Democrats fail (at least for now) to protect Net users from taxes
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Democrats have had since January to schedule a vote on a bill that would protect Internet users from access taxes. They still haven't done so, and a temporary moratorium expires in just a few weeks.
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The U.S. Congress on Friday  reinstated a ban on Internet access taxes after the House of  Representatives agreed to extend it for another three years  rather than make it permanent.
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(InfoWorld) - Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, advocated that the U.S. Congress protect net neutrality and questioned the value of DRM (digital rights management) Thursday. Berners-Lee, speaking before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in the U.S. House of Representatives, said it was "very, very important" for lawmakers to protect the ability of users to access the Web content they want regardless of their ISP. Berners-Lee didn't endorse specific net neutrality proposals largely supported by congressional Democrats, but he said the Web as a communications medium deserves "special treatment" to protect its nondiscriminatory approach to content. While he was growing up in the U.K., there were high penalties for interfering with mail delivery because mail was one of the main ways to communicate, Berners-Lee said. Now, the Web is a major communications medium worthy of protections, he said. One company or country shouldn't control access to the Web, he added. "We are a society only in as much as we are individuals communicating," said Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web Consortium and author of the first version of HTML. For the past two years, many e-commerce companies and consumer groups have called on Congress to pass a law prohibiting broadband carriers from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors or from speeding up partners' content. In mid-2005, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Communications Commission freed broadband providers from nondiscriminatory carriage rules, and net neutrality backers say large broadband providersÂ like Verizon and ComcastÂ will now be tempted to provide tiered speeds based on which Internet companies pay them the most. Broadband providers and many Republicans have opposed a net neutrality law, andÂ efforts to pass one failed in a Republican-controlled Congress in 2006. Democrats took over Congress this year. While Berners-Lee didn't hear a lot of opposition to his net neutrality comments at the hearing, Representative Mary Bono, a California Republican, challenged his assertion that DRM copy protections could hinder the growth of some parts of the Web. Berners-Lee called for open standards instead of closed DRM technologies. Instead of DRM, copyright holders should "allow people to do the right thing" by providing the information on how to legally use the material, he said. Bono questioned if his idea would prevent mass stealing of copyright materials. "Is that not the equivalent of having a speed limit but not enforcing the speed limit?" she asked. But Berners-Lee suggested DRM limits the market for digital music downloads, echoing recent statements by AppleÂ CEO Steve Jobs. "What is the enforcement for speeding?" he said. "The enforcement for is not that the car grinds to a halt. [Instead of DRM] I'm inclined to make software to allow people to do the right thing first." But Bono said strong protections for digital content are needed. "With great respect to Steve Jobs, he's trying to sell hardware, first and foremost," she said. "I wonder if he would feel the same way about his patents being on the Internet free of patent protection."
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If any of the presidential candidates are thinking seriously about tax reform, they have kept the information to themselves. And that is a pity.
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A House of Representatives panel on Thursday rejected along party lines a Democratic bid to force the Bush administration to turn over records about the estimated cost of last year&#39;s Medicare drug bill.
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Congress is poised to extend a ban on taxing Internet access, a move that would please Internet service providers but possibly cost states millions of dollars in lost revenue.
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You'd think that lower-income users would be the ones stretching their dollars online, but that's not the case
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Congressional Democrats and the Treasury Department disagree over the amount of unpaid taxes that could be collected.
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Comment is free: Polly Toynbee: Lib Dem tax proposals are a blow for sanity in an era of excess. Labour should do better than try to trash them pointlessly.
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For the Democrats, Super Tuesday may settle nothing. The reason lies in new party rules that were never road-tested
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Democrats see a broken system, with major items out of sight. The GOP sees ideals of conservatism advancing.
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Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the new Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, are obviously not in it for the money.
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At a House hearing in Washington, polticians debated whether or not to renew the ban on taxing net access. Opponents say its original purpose, to spur net usage, has long been accomplished.
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Who says the Constitution doesn't apply to the Internet?  One of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act took a blow yesterday, courtesy of the ACLU and a federal judge in New York. -washingtonpost.com
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On the chopping block for a Democratic Congress: earmarks that had been a lobbyist gravy train.
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Consumers won&#39;t have to pay a tax to log on to the Internet until at least 2007, after Congress voted Friday to renew a recently lapsed ban on Internet taxation.
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Democrats blamed for failures in final State of the Union address as president pushes for tax cuts