[Laura Scott also blogs at pingVision and rare pattern]

It's not very often that you see MoveOn.org, the Christian Coalition, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Gun Owners of America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the American Library Association, and Craig Newmark of Craigslist on the same side of the political fences. (Where's the ninja? Read on....)

Today was a small victory:

The broad, nonpartisan movement for Internet freedom notched a major victory today, when a bipartisan majority of the House Judiciary Committee passed the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006" - a bill that offers meaningful protections for Network Neutrality, "the First Amendment of the Internet."

20 members of the Commitee (6 Republicans and 14 Democrats) voted for the bipartisan Bill, and only 13 against.

Today's vote would have been unthinkable three weeks ago.

There's been some skepticism expressed here about "net neutrality." I hate to disagree with PHAT Mommy, but I don't really see how, by passing "net neutrality,"

Congress could actually hinder the development of new and exciting Internet technologies that we are not even aware of yet. Not to mention pave the way for {shudder} taxation.

As someone who works in what I, at least, consider very exciting new internet technologies, I consider the traditional neutrality of the internet as nothing but a help ... and certainly don't see how "net neutrality" is a gateway to taxation. Congress has refrained from taxing the neutral internet so far. If Congress wants to tax, it will tax. I see that as a separate issue.

The biggest opposition to "net neutrality" is organized under Hands Off the Internet, whose flagship members include the big telcos and cellular companies who want to be able to sell exclusive rights to your eyeballs. I'm much to decided on this issue to present their arguments, so I leave it to them to explain.

For what I think is the most amusing explanation of what "net neutrality" is about, Ask a Ninja!....

[Found via Table of Malcontents.]

For a more scholarly take, on MIT's website, timble offers some historical perspective:

Twenty-seven years ago, the inventors of the Internet[1] designed an architecture[2] which was simple and general. Any computer could send a packet to any other computer. The network did not look inside packets. It is the cleanness of that design, and the strict independence of the layers, which allowed the Internet to grow and be useful. It allowed the hardware and transmission technology supporting the Internet to evolve through a thousandfold increase in speed, yet still run the same applications. It allowed new Internet applications to be introduced and to evolve independently.

When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to ask anyone's permission. [3]. The new application rolled out over the existing Internet without modifying it. I tried then, and many people still work very hard still, to make the Web technology, in turn, a universal, neutral, platform. It must not discriminate against particular hardware, software, underlying network, language, culture, disability, or against particular types of data.

Anyone can build a new application on the Web, without asking me, or Vint Cerf, or their ISP, or their cable company, or their operating system provider, or their government, or their hardware vendor.

It is of the utmost importance that, if I connect to the Internet, and you connect to the Internet, that we can then run any Internet application we want, without discrimination as to who we are or what we are doing. We pay for connection to the Net as though it were a cloud which magically delivers our packets. We may pay for a higher or a lower quality of service. We may pay for a service which has the characteristics of being good for video, or quality audio. But we each pay to connect to the Net, but no one can pay for exclusive access to me.

...

1. Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn and colleagues
2. TCP and IP
3. I did have to ask for port 80 for HTTP

In another Save the Internet blog post today, tkarr writes:

Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott [no relation] testified before the Senate to day on behalf of SavetheInternet.com coalition members Free Press, Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of America. This from his statement:

Civic engagement on network neutrality represents the most diverse public response to a communications policy issues in recent history. A grassroots effort led by the "Save the Internet" Coalition (www.savetheinternet.com) includes nearly 700 organizations, from small community groups to large national organizations. Banded together in this coalition are the Gun Owners of America, Feminist Majority, Parents Television Council, American Library Association, Consumers Union, and Educause. Network Neutrality is also supported by AARP, the ACLU, the Christian Coalition and the National Religious Broadcasters.

More than 700,000 individuals have signed a petition to Congress demanding Internet freedom through meaningful Network Neutrality. Thousands of bloggers of all political stripes and interests, from Daily Kos and Instapundit to video gamers, musicians and educators, have championed the issue and encouraged public involvement in the campaign. The world's most renowned experts on Internet technology, law, and policy have written prominently on the issue. This massive civic coalition stands next to a similarly large and unprecedented coalition in the commercial sector, joining together the Internet content and technology industries. Google, Amazon, Intel, Microsoft, eBay, are joined by hundreds of smaller online retailers and technology firms. The campaign to preserve Network Neutrality protections is perhaps the most diverse set of public and private interests backing any single issue in Washington today.

Scott urged the Senators on the Commerce Committee to support Sens. Snowe and Dorgan's "Internet Freedom Preservation Act." Scott concluded:

The choice before the Committee is clear: allow consumers through an unfettered online marketplace to decide which businesses succeed or fail; or allow the dominant telephone and cable duopoly to use its marketplace power to exclude the entrepreneurs who offer consumers affordable and innovative communications products and services. We urge you to adopt the former direction. The future of the Internet, the health of the communications marketplace and the well-being of consumers depends on it.

Read Scott's full statement here.