Obama Voices Support for Net Neutrality
I don't know if he's playing to the file sharing community or if he just actually understands the importance of the issue—it's hard to believe any politician gets how crucial this is, but the Senator from Illinois is not just any politician—but Barack Obama has pledged to support Net Neutrality laws if elected President of the United States.
Obama announced his support of the measure during an interactive forum put on by MTV and MySpace at Coe College in Iowa Monday afternoon.
Net neutrality is just as it sounds. It bars broadband service providers from giving preference to content to the highest bidder, a practice that would help big business and kill the rest of us who can't (or won't) pay to play in the Internet.
Joe Niederberger, a member of MoveOn.org asked Obama: "Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to reinstate Net neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint FCC commissioners that support open Internet principles like Net neutrality?"
"The answer is yes," Obama replied. "I am a strong supporter of Net neutrality."
Proving that he actually has an idea of why this is so important, Obama added that companies like Google may not have gotten started without a "level playing field" and pledged to make sure Net neutrality "is the principle that my FCC commissioners are applying as we move forward."
So, unless you hate innovation and the free marketplace of ideas, you should support Net Neutrality too. All the leading Democratic candidates have voiced support of the measure and, to date, only Mike Huckabee has voiced support from the Republican side.