It's the backbone, stupid.

Editor,

The rock-bottom foundation of the Internet, the "pipe" over which every bit of information on the Internet to or from your town is carried, is the backbone.

The proprietors of the backbone in the United States are a handful of giant telcos: Bell South, Qwest, Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint Nextel. The fact that such a small number of very large corporations control the flow of information over the Internet in the United States has grave implications with respect to the issue of net neutrality.

If all Internet traffic is not clearly and specifically legislated to be equal ( -- "neutral" -- ), then these corporations can and will censor political speech transmitted via their networks that is unfavorable to their desires. Our country is a nation of laws. Laws "regulate" what people and -- since corporations claim the rights and therefore presumably the responsibilities of people -- corporations can and can not do.

This email, for example, argues for "regulation" of the giant telcos, something giant corporations do not like. If the backbone providers are not formally and explicitly prohibited from censoring political speech, an email like this one might not ever reach you. Similarly, web sites arguing positions that the telcos oppose would certainly be blocked.