Well, here we go:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), ranking member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee filed an amendment to an appropriations bill aimed at preventing the Federal Communications Commission from adopting net neutrality regulation.
Hutchison's amendment, co-signed by John Ensign (R-Nev.) and six other Republican lawmakers, would "prohibit the FCC from using any appropriated funds to adopt, implement or otherwise litigate any network neutrality based rules, protocols or standards."
...
Hutchison's amendment is to a bill for military and veterans construction projects.
Notice that the rider is attached to a veterans bill, which will make it significantly more difficult to attack. After all, who wants to vote against veterans? (9/11 responders, on the other hand, are fair game these days for Republicans, I guess.)
Furthermore, this comes at a time when the FCC is considering Net Neutrality rules. Basically, as far as I can tell, Hutchinson is attempting to cut the FCC off before they get a chance to push forward Net Neutrality legislation.
And Hutchinson is definitely going on the attack in the usual Republican manner of spewing absolute bullshit and turning the truth on it's head:
"FCC Chairman Genachowski needs to stand down from his plans to impose onerous net neutrality restrictions. If he decides to move forward, I will explore all options available to keep the FCC from implementing regulations that will threaten the innovation and job creation opportunities associated with the Internet."
It doesn't help that a good number of the supporters of Net Neutrality took a beating during the election. It really isn't that important to most people when you ask them. But it is truly where freedom of the press still resides; the destruction of Net Neutrality will be the demise of the free and unregulated press in the nation. Especially when, given the Wikileaks saga, the government is trying to draw a distinction between journalists and regular people with a printing press internet connection.
So - I realize that there's an awful lot going on right now, and folks are getting tired of fighting what seem to be constant uphill battles. But this one's important, so please, contact your Senators, Congresspeople, and the White House.
Update: Thanks for the rec list. Hopefully, this will get some visibility (especially since the Republican's made their move on "take out the trash day"), and people will call those on the Hill and the White House. This is a battle that we'll probably have to fight more than once, but it's definitely on right now.
Update 2: Hat tip to cotterperson for pointing out that there is opposition by some supporters of Net Neutrality to the FCC's approach. See this subthread for some links concerning this.
Update 3: The rider appears to be attached to the omnibus appropriations bill making its way through the Senate H.R. 3082 (link).
Update 4: JekyllnHyde points out that the appropriations bill may be dead, and thus, the rider may also be dead. Certainly the tech community hasn't gotten this news yet; I'm still trying to determine what the actual state of this thing is at this point in time. See this sub thread for links and discussion.
Final Update: Thanks for the discussion. This old programmer is tired and is heading off to bed. Keep those calls up; it's a fight worth fighting.