This is insidious
Have the House and Senate
abdicated responsibility
Or
Have they just been bought
off?
President
Obama’s Christmas Gift to AT&T
(and Comcast and
Verizon)
Dec 21, 2010
By Amy Goodman
One of President Barack
Obama’s signature campaign promises was to protect the freedom of the Internet.
He said, in November 2007, “I will take a back seat to no one in my commitment
to network neutrality, because once providers start to privilege some
applications or websites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out
and we all lose.”
Jump ahead to December
2010, where Obama is clearly in the back seat, being driven by Internet giants
like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. With him is his appointed chairman of the
Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, his Harvard Law School
classmate and basketball pal who just pushed through a rule on network neutrality
that Internet activists consider disastrous.
Free Press Managing
Director Craig Aaron told me, “This proposal appears to be riddled with
loopholes that would open the door to all kinds of future abuses, allowing
companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, the big Internet service providers,
to decide which websites are going to work, which aren’t, and which are going
to be able to get special treatment.”
For
comedian-turned-senator Al Franken, D-Minn., the new rules on Net neutrality
are no joke. He offered this example, writing: “Verizon could prevent you from
accessing Google Maps on your phone, forcing you to use their own mapping
program, Verizon Navigator, even if it costs money to use and isn’t nearly as
good. Or a mobile provider with a political agenda could prevent you from
downloading an app that connects you with the Obama campaign (or, for that
matter, a tea party group in your area).”
AT&T is one of the
conglomerates that activists say practically wrote the FCC rules that
Genachowski pushed through. We’ve seen this flip-flop before. Weeks before his
2007 net neutrality pledge, then-Sen. Obama took on AT&T, which was exposed
for engaging in warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens at the request of the
Bush administration. AT&T wanted retroactive immunity from prosecution.
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton told Talking Points Memo: “To be clear:
Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity
for telecommunications companies.”
But by July 2008, a month
before the Democratic National Convention, with Obama the presumptive
presidential nominee, he not only didn’t filibuster, but voted for a bill that
granted telecoms retroactive immunity from prosecution. AT&T had gotten its
way, and showed its appreciation quickly. The official tote bag issued to every
DNC delegate was emblazoned with a large AT&T logo. AT&T threw an
opening-night bash for delegates that was closed to the press, celebrating the
Democratic Party for its get-out-of-jail-free card.
AT&T, Verizon, cable
giant Comcast and other corporations have expressed support for the new FCC
rule. Genachowski’s Democratic Party allies on the commission, Michael Copps
and Mignon Clyburn (the daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn),
according to Aaron, “tried to improve these rules, but the chairman refused to
budge, apparently because he had already reached an agreement with AT&T and
the cable lobbyists about how far these rules were going to go.” Clyburn noted
that the rules could allow mobile Internet providers to discriminate, and that
poor communities, particularly African-American and Latino, rely on mobile
Internet services more than wired connections.
Aaron laments the power of
the telecom and cable industry lobbyists in Washington, D.C.: “In recent years,
they’ve deployed 500 lobbyists, basically one for every member of Congress, and
that’s just what they report. AT&T is the biggest campaign giver in the
history of campaign giving, as long as we have been tracking it. So they have
really entrenched themselves. And Comcast, Verizon, the other big companies,
are not far behind."
Money talks everybody else
squawks (editors' comment)
Aaron added: “When
AT&T wants to get together all of their lobbyists, there’s no room big
enough. They had to rent out a movie theater. People from the public interest
who are fighting for the free and open Internet here in D.C. can still share a
cab."
Campaign money is now more
than ever the lifeblood of U.S. politicians, and you can be sure that Obama and
his advisers are looking to the 2012 election, which will likely be the
costliest in U.S. history. Vigorous and innovative use of the Internet and
mobile technologies is credited with helping Obama secure his victory in 2008.
As the open Internet becomes increasingly stifled in the U.S., and the
corporations that control the Internet become more powerful, we may not see
such democratic participation for much longer.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international
TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is
the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and
now a New York Times best-seller.
© 2010 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
The Seattle
Times
EDITORIALS
The newspaper’s
view
December 24,
2010
FCC’S NET MUDDLE
FCC
rule-making invites a skeptical review
A
flurry of Federal Communications Commission activity invites a skeptical review
by Congress, especially after the official hints of a coming endorsement of a
grievous consolidation of media giants.
Related
A
FLURRY of dubious activity at the Federal Communications Commission is an open
invitation for the next Congress to declare a timeout to slow down the agency and
let the public catch up.
A report Thursday by The Washington Post of
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's draft approval of the proposed merger of
cable giant Comcast with NBC Universal follows Tuesday's 3-2 commission vote
endorsing a jigsaw puzzle of net-neutrality regulations.
Rules approved to ensure content providers
and consumers have equal access to the Internet were still being parsed and
debated, as the extraordinary consolidation of corporate power received a
regulator's blessing.
Pairing the country's biggest Internet and
cable service with a huge broadcast, television and movie interest casts a long
shadow on free and open access to competitors and typical Internet users. At
least the Justice Department is still looking at the implications of this
concentration of power and self-interest in the hands of an Internet
gatekeeper.
Advocates of a free and open Internet found
no comfort in a muddle of rules subject to more interpretations than Tarot
cards. The rules do not preclude charging priority rates for faster service.
They bump up against nondiscrimination rules, but are not forbidden. So it
begins.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress pledge
action from different directions. GOP lawmakers are angry the FCC is doing
anything that might tamper with corporate plans and business models. They want
the government to keep its hands off.
Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island, noted
the failure to protect against paid prioritization, but he said the greatest
weakness in the FCC rules was not looking out for the future of wireless
Internet.
In the same spirit, Washington Sen. Maria
Cantwell said she was disappointed the FCC rules "don't do enough to make
sure the Internet remains a source of American innovation and economic
growth." Concerned the net-neutrality rules are not strong enough, she
plans to introduce legislation in 2011.
Disturbing issues of media consolidation and
weak consumer protection need a tough, skeptical review by Congress.