PDF Warning [pdf] for the final Stimulus Bill.
Browsing Posts in Net Neutrality
We were told there wasn’t going to be any pork into the Stimulus Bill. Then, we are told that there is a health care initiative being included. Now, Senator Diane Feinstein wants provisions added to the bill that will destroy net neutrality.
US Senator Dianne Feinstein hopes to update President Barack Obama’s $838bn economic stimulus package so that American ISPs can deter child pornography, copyright infringement, and other unlawful activity by way of “reasonable network management.”
According to Public Knowledge, Feinstein’s network management amendment did not find a home in the stimulus bill that landed on the Senate floor. But lobbyists speaking with the Washington DC-based internet watchdog said that California’s senior Senator is now hoping to insert this language via conference committee – a House-Senate pow-wow were bill disputes are resolved.
“This is the most backdoor of all the backdoor ways of doing things,” Public Knowledge’s Art Brodsky told The Reg. “Conference committees are notorious for being the most opaque of all legislative processes.”
Obama’s stimulus bill sets aside between $6bn and $9bn for expanding American broadband into rural areas, and Senator Feinstein hopes to (PDF) augment this Broadband Technology Opportunities Program so that it “allows for reasonable network management practices such as deterring unlawful activity, including child pornography and copyright infringement.”
You need to fight this now by faxing Senator Feinstein or the three other members of the committee.
