No to net neutrality, yes to CALEA
This has not been a happy week for Internet privacy and autonomy.
The House passed the COPE bill, which updates the 1996 Telecommunications Act -- and in passing the bill, they voted down an amendment to ensure net neutrality.
I think the New York Times said it particularly well: "The largest telephone companies did not get everything they sought, however."
Michael Gorman responded with this quote:
The "COPE" bill allows big telecommunications companies to give preferential service to
those content providers able to pay higher fees while marginalizing the smaller, less popular or less lucrative Internet content providers. By allowing preferred services, the COPE bill would allow telephone, cable and ISP-gatekeepers to discriminate against certain content, making it much more difficult for users to find the information they seek.
Now, a federal appeals court has upheld the Bush Administration's and the FCC's interpretation of CALEA, which would require broadband netwoks and technologies that exploit the same to "design their networks to ensure a certain basic level of government access" (from the Center on Democracy and Technology).
Sigh.