Don’t Let Verizon Edit Internet
Think you have the right to speak freely via cellphones, websites and social media?
Well, Verizon doesn’t. In fact, the telecom giant is now claiming that the First Amendment gives it the right to “edit” you and everyone else on the Internet.
Verizon is going to court to try to get rid of any and all Net Neutrality rules. In the first brief filed in its lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission, Verizon argues that the First Amendment gives the company the right to serve as the Internet’s editor-in-chief. Seriously.
Whether we’re texting friends, sharing photos on Facebook, or posting important updates on Twitter, we’re connecting to the Internet via privately controlled networks. Yet Verizon and other companies that own these networks are distorting the meaning of the First Amendment to claim their right to censor you online.
Verizon is insisting that it has the right to block all digital communications that cross its wires, from photographs of your cousin’s backyard barbecue to YouTube videos of human rights violations in Syria.
It’s a preposterous claim—and dangerous for anyone who cares about preserving free speech online.
Verizon’s claim that it has “editorial discretion” over your speech is absurd. And it shows just how far the company is willing to go in trying to control what you do online.
Send this letter [at http://act.freepress.net/sign/verizon_censorship/?akid=3667.9114971.AQndR&rd=1&t=3] to top Verizon executives Lowell McAdams and Ivan Seidenberg. By taking action today, you’re raising the alarm on behalf of everyone’s free speech rights and drawing a line in the sand against any powerful entity that seeks to censor us online.
Timothy Karr
Josh Levy
Matt Wood
FreePress.net
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Drones a New Challenge to Peace, Justice
Thank you for the recent story on drone attacks (“The New Weapon of Choice,” July 19, 2012) and your exposure of this blatant war crime.
We must challenge the American public to do their own research and not so easily accept studies and media reports (often choreographed in the White House) designed to sanction U.S. drones and targeted killings.
Tariq Aziz is a true hero. I hope many more news sources will highlight his desire to help protect his community and his brutal, untimely death.
A little diligent research easily exposes how misleading official drone statements and stats are. What could be more dangerous to the U.S. than for our military and leaders to continue to fire up more and more righteous revenge abroad? How could any one strategy be more effective at recruiting for extremists than these strange and heartless war tactics?
What more does America have to say about justice?
Connie L. Nash
via Internet
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More Jobs Needed
What is the path to more jobs? Mitt Romney and Republicans talk jobs, jobs, jobs, and in the next instant Republicans turn around to block and stall bills and legislation that would add millions of jobs to the economy and workforce. Joblessness is a state of mind and if there are good jobs available, people will take them.
As long as Republican and Tea Party partisanship continues, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) keeps proclaiming that the goal is to make Barack Obama a one-term president, joblessness will remain.
For a year we’ve heard Mitt Romney and Republicans lamenting the job situation, but everyone knows the dirty little secret: more jobs, more prosperity and a healthy economy means the Republicans bite the big one in the 2012 election.
Ron Lowe
via email
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So Much for Springfield’s Residency Requirement!
Word on the street is that the reason it took so long for Longmeadow to approve a liquor license for Franconia Golf Course (which is spread out over that town, Springfield and East Longmeadow, with the clubhouse being located in Longmeadow) this year is because somebody in Longmeadow government tried to get a relative a sweet municipal job in Springfield. When the relative said, “I have to be a resident of Springfield,” that Longmeadow official told the relative, “No, you don’t. You just need a mailing address there.”
As stupidity would have it, when the interview time came, the Springfield interviewer reminded the relative that one of the qualifications was that he had to be a resident of Springfield.
“No I don’t,” the relative quickly replied. “I just have to have a Springfield mailing address.”
Thank you for coming, young man. Next!
Bill Dusty
via Internet
