[ NNSquad ] Re: AT&T Filtering Plan Violates BellSouth Merger

[Edward Almasy <ealmasy@scout.wisc.edu>]

On Feb 5, 2008, at 9:20 AM, Tim Karr forwarded:
> AT&T agreed to four Net Neutrality principles promulgated by the FCC  
> in a 2005 policy statement. The statement was put in place to  
> "encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open  
> and interconnected nature of the public Internet" by entitling  
> consumers to:
>    3) connect their choice of legal devices that DO NOT HARM THE  
> NETWORK;  [emphasis added]

If AT&T does go forward with their plan, it seems likely that this  
portion of the agreement may be used to justify their actions.  We've  
already seen the argument that blocking BitTorrent connections is  
necessary because they purportedly interfere with normal network  
traffic, and it's apparently dismayingly easy to snow legislators and  
other government officials with technical jargon intertwined with  
buzzmemes ("it's to protect the children!") to gain their support for  
such actions.

This makes efforts to accurately characterize network filtering more  
important than ever;  the more people who have tools in their hands to  
see first-hand the effects of filtering, the more likely it is that  
Comcast, AT&T, etc will be forced to be above board about any  
mechanisms they deploy, and the more likely there is to be meaningful  
public discussion and debate about these issues.

Ed