An Introduction to the Importance of Net Neutrality

Episode 2: The Government Strikes Back... against itself?

In my last blog I went about exploring the topic of the Internet in general. How it works, why it works, and why thats a good thing. But as we concluded earlier, the Internet as we know it today is under attack by legislation looking to change how the internet works.

Originally this part of the series was to be set aside to criticize the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, but the more I researched the bill the more confused I became on where I stood. Looking at it face value, the Act looks to be just another bill that's title is ironic of its content. This overview of the legislation could lead many to tease the sponsors of the bill, John McCain/Marsha Blackburn, with one remarking the oddity of naming a bill a freedom act when its core goal would be to block net neutrality. Jon Stewart was quick to tease McCain on this issue. But when I looked at the bill more closely I noticed that what started on the surface as a battle against net-neutrality might be John McCain proposing a very Libertarian piece of legislation.

How Libertarian? Libertarian enough for the political group called the Libertarian Republican to give their full endorsement... so pretty libertarian. So what else does the Act seek to do if passed? Well the most noticeable goal is that the act would abolish a lot of the control the FCC was given in the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC, McCain argues, should not have the power to regulate the content that is on the internet. Removing the FCC from the internet would disable their ability to block what ISPs choose to feed on their connections.

So McCain says that net neutrality is a government devise aimed at a government takeover of the internet... but that can't be the whole story. And its not. McCain, even though he claims to be fighting for the rights of the people, may be wrong on this issue.

So now we know what the internet is, we know a little about what McCain thinks he's fighting for, so now we must find out why the majority of people side with the principles of Net Neutrality. And why Net neutrality might be worth fighting for.