On December 6th, President-elect Barack Obama reiterated his support for a national broadband strategy to connect all of America with high-speed internet service. He is making broadband part of his economic recovery plan.  

We commend Obama on his leadership on this issue. However, it is absolutely critical that the federal funds expended on this effort do what they are supposed to do, and to that end we demand a high level of accountability.

Common Cause has signed onto and fully supports a letter to the incoming administration and Congress released today by the Media and Democracy Coalition regarding this issue.

We saw in this year's election that the Internet is becoming a fully realized tool for people to participate in their democracy. Political fundraising and organizing went far beyond anyone's expectations. Tools like Youtube and Facebook played a key role in the election. Blogs broke stories, framed messages and gave people an outlet for their opinions like never before.

And on the more mundane side, local governments are providing more and more services online to their citizens. People are able to register to vote, watch streaming video of city council and school board meetings, fill out forms for tax reimbursements, etc. all online.

But what happens if you don't have broadband Internet? What if you do have broadband but your local municipality doesn't even have a website? Or the website they have doesn't offer any online services?

That's what we found when Common Cause Montana partnered with Dr. Richard Wolff from the  Montana State University on a new study released today.

Where do the two major party candidates stand on the media reform issues we highlight in our new report, "Media and Democracy in America Today: A Reform Plan for a New Administration"?

It's a mixed bag.

McCain has a strong record of supporting Low Power FM Radio, increasing diversity of media ownership, funding public broadcasting and free air time for campaigns. However, he has opposed stopping media consolidation and is against net neutrality.

Obama on the other hand has been a vocal supporter of net neutrality and has actively opposed media consolidation. While generally good on most of the issues we highlight in the new report, he has less of a record to show for it.

And there are gaps in our knowledge. That's why we would like to hear from their campaigns and anyone else who can tell us where they stand on issues like reforming the processes at the Federal Communications Commission and if they support PEG Access TV.

We have a full chart of their stands on the issues we raise in our new report - as far as we know them. Check it out, and let us know if you have any more information.

Today I am proud to release Common Cause's plan for media reform. The report, titled "Media and Democracy in America Today: A Reform Plan for a New Administration," lays out a plan of action for the next President and Congress to take to ensure the media performs its appropriate role in our democracy.

This was a major undertaking, and I want to thank all who participated from within and without Common Cause to help put it together. Now the key thing is to make the recommendations in this report a reality.

That's going to take several things.

It's going to take other bloggers and journalists to spread the word about what needs to be done.

It's going to take politicians to listen to the people and take action on these recommendations.

And the biggest thing is that it is going to take the public to make some noise about how important these issues are to our democracy!

We're here to help facilitate the making of noise by you the people. Let's have our voices heard.

The text of our press release follows below:

My good friend Jack Gould from Common Cause Nebraska is calling the task force on broadband to task for their lack of transparency and unwillingness to hear from diverse view points on the broadband issue. Common Cause supports community broadband efforts because we believe the Internet should be affordable and available to everyone, it's a big problem in rural and low income communities. If you want to learn more about the issue you can visit our webpage on the topic here.

Read the full text of Jack's article after the jump.

There are lots of reasons to love New Hampshire - beautiful scenery, hundreds of miles of trails, maple syrup, and moose, just to name a few.  Oh, and the people - they look out for their own.

I'm so proud of the tiny town of Hanover, New Hampshire, the home of my alma mater, Dartmouth College.  Hanover and seven other small Granite State towns (in some cases, villages) have joined together to discuss the possibility of a community broadband project.  Many of the region's rural residents have no access to high-speed internet (or even cable television), and even phone service leaves something to be desired in some places.  The big phone companies aren't going to come in and fix this situation any time soon (if they had any such inkling, they would have done it already), so these communities are coming together to fix the problem themselves.  Hooray for an independent spirit!

Here is an article from The Dartmouth (yes, I'm plugging my school's daily newspaper - deal) explaining the situation and the possible solution.

As more and more communities are left behind by the big telecom corporations, what else are they supposed to do than to look inward for solutions?  If you know of any other communities (small, like Hanover, or big, like Philadelphia) that have or are thinking about implementing community broadband, let us know in the Comments section, and we'll share the praise for these forward-thinkers.

The Nebraska Broadband Task Force has held its third meeting.  The task force was given $200,000 and two years to study broadband access and to decide what role government entities should be allowed play. The report is due in December 2006 and there are only four more meetings planned.

Most of the discussion has revolved around defining related terms and whether broadband service provided by government entities presented unfair competition for the private sector. After a number of articles and letters in the press describing the lack of broadband service in rural and urban areas the discussion began to move toward public and private partnerships. There is a great deal more to be discussed and very little time to find a solution.

Common Cause Nebraska believes LB645, the bill creating a prohibition on public entities offering broadband service, should be repealed. If the private sector can not or will not provide state wide service at a reasonable price then the public sector needs to step in. Why should underserved citizen and business interests be forced to pay two and three times the price for high speed computer service?