The July/August 2014 Foreign Affairs has an article titled "The Case for Net Neutrality"subtitled "What's Wrong With Obama's Internet Policy" by Marvin Ammori.
You can get one free internet read of one article per month at Foreign Affairs if you are not a subscriber. Here is the link for that one shot this month-- Foreign Affairs July/August 2014 pages 62 through 73.
It is worth reading if you have any interest in continued technological progress in the US and a desire to not allow the US to become an intellectual desert because the FCC desires to serve the parochial issues of some ISPs. The article notes that waiting for competition of ISPs for customers is on the edge of silly. The markets are so divided up that such competition is nearly irrelevant in terms of net neutrality.
The article has much of the relevant history regarding net neutrality or the opposite and consequences of each. We can chose between gateways or gatekeepers. Recent events in some of the world's tyrannies demonstrates what happens to freedom and innovation when the internet is not open and in reality controlled by gatekeepers.
The issue of Net Neutrality is both a foreign and domestic affair. If the US stumbles down the black hole of gated internet controlled by corporate or cooperative ISPs, other countries have and will guarantee net neutrality and they will attract the innovators and startups that have changed communication in the US up to now.
A brief condensation of the article conclusion suggests that the US (ie Washington) has a simple choice: Keep the internet an engine for innovation and a bully pulpit for free speech and connection of people from all over the world, OR CEDE CONTROL OF THE INTERNET TO PAROCIAL Internet Service Providers.
So if you appreciate the freedoms and innovation of the internet, let your congress critters and President Obama know that. We do not need or want a great resource in the public commons turned into the corporate perserve and profit-only tool of a handful of shortsighted ISPs.
Take advantage of the one-shot option above and read the article. Foreign Affairs is worth subscribing to.. not cheap, but worth the $44.00 per year for 6 thick issues.
*** Stay tuned as long as you help keep the Net Neutral--- Doug Wiken
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