Policy Blog Entries by Art Brodsky

Over the next couple of days, thousands of online activists will gather in Austin for the Netroots Nation conference. This is the former Yearly Kos meeting, an extension of the Daily Kos progressive blog.

There are scheduled caucuses for Open Left Readers and Geeks and Texans and Moms, and sessions on how to use social networking tools in campaigns. There are panels on how the Internet could be used for transparency in government, how the Internet has affected campaigns and lobbying, to discussions of science, space and food policy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will be there, as will Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) and retired Gen. Wesley Clark.

All of the speeches and 99.99% of the panels and discussions will be about how to the Internet is being used, and should be used. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s fabulous that activists want to make the most out of the online medium.

While the full United States Senate on Wednesday (July 9) takes up the subject of wiretapping by the government, the Senate Commerce Committee will take up the subject of wiretapping by private industry. It’s a tossup which one is more scary.

The Senate votes July 9 on the bill to grant the Executive Branch almost unlimited authority to wiretap private citizens without any judicial oversight. The Commerce Committee will hear testimony from Robert Dykes, the chairman of NebuAd, a controversial company recently in the news because his group came up with a novel way of getting detailed information about Internet users. NebuAd wasn’t satisfied to get information only from a customer’s use of one Web site. Instead, they want to see everything that a Web surfer does online.

Here’s Dykes pitching his company at a conference in New York earlier this year:

As FCC Commissioner Michael Copps reminded us recently, the one concrete example of Net Neutrality we have, the conditions on AT&T’s takeover of BellSouth, expire at the end of the year. The concept of an Internet governed by discrimination, rather than by openness, looms as a real possibility.

Thanks to AT&T and Comcast, however, we now can see what an Internet without Net Neutrality will look like, and it’s not pretty. Right up front, we should thank our friends who labor in the neighboring vineyards of what’s called “public access” cable TV, the part of cable reserved for public, educational and governmental programming.

Gigi was on the Kojo Nnamdi show public radio program earlier today, discussing broadband policy with Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and Scott Wallsten of the Technology Policy Institute.

She used her time to push for policies that would increase broadband competition and choices for consumers, which would lower prices and increase speeds of service. In contrast, Atkinson called telecommunications a “natural monopoly” akin to water and electric power — a view that went out of style decades ago.

Wallsten attacked the international rankings that show the U.S. slipping in broadband penetration. Gigi’s view was that the in-the-weeds details are irrelevant. Regardless of how you slice and dice it, we’re slipping and it’s time to get busy with a new policy.

You can hear the show here.

Here’s the view in the studio with (from left clockwise) Kojo, Atkinson, Gigi and Wallsten.

The Washington Post has again taken the low road on keeping a free and open Internet. In its latest editorial, the newspaper of record in the Nation’s Capital again declined to view the reality of a duopoly broadband market and a lack of consumer choices.

In its editorial, “Web Cops,” the newspaper lauds Internet Service Providers that have “poured billions of dollars into building their networks, leading to broader and better service for consumers.” In its discussion of the throttling of BitTorrent applications by Comcast, the Post attempts to strike a feeble balance – ISPs have a right to manage their networks, but the Post writes, “just as important, consumers have a right to know what kind of service they are receiving and whether a particular product or application can be used on their ISPs’ network.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if the grand concept of Global Internet Freedom applied to the U.S. as well as to the rest of the world?

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) recently held a hearing of his Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law that hit all the right themes and said all the right words when referring to the. At the top of the list was “Internet freedom,” in all its glory. There was testimony about sophisticated computer routers being used to hamper the free flow of information and about restrictions to free speech from Google, Yahoo and Cisco.

It’s a shame the Federal government is trying to take the round-about route in establishing a new network for first responders. Then the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wouldn’t be forced into the tortuous square peg-round hole exercise it’s going through now to figure out how to get private industry to pay for an emergency-quality broadband network to be only sporadically used for emergencies.

Some of the FCC Commissioners seem to feel that way also. As Commissioner Robert McDowell said last week when the FCC asked for a new round of ideas to try to fix the failed D-block auction, public safety isn’t using half of the 97 MHz it has now due to a lack of funds and lack of coordination. The current squabbling on the D-Block auction is over only 10 MHz, albeit a desirable 10 MHz in the 700 MHz band that will be used by TV broadcasters until next February.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr., (D-MI) and Internet stalwart Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), have added another element to the debate about how to ensure a free and open Internet.

Last week, they introduced legislation H.R. 5994, the “Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2008.” This bill provides a nice complement to HR 5353, the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008,” introduced by House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Chip Pickering (R-MS).

Just in time for the House Telecom Subcommittee’s May 6 hearing on Net Neutrality legislation, Public Knowledge achieved a new level of notoriety when we were prominently mentioned in a blog post on the American Spectator, the publication best known for funneling millions of dollars to investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Maybe the FCC can handle the truth.

A couple of days ago, we asked the question whether the Federal Communications Commission was up for confronting the reality of Comcast’s blocking and throttling of peer-to-peer traffic and, if so, what the Commission would do about it.

Just as Jack Nicholson’s character, Col. Nathan Jessep, was arrested at the end of the movie, “A Few Good Men” after telling Tom Cruise’s character Lt. Daniel Kaffee the truth, it looks as if the Commission is preparing to take some action against Comcast.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin made his announcement in dramatic fashion at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing. He wasn’t on the original agenda to testify. Martin’s staff contacted the Committee the afternoon before the April 22 hearing and asked if he could testify. Martin wanted to a big forum for a big announcement, and he made the most of it.