If a true democracy is a "marketplace of ideas," where all ideas have equal opportunity to be heard and fail or succeed based on their merit, then a democracy is only as good as its market. Today, the Internet provides a lively and competitive market, a wonderful forum in which the marketplace of ideas can exist.

However, this forum as we know it is at risk of disappearing. Telecommunications companies are lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would allow for a two-tiered internet, one in which the free and open marketplace is replaced by one where ideas supported by big money are given a central location, while lesser funded - or non-funded - ideas are pushed to the fringes.

This morning I attended a discussion at George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet, where one of the speakers, Paul Misener (a VP at Amazon.com) equated telecommunication companies with railroad companies at the end of the 19th century. Railroad companies, Misener said, like telecommunication companies today, had a monopoly in terms of providing service. Still, although little choice existed for which railroad company to use to transport goods, railroad companies themselves could not choose which brands of produce to carry and which to leave behind. Likewise, as Misener explained, we do not want to allow telecommunications companies to control which ideas are carried on the Internet and which are left behind.

With net neutrality provisions defeated last week in the House, it is critical that we call our Senators today to ask them to support net neutrality and save Internet freedom.