The issue of Net Neutrality — preventing major telecoms and special interest groups from controlling access to the Internet, not to mention potentially terracing access and service in favor of those who can pay the most — is a critically important one right now. That’s why I’ve had that cute little "Save the Net" button on my left column for quite a while.

The button takes you to SavetheInternet.com, where today you can watch a streaming video of Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) as he describes his introduction of the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008," intended to preserve the web as a resource to which most citizens of free countries have the potential for equal access. Representative Markey’s bill is co-sponsored by Representative Chip Pickering (R-Miss.). The movement enjoys the support of a strikingly large range of organizations, from the Christian Coalition and Gun Owners of America to PETA and the ACLU.

From a SavetheInternet blog post on the subject:

Big phone and cable companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner have padded the pockets of Washington lawyers, lobbyists and shills to kill Net Neutrality and pave the way for "network management" practices that allow blocking of certain content in favor of Web sites and services the companies prefer.

The new bill requires the FCC to actively protect the free-flowing
Internet from gatekeepers, enforcing protections that “guard against
unreasonable discriminatory favoritism for, or degradation of, content
by network operators based upon its source, ownership, or destination
on the Internet.”

You can go here to read more, then here to sign the petition if you feel moved to do so.

I also think Representative Markey’s video was a nifty idea—but it’s not nearly as hott as the one made by Leslie Hall (of "How We Go Out" fame):