WASHINGTON, July 22, 2014 – As the Federal Communications Commission received more than a million comments on the agency’s push for net neutrality regulations governing the conduct of broadband providers, critics argued on July 15 that net neutrality is a counter-intuitive solution in search of a problem. Moreover, these critics said, “common carriage” regulation under […]

WASHINGTON, July 9, 2014 – The internet is the First Amendment issue of our time, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn, said at a Tuesday panel discussion hosted by the non-profit advocacy group Free Press. He chastised opponents of net neutrality for not understanding that without it, “deep-pocketed corporations can pay to get their content to you […]

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2014 – Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., on Tuesday introduced a bill, the Online Competition and Consumer Choice Act, that would grant the Federal Communications Commission the authority to bar so-called “paid prioritization” agreements between internet service providers and content providers over the last-mile of a broadband connection. […]

WASHINGTON, June 10, 2014 – The proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable continues to stir up controversy. The Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include internet giants Google and Yahoo, sent a letter to Sen. Al Franken asking regulators to stop the acquisition as it would give the merged entity “increased incentive […]

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2014 – The House of Representatives passed the USA Freedom Act on Thursday in a 303 to 121 vote, according to Ars Technica, instituting changes to the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of American phone records. The goal is to end the practice of gathering records of meta-data about the individuals to which and […]

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2014 – On Monday, tensions with China over cybersecurity increased as the U.S. Justice Department indicted five Chinese military officers for stealing trade secrets from six United States companies. The Guardian quoted Attorney General Eric Holder as saying, “The range of trade secrets and other sensitive business information stolen in this case […]

WASHINGTON, October 14, 2009 – Net neutrality emerged as a major theme at the Future of Music Coalition conference last week at Georgetown University here, with speeches on the subject by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Senator Al Franken, D-Minn., who described the Internet as the modern town square.