Net Neutrality: An Open Letter to Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-2nd Dist., Iowa)

Dear Rep. Loebsack:

Remember when Exelon Nuclear became Illinois legislator Obama's chief fund-raiser after he watered down a bill he authored REQUIRING nuclear power companies to notify the public in cases of ground-water contamination to SUGGESTING notification (which was current law anyway), to the point where the bill was too meaningless to pass, yet Obama took credit for passage in his Iowa campaign of 2008? A similar state of affairs has occurred with respect to who Pres. Obama appointed as our current FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, who contributed $500,000 to his campaign. Wheeler and his staff have a history of opposing net neutrality. Wheeler is also a former telecom executive.

In 2007, then U.S. Sen. Obama pledged to protect net neutrality with great eloquence.

Yet Pres. Obama’s choice for FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, has chosen not to classify the internet as a utility, which it clearly is, just as landline telephone service and electricity are, although classifying the internet as a utility is within his power. Instead, he's gone the route of bowing to the cable company giants to abolish the internet as we know it. Censorship and inequitable access are looming.

This is why I thought your December 17, 2007 endorsement of Barack Obama within days of the Jan. 3, 2008 Iowa caucuses was so ill advised. A short time after the caucuses, the New York Times wrote a cautionary tale about the character of our future president, because he can be and has been bought:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

We need net neutrality to remain a democracy. We look more and more like a banana republic every day, given wealth inequality, lack of privacy, and censorship of news as well as the censorship and limited access coming soon on the internet unless something is done within the next two weeks to stop it.

Sincerely yours, 

Maria Houser Conzemius