Rep. Ed Markey | Washington, D.C. | April 4

The Agonist - First off, I want to thank Sean-Paul and the rest of Team Agonist for inviting me to post here today, as well as for all their hard work in promoting the important issue of network neutrality. I believe that this is a critically important issue, as it addresses a fundamental aspect of the Internet that is responsible for so much of its success: no one owns it.

Since its inception, the Internet has represented an unprecedented free market of ideas, where the quality of a thought or innovation is more closely correlated to success than the money one pays to advertise it. Sure, there are groups that have dropped millions of dollars into websites in an effort to buy their way onto our computer screens, but if the dot-com crash in the late 90's taught us anything, it was that in the end it is the new ideas and daring innovations that drive success on the Internet, not the amount of money spent promoting flashy but vapid websites.

Sadly, some of the communications colossi and their allies in Congress are trying to change this, with an ill-conceived provision in a new telecommunications bill proposed by Representatives Joe Barton (R-TX) that threatens to erect a toll booth on the information superhighway, permanently changing the fundamental nature of the Internet for the worst.

more after the jump and here's a link to the proposed bill. MyDD has some solid comments too.