House Ignores Public, Sells Out the Internet through Passage of COPE Act

From Free Press, June 9, 2006

http://www.freepress.net/news/15952

Today the U.S. House passed the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement(COPE) Act without meaningful network neutrality provisions promoted by the diverse,right-left www.savetheinternet.com coalition of public interest and business groups.

The 152 to 269 vote coincides with a massive lobbying effort by telephone companies to enter the national television market and prevent preservation of network neutrality requirements.

“Special interest advocates from telephone and cable companies have flooded the Congress with misinformation delivered by an army of lobbyists to undermine decades-long federal practice of prohibiting network owners from discriminating against competitors to shut out competition.

Unless the Senate steps in, today’s vote marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as an engine of new competition, entrepreneurship and innovation,”
said Consumers Union Senior Policy Analyst Jeannine Kenney.

“The American public favors an open and neutral Internet and does not want gatekeepers taxing innovation and throttling the free market,” said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press.....