Udall Caves on Net Neutrality

Remember the big battle that's been going on to preserve net neutrality? New Mexico's progressive CD3 Congressman, Tom Udall, has gone over to the dark side and voted to approve the awful COPE bill that would destroy net neutrality. What can explain this? I'd love to hear from Rep. Udall himself. In the meantime, note that Udall voted in concert with Rep. Steve Pearce, the hard-right Congressman from Southern NM. Strangely enough, CD1's rep, Heather Wilson, voted against the bill and thus for protecting a level playing field on the internet.

I hate to say it, but Udall's siding with many of the same telecom and cable companies that readily turned over our phone records to the NSA prompts me to wonder how much money Tom gets from these interests. If you'd like to let Rep. Udall know how you feel about his vote, click here.

Read what the Save the Internet coalition has to say about the House approval of the COPE bill. Here's an excerpt of a statement by Free Press cofounder Robert W. McChesney on behalf of the coalition:

Passage of major telecom legislation without enforceable Net Neutrality is a low point in the history of US policymaking. The telephone-cable Internet duopoly providers deluged Congress with an army of lobbyists, countless millions spent on misleading PR spin and outright lies, and a single-minded determination to put their bottom line ahead of the democratic principles of an open, neutral Internet.

If we lose Net Neutrality, we lose the most promising method for regular people to access and provide diverse and independent news, information and entertainment. We will see the Internet become like cable TV: a handful of massive companies will decide what you can see and how much it will cost. Gone will be the entrepreneurship and innovation that has made the Internet the most important cultural and economic engine of our times.

Check out the company Udall had on his vote in support of COPE, which essentially putts big corporations in charge of how we access websites.

To get a feel for how bad the COPE bill is, read this account by Rep. Louise Slaughter, one of the progressive shining stars in the House. Then explain to me why Udall would support it, despite the defeat of an amendment by Rep. Markey (D-MA) that would have injected some sanity into the bill and preserved an open internet for all. Rep. Udall voted in support of the Markey amendment that would have established net neutrality in the COPE bill, yet voted for the bill anyway, without the needed amendment.

Every single amendment by Dems trying to interject fairness or to put teeth into vague requirements for the telecoms was defeated. As finalized, this bill allows telecoms and cable providers to discriminate against content providers including independent news organizations, blogs, nonprofits or any other entity that cannot or will not pay big fees for access.

I guess Rep. Udall isn't concerned that the bill would allow corporate internet users to cough up big bucks to carve out a high speed pipeline of their own while leaving ordinary bloggers, nonprofit organizations and many others with slower and clumsier access. If you call yourself a progressive, as Udall does, how can you possibly support this bill?

I think I know. No doubt Rep. Udall will defend his vote by saying the bill will provide much needed broadband access for poor and rural areas. After all, the forces pushing for this massive giveaway of the public internet pipelines have widely distributed dishonest and distorted information about the bill. What it really does, however, is trade away the public's right to equal access and service for pie in the sky promises of expanded service. If you trust the giving our internet freedom of expression over to the likes of Comcast, AT&T, Time-Warner and Qwest, you'll love this extremely flawed bill.

Essentially, the bill privatizes the internet, and cedes control of how it works to the big players. The little guy will be left to struggle with slow, erratic, and difficult access problems while traffic is speedily transmitted for those who pay big fees. The bill's provisions about expanding access to the internet are without teeth and constitute mere promises by the big corps, not tough, enforceable requirements for transparency and accountability.

There are some good provisions in the bill, but they are far outweighed by the selling off of the internet's power and speed to special interests that give millions of dollars as "campaign contributions" to lawmakers. MyDD covers what happened in the House in illuminating detail.

More than 700 groups across the political spectrum, 5,000 bloggers and 750,000 individual Americans have joined the fight against COPE, including these:

Free Press -- Coalition Coordinator
Professor Lawrence Lessig -- Stanford
Gun Owners of America
Craig Newmark -- Craigslist.com Founder
Professor Glenn Reynolds -- aka Blogger Instapundit
MoveOn.org Civic Action
Consumers Union
American Library Association
Parents Television Council
Consumer Federation of America
Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Inc.
Common Cause
Christian Coalition of America
American Civil Liberties Union
National Association of State PIRGs (U.S. PIRG)
SEIU
Afro-Netizen
The Agonist
AcornActive Media Foundation
Association of Research Libraries
Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
Consumer Action
Feminist Majority
Independent Press Association
Working Assets
Media Matters
Progressive Democrats of America
US Pirg
Environmental Defense Institute
The National Coalition Against Censorship

Our only hope for defeating this bill moves next to the Senate. Thanks Rep. Udall. You've made our day.