[tankengine]

I know this has nothing to do with Bmw or cars period. i Just got this email from a buddy from a cadillac forum

If you enjoy using the internet, things may be about to take a drastic turn south.

Right now Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the First Amendment of the
Internet -- a principle called "network neutrality" that preserves the free and open
Internet. Congress needs to hear from you today or they WILL hand over control of
what you do online to companies like AT&T, Verizon and Cablevision.

Politicians are trading favors for campaign donations from these companies. They're
being wooed by people like AT&T's CEO, who says "the Internet can't be free." Sign
this petition to tell your elected representatives to protect Internet freedom now.

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies including AT&T, Verizon,
Cablevision and Time Warner want to be the Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web
sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax web sites to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to
discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and
streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing
field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or
those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of
us on a winding dirt road.

If Congress turns the Internet over to the telephone and cable giants, everyone who
uses the Internet will be affected. Connecting to your office could take longer if
you don't purchase your carrier's preferred applications. Sending family photos and
videos could slow to a crawl. Web pages you always use for online banking, access to
health care information, planning a trip, or communicating with friends and family
could fall victim to pay-for-speed schemes.

What's at stake?

Decisions being made now will shape the future of the Internet for a generation.
Before long, all media — TV, phone and the Web — will come to your home via the same
broadband connection. The dispute over Net Neutrality is about who'll control access
to new and emerging technologies.

On the Internet, consumers are in ultimate control — deciding between content,
applications and services available anywhere, no matter who owns the network.
There's no middleman. But without Net Neutrality, the Internet will look more like
cable TV. Network owners will decide which channels, content and applications are
available; consumers will have to choose from their menu.

Remember, you may not hear much about this in the mainstream as many of these News,
TV, and media companies own in on this debate. They are keeping you quite by
limiting the information available to you; a classic example of exactly why they
should never get full control of the Internet.

More ways this threat to Internet freedom will affect you:
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=threat

Please visit Save The Internet for more information:
http://www.savetheinternet.com

Sign the Petition
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/savethenet

Talk about this with fellow Cadillac owners and enthusiasts here:
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums...tml#post725578

Forward this message to family and friends!

Thank you,

Sal Collaziano
CadillacOwners.com


So Anyways I wanted to post this here because it gets the most hits and maybe someone has heard something about this?

[e90rocks]

I don't believe it. Show me the bill #. These companies don't care about narrowing us, they want an unlimited market. We still have to use their infrastructure to access the net. It provides its own demand, and they reap all the financial benefits. Anyway, the web itself is impossible to control. Even the Iraquis used the internet to communicate when US troops knocked out conventional communications lines in the first Gulf War. Thats the weird thing about the net, it was designed to be impossible to stop, ever since ARPANET.

[spots]

Snopes says its true

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/neutrality.asp

[e90rocks]

Oh, OK. I guess it's real. It sort of makes sense that companies would want to charge more for more bandwidth, etc. If they lay the cables, I can sort of see that. That should probably not be confused with straight censorship issues, although I can see where they overlap.