Good post by David Reed regarding the ongoing attempts by the corporate few and their PR shills to wrest control over our communication systems.

The Internet is a simple network, a stupid network, that just connects your computer to another computer with no interference. That’s opposed to old smarty-pants networks that tried limit users to those things that maximized the operators‚ monopoly profits, by taxing the content providers and preventing innovators from attaching new devices, inventing new services at the edges, etc. The Internet won, for a good reason: it enabled innovation, and it kept busybody operators from having to tinker with or spy on their users‚ traffic. It delighted users, rather than holding them hostage.

The Arts+Labs site looks cool, very Web 2.0-ish. But hidden in that beautiful design, behind the slick and seductive words, is a dangerous idea, one that the founders of the United States rejected in the First Amendment. The Arts+Labs site tries to convince you (and Congress) of the idea that it’s a “good thing” to allow your ISP to decide what you can see or hear or use. That’s the same ISP that is given by Fed, State, or local regulators a monopoly or oligopoly over your ability to connect at high speed to the Internet. For that monopoly to examine your traffic, make guesses as to what it means, and to decide for you which services you should connect to, using what protocols.

Don’t believe Mike McCurry [former Clinton press secretary], AT&T and Cisco’s new shill. He may be connected, but it’s pretty clear that he wants to disconnect us.

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