[MLB-WIRELESS] Fw: Lizard replies to ACLU demanding more Internet regulation

[Barry Park]

Move over soup nazi. Now it's the cable nazi.
- Barry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan at well.com>
To: <politech at politechbot.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002 4:11 PM
Subject: FC: Lizard replies to ACLU demanding more Internet regulation


> [Original ACLU press release follows. --Declan]
>
> ---
>
> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 09:44:05 -0700
> From: lizard <lizard at mrlizard.com>
> To: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
>
> Well, first off, the Internet always HAS been under (mostly) private
> control. The vast majority of the computers which compose the Internet are
> privately owned, and the owners of those systems have always been able to
> bounce traffic, censor traffic, read traffic, etc.
>
> >"Second, citizens and community groups must play an
> >aggressive role in shaping the future of the high-speed Internet,
> >especially ensuring that local networks offer a diversity of
> >broadband content and services."
>
> Scary stuff.
>
> The value of the Internet has always been in the fact anyone can post
> content. The idea that someone must mandate "diverse content" is rather
> terrifying. What it means, in reality, is that the ACLU is unhappy with
> what people CHOOSE to put on the net, thus, someone (i.e, you and me)
> should be required to fund content which the ACLU finds more pleasing.
>
> For all their pretenses of populism and democracy, the left is extremely
> elitist. When confronted with the raw truth of what the masses WANT to
> read, see, or listen to, they fall back in terror, squeaking piteously of
> 'the public interest', all the while ignoring the fact that no one in the
> public is interested.
>
> Anyone who claims that there's nothing but predigested corporate pap on
the
> net need only go to http://www.yamara.com/junk/xl970512.html to see what
> true diversity is all about. You'll never, not in a million years, have
> anyone on NPR or PBS tell you how to say "Oh my god, there's an axe in my
> head" in Klingon.
>
> ---
>
> ACLU Warns of Threat to Online Free Speech From Cable Monopolies
>
> Technical Report Shows How Cable Operators Can Interfere With Internet
> Access
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> Wednesday, July 10, 2002
>
> Contact: Barry Steinhardt, ACLU, 917.349.4893 (on 7/10) or
> 212.549.2508 (after 7/10);
> Jay Stanley, ACLU, 202.715.0818;
> Jeffrey Chester, CDD, 202.452.9898
>
> WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today called on the
> government to protect the Internet from the power of monopolistic
> cable providers and issued twin reports examining the technical and
> policy sides of the issue.
>
> "Many people don't realize that if current policies continue, a
> handful of big monopolies will gain power over information flowing
> through the Internet," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's
> Technology and Liberty Program. "Freedom of speech doesn't mean much
> if the forums where that speech takes place are not free."
>
> The first report issued today is a 78-page technical study
> commissioned by the ACLU -
> http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/broadband_report.pdf - and prepared
> by a Maryland-based telecommunications engineering consulting firm,
> the Columbia Telecommunications Corporation (CTC). The second report
> is a brief ACLU policy analysis -
> http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/NoCompetition.pdf
>
> At issue is the ongoing conversion by consumers from a dial-up
> Internet (based on slow modem connections over phone lines) to far
> faster "broadband" connections (mostly using cable modems). With
> dial-up, Internet access is provided over a medium that provides
> open, equal access to all: the telephone system. But with the shift
> to cable, Internet access must be adapted to a medium that has been
> far more subject to centralized control. The danger, the ACLU said,
> is that the Internet will come under private control.
>
> "The path out of this predicament is clear," said Jeff Chester,
> Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which
> collaborated in preparation of the reports. "First, the FCC must act
> to preserve the Internet's open, common-carrier status in the cable
> context. Second, citizens and community groups must play an
> aggressive role in shaping the future of the high-speed Internet,
> especially ensuring that local networks offer a diversity of
> broadband content and services."
>
> The report by CTC includes an in-depth examination of two cable
> systems (in Portland, OR and Tacoma, WA) and interviews with
> officials at two Internet Service Providers that have been excluded
> from many cable broadband systems.
>
> Among the report's findings and recommendations:
>
> - There are no insurmountable technical barriers to open access on
> most U.S. cable systems;
>
> - Broadband cable companies should adopt a "public interest
> architecture" based on principles such as maximizing consumer choice
> and competition among ISPs;
>
> - The dominant emerging technique for allowing multiple ISPs on cable
> Internet networks, which CTC calls "rebranding and resale of
> wholesale services," actually leaves the cable operator in control of
> the product. As a result, it creates only the illusion of real
> competition and consumer choice, and is not true open access.
>
> "Our finding is that there are no technical reasons why the policies
> backed by the ACLU and other advocates cannot be adopted," said Dr.
> Andrew Afflerbach, Vice President of CTC and an author of the report.
>
> The ACLU's policy analysis explains how the government is failing to
> extend to the broadband Internet crucial regulatory protections that
> help keep today's Internet free and open to all. Unless the
> government changes course, the ACLU warns, a handful of large
> corporations will have both the incentive and the ability to
> interfere with the free flow of information across the network.
>
> "Protecting free expression on the Internet is a high priority for
> the ACLU," said Steinhardt. "In the same way that we have battled
> Internet censorship by the government, we will also fight to make
> sure that private corporations aren't allowed to get into a position
> where they can dictate what we read and say online."
>
> The ACLU policy analysis and the CTC report are online at
> http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/broadband.html
> The Center for Digital Democracy is online at
> http://www.democraticmedia.org
>
>
>
>
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