Blackburn Repays Her Corporate Sponsors

Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn has accepted millions in contributions from giant corporations, PACs and lobbyists.....Blackburn shows she knows how to 'play ball' by striving to hand the people's Internet over to ATT, Comcast and Verizon, lock stock and barrell, so they can hype the profits they make off American taxpayers, whose dollars developed the Internet through U.S. government research.  Mrs. Blackburn promotes Corporate Welfare and Corporate Takeover.  For the sake of free speech and democracy itself, Blackburn and her kind must be stopped.

LINK TO FEB. 11 OP-ED IN THE TENNESSEAN:
 http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110211/OPINION03/102110363/Blackburn-s-Internet-bill-repays-corporate-sponsors

'Internet Freedom' Bill Does the Opposite,

Serving Blackburn's Corporate Sponsors

By Gary Moore

Print journalism reminded us of its value through Bill Theobald's story in The Tennessean Feb. 4 about 7^th District Rep. Marsha Blackburn's intakes of special-interest PAC money from industries she must vote on in Congress

A smidgen of analysis and a spoonful of clarification are in order, however.   

Primarily important, the story's facts and math underscore an expanding threat to American democracy, and that is getting multinational and large corporations out of Congress and the electoral process.   Corporatism is in favor; middle class democracy is out.  Nothing significant will get accomplished in Washington until that changes. 

So long as Blackburn luxuriates in the money that corporate sponsors toss her way, she will fight until her last fingernail chips holding onto the loophole-filled system we have now.   

Figures do not lie.  Of the $1.6 million Blackburn raised in the 2009-2010 election cycle, more than half came from special-interest PACs, including $105,250 from communications/technology interests, according to The Tennessean's story.

Not surprisingly, Blackburn has introduced a bill in Congress to privatize the Internet and hand it over to the profit-making designs of the giant Internet Service Providers, such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. 

Would you believe that Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are her three largest contributors in that industry?

In Orwellian fashion which seems to make every day in Congress "Opposite Day," Blackburn's HR 96 is styled as "The Internet Freedom Act."  

Freedom for whom?   While Blackburn realizes she must talk the talk of Internet equal rights for all (AKA Net Neutrality), which is what we have now and which Americans do not want to lose, her bill does the opposite.  Blackburn's bill would forbid the Federal Communications Commission from regulating or overseeing one byte of the Internet, thus stripping the FCC's long-held role of watchdog for the public interests. 

Blackburn's bill would be more accurately named the "Corporate Takeover and Privatization of the Internet Act." 

For all of Blackburn's attempts to confuse the issue, it is really simple:  What's best for the corporations vs. what is best for the American people.  Do you want Wall Street to shape the Internet to benefit their CEOs and shareholders, or do you want free speech and the First Amendment in charge? 

Blackburn's bill would allow the ISPs to throw up "toll roads" on the information superhighway.  You will pay more for fewer choices.  It will be pay-per-view.  Your favorite sites could move more slowly than before, because the telecoms are making more profitable sites move faster.   Oh, and they will know which sites you like and which to charge extra for by snooping on your transmissions, just as if someone opened every piece of snail mail you receive before delivering it. 

Do you like to Skype?  Use Vonage or Magic Jack for long distance calls?  Those competitors of the phone and cable companies will cost more, and may be driven out of business, after the Internet is privatized.

Do you like Netflix?  Using technology similar to what the Chinese government uses to effect censorship, Comcast in 2007 was caught secretly cutting off the connection between consumers and Netflix, which competes with Comcast for movie viewers. 

Google started in a garage.  Facebook started in a dorm room.  What if those startups had not had access to relatively cheap messaging on the Internet?   It is the entrepreneurs and small businesses that drive employment in the U.S.; the large corporations and multinationals are rewarded by Wall Street when they lay off workers or cut costs by shipping jobs off-shore.

The Internet was developed by the U.S. government---that means us, the people---for military use at first, and then UCLA researchers, funded by a federal grant, made the Internet suitable for public consumption.   

 For candidates who are not wealthy and for anyone who wants to post and search for diverse opinions, and for small businesses, the Internet is the last level playing field.  America's unique spirit of free enterprise and a chance for everyone to make it is embodied in the Internet like it is nowhere else.  Equal Internet rights go hand in hand with democracy.

Regular Americans paid for the Internet.  We expect to keep it.  Just as most Americans do not want Social Security to be privatized and put in Wall Street's hands, we do not want the Internet to be privatized.

Figures do not lie.  Politicians do.

Gary Moore is Public Information Coordinator for Citizens for a Free and Open Internet PAC. 

LINK TO FEB. 4 STORY IN THE TENNESSEAN THAT SET UP THE OP-ED:  http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201102040210/NEWS02/102040356