The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today voted to stop Comcast from blocking legal file-sharing activities on its network as a violation of the FCC's net neutrality principles.

The fact that the FCC felt they had sufficient grounds to hold Comcast accountable shows how egregious the violation was, as the FCC's principles are weak and it has given itself limited enforcement capacity.

It is unclear at this time if Comcast will be fined, but at the very least they must stop blocking peer-to-peer traffic and disclose the methods it uses for "network management."

Last week, Matt Stoller posted a blog at Open Left that made the rounds far and wide announcing that every major Democratic challenger candidate for the US Senate supports net neutrality. He also posted statements from many other players in the political arena supporting net neutrality, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Adam Green of MoveOn.org, labor leaders and others.

But before this gets framed as a "lefty" issue, I would like to take some time to point out supporters of net neutrality who are NOT Democrats or liberals.

The FOX news affiliate in Las Vegas (KVVU) now has McDonald's product placement right smack in the middle of news programming.

The consolidation of our broadcast stations into large conglomerates, like that of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, means that it's more difficult to tell when they are doing something they shouldn't be, like putting McDonald's iced coffee in front of newscasters.

Who's going to call them out? The other broadcast station, also owned by a large media conglomerate, that is or has plans to do the same thing?

If most of us are getting our news from hundreds of outlets, but they are owned by only a handful of corporations, the watchdog media has morphed into an excited lapdog for wealthy special interests.

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A recent story in Broadcasting and Cable titled "Investigative Journalism Under Fire" highlighted so many reasons why we at Common Cause are concerned about media consolidation.

A key passage in the article is as follows:

"Peering under proverbial rocks to bring corruption and abuse of power into the searing light of public scrutiny has always been the role of the watchdog press. And while it is true that the head of a state or federal agency may still end up on the hot seat being grilled by a network correspondent, the genre is on life-support compared to what it once was.

Yesterday, our allies at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (a coalition we are a member of) released a new report titled "Transition in Trouble: Action Needed to Ensure a Successful Digital Television Transition".

This report highlights the problems Americans will face on February 17th, 2009 when all TV transmissions will go to digital instead of analog.

What this means is that millions of Americans, if not prepared, will lose all access to their primary source of news and information. And according to this report, many of those people are NOT prepared for it.

As the report states:
"Broadcast television is the primary news source for most Americans. Especially reliant on free over-the-air television are low-income Americans, seniors, persons with disabilities, non-English speakers, and minorities - many of the communities served by members of the Leadership Conference. These communities also own a disproportionate number of older analog television sets that require a converter box to receive digital broadcasts.

For many members of these communities, free over-the-air broadcast television is a lifeline. It keeps them informed and engaged in their communities and warns them about potential life-threatening situations. Many Americans owe their lives to emergency weather or public safety warnings broadcast to their television sets. "

A key reason Common Cause cares about this is that broadcast TV is also the primary source of information many Americans use to make decisions in our democracy. While of course it should never be the sole source of information, our democracy functions best when information is received from diverse sources, and local news is one of those.

Common Cause supports the recommendations of LCCR's report. We also urge everyone to spread the word about the digital translator coupon program. Go to http://www.dtv2009.gov/ to get a coupon and to learn more about the transition.

Seymour Hersh published a new article in The New Yorker that details information about the CIA and other government agencies' secret involvement in Iran.

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership.

Whatever your own view about our relations with Iran, having a very public and transparent conversation about whether we target this country is absolutely necessary.

The media is where we have discussions like this and while we have seen and heard bits and pieces, alternative news sources remain the best places to get informed.

War is certainly big business, but even bigger is the impact it has on the lives of our troops and their families, not to mention the international condemnation that may follow.

With consequences and sacrifices like these on the line, we need 1. transparency and 2. debate.

Big Media has to be held accountable for their decreasing willingness to hold government accountable.

In an article in The Denver Post yesterday, Aldo Svaldi laid out some interesting information about the reasons why our newspapers are slowly consolidating into a few large hands.

The second part of this story is the impact this kind of change has on democracy. As our newspapers, radio stations and TV stations have gone from many to few, so have the perspectives that are critical in a democracy.

Since 1995, the number of companies owning TV stations has gone down 40%. Since the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Clear Channel has been able to go from the previous 40 radio station limit to owning over 1,200 stations nationwide.

The result has been infotainment, less local news and much of the same pre-packaged content being consumed all over the country.

Although there are real economic reasons for these vast changes, diversity in media ownership has to be a priority.

Ownership limits have to be restored and communities need to find innovative ways to create and maintain local media.

A newly-released survey from the non-partisan Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates that Americans are using the internet more than ever before to get diverse sources of information to make political decisions.

The article on Wired notes, "The survey found that the internet is becoming an increasing part of the norm of political participation -- people are  using it to read the news, share their views, or to participate in some  other process to get others to take political action. "

But how would this be impacted by the loss of net neutrality?