Here's the quid pro quo

I've been hammering on net neutrality in my day-to-day life of late, largely due to the Bergen County Democratic Organization's anointed weasel, Paul Aronsohn, refusing to give a straight answer about the subject until bullied into it on Blue Jersey -- and even then just making a terse statement.

When the story broke yesterday about the phone companies giving all of your phone, e-mail, and web site records to the Bush Administration so they can determine if you are a terrorist (read: anyone who opposes them), it occurred to me that there may be a connection between the phone companies violating the laws relative to phone privacy by turning over these records, and their efforts to control the internet entirely.

Dana Blankenhorn opines on what he believes is the quid pro quo between Big Telco and the Bush Administration:

They have ignored past promises and refused to deliver more than a trickle of broadband to customers.

They have been given a monopoly on DSL, with competitors thrown out by courts and regulators.

They have been allowed to merge willy-nilly, putting the old Bell System back together again, this time without regulation.

They have been allowed to steal frequencies intended for small businesses through dummy corporations.

They have been supported in efforts to blackmail large Web businesses and destroy network neutrality, the guiding principle of the Internet.

Why? Why was this corruption allowed? Why was this theft not checked?

Now we know.