This in from John E. tonight!

Dear Friend,

When MoveOn and The Christian Coalition agree about something, it's
a good bet they're right. Groups as wide-ranging as Gun Owners of
America on one side and U.S. PIRG and the One America Committee on
the other are fighting to keep the Internet the way it is now - free
and open to anyone with access to a computer.

Today, everyone in the world can communicate through the Internet on
an equal basis. A small-time programmer like Pierre Omidyar can start
an auction site out of his home office and turn it into eBay. A
blogger like Josh Marshall can post his opinions on Talking Points
Memo and end up attracting more readers than the country's biggest
newspapers.

On the Internet, big corporations are on equal footing with everyday
people. And it needs to stay that way.

Right now, special interests are pushing bills through Congress that
would divide the Internet in two. Corporate deals would determine
which web sites would run incredibly fast and which ones would barely
run at all. Some users might not be able to access sites operated by
regular people.

I don't want Internet service providers to decide which web sites I
can look at. And I know you don't either.

Last week, the House of Representatives fell in line with industry
demands and passed a telecommunications bill without "net
neutrality" protections. That means our only hope of stopping them
is in the Senate. Please tell your Senator to keep the Internet the
way it is now - free and open to everyone.

Sign the petition now.

(http://oneamericacommittee.com/action/sign-petitions/email/openinternet_act)

Some people fear that creating two tiers of the Internet could allow
service providers to shut down web sites whose politics they didn't
like. But even if they didn't discriminate based on content, the
access fees could marginalize smaller and poorer players.

This is the completely wrong direction. We should be making the
Internet more accessible, not less. We should be working to connect
rural areas, schools in poor neighborhoods and other areas where
people have not yet benefited from access to innovation and
technology.

The companies that want to charge for the Internet are running a
slick public relations campaign to make themselves look like a
netroots operation. That's why the folks on our side need to wage a
real - and overwhelming - netroots effort to make sure Congress
understands that Americans want to keep the Internet the way it is -
free and open to everyone.

I'm turning to you to ask for your help. You know how important
the Internet is to free speech, especially political speech. And you
know what it takes to turn out the netroots. Let's show them how
it's done.

Sign the petition now.
(http://oneamericacommittee.com/action/sign-petitions/email/openinternet_act)

And then, use the Internet to protect the Internet. Please forward
this email to your friends and family.

Thank you for taking action.

Your friend,


John Edwards
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I had always been somewhat down on him for his held-way-too-long support of the IWR, but after watching Joe Biden equivocate on Net Neutrality, it's good to see a leading Democrat make it a major issue. Now, if only Edwards was still in the Senate, and could affect the outcome directly...

John Edwards GETS it!

We must stop this NOW!!!

n/t

:kick: