Huffington Post

[Commentary] One of the most persistent lies told in Washington is the notion that common carriage is a heavy-handed regulation that transforms innovative businesses into antiquated, government-run utilities.

Any mention of restoring this time-tested principle to the Internet causes fits among phone and cable industry lobbyists. It's a debate now raging throughout the record number of comments filed at the Federal Communications Commission, which has put the issue of common carriage back "on the table" as it weighs new rules to protect network neutrality.

Actually, according to settled law, common carriage applies to any carrier that "holds itself out... to carry for all people indifferently." This makes common carriage "of substantial social value," Columbia University economist Eli Noam wrote in a 1994 paper in which he accurately predicted industry efforts to kill the standard.

"It extends free speech principles to privately owned carriers. It is an arrangement that promotes interconnection, encourages competition, assists universal service and reduces transaction costs."

[Karr is Senior Director of Strategy, Free Press]

[Commentary] The adoption of the "Pulver Order" by the Federal Communications Commission in 2004 recognized the madness of applying 70-year-old Title II telecom regulations to IP communications.

Ten years later friends in telecommunication policy circles spend their days weighing the implications of legal hypotheticals that imagine discrimination by network operators as the primary threat to the communication future.

Net neutrality relies on the fear and loathing of telephone companies as a basis for applying Title II regulations to IP networks. This reversal by civil society and entrepreneur friends who had supported Pulver Order puts the madness back in play. The reversal includes circumstances making the network operators allies in preserving the Pulver Order's deference to technology innovation and Moore's Law.

Applying Title II to IP networks creates a new Federal Computer Commission with authority to weigh in on everything connected to an IP network, in other words -- everything.

[Pulver is investor founder of Vonage]

[Commentary] Net neutrality is a civil rights issue. While we often stress the important First Amendment and free speech issues tied to strong "open internet" or "net neutrality" protections, we have spent less time discussing how crucial these protections are to minority and low income communities.

Very soon the Federal Communications Commission will either empower minority voices on the Internet and help close the digital divide, or it will make it easier for communications giants to silence and exclude those communities from the free or low-priced content now on the web.

[Murphy is Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office]

[Commentary] In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, 60 Republicans insisted that the federal government shouldn't interfere with the 20 state laws that either prohibit or severely inhibit municipally owned broadband networks.

The debate about whether to build a muni broadband network has proven to be one of the most considered, transparent and democratic of all policy debates, certainly far more considered than those made in Washington and state capitols. Republicans and private telecoms maintain that cities lack the capacity to build and manage broadband networks.

They're empirically wrong. Of the 160 municipally owned broadband networks, the successes vastly outnumber the failures. Muni networks, not Google, offered the first gigabit service. Muni networks have saved their communities hundreds of millions of dollars, created tens of thousands of jobs, and become a firm foundation for economic-development initiatives.

[Morris is Director, The Public Good Initiative, Institute for Local Self-Reliance]

When the European Union's so called "right to be forgotten" policy was instituted in May, news outlets worried that the ruling could have a negative impact on the media.

But according to journalism.co.uk, some publishers are finding the opposite. Some outlets, like the Oxford Mail, expressed concerns that the ruling might be "misused" by criminals and public figures like celebrities and politicians who "want to hide embarrassing stuff."

The Mail saw the link to its story about a man caught shoplifting removed from Google in July. In response, the website published what happened, republished information about the shoplifter, and attracted tens of thousands of new, curious readers.

[Commentary] Because the European Union has recognized a "right to be forgotten," it is now possible for European citizens to request that Google remove links to stories that provide information about their lives.

This means that the BBC and other news outlets are starting to get notices from Google informing them that some of their content will no longer come up in Google searches.

There are two ways to look at this.

The first response, which we will no doubt hear from Google itself, is that an overweening EU government is giving its squeamish citizens the power to edit history. "It's just like Orwell's 1984," we will no doubt hear, "We cannot let the record of the past be deleted just because some people are uncomfortable with it!" This response makes sense only if you already equate what comes up in a Google search with an objective record of history.

The second way of thinking about Google's takedown notices to the press in the EU is to see them as reminders that while we allow one big player to be the effective gatekeepers of all our information, we have no right to be outraged over how its behavior or the consequences of its behavior might distort our collective view of the world.

The furor over Google's removal of news links in the EU will, I hope, alert people to the dangers of allowing a single, commercially motivated entity to effectively be the sole gatekeeper and organizer of the Web's information.

[Leatherwood Slifka Fellow at the Bernard L. Schwartz Center for Media, Public Policy, & Education at Fordham University]

[Commentary] On July 2, 2014, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, defended the company's recent controversial experiment, which manipulated users' newsfeeds to change their moods. But in so doing, she raised more concerns than she answered. She argued that the company and other social media sites regularly engage in research, and that the practice is thus acceptable.

Facebook defenders say that the company could instead simply conduct its experiments secretly and not publish the results. But past errors do not justify future ones. Social science can help us all, but depends on trust -- which can be fragile. Social media companies can now strengthen users' trust by agreeing to follow ethical standards.

It is not clear that Facebook broke the law -- the regulations apply technically to federal-funded research -- but have been universally adopted by researchers as the standard. Facebook should agree to follow these guidelines as well. Doing so need not be onerous. The company could simply submit its studies an established independent review board. Facebook could also, for instance, not include children in mood-manipulation experiments, which could easily be done, since users indicate their age.

[Klitzman, MD is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Masters of Bioethics Program, Columbia University]

[Commentary] The Internet needs concrete, fundamental protections to ensure that it is not abused by those with the power to do so. That is why I was gravely disappointed when the DC Court of Appeals struck down the Federal Communications Commission's 2010 open Internet rules and why in the Senate, I am fighting to protect a free and open Internet.

Open Internet principles are the Bill of Rights for the online world. We should not allow an Internet that is divided into "haves" and "have-nots," where those who can afford to pay drown out the voices of those who cannot.

The FCC is now considering how best to restore open Internet protections. Since FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler began a proceeding to consider new open Internet rules, nearly 300,000 Americans have commented on his proposal.

The message is loud and clear: Americans want an Internet that is a platform for free expression and innovation, and where the best ideas and services can reach consumers based on merit rather than on money.

[Sen Leahy is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee]

Don't ever let it be said that NBC News isn't willing to give a little boost to its fellow members of the NBCUniversal corporate family.

The network aired an hour-long special about the new Diagon Alley section of the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" theme park at the Universal Studios resort in Orlando.

[Commentary] According to the Supreme Court, police need a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest. The unanimous decision, which was handed down, is being heralded as a major victory for privacy rights and a landmark case with implications far beyond cellphones.

Many of the most important debates surrounding press freedom and privacy right now focus on how our fundamental freedoms, so long expressed and protected in the physical world, will translate to the digital age.

In response to the ruling Geoffrey King of the Committee to Protect Journalists said, "Today's decision closes a dangerous loophole faced by journalists who use mobile devices for news-gathering and reporting." The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, National Press Photographers Association and other news organizations filed a brief in the cases at the Supreme Court arguing that cellphone searches can interfere with news-gathering.

"A typical journalist's phone contains a wealth of private data," the news organizations wrote in the brief. "At any time a journalist's phone may include drafts of stories, interviews, corresponding photos or video, information about sources, and other confidential information necessary for reporting."

The decision is an important recognition that advances in our technology shouldn't result in erosions of our liberty. The case comes at a moment of renewed interest and concern for how government and law enforcement are using cellphones to track people. While the case is not likely to have an immediate impact on the practices of the NSA, it may create a new opening in that debate down the road.

[Stearns is Director, Journalism and Sustainability at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation]