WASHINGTON - Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Christian Coalition made testimonies on the anticompetitive implications of the network-neutrality issue Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee.
The testimonies featured complaints to the Federal Communications Commission, which is considering what to do about network management, including coming up with a better definition of what is off-limits.
A Christian Coalition representative said the group prefers less regulation and did not seek "burdensome regulations," though some regulation might be necessary because of actions taken by some broadband-network providers.
Michele Combs, vice president of communications for the Christian Coalition, cited AT&T's blocking of political speech (anti-administration lyrics in a Pearl Jam concert), Verizon Communications' blocking of text messages and the AP test of Comcast peer-to-peer network management in which the downloading of a King James Bible was blocked.
Networks must not be allowed to block political speech, Combs said.
Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office, blamed FCC inaction and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Brand X ruling for network "gatekeepers" increasingly controlling access to content.
In 2005, the Supreme Court upheld the FCC's decision that phone networks' Internet services were not subject to the same mandatory access provisions as telephone common-carrier service. In the interests of regulatory parity, it said, the commission has since extended that to cable, satellite and other network providers.
Frederickson said those provisions, which had been applied to data services as far back as the late 1960s, allowed the Internet to flourish.
Nondiscrimination principles do not violate network operators' free speech, Frederickson said, adding that network operators aren't speakers but provide wires the same way telephone companies do.
The free speech of users and content providers is the essential factor, Frederickson said, stating that any network management must be equitable and not used as a "cover" for blocking certain types of content.
Frederickson also called for legislation.
"Congress should act to protect the rights of all Internet users to send and receive lawful content free of censorship from government or business," she said. "Restoring meaningful rules that protect Internet users from corporate censorship is vital to the future of free speech on the Internet."
Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America, spoke about network management, stating that the real bottleneck is not networks but the illegal peer-to-peer file sharing that is killing the songwriting business. He said is concerned about the possibility of legislation that would impede networks' ability to manage traffic or employ technologies for detecting illegal files.
Carnes said 5 percent of Internet users account for 70 percent of peer-to-peer traffic, 90 percent of which is illegal. He said studies showed that the majority of pirates would stop if their networks warned them or made them stop.
