Some choice quotes from Senator Ted Stevens, R- Alaska as he tried (and succeeded in) shooting down Net Neutrality (a proposed bill addition that would prevent Telecom providers from throttling or blocking content on the 'net, i.e, blocking p2p software, or preventing google video from working if they had a deal with youtube or their own video service unless they get payed [again]).

He's also the leading proponent for the Broadcast Flag which will require all recording and playback equipment to be retrofitted with a chip that will prevent any content marked as "Protected" by the major Studios and Content Providers from being recorded (Macrovision on Steroids) and essentially leaving DVRs, Tivos, the VCR, and most other time shifting devices "dead in the water".

Regarding the Internet:
"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.
It's a series of tubes"

Complaining about slow email:
"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially."

Talking about video over the 'net:
"There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service is now going to go through the internet* and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I don't have to have the type of speed their introducing, but the people who are streaming through 10-12 movies at a time or a WHOLE BOOK AT A TIME, for consumers use, those are not you and me, they're not the consumers, those are providers."

The full impact of this nonsense can't be fully appreciated until you hear the audio, available as an MP3 at the end of the linked article on Wired.

I'm so glad I don't live in Alaska... then again I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of our Senators (Republican and Democrat alike) are as clueless as Stevens. He sounds like he just got over those "new fangled" horseless buggies and a little something called "lectricity" or some such mumbo-jumbo.

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Tags: senator, ted stevens, republican, democrat, alaska, net neutrality, broadcast flag, government