Speak out for Internet Freedom Thursday in Montpelier!

*** News: Thursday, August 31, 12 noon, News Conference ***

Thousands of Vermont Residents To Deliver A Message To Sen. Jeffords: Defend Internet Freedom

THURSDAY: Local members of diverse SaveTheInternet.com Coalition will deliver over 3,200 petition signatures to Jeffords’s Montpelier Office

Montpelier - This Thursday at 12:00 pm at Senator James Jeffords’s Montpelier office, local members of the diverse SavetheInternet.com coalition will urge the senator to defend Internet freedom for small businesses and local families during an important upcoming Senate vote.

WHO: Local residents in SavetheInternet.com Coalition, including VPIRG, Small Dog Electronics, Project Harmony, Vermont Broadband Council, ACME and the Center for Media and Democracy

WHAT: Petition delivery to Sen. Jeffords – over 3,200 Vermont residents supporting Net Neutrality

WHERE: Sen. Jeffords’s office – 435 Stone Cutter’s Way, Montpelier, Vermont

WHEN: 12:00 Noon this Thursday, August 31, 2006

Big telephone and cable companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are spending millions lobbying Congress to eliminate Net Neutrality. This rule, in place since the Internet was created, prevents Internet service providers from deciding which websites open quickly on people’s computers based on which sites pay them the most. The House already voted to eliminate Net Neutrality. In September, Sen. Jeffords could be the deciding vote in the Senate.

Over 750 diverse groups have come together as the SavetheInternet.com Coalition – including local small businesses, VPIRG and other leading consumer groups, MoveOn, the Christian Coalition, Gun Owners of America, Craig from Craigslist, musicians REM and Moby, Free Press, and others. This coalition collected over 1 million petition signatures online, including over 3,200 in Vermont. Local residents will deliver these petitions to Jeffords’s offices Thursday.

“My phone or cable company should not be telling me which websites I can open on my computer,” said Lea Woods, a resident of Montpelier who signed the online petition to preserve Net Neutrality. “Senator Jeffords has a choice—he can take away Internet freedom by turning the Internet over to giant corporations or he can side with constituents by voting to preserve Net Neutrality.”

“Small businesses like mine depends on a neutral Internet, where the website of a small entrepreneur can be viewed just as easily as the site of a big corporation,” said Don Mayer, whose Waitsfield business Small Dog Electronics has become the largest Apple computers specialist in New England by relying on the Internet for over 80% of its sales. “Without net neutrality, I doubt that Small Dog Electronics would exist today. Net neutrality is essential to one of the most important and growing sectors of Vermont's economy, small businesses that operate on the internet to extend their reach outside of our state. We need Senator Jeffords to declare his support for Net Neutrality so that small businesses and everyday families have an equal right to communicate online as giant corporations.”

Telephone and cable companies have already made clear what they would do to the Internet if Net Neutrality is eliminated. On December 1, 2005, the Washington Post reported: “William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.”
(Link: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1902)

Jon Stewart informed millions of his viewers about this issue (http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2015). MoveOn and the Christian Coalition wrote a joint op-ed (http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1884). For more information, check out www.SavetheInternet.com.