It's refreshing to see Congress put the brakes on the bureaucrats.

The internet protection the net neutrality bill offered was weak, but apparently any efforts to keep the internet open was too much for some Democrats. Worse than Walden's actions are those of supposedly Democratic Oregon Rep Kurt Schrader, who broke ranks and voted to shoot down the net neutrality bill.

The internet protection the net neutrality bill offered was weak

Golly, I had no idea that the 'Net needed government "protection". Of course, I've only been working with networks since 1976, so what the heck would I know?

I just think that "planners" and other bureaucrats have been allowed to run off-leash for far too long.

Enjoy your new Lake Oswego trolley.

What "max" said!

For the past ten years or more, the internet has been a fabulous source of information and communication available to anyone with access to a computer and an ISP. If you don’t think there are people scheming to get their hands on the spigot, either so that they might restrict the flow of information or make fat profits off the interchange, I don’t think you are really awake-- or perhaps you hope to get in on the profit.

I am the last person to be in favor of “bureaucratic” control. In fact, I agree with Julian Assange. The internet has great potential as a source of liberating knowledge and information, and tyrants quiver in their boots at the thought of the population having wide and easy access to it.

It’s also potentially a great source of misinformation, but I’ll happily let the two battle it out on an equal playing field—oops, sorry, the latter phrase is a current conservative buzz word!

Side by side with those possibilities are its potential of being the most powerful tool for spying and tyranny ever to rest in human hands. We’re at the beginning, and it’s our choice which way we go.

I think it is urgently necessary right now to establish rules that protect the positive potentials and restrict the negative. Call that bureaucracy if you wish. But if ACCESS to the internet isn’t guaranteed for the small as well as the big, the poor as well as the rich, its positive potential will evaporate, and what remains will be only its darker-- its very dark-- side.

I fail to see why we need any sort of "protection" when accessing the internet. Even in a smaller city like Reno there are at least a dozen service providers to choose from. You are under no obligation to continue using services from your cable or telco provider unless you made the error of signing up for some years long service deal. And even then you can simply pay up and get another service.