Tag: Net Neutrality

The resolution to disapprove the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules was defeated in the U.S. Senate today.

No one loved the internet rules written by the Federal Communications Commission last year that sought to safeguard the free-flowing egalitarian quality of the internet, where communication-industry giants don't get to decide which information streams to users and at what speed. One side thought the rules were overreaching socialism and the other thought they were riven with the kind of loopholes corporate interests could wiggle through when it came time to assert control. In the spring, Republicans in the House opposed to the rules voted to strip the FCC of the cash it would need to enforce the rules. On Wednesday, a small band of senators, including Colorado's Mark Udall, sent a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) objecting to the House action and asking the committee to strip out the budget amendment that would hold back the FCC funds.

“I came here today to warn you that the party may almost be over,” Sen. Al Franken said. “They are coming after the internet hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important tool for indie artists and entrepreneurs: its freedom and openness.”

The Austin-based South by Southwest music, film, technology fest this week has so far featured populist political discussion on the labor showdown in Wisconsin, Washington war spending and the privatized "debt-based" monetary fund. That was all from Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich. Minnesota Senator Al Franken is set to discuss the future of the internet at 8:30 this morning Colorado time. Franken, like Colorado Rep. Jared Polis, has long fought against the drive to give communications corporations more control over what kind of content flows fastest on the web.

Google, one of the biggest guns roaming the internet frontier, has reportedly joined the posse of big boys looking to shoot down net neutrality....

Minnesota conservative U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann likes to throw verbal partisan bombs, a sort of tiny-version mix of Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter. She...

A federal appeals courts dealt a blow to net-neutrality Tuesday, ruling that the Federal Communications Commission can’t force Comcast and other telecommunications companies to...

Today, U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton's army of big-name lobbyist supporters are hosting another fundraiser for her in DC, this one at the Williams...

Colorado U.S. Reps. Jared Polis and Ed Perlmutter signed onto a letter to the Federal Communications Commission last week Thursday that was penned by New York Democratic U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks. The letter was signed by 70 other members of Congress and appears to have been crafted by Meeks to cater to Verizon Communications, the second-largest employer in his New York district and also the second-largest contributor to his campaign coffers. Verizon donated as much as $43,000 to Meeks, according to campaign-cash tracking website Open Secrets. The letter was sent in advance of meetings the FCC plans to hold Thursday on national broadband policy.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, the Boulder Democrat who made millions as an Internet entrepreneur, drafted a letter (pdf) and blogged at the Huffington Post...