1.Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act
This act has been sufficient in protecting our Internet why enact new legislation?

2. US Internet Industry Association
The Internet has been serving WE the People quite well under these regulations -- why enact new legislation?

Answers to questions numbers 1 and 2:

Because the media moguls - CEOs want control of this enormous information exchange in order to make billions in profits and impinge on WE the People's access to information.

Think about it!

Do you want to pay a fee each time you look up something?

Do you want to be limited in what you are able to access?

Do you want to have access to only what media moguls and their sponsors want you to know?

If you agree that the answer to these vital questions is NO -- then I urge you to use the link at the top of this page to contact your Senators and urge them to just say NO! to Senate Bill S2686.

This bill affects literally every medium of communication. Including telephone, video, TV, cable, satellite and the Internet.

WE do not need new legislation. The regulations that have been in force have managed quite well to protect our communication freedoms. And, are available for your viewing in the links on the left side of this page.

S 2686: Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 is a comprehensive telecom reform bill introduced by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. The legislation is intended to reform existing communications laws affecting broadband and video access, the universal service fund, video franchising, wireless spectrum, community Internet, and network neutrality. Senator Daniel Inouye (R-HI), Ranking Member of the committee, has co-sponsored the bill, but has indicated he does not support it as drafted.

Key words:
Network neutrality
Non Discrimination
Video Franchising
buildouts

Contact your representatives and urge them to protect YOUR Internet!

Contacting the Congress

Please, also take the time to note the phone number of your Senator and call them urging them to just say NO to this bill!.

Thomas Jefferson;

"Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it."  Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1786.

"Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."

"Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government."


Free Press commentary

This bill is a sweeping set of policy reforms all wrapped up in a giant package. It streamlines the cable franchising process for telephone and cable companies, promising cable competition in some areas in exchange for the elimination of local government negotiating power. There are no build-out requirements to ensure the expansion of video competition. Funding for public, educational and governmental access programming is enshrined into national law, although with significant flaws. The bill opens the door for Internet gatekeepers, offering to study network neutrality rather than creating enforceable protections. This bill would preempt state legislation from restricting deployment of Community Internet with some problematic conditions. Consumer protection rules are to be created by the FCC and applied nationwide, enforced by the states. The bill opens up much needed spectrum for wireless broadband in empty television channels. And, unlike the, COPE Act the bill tackles reform of the Universal Service Fund, expanding the base of contributions and apply subsidies to broadband networks. Nonetheless, without some fundamental changes, the net effect of this bill will negatively impact consumers and citizens.

Local Communications Priorities: Community or Corporate Control?

Local access means giving communities the ability to create their own media and the power to decide how to best serve their own technology and communications needs. Those needs include everything from public access television channels to universal broadband Internet service.

Local access has never been more important. We are entering an era of "convergence." In the next few years, your telephone, television and Internet service will all come through the same pipeline.

In a fierce competition to corner the market and protect their astronomical profits, the largest cable and telecom companies are trying to take away the ability of communities to demand and obtain the communications technologies they need. Across the country, industry giants are working to subvert, hobble or eliminate the tools communities can use to hold them accountable.

Determining Local Needs - and Having Them Addressed: A Franchising 101Cable rates are skyrocketing.

Access to broadband is becoming increasingly important. Media giants still press for a new round of consolidation.

As it becomes increasingly difficult for local viewpoints to be heard and broadband access continues to be a service only for those who can afford it, a debate is raging in the states and in Congress: will new communications technologies answer to local communities?

Or will local communities answer instead to the most powerful telecommunications and cable companies? Until now, local "franchise agreements" determined the "rent" cable or Internet providers must pay communities in exchange for the right to use public resources to conduct business.

To learn more about the local franchising process, click on the links below.

What's at stake?
What can communities obtain with a franchise agreement?
Who negotiates franchise agreements?
How has the process generally worked?
Can bad companies be denied a franchise renewal?

Threats to local control over communications Today, the stakes are becoming much higher. The cable and telecom companies are looking to shackle local communities with a one-size-fits-all, take-it-or-leave-it service (if it's even available, let alone affordable). But every community is different. Local access and control ensures that communities have a voice in determining what their future communications systems look like.

The big picture
Local threats
Threats in the states
Threats at the FCC
Threats in Congress

Additional information
Read a new report from the Alliance for Community Media showing the damage to PEG that would be done by bills now before Congress.

Links to other resources

Links to model access center

I urge you to watch the Senate in session and the testimonies of the various media people. I have been quite impressed with the young man Ben Scot from Free Press he is articulate and has been working and fighting to save OUR Internet.

There is no greater issue we face today. The Gulf War II events will be even more suppressed. Since today WE the People currently suffer from lack of truth via our main stream media (MSM). To the point that a handful of media moguls own the access of WE the People to news. The same media moguls own the radio stations, newspapers, TV programs and magazines. In some cities the same media mogul owns all information access -- thereby forcing the people to hear only what that media source wants them to know. Shudder the thought -- WE the People need Radio Free America!

While watching the Senate listen to words from several of our Senators -- statements often cited are how the fiasco in California about the electricity crisis and recalling how Enron made billions was a similar scenario!

WE the People have the Power!

Please, contact your Senators and urge them to follow the suggestions of Ben Scot from Free Press! Just say NO to this bill!

Please, take the time to read about how the media moguls in the summer of 2003 tried to take over our airwaves and We the People stood together and prevailed! FCC-Details

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do."  ~ Edward Everett Hale ~