[IP] Anti municipal broadband model legislation
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 20, 2004 6:38:00 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Anti municipal broadband model legislation
Reply-To: dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[Note: This item comes from Esme Vos of MuniWireless.com. I'm posting
the referenced entry from her weblog below. This development was not
unexpected, but gee whiz! As I've said before, we're heading for
something akin to thermonuclear war on this issue in this country.
DLH]
From: Esme Vos <esme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 19, 2004 6:16:26 PM PST
To: Dewayne Hendricks
Subject: Anti municipal broadband model legislation
Sorry to ruin a nice Sunday but...
<http://www.muniwireless.com/archives/000528.html>
Esme
Do-it-yourself anti-municipal broadband kit
To make it easier for state legislatures to pass anti-municipal
broadband laws, the anti-municipal broadband movement is circulating a
piece of DIY model legislation in various states. You can download the
document entitled the "Municipal Telecommunications Private Industry
Safeguards Act" from here (Word format) and fill in the blanks.
This ridiculous piece of nonsense, masquerading as "model legislation"
like the Uniform Commercial Code, is making the rounds of US state
legislatures and if the original drafters of the document were really
ambitious, they would translate it into 50 languages and send it to
other countries' parliaments.
All you have to do, as a legislator who is friendly to incumbent
operators, is to insert the name of your state, introduce it as a bill
and voila! You will ensure that your state will forever lag behind
every other state (and country) in broadband deployment. You will,
however, guarantee an endless supply of money from incumbent operators
for your next political campaign.
The summary of the model legislation is a piece of political
doublespeak (comments in italics are mine):
The Legislature recognizes the importance of the widespread provision
of telecommunications (but not as important as getting money for our
next political campaign) and advanced services and cable television
services (we are very grateful for 256 Kbps and Big Brother/Who wants
to marry a millionaire). For the vast majority of citizens these
services are provided by private entities (to which we owe our
allegiance).
"In certain instances municipalities or their agents have sought to
provide such services in competition with private providers (those
darned munis are trying to bring cheap broadband to the masses, how
un-American). This act limits the authority of municipalities to own
and operate telecommunications and advanced service and cable
television facilities and to provide public and advanced
telecommunication and cable television services to a municipality’s
inhabitants (we want to make sure once and for all that the incumbents
face no competition - after all who is going to fund out next political
campaign).
When municipalities do provide such services this act provides
safeguards to ensure that private providers with whom the municipality
competes are not disadvantaged by the municipality in the exercise of
its bonding and taxing authority, management of rights of way,
assessment of fees or taxes, or in any other way (we want the ensure
that our benefactors, the incumbent providers, continue to rip people
off and get subsidies for it because that's what democracy is all
about)."
Don't you love stuff like this? Even the name of the model legislation
- Private Industry Safeguards Act - sounds like "People's Republic of
such-and-such" (always a brutal dictatorship that is anything but a
government run for and by the people) or the former East Germany,
officially known as the "German Democratic Republic" (which was
anything but democratic).
Here's a tip. If your state legislator has proposed an anti-municipal
broadband bill, compare it with the language in this model legislation
and see whether the bill tracks this document word for word. If it
does, you need to tell your legislator to stop opening spam messages
and stop believing junk faxes such as this one.
Note: will the drafter of this document please identify
himself/herself?
The "model legislation" can be downloaded from:
<http://www.muniwireless.com/reports/docs/antimunicipalbroadband.doc>
Posted by Muniwireless December 20, 2004
Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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