12:07 PM, Monday, February 25th. I am sitting in Cambridge, MA at Harvard Law School in a lobby area with about 40 other people concerned about the future of the internet.

Why are we sitting in a lobby area? Because the FCC chose a venue for a public hearing that does not provide adequate access to the public. We're not the only people unable to get into the hearing room, there are more folks outside on the steps, in another lobby, and all over the building who would rather be in the "public hearing" on broadband network management practices.

Really the main focus of this hearing is about net neutrality. There are people with signs that say "No one owns the internet"  and similar slogans. Our coalition partners at Free Press have distributed fact sheets about net neutrality to all the people who want to get in. Comcast and Verizon are on the hearing panel to defend their practices that many find to be potentially destructive to the freedom of speech we currently enjoy on the internet.

Also on the panel is Congressman Ed Markey who recently introduced a new bill to preserve net neutrality.

But all the people down here in the lobby, they can't even get in to watch to see if there will be fireworks between the telecom industry reps and the FCC Commissioners and others who support net neutrality. If they are lucky like me, they have a wifi connection and a laptop so they can listen to the live webcast of the hearing. I give the FCC credit for at least having this live webcast, but it doesn't help most of the people here.

I traveled 2.5 hours to get here today from Maine, and there are others who traveled even further and longer. The rumor is that the telecom industry folks went to local job banks and hired people to show up early to fill seats so the people who are here because they care about the issue can't get in. The idea is that they could reduce the pro-net neutrality tone in the room. The space the hearing is in supposedly fits about 200 people, which would have been inadequate even if there weren't paid seat fillers by the telcos.

Granted, I am also grumpy about the parking situation here. I drove from Portland Maine into Boston, and I find there are no parking garages for at least 20 blocks in any direction (according to the local cops I asked), most of the on-street parking is only for people with Cambridge permits, and there aren't a lot of metered spaces. the hearing is scheduled for 6 hours, but all the metered spaces are 2 hours only. If I knew about the lack of parking, I probably would have figured out how to take mass transit from a park and ride somewhere, but one would figure there are some parking lots at Harvard Law School. This is yet another problem with the choice of this venue.

The good news?

there are at least 20 other people here blogging like I am and getting more worked up about the need to do something about net neutrality. Free Press is helping people submit testimony on the subject by videotaping people's comments that they will then submit to the FCC. People are making sure the press that is here covering the event takes our message to the airwaves. The hearing might not be very public, but the public is taking the matter into their own hands.