triggered a backlash from the old regime -- media corporations that built their empires upon controlling the ebb and flow of information in America.
This list of media giants includes the nation's largest phone and cable providers, who provide a portal to the high-speed Internet for more than 98 percent of residential users in America. Now they want to be more than just a window to the Web. These companies have proposed a closed scheme of Internet fees and filters that affords them the final say over which ideas make it to the top of the heap.
Say "goodbye" to indy rock bands breaking big via a backyard YouTube video and "hello" to censored rock-and-roll courtesy of AT&T's "Blue Room."
Open v. Closed -- A Clash of Cultures
This closed business model has proven a financial windfall for the gatekeepers of traditional media. But it comes at a too heavy a cost to the millions of Americans who see the open Internet as the 21st Century's catalyst for free speech and opportunity.
It's against the backdrop of this clash of cultures -- open versus closed -- that an unusual series of official events have occurred this year.
Washington -- where lobbyists for Comcast, AT&T and Verizon have long had the home-field advantage -- recently witnessed an extraordinary series of public meetings and congressional hearings on the fate of the Internet. If you listen carefully, you might actually hear the people's interests being represented. They are certainly being expressed.
The 110th Congress has called Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Chad Hurley, the founder of YouTube, to testify in favor of Net Neutrality -- the principle that safeguards the Internet against blocking and censorship from Internet service providers. In recent weeks, leading consumer and Internet rights advocates, Silicon Valley's top entrepreneurs and Hollywood's creative community have testified that an open Internet is vital to the health of our economy and democracy.
The Federal Communications Commission has gone one further, venturing beyond the Beltway to take the public temperature on the Internet.
At hearings in Cambridge, Mass., and Palo Alto, Calif., the agency got an earful; hundreds of Net Neutrality supporters stood before the microphone to condemn Comcast's recent efforts to block people from using peer-to-peer applications, which make possible the sharing of videos and other rich media without the need for corporate media to broker the content. One after the other. people called on the federal agency for basic protections against Comcast's brand of digital discrimination.
The New Free Speech Movement
They are not alone. A growing movement of Internet users is pushing for legislation to stop would-be gatekeepers from re-routing the free-flowing Web. It has attracted millions of supporters ranging from MoveOn.org to the Christian Coalition of America, from independent rockers OK Go to the executive producer of the TV show "Hannah Montana."
Our voices are starting to rise above the din of lobbyists that too often drowns out genuine public debate in Washington. It's now up to our elected officials to act.
The official inquiry on Net Neutrality has given a public voice to the remarkable consensus in favor of free speech and user choice on the Web. And it may turn out to be more than show. The bipartisan "Internet Freedom Preservation Act" is making its way through the House at this very moment. It is a bill that takes into account the many voices that have spoken out since Net Neutrality became a much-debated principle.
Fundamentally, this bill recognizes that we must establish baseline protection for an unfettered Internet. It doesn't call for Web regulation, but gives the public the power to stop the old regime from turning the Internet from a revolution of the many into a funnel for the few.
And that's a freedom worth fighting for.
But the Internet has changed all that, delivering the press -- and in theory its freedoms -- to any person with a good idea and a connection to the Web.
Backyard Auteurs |
This list of media giants includes the nation's largest phone and cable providers, who provide a portal to the high-speed Internet for more than 98 percent of residential users in America. Now they want to be more than just a window to the Web. These companies have proposed a closed scheme of Internet fees and filters that affords them the final say over which ideas make it to the top of the heap.
Say "goodbye" to indy rock bands breaking big via a backyard YouTube video and "hello" to censored rock-and-roll courtesy of AT&T's "Blue Room."
Open v. Closed -- A Clash of Cultures
This closed business model has proven a financial windfall for the gatekeepers of traditional media. But it comes at a too heavy a cost to the millions of Americans who see the open Internet as the 21st Century's catalyst for free speech and opportunity.
It's against the backdrop of this clash of cultures -- open versus closed -- that an unusual series of official events have occurred this year.
Washington -- where lobbyists for Comcast, AT&T and Verizon have long had the home-field advantage -- recently witnessed an extraordinary series of public meetings and congressional hearings on the fate of the Internet. If you listen carefully, you might actually hear the people's interests being represented. They are certainly being expressed.
The 110th Congress has called Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, and Chad Hurley, the founder of YouTube, to testify in favor of Net Neutrality -- the principle that safeguards the Internet against blocking and censorship from Internet service providers. In recent weeks, leading consumer and Internet rights advocates, Silicon Valley's top entrepreneurs and Hollywood's creative community have testified that an open Internet is vital to the health of our economy and democracy.
The Federal Communications Commission has gone one further, venturing beyond the Beltway to take the public temperature on the Internet.
At hearings in Cambridge, Mass., and Palo Alto, Calif., the agency got an earful; hundreds of Net Neutrality supporters stood before the microphone to condemn Comcast's recent efforts to block people from using peer-to-peer applications, which make possible the sharing of videos and other rich media without the need for corporate media to broker the content. One after the other. people called on the federal agency for basic protections against Comcast's brand of digital discrimination.
The New Free Speech Movement
They are not alone. A growing movement of Internet users is pushing for legislation to stop would-be gatekeepers from re-routing the free-flowing Web. It has attracted millions of supporters ranging from MoveOn.org to the Christian Coalition of America, from independent rockers OK Go to the executive producer of the TV show "Hannah Montana."
Our voices are starting to rise above the din of lobbyists that too often drowns out genuine public debate in Washington. It's now up to our elected officials to act.
The official inquiry on Net Neutrality has given a public voice to the remarkable consensus in favor of free speech and user choice on the Web. And it may turn out to be more than show. The bipartisan "Internet Freedom Preservation Act" is making its way through the House at this very moment. It is a bill that takes into account the many voices that have spoken out since Net Neutrality became a much-debated principle.
Fundamentally, this bill recognizes that we must establish baseline protection for an unfettered Internet. It doesn't call for Web regulation, but gives the public the power to stop the old regime from turning the Internet from a revolution of the many into a funnel for the few.
And that's a freedom worth fighting for.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Comcast's 'Bill of Rights,' Wrong for an Open Internet
Comcast can't seem to get it straight.
On the one hand they're snubbing a debate over openness and the Internet -- refusing to take part in yesterday's FCC public hearing. On the other, they've announced plans to open an industry-wide conversation to craft a "bill of rights" for ISPs, Internet companies and users.
The latter, a Comcast collaboration with Internet traffic managing company Pando Networks, received mixed reviews earlier this week when the cable company rolled it before the media.
I trashed it. And now my initial concerns seem justified.
The Right to Special Treatment
For just as the public hearings were getting underway in Stanford, Robert Levitan, Pando chief executive, told the New York Times that "he hoped Comcast might program its network to give preference to applications like the one his company makes."
Levitan's admission exposes the true motives behind industry efforts to craft a "bill of rights:" to lay the ground for an Internet rife with discriminatory deals and preferential treatment.
"The company appears to want to use the network management issues raised by Comcast to seek a deal that provides them preferential distribution over the Internet," Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition, said in a statement.
"It is exactly why technology companies, innovators, and millions of consumers have argued that the marketplace is not working properly and have asked the FCC provide basic rules of the road to protect against such behavior."
The Right to Ignore the Rules
The industry's carefully orchestrated announcements of initiatives to self-regulate are not the magic of the free market at work, Free Press policy director Ben Scott testified yesterday. "It is the threat of regulatory intervention."
Without that threat -- and an agency willing to act on behalf of the public interest -- we'd have already sacrificed several basic Internet freedoms to the whims of Pando and Comcast.
"Comcast actions to date have shown that they can't be trusted to 'self regulate,'" L. Peter Deutsch, a pioneering Xerox Palo Alto Research Center computer scientist, told the FCC. "Allowing the big carriers rather than consumers and public interest advocates, to take the lead in codifying a 'bill of rights' for Internet users would be like letting King George's cabinet take the lead in writing the U.S. Constitution."
Comcast had hoped that we would all interpret the "bill of rights" as a genuine -- to conclude that public hearings and FCC oversight were not needed to keep the Internet open for everyone.
The Right to Undermine the Internet
The Comcast message, in case you've missed it, sounds like this: "The free market can solve its own problems and deliver to end users the Internet experience that they desire. Trust us."
"A tiger has a nature, and that nature is not one you trust with your child," Professor Larry Lessig said during yesterday's Stanford hearing. "A company has a nature. It's nature is to produce economic values and wealth for its share holders."
According to Lessig, that one essential truth is about as much trust that the public needs to extend to public corporations. It's understood that they will behave in this way, and nothing is wrong with that.
Public policy, on the other hand, is designed to make it profitable for corporations to behave in ways that serve the public interest.
According to Lessig: "We set public policy to create the incentives for them to pick the right business models."
In a perfect scenario we also set public policy to foster more a productive and economically beneficial marketplace for all involved. Net Neutrality is such a policy.
On the one hand they're snubbing a debate over openness and the Internet -- refusing to take part in yesterday's FCC public hearing. On the other, they've announced plans to open an industry-wide conversation to craft a "bill of rights" for ISPs, Internet companies and users.
The latter, a Comcast collaboration with Internet traffic managing company Pando Networks, received mixed reviews earlier this week when the cable company rolled it before the media.
I trashed it. And now my initial concerns seem justified.
The Right to Special Treatment
For just as the public hearings were getting underway in Stanford, Robert Levitan, Pando chief executive, told the New York Times that "he hoped Comcast might program its network to give preference to applications like the one his company makes."
Levitan's admission exposes the true motives behind industry efforts to craft a "bill of rights:" to lay the ground for an Internet rife with discriminatory deals and preferential treatment.
"The company appears to want to use the network management issues raised by Comcast to seek a deal that provides them preferential distribution over the Internet," Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition, said in a statement.
"It is exactly why technology companies, innovators, and millions of consumers have argued that the marketplace is not working properly and have asked the FCC provide basic rules of the road to protect against such behavior."
The Right to Ignore the Rules
The industry's carefully orchestrated announcements of initiatives to self-regulate are not the magic of the free market at work, Free Press policy director Ben Scott testified yesterday. "It is the threat of regulatory intervention."
Without that threat -- and an agency willing to act on behalf of the public interest -- we'd have already sacrificed several basic Internet freedoms to the whims of Pando and Comcast.
"Comcast actions to date have shown that they can't be trusted to 'self regulate,'" L. Peter Deutsch, a pioneering Xerox Palo Alto Research Center computer scientist, told the FCC. "Allowing the big carriers rather than consumers and public interest advocates, to take the lead in codifying a 'bill of rights' for Internet users would be like letting King George's cabinet take the lead in writing the U.S. Constitution."
Comcast had hoped that we would all interpret the "bill of rights" as a genuine -- to conclude that public hearings and FCC oversight were not needed to keep the Internet open for everyone.
The Right to Undermine the Internet
The Comcast message, in case you've missed it, sounds like this: "The free market can solve its own problems and deliver to end users the Internet experience that they desire. Trust us."
"A tiger has a nature, and that nature is not one you trust with your child," Professor Larry Lessig said during yesterday's Stanford hearing. "A company has a nature. It's nature is to produce economic values and wealth for its share holders."
According to Lessig, that one essential truth is about as much trust that the public needs to extend to public corporations. It's understood that they will behave in this way, and nothing is wrong with that.
Public policy, on the other hand, is designed to make it profitable for corporations to behave in ways that serve the public interest.
According to Lessig: "We set public policy to create the incentives for them to pick the right business models."
In a perfect scenario we also set public policy to foster more a productive and economically beneficial marketplace for all involved. Net Neutrality is such a policy.
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