Recently Karl Rove responded to comments from Scott McClellan’s book on the show Hannity and Colmes by saying, “…this doesn’t sound like Scott. It really doesn’t. Not the Scott McClellan I have known for a long time…sounds like somebody else, it sounds like a left-wing blogger.”
Okay, forget the controversy about a book that doesn’t spell out anything new. The only surprise is that it is written by someone in Bush’s camp. Instead, look at the word choice by Rove. In particular, the phrase “left-wing blogger” scares me. Understand that this is how the Internet is viewed by politicians on the left and right. This phrase is not only being used to discredit McClellan, but bloggers and the Internet.
Obviously Rove doesn’t think much of McClellan, or bloggers. Perhaps it is deeper than that, in fact, forget the ‘perhaps.’ Rove is one of those individuals up on the hill who see the Internet as nothing more than a commercial opportunity and not a community. The danger of that vision is the loss of net neutrality. His choice of words make the Internet seem juvenile and unreliable. Again, discrediting the validity of the Internet is a stepping stone to controlling the net.
From its inception, the Internet has been protected by the principal of net neutrality. From savetheinternet.com:
Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.
Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It protects the consumer’s right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.
Internet Service Providers, the cable & phone companies, have been trying to get the laws change to increase profits. They argue that they should be able to charge the sites because the web sites are using the ISP’s ‘pipes’ for free. You and I have to pay to get access to the Internet, but Yahoo, Google, Myspace are freeloading out there on the information super highway. You may think that this doesn’t sound terribly unfair, however the ISPs have already stated that they believe in tiered pricing. In other words, if Yahoo pays a premium to Comcast, they will in turn load Yahoo pages much faster than Google.
As you can see, the danger of such a system is the loss of small business sites, how can they compete with Amazon if they can’t afford to pay a premium? This would also make the net easier to control, if I don’t have the money to pay, you don’t get to read my blog criticizing the money & power hungry politicians. As savetheinternet.com says, “Such corporate control of the Web would reduce your choices and stifle the spread of innovative and independent ideas that we’ve come to expect online.”
With the Patriot Act and illegal wire tapping by the President, free speech is on the run. If that doesn’t concern you and you are worried about things closer to home, do a search on Comcast. It may not be your ISP, but if they get away with half the things they are doing it will encourage other companies to follow suit. They’ve already been busted for throttling down people’s peer-to-peer connections without informing customers. Currently, they have plans to start capping customer downloads. According to some figures, the 250GB cap would only affect 1% of users. First of all, if they are allowed to do this without any fuss, it will again pave the way for more caps. “Sorry son, I would love to see the youtube video of the new baby, but your mom & I are too close to the cap.” What is a GB anyway? You know what it is, but do you know how much you are using right now? Credit card companies have been in trouble for tacking on imaginary fees, do you think you can trust Cable companies to measure your GB usage correctly?
That’s a lot of stuff to pin on Rove’s simple phrase, “left-wing blogger,” but remember a politician is always working the sell; they don’t take days off. Furthermore, this is the guy that engineered the campaign to get Bush in the office. His guns may be aimed at McClellan in the interview, but his friends have deep pockets.
Please, take some time to educate yourself about net neutrality and your Internet Service Provider. The Cable company that provides your Internet may have a monopoly in your area and leave you with no other choice, but you can still use their connection to make a difference and speak out against them. At least for the time being, that is.
Some useful links:
Donate
[...] by Sikkdays’ post about Net Neutrality, I though I’d put my 2 cents in regarding another, related [...]