Franken Out-Wonks His New Colleagues

(7/15) Sen Al Franken (D-MN) quizzed Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor on Network Neutrality -- rules that would require cable and phone companies to treat legal Internet traffic equally. The Internet "plays an essential role in our democracy by allowing anyone with a computer connected to the Internet to publish their ideas their thoughts, their opinions and reach a worldwide audience of hundreds of millions of people in seconds. This is free speech," Sen Franken said, before asking about a 2005 Supreme Court decision about deregulation of Internet lines. The decision, Sen Franken said, opened up a lot of concerns about net neutrality and he asked Sotomayor if the American public "have a compelling First Amendment interest in ensuring...that the internet stays open and accessible." "Brand X was a question of which government agency would regulate those (Internet) providers," Sotomayor replied. "The role of the court is never to make the policy, it's to wait until Congress acts," she said. She tried to soften those remarks a bit by talking about how the Internet impacts many parts of society today including property rights and freedom of speech.