Between The Lines - Michael Copps: Internet Freedom in Jeopardy Unless Public Takes Urgent Action to Preserve Net Neutrality (Week Ending May 23, 2014)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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Internet Freedom in Jeopardy Unless Public Takes Action to Preserve Net Neutrality

Posted May 14, 2014

Interview with Michael Copps, former Federal Communications Commission commissioner, conducted by Scott Harris. Transcript compiled by Evan Beider.

When a Washington D.C. appeals court threw out the Federal Communications Commission’s rules on the important principle known as Net Neutrality on Jan. 14, the future of a free and open Internet in the U.S. was jeopardized. This became clear when FCC Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules in line with the court ruling that would allow Internet service providers to charge content providers a premium fee to access faster delivery connections to reach end users, undermining an open, democratic Internet.

Internet freedom advocates responded by organizing a campaign opposing the new rules, and the FCC was flooded with hundreds of thousands of phone calls, emails and a protest encampment outside its offices. As a result of widespread public disapproval, as well as opposition from small start-ups, as well as large companies like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter, FCC Chair Wheeler said he would revise his original rules that will be submitted to a full commission meeting on May 15.

But Net Neutrality advocates assert that nothing short of reclassifying broadband Internet service under Title II, or “common carrier” status of the Communications Act, would preserve an open Internet for generations to come. However, lobbyists for the nation’s largest cable and phone companies, including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have already made it known that they’ll fight such a regulatory change. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who served on the Commission from 2001 to 2011. Here he explains why he’s urging the public to take immediate action to preserve net neutrality and Internet freedom.

MICHAEL COPPS: Chairman Tom Wheeler – who’s the relatively new chairman of the FCC, used to head the cable association and the wireless association and is a friend of the president’s – came with a proposal for the commission, nobody has yet seen this other than other commissioners at the FCC, but they leaked a lot of it out, and lo and behold, it appeared that he was going to propose in there that there was really nothing wrong about having these arrangements where an Internet service provider could provide fast lanes for those who could pay for them, like the one percent, and everybody else, like the 99 percent, put them in the slow lane. And that’s a whole denial of the great opportunity-creating potential of the Internet and the small "d" democratic potential of the Internet.

There was a tremendous outcry against this when that news leaked out and that’s been one of the main stories here in Washington, D.C. ever since. And today we are told that the chairman circulated a second or a third draft, again nobody has really seen it, but it’s going to be reportedly a little more open-ended, and it will say, "Well, maybe we should … what do you think about going to Title 2." Although, I think, from the leaks that I’ve heard, that there’s still a presumption there that we would base it on the way Chairman Janikowski did in that ambiguous part of the law. So, we’ll have to see what’s going to happen. The whole future of the Internet, it seems to me, is at stake here and what’s decided on this network neutrality item plus the pending Time Warner Cable-Comcast merger, those two things are going to set the direction of the Internet for a long time to come, for years to come, maybe for generations to come, so, I’m pleased to see people reacting, the public reacting, but to make it really happen and to make sure at the end of the road that we get these network neutrality rules. It’s going to take a massive, massive expression from the grassroots of America that the American people don’t want this.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Commissioner Copps, in the court ruling they talked about former FCC Chair Janikowski not issuing net neutrality rules under the common carrier rules, and that’s a rule, as I understand it, that now applies to our, you know, our landline telephones, you know, for these last many decades. But how would the FCC change in designation of the Internet to common carrier fix the problem of net neutrality?

MICHAEL COPPS: Well, I don’t know that it would fix it, but it would sure … it’s a necessary first step, and this is, as you say, how we regulated plain old telephone service, that’s where telecommunications is. I think when the telecommunications law was passed in 1996, plenty of people knew that broadband was telecommunications and advanced telecommunications and thought so. And it wasn’t until after I got the commission, which was 2001, in 2002, then chairman Michael Powell, who now runs the cable association, and his majority at the commission said, "Oh, that cable modem that brings Internet service into your house, that’s not telecommunications at all, that’s an information service, take it out of Title 2, take it out of common carrier and put it into this other ambiguous part of the law."

A couple of years later, they did the same for telecommunication service, not just the cable but the AT&T and the Verizon fiber and all that "that’s not telecommunications, that’s the information service," so suddenly you have this most important infrastructure of the 21st century, I think, which is broadband, so central to the progress of the country and to the welfare of all of us as individuals, taken out of any meaningful public oversight, doesn’t even come with the simple protections of a company plain old telephone service.

I mean, you know, people fought for those protections for years and got them: common carriers, reasonable prices, comparable services between rural and urban areas, protections for public safety, privacy protections, and all that. Why would we make a transition to broadband telecommunications and say, "Oh, this doesn’t come with any of those consumer protections?" I mean you talk about a giant leap backwards, I can’t think of one bigger leap than that.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Maybe, in the 30 seconds we have left, tell our listeners what’s the most effective thing they can do to make their voice heard on this issue of net neutrality.

MICHAEL COPPS: I think they need to speak out. They can get in touch with the FCC directly, elected officials, visit our website as I said, but just talk it up to your family and your friends and your neighbors and be a part of this grassroots effort because there’s so much money and such an army of lobbyists in the other side, and even though I think we all understand the … not all, but most of the people listening to this show understand the importance of what we’re talking about tonight. It’s not going to happen unless we have a real grassroots push, and the time for that is now. If we let them pass rules that are inadequate, we’re going to be stuck with them for a long, long time and that’s a denial of the Internet and a denial of American democracy, both.

Find information on groups waging the current campaign to preserve Internet freedom by referring to the list of links below.