The bill, Protecting Cyberspace As A National Asset, being pushed in the Senate by Senators Joe Lieberman (I?) and Susan Collins (R), represents the ultimate travesty in the ongoing assault on Americans’ basic civil right of Freedom Of Speech.

Politically ‘threatening’ activity on the Net, Chinese ‘super-hackers’ and ‘leaks’ by Wikileaks and other whistle blowers, pale in comparison to giving the President of the United States executive powers to monitor our emails, our web and blog site communications, our e-bay purchases, our Twitterings and Facebookings, and allow the President, without Congressional Oversight, to invoke National Security as a reason to shut down our online access for up to 4 months by declaring a State Of Cyber Emergency.

What in the Hell is going on here?

With the Mainstream Media in the hands of Wall Street, the Net is, most often, our only source of Real News, and, most often, our only resource for Free Speech and Political Activism.  This bill, if enacted into law, would give the President vague yet sweeping powers to cut our links to what is left of our connections to old fashioned American Democracy, and replace that with more Fear, Injustice, and eventually Totalitarianism.

Now, a lot of folks will say:  “Oh, it ain’t that bad, and what about all those terrorist chat-rooms?  Hey, lighten-up.”  

Yeah, the Net should just be used to ‘shop’ on.  

Well, this bill will forever repress the voices of those Americans who believe that their voices matter, that the Net offers a tool that can make life better instead of worse, that Freedom of Speech is not something for Corporations to ‘market’ for the sake of profit–I’m talking about Net Neutrality here, and what this bill will do to alter the playing field there.

So, Senators Leahy and Sanders, I’m sure we can count on you to fight tooth and nail to KILL THIS BILL.  Many folks use the Net to contribute to causes and political campaigns.  By 2012, will we have lost our ability to send people like you our small ‘grassroots’ campaign donations, while the Corporate Boys fund a future Congress made up of people who will pass laws about ‘talking’ and ‘thinking’ and, the Almighty Spirit only knows, what else?

Come on.  This can’t be happening.  So say it ain’t so.

Thank you,

Peter Buknatski

Montpeleir, Vt.