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Glenn Beck unveiled his master conspiracy theory yesterday on his Fix News show, essentially claiming the Obama Administration is conspiring to control the media and bring everyone under government control. A key to this, he claimed, was its advocacy of Net Neutrality -- since, as we've already observed, Beck prefers corporate control of your content to government regulations preventing such control.

He displayed just how well he understands these Intertoobs things, too:

Beck: Anyway, you may remember, FreePress is the group pushing for Net Neutrality, which would take the Internet out of the private hands of private business and into the hands of the government. It would create a level playing field. It would help diversity. It would destroy the free market that created the Internet.

Yeah, that sounds real scary Glenn. Except, of course, that the "free market" didn't "create the Internet". It was, in fact, originally a creation of those things that Glenn Beck hates so much: a government program. As Wikipedia explains:

The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s when the United States funded research projects of its military agencies to build robust, fault-tolerant and distributed computer networks. This research and a period of civilian funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation spawned worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and led to the commercialization of an international network in the mid 1990s, and resulted in the following popularization of countless applications in virtually every aspect of modern human life.

Sure, the "free market" has played the most significant role in the massive expansion of the Internet since those origins, but it didn't "create" the Internet.

Meanwhile, Beck has yet to explain how regulations constraining the mega-corporations that provide our Internet infrastructure from deciding what content we can and can't access would actually take the system "out of the private hands of private business".

Maybe Beck can explain to us why Comcast was attacking peer-to-peer file sharing on its network system.

Maybe he can tell us why Verizon Wireless was able to deny a pro-choice group access to its text service.

Because those are, you know, actual issues involving real free speech -- not just imagined possible hypothetical scenarios wargamed out by that crack Glenn Beck Research Team.

If Beck were serious about defending not just free speech but freedom of thought, he'd be fully in favor of Net Neutrality. But he's not.

Though we already knew that.

Jon Stewart rips old "Pony Express" John McCain for stepping into the void left by Ted Stevens and his support of the "Internet Freedom Act of 2009".

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Rachel Maddow talks to editor and partner of BoingBoing Xeni Jardin about the bill introduced by Sen. John McCain that would block the FCC from keeping the entire Internet accessible to everyone. I completely agree with Rachel here. If I have to choose between the old guy who admitted that he doesn't know the difference between a MAC and a PC and that has also admitted he has to rely on his wife for "all of the assistance he can get" when it comes to using a computer, and who is as Rachel notes "the single largest Congressional recipient of campaign contributions from the telecom industry from Jan. 2007-June of this year", I'm going to "side with the geeks" as well who think this is a really bad idea.

Marcy Wheeler has more on this over at FDL--McCain Rediscovers His Passion for Screwing Us with Bad Telecom Policy and doesn't hold back any punches in her criticism of McCain. Harsh stuff but well deserved IMO.

McCain just joined the ranks of Ted Stevens and those Internet Tubes. Clueless, dangerous and willing to sell himself to the highest bidder on an issue he has absolutely no business being allowed to make policy on.

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For the second day in a row (Monday's show being so chockful o'wingnuttery that we didn't have time to post on it) Glenn Beck devoted two whole segments to the subject of net neutrality.

And for the second night in a row, the discussion featured a guy named Phil Kerpen from Americans For Prosperity, which has a long history of shilling for whatever right-wing corporate agenda it can suck out money for: tobacco interests, health-insurance companies, corporate polluters have all pitched in money so that AFP can variously promote tobacco, lobby against health-care reform (it was one of the original promoters of the Tea Parties) and push the idea that global warming isn't really happening.

And now he's out pushing the notion that somehow, regulating Internet providers so that they cannot determine or limit public access is the same thing as communism. Or something like that. When you have Glenn Beck as your No. 1 cheerleader, logic doesn't actually have to enter into it.

Especially not facts. Because Beck appears to have no idea at all what Net Neutrality is actually all about.

As Timothy Karr explained on Democracy Now last month:

And net neutrality is really the fundamental openness principle of the internet. Whenever you connect to the internet, net neutrality makes sure that you can connect to everyone else who’s on the internet. And this has been a tremendous engine for free speech, for economic innovation, for equal opportunity. And we are now fighting with some very prominent internet service providers, very powerful companies, to try to preserve that fundamental openness, so that whenever we go online we can choose, as users, where we go and what we do via the internet.

Somehow, Beck is able to transform this into an attack on "freedom of speech" -- when it obviously is precisely the opposite.

To guys like Beck, you see, the only threat to our liberties is from the government. Giant corporations that control our means of information, not so much.

Indeed, his argument boils down to a simple proposition: "Freedom" means letting powerful business interests control the public's access to the internet.

Hm. That's some kinda freedom.

ThinkProgress has more:

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From Democracy Now. This looks like a good step in the right direction.

The Federal Communications Commission has announced a new set of proposals to prevent internet service providers from curbing or blocking online services. On Monday, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski unveiled a plan that would make permanent existing safeguards that ensure open access to websites and other online content. The new rules would also extend to barring companies from limiting certain kinds of data, such as free internet phone services and file-sharing applications. The safeguards would also apply to wireless phone carriers for the first time. Supporters call the proposals a major step forward in the campaign for net neutrality.

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When they announced yesterday that the Department of Justice was beefing up the antitrust division, the first likely target I thought of was cable TV. How about it, guys? We can't take much more of these monopolies' skyrocketing prices:

Last month, the nation's No.2 cable company Time Warner Cable announced plans to test a new billing system known as "metering" that charges Internet customers depending on how much they download. Customers who exceed their limit--say, by viewing online videos--would face steep penalties on top of their subscription rate.

Time Warner Cable's usage penalty would take the unlimited service we enjoy today (albeit slow compared to other nations), and make Internet more like cell phones, where you get overcharged by companies making record profits. It is the latest version of the Net Neutrality debate: should the companies that deliver Internet be allowed to block it, slow it down, or in this case, overcharge for it?

Here's why this issue threatens the Internet as you know it: Cable companies Time Warner and Comcast, and phone giants AT&T and Verizon sell the vast majority of high-speed Internet service in the United States. Phone and cable companies like these have no other competition in 97% of US markets, thanks to corrupt policies passed by the Bush Administration at the companies' behest.

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Great news if it stays in! It seems it's included in the stimulus bill:

"Cnet is reporting that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (PDF), currently in the House Appropriations Committee, contains Net Neutrality provisions: 'The so-called stimulus package hands out billions of dollars in grants for broadband and wireless development, primarily in what are called "unserved" and "underserved" areas. ... The catch is that the federal largesse comes with Net neutrality strings attached. ... recipients must operate broadband and high-speed wireless networks on an "open access basis." The FCC, soon to be under Democratic control, is charged with deciding what that means. Congress didn't see fit to include a definition.' The broadband grants appear to begin in SEC. 3101 (pg. 49) of the PDF."

Jamie covered this a few weeks ago, but now it's official.  Score one for us on net neutrality.

UPI:  (h/t Nate)

Broadband Internet customers of cable television giant Comcast should be free to use file-sharing software, the Federal Communications Commission says.

The commission voted Friday to order Comcast to stop blocking its Internet customers from using BitTorrent, an online software application that enables users to share large movie, TV show and music files, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Commission Chairman Kevin Martin split with his Republican colleagues to join the two Democratic members to produce a 3-2 vote against Comcast. The precedent-setting decision was hailed by supporters of so-called net neutrality, which maintains Internet service providers should be barred from discriminating among various types of traffic.

"It was unreasonable for Comcast to discriminate against particular Internet applications, including BitTorrent," Martin wrote in his majority opinion. "They delayed and blocked customers using a disfavored application even when there was no network congestion."

Whodathunk Kevin Martin would stand up against his Republican colleagues for what's right?  But that only slightly makes up for the wholly egregious new policies of the Homeland Security office: 

The gropers at the Department of Homeland Security, not content with patting you down and rummaging through your underwear, now say that they can confiscate electronics brought into the U.S. for any reason, anytime, and share the devices and their contents with anybody.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Translation into plain English: Homeland Security can take your stuff for any reason ("without suspicion of wrongdoing"), for however long it wants to ('unspecified period of time").

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Translation: DHS the information on your electronic devices with anyone it wants to share the information with ("other agencies and private entities").

 Lovely.  I guess the terrorists can't hate us for our freedoms if we have none left.