A very important victory was won today for the rights of internet consumers. The Judiciary Committee today approved a bill, the Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act, to preserve net neutrality. This bipartisan bill would prevent corporate executives from determining what content you are allowed to view on the internet.

Some companies that provide the lines through which internet traffic travels are seeking the ability to discriminate against certain content providers, charging higher rates and providing different levels of service. Having this ability to charge different rates to different types of content providers would allow the entities that control 98 per cent of internet traffic to restrict your access to certain competing sites wherever it chose.

This bill was a big challenge to some very powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill, but a massive grassroots operation coordinated by MyDD.com and MoveOn.org helped put enough pressure on Judiciary lawmakers to ensure a comfortable victory. Members of Congress heard from plenty of their constituents about the importance of this bill and not one Democrat voted against it.

While this was a critical success, we still have more to do. This bill may or may not come to a vote on the house floor. It may take similar efforts from the netroots to be ultimately successful on this issue.

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000458.htm