[Lowdown] May First/People Link Statement on Net Neutrality: Time to De-Privatize the Internet

[Alfredo Lopez]

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Net Neutrality Decision: Time to De-Privatize the Internet

Statement by the Leadership Committee of May First/People Link
January 28, 2014

May First/People Link is outraged by the recent federal District Court
decision striking down the FCC's ability to enforce Net Neutrality
practices on Internet broad-band providers.

Without Net Neutrality internet access providers (like Comcast or
Verizon) can determine which sites a user can see and how quickly the
user can see certain sites (over others). The provider can charge the
user extra for access to certain websites and can charge the website
owner to allow users to gain access to the owned site. This is a
practice popularly used with cable television and many internet access
providers to apply it to the Internet.

We believe this decision, no less than the NSA's wholesale monitoring
of people's internet use, attacks the essence
of the Internet and could actually destroy it as we know it.

We also believe that this decision and the industry responses to it
prove that it's time to de-privatize the Internet by developing
municipal and local internet access that everyone in the respective
area can use for free.

The Internet was developed by the human race, in complete
collaboration, to allow us to communicate across all boundaries and to
be divided by none. This cynical, greed-driven development makes a
mockery of what is among humanity's most important recent achievements.

We believe people who want to save the Internet must now come together
to demand, in the face of this threat to its existence, that the human
right to full Internet access finally be recognized by the world's
governments and that the implementation of this right be a priority
for our governments. In the United States and Mexico, the implication
of this is clear: Every municipal, local or regional government should
develop a broadband system that provides free Internet access to all
its residents.

In the United States and Mexico, this initiative would protect Net
Neutrality, provide essential connectivity to all residents of any
city, town or rural area, and represent a progressive and
future-building investment based on a partnership between the various
levels of government. It is feasible technologically, politically
accessible and socially desirable.

We at May First/People Link will participate in every coalition and
effort possible to keep the Internet free for use by all people. We
will work to make Internet access a recognized human right and a
reality for all people world-wide.

May First/People Link is one of the world's largest and oldest
progressive, member-controlled Internet membership organizations. It
has members all over the world with most living and working in the
United States and Mexico.

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Alfredo López

Coordinator, Outreach and Communications Work Group
May First/People Link
https://mayfirst.org

My Column on:
http://thiscantbehappening.net

If you need to send me an encrypted email, you can search for my
public key by using the following fingerprint:

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