John McCain doesn't even use e-mail...

...or so he says. He has to have his wife's help to use a computer (although he tweets an awful lot).

So should he be the guy deciding how corporations can control the Internets?

He has introduced a bill, misleadingly titled the "Internet Freedom Act of 2009," which is all about restricting the freedom of the Internet.  I guess the word "Anti-" that comes before "Freedom" in his bill title disappeared because of a typo.

The FCC is in favor of rules keeping the Internet open, preventing individual providers, like cable companies or telecoms, from restricting what you can and cannot access online.  They don't feel that a given ISP should be able to speed up your access to certain sites (in which that ISP might happen to have a financial interest) while blocking or slowing down other sites (which might have a point of view opposed to their interests, or a commercial interest in competition with theirs).  So if Gimbel's made a deal with Time Warner Cable, and you got your internet via Roadrunner, they might decide to make the Macy's holiday promotion website hard to access.  But the FCC (and the real Santa Claus) want to prevent commercial interests from making those decisions about an Internet that should rightfully belong to all of us.

To McCain and his ilk, this is "government control of the Internet!"  And it must be stopped!!!

McCain, as pointed out earlier, really doesn't understand what he's talking about.  What he does understand is that he's been bought and paid for by the telecoms. He was the #1 recipient of telecom donations in the January 2007-June 2009 period, receiving $894,379 (the next highest was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with a miserly $341,089, so McCain scored big-time).

And once again, Arizona's senators demonstrate their fealty to the ideal that the interests of big corporations who hand them lots of cash are far more important than the interests of the American people.  And that they should both be thrown out of office as soon as possible.

Comments

[Shiai]

I think it's perhaps more accurate to say that McCain's staff does an awful lot of tweeting on his account.

[Carl Dershem]

The ignorant are always easier to control, and the Big Media companies are relying on that.

I wonder what McCain's staff tweeter's job title is.

[Jeff Mariotte]

I'm not sure a staffer would be stupid enough to tweet about what an interesting dude Gadhafi is...or if so, that staffer should have been immediately fired. 
At any rate, this is a ridiculous bill. If he wants to do something useful he should introduce a bill providing high-speed internet to all American households, so the rest of the world doesn't leave us behind as the internet in America becomes a plaything of the rich and out of reach of the poor.

[THEJJNADO]

well, I do believe the internet needs to have some sort of government agency monitoring it...i just think there are too many things that are available that shouldn't be, and i'm saying this as someone who hasn't paid for a song in 12 years, lol (except for pearl jam albums...only group i'll actually pay for a cd).

i know that the net is kind of the last bastion of total freedom for a lot of people, but i also know that it's a haven for a lot of illegal activity, and not just "dude, you have the weed for tonight?" messages...

much more sinister stuff....the net is to us now what radio was back in the 10s and 20s...it was freedom..you could say what you want whenever you want. that's good, but it also has its drawbacks.

only thing i'm afraid of is that the govt. would use "some control" to mean "total control"

but still, really, can they keep you from expressing yourself on the net now that it's out there?

no

[THEJJNADO]

jeff...do you know how BEHIND most of europe is on the Internet front?
it's ridiculous.
a lot of countries still use home phonelines to connect, and it costs PER MINUTE when they're on the net.
these are the same countries that had cell phones used as home phones 10 years before we did.

europe is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy behind the us in computer and internet tech....but east asia is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ahead

[Jeff Mariotte]

According to the most recent statistics I've seen (2007) the US ranks 19th in percentage of homes with broadband access.  Bermuda is #1 (probably not a huge challenge there), but the 7 countries behind them are European, then the Asians come in. Finland just legislated 100% broadband, so they'll be moving up from 8th place (again, based on 2 year old stats). In all, there were 13 European countries ahead of us on the charts.  And when I work with Europeans they always marvel at how far behind my access is.

Remember when we were the richest, most technologically advanced country in the world?

http://www.internetworldstats.com/dsl.htm

[THEJJNADO]

but those statistics are skewed. as you point out with the bermuda comment. I mean, all european countries are ridiculously smaller than the united states. so, for all of us who have the fastest public internet available in the united states (like me) in a town of 120k, there are millions of people living in the sticks still using dial up (no offense, jeff, lol) or without even an internet computer, or any computer of any kind.

granted, there are some people in europe who have better broadband, but i'd say population wise, those numbers are really skewed.

you live in the middle of nowhere, like my mom, and she just got broadband last year after i repeatedly told her that her rural cable company was costing her more than getting direct tv or at&t tv that would give her broadband internet. she was using dial up until last year.

and companies like aol still abuse customers with yearly fees by convincing them they can't even get online without them. my mom just learned the other day that she could just hit explorer to get online on her laptop without going through aol.

american numbers are skewed opposed to other (especially european) countries' broadband access because we have more rural areas, have a larger population living in rural areas and have a larger, poor population living in urban areas than they do.

[Jeff Mariotte]

That's my point--I believe that high-speed internet access leads to increased economic activity, and greater cultural and intellectual advantages (as opposed to simply making sure everybody know the same jokes and sees the same cute kittens videos).  So it shouldn't be something available only to the wealthy or the upper middle class, but we should be making a greater effort, for the benefit of the country as a whole, to get it into poor and rural areas where people need those things.
So far, any effort we're making is half-hearted and driven only be economic considerations--if company X or Y thinks it can make a big enough profit by moving into a particular area.  I don't think those for-profit considerations should be the only driving force.