America offline

Last week, the logic board died in my beloved, broadband-accessing, Wi-Fi-compatible, state-of-the-art-operating-system-sporting Apple laptop. And while Apple has been very good about repairing the problem for free, it has meant that -- until it's fixed -- I've been thrown back into the world of the '90s. \nAccess to the Internet is either a question of finding hard-wired watering holes or of dealing with my cantankerous emergency back-up computer which, although only eight years old, now handles the Web about as well as if it were a rusty leftover salvaged from a Soviet submarine. I feel at the mercy of the dinosaurs who determine what's worthy of the 24-hour newscycle.\nIt's amazing how quickly this technology has changed our lives. The U.S. Census Bureau's 2003 Current Population Survey, the most recent available, reports that the proportion of U.S. households with Internet access has tripled since 1997 -- up to 55 percent -- while the Pew Internet and American Life Project has reported that 68 percent of American adults are online regularly. \nConsumer research firm ACNielsen has estimated that 10 percent of the world's population has bought something online, including 89 percent of Americans, with the United States ranking only 11th out of the countries polled. And, according to The Project for Excellence in Journalism, around one-half to two-thirds of Internet users read news stories on the Web on a weekly basis.\nNo wonder, then, that governments seem hot to control the Internet. That this should happen in repressive regimes is not news. Just last week, the Libyan and Egyptian governments were each, respectively, accused of arresting bloggers critical of their regimes. And I've written before about the cynical, possibly sinister attempt by the United Nations and European Union to put the Internet's root servers under their control. But what of our own?\nIn the United States, we've been blessed with a laissez-faire approach to the Internet that has allowed it to develop into the haven for free speech and free commerce it is today. But, as with all freedoms, we in the American public must be active in its defense. \nOn Wednesday, the House of Representatives narrowly failed to pass H.R. 1606, a bill that would enshrine the current practice of exempting Web sites from regulation by the Federal Election Commission. The failure of this bill could be taken as permission for the FEC to regulate political speech on the Web, stifling political debate and analysis in the name of controlling campaign funding. Our representatives must be told that this is unacceptable.\nHere in 2005, we live at a time when millions of citizens are able to connect and interact with millions of others through a technology that puts the power of mass media into the hands of the average individual. This is an unprecedented development in the history of free speech. We don't need the FEC to turn back the clock.