AT&T censors more bands than Pearl Jam

Standing up to the Power of

Standing up to the Power of AT&T

It was recently reported that the Lollopalooza Concert in Chicago on Sunday, August 5, 2007 had been simulcast live on the Internet. The webcast went fine without a hitch until Pearl Jam member Eddie Vedder started discussing the policies of the Bush administration. Suddenly, the webcast was interrupted. A few minutes later, after Vedder ceased expressing his opinion, the webcast once again began transmitting. AT&T, the sponsor and operator of the webcast, stated that this was just a mistake and not any form of censorship.

I decided to try to get to the bottom of this mix up and ended up corresponding with AT&T Corporate Issues Spokesman Mr. Michael Coe. Yup, a mistake had been made and AT&T was trying to see if Pearl Jam would allow the transmission to be repeated in its entirety. As of 8/8/07 the webcast has not been replayed nor was there any apology to We the People for the apparent restriction of Vedder’s first amendment right.

While I had Mr. Coe’s attention I decided to ask a few other questions. What is AT&T’s position on net neutrality? His response and I quote, “AT&T supports an open internet and agrees with the FCC guidelines that consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice; to run applications and services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement; to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network; and to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.” Ahh…. In other words information will be restricted to those who can afford to pay for it.

Finally I asked Mr. Coe about turning over an individual’s private phone records? To this question he responded that, “We do not comment on matters of national security.” I see.

Mr. Coe may feel that his responses should satisfy my concerns. However it appears to me that AT&T has subverted free speech, that they are not in favor of free access to the Internet and that it’s ok to turn over private information if you are able to mouth the words “national security”. It may surprise Mr. Coe but I am not satisfied with his response.

I am therefore going to make a change in my behavior in order to reflect my concerns. It may cause some inconvenience however I’ve decided to discontinue using my Cingular (now AT&T) cell phone. I will need to stop my service, get a new phone with a new plan from a new vendor. And when I shop for a new vendor I’m going to have questions for the salespeople like, how does your employer feel about censorship, net neutrality and the constitution. If one of the top tier companies gives a satisfactory answer (which I’m hopeful) I’ll buy their plan. If not, I’ll have to go to a secondary market to search for satisfactory answers. This may mean I won’t have as good of service for my cell phone. It may even mean I give up my cell phone. Oh well, some things like the rights of We the People guaranteed in the Constitution, may actually be worth giving up my cell phone.

If our elected officials (or are they the pawns of corporations) will not protect our constitutionally guaranteed rights then we will need to protect ourselves through the decisions we make and the entities with whom we choose to interact.

What a sacrifice. I’m sure the founders would be impressed

No boycott, just a change in the way we perceive the world and the willingness to act upon our beliefs.

AT&T and the govt pretty

AT&T and the govt pretty much have their hands in each other's back pockets, so to infer that AT&T is this innocent little private company whose actions somehow fall outside the Constitutional rights of its customers is absurd. Much like any other major media outlet, they are very sensitive to "questionable" subjects - now more than ever - particularly those involving politics or religion.

And since there was plenty of profanity throughout the entire concert that went uncensored, I'm not sure exactly what the job of AT&T's content monitor was, if it wasn't to watch for opposing opinions.

Kudos to you ACT. On another

Kudos to you ACT.

On another side subject....

If you sign an agreement with Google totally read their privacy statement. I walked away with the impression that you are giving them permission to paper the world with your emails and anything else.

I declined.

Inquire.

To Walking Bass: I'm not

To Walking Bass:
I'm not certain of the exact term for what most governments (local & federal) consider AT&T but I recall the term "common carrier" being appropriate.

By accepting that label (through passed legislation they chose not to counter via lawsuits) they are held to a common standard of something tantamount to non-descrimination for regulated communication mediums.

With this designation they loose the ability to police what passes over/through/within their "pipes" (no tubes comment here please - I'm trying to incorporate both voice & data).

Meaning if you decide to talk a blue streak to someone over the phone about our president, going as far as to doing something criminal, AT&T has neither an obligation nor compunction to alert authorities to said criminal act unless they are under subpoena or search warrant identifying such behavior/communication. (Granted, this disavows anything related to their NSA involvement since 9/11.)

Now, your angle of AT&T being a producer/director of an event/concert they have every right to do what they choose with the material. However, in this case I believe Pearl Jam was performing via another contractual obligation which was then produced/packaged for Internet consumption by another company and then distributed by AT&T. Whether it was an AT&T agreement or not, there's an intermediate step where someone outside of AT&T or Pearl Jam was involved which is where the censorship occurred.

This brings us full circle with the assertion that AT&T and their "no Net Neutrality" stance vis a vis censorship:
If they are merely handling voice/data/"traffic" that's originated elsewhere, if they wish to maintain their common carrier standing and all its benefits (not sure what those would be exactly though) then they need to be legally disallowed from manipulating this traffic flow while it traverses their networks.

That's been the core problem with their (provider) arguments: It's "their" networks and they should be allowed to traffic-cop them.

Basically, it comes down to how do we handle data versus voice? In today's technical environment they are one and the same. No longer do we have circuit switched communications but we've progressed into packet switched networks for everything which puts them (providers) into a good/bad position.

Sorry for the long rant.
Enjoy!
ACT

This issue may be a PR

This issue may be a PR blackeye for AT&T, but one thing it is not is a First Amendment issue. The First Amendment applies to government censorship of free speech, not to what a private company chooses to publish or not publish at their own expense.

While AT&T has the right to decide what they will and will not carry on their systems, Pearl Jam has the right to decide if they are willing to be on AT&T's network, and they also have the right to establish the conditions under which they are willing to appear on AT&T's network. The solution to this whole issue is for Pearl Jam, or any act that objects to being censored by a corporation, is to include no-censorship clauses in their contracts. If the corporation looking to sign them up wants them bad enough, they will agree to the terms. If they cannot live with those terms, then they do without the act.

I hate that people are

I hate that people are increasingly willing to lay down and take it. The fact that you "like your AT&T phone" is not the point and true patriots often have an opposing view from that of those in power.

Did somebody forget about

Did somebody forget about freedom of speech that is in the constitution? First, AT&T is NOT the publisher. They are just rebroadcasting it. Second, if we encourage this then that will allow service providers who don't agree with your point of view to censure things that that you don't think should be censured. Would you like that? Are you that afraid of their opinion getting out that you have to censor them?

Finally, a patriotic

Finally, a patriotic provider! It's AT&T's network -- they can do what they want. If they contracted the netcast, then they (and its publisher) have the right to do what they want with it. You guys forget that the publisher owns the printing press, not the reader (read our Constitution).

As for Pearl Jam, I don't buy their stuff.

In order to run an email server on AT&T's network, I have to jump through hoops to prove I won't spam nor allow spammers access to my server. If I fail the test, AT&T bleeps my server -- and that that. It's in my TOS.

As for me, I'm quite happy with my AT&T phone, and will continue with the company.