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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (504832)	12/6/2003 4:01:47 AM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

How to kill the Internet: tompaine.com "The Internet’s promise as a new medium -- where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged -- is under attack by the corporations that control the public’s access to the 'Net, as they see opportunities to monitor and charge for the content people seek and send. The industry’s vision is the online equivalent of seizing the taxpayer-owned airways, as radio and television conglomerates did over the course of the 20th century. To achieve this, the cable industry, which sells Internet access to most Americans, is pursuing multiple strategies to closely monitor and tightly control subscribers and their use of the net... This new threat to online communications is a direct consequence of recent Federal Communications Commission policies by Chairman Michael Powell that permit cable companies to operate their broadband platforms in a "discriminatory, non-open access" manner. This legalese means the FCC, the historic guardian of the public interest in the communications field, has abdicated its founding charge: to serve the public interest before private interests. In sum, the Internet as we now know it -- and its revolutionary promise -- may soon pass into the history books..." =========== thenation.com Pretty scary as consolidation and quasi-monopolistic practices seem to be coming to pass this month...anyway. Objections? Email: Commissioner Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov fcc.gov