28th amendment: A neutral net

The issue of Net Neutrality has died down since last year, but the threat remains. It’s like when they dumped Megatron at the bottom of the ocean at the end of “Transformers”: You knew he was eventually going to come back stronger than ever (and with a tank form).

The idea that large corporations can potentially buy their way into controlling what content you access online is frightening. The Internet is all about empowering the individual’s voice, and this must not change. The little guy’s blog must be just as accessible as Amazon.com.

The government doesn’t need to directly own Internet Service Providers, but it should guarantee individuals’ right to be heard with a constitutional amendment. It should also stipulate that ISPs cannot unreasonably restrict a customer’s Internet use.

Most of you will not encounter this problem, as you are not downloading the entire series of “The X-Files” onto your home computers, but decisions by Comcast to throttle or cap high-usage clients adds a layer of complexity to another Internet problem: monopolies per district. In many areas, a single company owns the market because it’s so intensive to lay down provider lines. I do not have this part of the amendment nailed down yet, but future lawmakers will need to decide which is best: either breaking up regional monopolies or enforcing a glass ceiling at some reasonable price level.

The amendment in short: All Americans should have access to the Internet in all its honesty and ugliness.
 

E-mail: cquandt@indiana.edu