Here's the latest from the Senate Commerce Committee, where a "mark-up" on several amendments to Senator Stevens' Telecom Act began today at 10 a.m.: The Snowe-Dorgan Net Neutrality amendment will probably come before the Committee by mid-to-late afternoon. If successfully passed, the amendment would put Net Neutrality language into the massive Telecommunications Act. This is critical.
If your (or your readers'/members') Senators sit on the committee, they need to hear from you immediately. Ask them to support the Snowe-Dorgan Net Neutrality amendment to the larger Telecom Act (S. 2686).
Here are the members of the committee who have not taken a strong position in favor of Internet freedom and for the Snowe-Dorgan Amendment. Please urge your members to call them now:
Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)
Phone: 202-224-3004
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Phone: 202-224-2235
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)
Phone: 202-224-2353
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.)
Phone: 202-224-5274
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)
Phone: 202 224 3224
Sen. David Vitter (R-La.)
Phone: 202 224-4623
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.)
Phone: 202-224-6253
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.)
Phone: 202-224-2644
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)
Phone: 202-224-6551
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.)
Phone: 202-224-6244
Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.)
Phone: 202-224-2841
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.)
Phone: 202-224-3753
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)
Phone: 202 224-6121
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas)
Phone: 202-224-5922
Sen. George Allen (R-Va.)
Phone: 202-224-4024
Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.)
Phone: 202-224-6472
These phone calls actually make a difference.
Thank you for your good work on behalf of this campaign.
Tim Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
P.S. Here are some recent articles and videos in support of SavetheInternet and Net Neutrality:
An Internet for the Few or the Many?
Michael Copps has a message for the technology industry when it comes to Net neutrality: Get involved.
CNet News.com
Don't Let the Service Providers Discriminate on the Internet
Two of the Internet's top business innovators made a case for Net Neutrality today in an op-ed written for the San Jose Mercury News. "Reinstating the Internet's core principle of net neutrality won't stand in the way of innovation," write John Doerr and Reed Hastings. "Indeed, net neutrality has, until recently, been the very foundation of Internet innovation."
San Jose Mercury News
Protecting Net Neutrality from the Neutricidal Telcos
For AT&T and Verizon to be screaming for the protection of the free market against Net Neutrality is "sheer hypocrisy," writes Internet guru Cory Doctorow. "They themselves are creatures of government regulation, basing their business on government-granted extraordinary privileges."
Information Week
No Tolls on the Internet
Only a Congress besieged by high-priced telecom lobbyists could possibly consider handing the Internet over to the handful of cable and telephone companies that control online access for 98 percent of the broadband market.
Washington Post
Also, check out these recent "Videos from the People:"
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2006/06/26/videos-from-the-people/