I want to prevent us reifying 'the Internet' as something to be preserved like some people want to preserve the American Constitution as it was written.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Congress should consult experts and consider alternatives and make 100% sure that any step it takes to police the Internet doesn't change the Internet as we know it.
History is rife with examples of governments taking actions to 'protect' their citizens from harm by controlling access to information and inhibiting freedom of expression and other freedoms outlined in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We must make sure, collectively, that the Internet avoids a similar fate.
The federal government seeks to control and regulate the Internet, but the last thing this Congress should be doing is trying to stifle public debate online.
The United States invented the Internet and it has been our gift to the world, paid for by our taxpayers. The U.N.'s desire to take that gift as a means of increasing its power must be stopped.
Both the American people and nations that censor the internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote internet freedom.
The question is not whether we want to keep this open, neutral Internet - we do, or should - but whether government rulemaking can give us the result we want.
It is important to distinguish between the power of the Internet to make the great change it can, and the limits and vulnerabilities of that change without real-time political mobilization deployed globally to protect those who venture out, especially in closed societies, into the heady new vistas it offers.
The only way the Internet will continue to remain the thriving medium it has become today is to keep it under the control of the United States.
The idea that you can somehow erase the Internet is silly.
To fully absorb the lessons of the Internet, urge the Internet-centrists, we need to reshape our political and social institutions in its image.