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Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996
Sender: "Steve Eppley" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: cr> Crawford: Democracy Hosed by Telecom Dildo (Please Read
Rick Crawford wrote:
>Democracy Hosed by Telecom Dildo: Mass-Mediated Mutilation
[snip]
>I want to be absolutely clear that the "indecency" provisions
>in this bill are _not_ its biggest problem. That's merely censorship
>by the *government*. The major problem with this bill is that it
>increases the already vast and unaccountable power of *corporate* censors,
[snip]
Yes, and the indecency lightning rod is *still* distracting most
folks, with unwitting complicity by CDT, ACLU, etc.
In addition to gaining censorship power (remember the 90's Channel?
the union advertising rejected from support of Jim Hightower's show?
the squelched anti-Telecomm Bill ads?), the Owners will also be able
to dump flat rate pricing after the shakeouts, assuming there's ever
any true competition that makes them wait that long. Losing flat
rate on local phone calls, or losing flat rate from ISPs, will have a
significant effect on the character of the net.
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Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996
Sender: Panayiotis Evangelopoulos <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: cr> Have we been over-reacting?
Jim Barlow wrote:
>
> Well, I read the piece and I'm sorry but I don't agree. It
>obviously mistrusts the market and believes in government regulation. I
>feel just the opposite.
I fully agree with Jim Barlow
Panayiotis Evangelopoulos
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Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996
Sender: •••@••.••• (Allen L Marshall)
Subject: Re: cr> Have we been over-reacting?
I'm replying to the subject and not the original message.
Personally, I thought it'd never happen. I thought, "Surely, no one would
allow this law to pass."
And then it passed.
And I thought, "Surely, Pres. Clinton would not sign this bill into law.
He's up for re-election this year."
And he signed it. Not only did he sign it, but I heard him on the radio
lauding the Telecom bill (and neglecting to mention the CDA.).
Now, I hear that various groups across the US are working now to fight the
bill, to block enforcement until after a case has been made against the
Communications Decency Act.
Now, I think, we can't over-react. This is OUR LAST CHANCE to fight back
against the familytary. If we blow this one, the Internet will be one
great big Disney cartoon!
+http://www.netaxs.com/people/cratagus/homepage.html
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Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996
From: James Love <•••@••.•••>
To: Multiple recipients of list <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Compaq and Intel Complaint in PacBell ISDN case
Posted by:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
James Love, •••@••.•••
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036; v. 202/387-8030; f. 202/234-5176
Consumer Project on Technology; http://www.essential.org/cpt/cpt.html
Taxpayer Assets Project; http://www.essential.org/tap/tap.html
Forwarded mesage:
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 96
From: Dhruv Khanna <•••@••.•••>
BEFORE THE
PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
________________________________________ )
Compaq Computer Corporation and Intel )
Corporation )
)
Complainants, )
) C.____________
vs. )
)
Pacific Bell (U-1001-C), )
)
Defendant )
_________________________________________ )
COMPLAINT ON GROUNDS OF PACIFIC BELL'S UNJUST
AND UNREASONABLE RATES AND CHARGES, AND
PRACTICES, AND INADEQUATE SERVICE FOR ITS
INTEGRATED SERVICES DIGITAL NETWORK (ISDN) SERVICES
~--<snips in what follows>--~
7. The PC has been transformed from a stand-alone computing
device to a multi-faceted communications tool of very significant
public interest:
o More than one-thirds of all homes in the U.S. already have one or
more PCs.
8. Pacific Bell's network is a very substantial and
critical part of the nation's "public switched telephone network"
9. PC users are increasingly making use of the PC's
communications capabilities.
12. The bandwidth that can be derived from analog POTS even
using the fastest modems is simply inadequate for graphics-rich,
video and other multimedia content.
VIOLATION NO. 1
(UNJUST AND UNREASONABLE RATES
VIOLATION NO. 2
(INADEQUATE, INEFFICIENT, UNJUST AND UNREASONABLE ISDN SERVICES --
VIOLATION NO. 3
(UNJUST AND UNREASONABLE RULES AND PRACTICES -- Sections 453, 489,
_____________________________________
FRANK GILL DHRUV KHANNA
Senior Vice President Dhruv Khanna, Esq.
Intel Corporation Senior Attorney
______________________________________
JEFFREY A. CAMPBELL
Jeffrey A. Campbell, Esq.
Manager, Federal Government Affairs
Compaq Computer Corporation
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Moderator:
This may be a preview of the kind of turf battles and infrastructure
shakeouts we'll see lots more of as the robber barons begin to stake out
territory. I'm rooting for the complaintants in this case, who are
fighting the good fight for all of us PC users against one of the giant
baby bells. ("We don't have to care, we're the phone company.")
Perhaps cyber-rights, and/or CPSR, should endeavor to make contact with
companies with an interest in level-playing field economics in cyberspace.
Besides the two above, there are all the ISV's, commercial web sites,
software and content vendors, etc. We could start a "fair-market-net" list
and provide a useful public service by facilitating communication among
that constituency.
We need to acknowledge that our lobbying/political-activism tactics have so
far not yielded sufficient positive outcomes. Our "networking" so far has
been mostly limited to cross-posting and exchanging web pointers with other
parties. If we could move into real dialog with organizations sharing our
concerns, we might have more of an impact in the follow-up battles to come.
Commercial players get more respect than public-interest groups in many
cases, because they conform to the dominant religion of the day --
free-enterprise economics.
Our participation in the ACLU action adds a certain on-the-frontlines
credibility to any leadership/organizational intiatives we may wish to
undertake.
Thoughts?
-rkm
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Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996
Sender: John Whiting <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Molly Ivins on telecom bill (clipping)
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
From: Larry or Lynn Tunstall, INTERNET:•••@••.•••
TO: John Whiting, 100707,731
DATE: 08/02/96 01:57
RE: Molly Ivins on telecom bill (clipping)
THE BIG TELECOM RIP-OFF GLIDES THROUGH CONGRESS
By MOLLY IVINS
~--<snips follow>--~
Item No. 2 -- When you hear a right-wing Republican like Rep. Thomas
Bliley Jr. of Virginia, the tool of the tobacco industry, claim,
''Today, we have broken up two of the biggest government monopolies
left, local telephone service and cable television,'' you should run
screaming from the hall in terror. You know this is not a man given to
breaking up monopolies.
Item No. 3 -- The story so far: In anticipation of the great free-for-
all of market competition Bliley and others promise this bill will
bring, the following has already happened: Disney bought Cap Cities/ABC;
Westinghouse bought CBS; AT&T split itself into three parts and is
laying off 40,000 workers (Bliley says the bill will ''create thousands
of new jobs''); merger talks are already under way between two of the
giant Bell companies, Nynex and Bell Atlantic; the major players,
including cable and software companies, have already formed numerous
partnerships, with cross-ownership deals so complex that it looks like a
spider's web when you make a chart of it.
...The digital broadcasting spectrum is the public airwaves, folks; that's
our property. We could have made a hole in the national debt with that
money; we could have set aside zillions for educational programming for
children; we could have wired every school in the country for computer
access. But what we're likely to get out of this is zip. Although the
digital broadcast spectrum section of the bill is ''in abeyance'' for
now, if you look at the voting (414-16 in the House and 91-5 in the
Senate), you can see how much appetite our politicians have for taking
on the broadcasters.
...Item No. 5 -- The telecommunications industry just got itself the finest
bill that money can buy. Telecom has given $40 million to Congress
during the last 10 years -- $1.2 million in political action committee
money during the last six months of '95 alone. Politicians in key
positions to affect the bill got the most.
Item No. 6 -- This is the most important piece of legislation since
health care reform was on the table; it will affect our lives in more
ways and longer and cost us more money than anything short of health
care reform. So how come your faithful news media have told you squat
about it?
Look at who owns us, bubba. I'm a professional anti-conspiracy theorist,
and I think there's too much paranoia in this country already, but I'm
telling you, it's right there in front of all of us. The reason you know
jack about this bill is because the people who own the media are the
ones who are going to make all the money from it. They bought the
politicians for $40 million. This bill is not going to ''increase
competition,'' for God's sake. It's going to lead to a merger frenzy
that will make last summer look like kindergarten.
When I first started doing one-minute editorials for a local television
station, I wondered how I could possibly say anything useful about
anything in 60 seconds. Then I realized that it doesn't take that long
to say, ''Hang the bastards.'' Let's.
------
Molly Ivins is a Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist.
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Posted by Richard K. Moore (•••@••.•••) Wexford, Ireland
Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/
CyberLib: http://www.internet-eireann.ie/cyberlib
Materials may be reposted in their entirety for non-commercial use.
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