Campaign Financing Decision and the Open Internet 

The FCC should consider the impact of today's Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, on the access of individuals and small organizations to the electronic media. Clearly, with corporations free to engage in political speech, the Commission should work to support media for the citizens such as Internet broadcasting under a system of network neutrality. The candidates and policies favored by large corporations will get a lot of money and airtime. America will need an open Internet where individuals and small organizations can present their candidates and policies. In addition, the Commission should expand the low power FM (LPFM) broadcasting service by allowing establishment of the 10-Watt broadcasting stations. Also, the Commission should issue a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on my proposal for neighborhood oriented millimeter wave broadcasting service. My proposal for millimeter-wave broadcasting is made all that more useful by the possible court action against the Commission on network neutrality. The text of my proposal is attached to this message.
Nickolaus E. Leggett
Analyst

Bill of Rights for the Open Internet 

The Commission should establish a broadband “Bill of Rights” that will allow individual Americans and small organizations the basic right to broadcast and communicate over broadband. This Bill of Rights should include the following features:
1. All individual Internet stations have the right to broadcast and communicate over the Internet without interference by corporations and/or government.
2. Any charges or fees must be applied equally to users without favoritism.
3. If broadband usage exceeds existing capacity, usage can be rationed (in terms of bits per second) with all Internet users having the same proportional reduction in capacity for the duration of the shortage. There must be no favoritism at all for large organizations.
4. Government and/or private organizations may not monitor the content of Internet transmissions unless such monitoring is done by lawful court order. This will establish the appropriate privacy of Internet web casts, web sites, and email traffic.
5. First Amendment rights on the Internet shall be the same as the First Amendment rights for print and radio/TV broadcast media.
6. Intellectual property rights, such as copyright, shall be the same as the rights applying to print and radio/TV broadcast media.
7. All Internet station journalists and bloggers shall be recognized as legitimate journalists with the same rights of access as print or conventional broadcast station journalists.
8. The freedom of association and assembly shall apply to gatherings conducted on the Internet.

We must protect all Americans’ access to Internet broadcasting and all other uses of the Internet. This is basic to America’s democratic future.