Free Press has often given in to the whims of hyperbole and compared US telecommunications companies to the dictatorial regimes of China, Iran, and North Korea.  They have asked “How can we encourage freedom abroad when it has not been defended in our own communications infrastructure?”

Free Press trivializes the very real plight of people who have to fear disappearing in the dead of night for criticizing a regime – all to make a political point in a policy fight.

However, there is a legitimate point to be explored in their over-the-top rhetoric.  While Free Press would have you believe that your cable company bears some resemblance to totalitarian governments, the better comparison would be government-to-government.

The Chinese, for instance, have begun a new initiative that will require anyone who wants to start a website to visit a government office, complete an application form, and ave a photograph taken for your file.

Sounds positively draconian, right?  Imagine a government that would invade your privacy rights that way. The chilling effect it would have on people wanting to start sites critical of the government is clear.

Surely our government would never do such things, right?  Only ISPs would do that.

Well consider these efforts at all levels of the government:

• The FBI wants your ISP to keep a record of every website you visit for two years.
• A New York judge ordering Google to disclose the identity of an anonymous blogger
• A Tennessee Judge who did the same
• A federal law that would impose jail time and fines if you annoy someone on the Internet
• A Kentucky State Representative that pushed for a law to ban anonymous posting on the Internet, and requiring disclosure of your home address
• An Alaskan politician who used a state funded newsletter to out an anonymous blogger that had criticized him
• A federal effort to deny citizen journalists the same free speech rights afforded to their friends in the professional media

With a minimal amount of research, I have found three times as many examples of government trying to control the Internet than net neutrality opponents can offer of ISPs doing the same.

If you also consider the efforts by such totalitarian regimes as Russia, France, Great Britain, and Germany in regulating Internet content, it becomes even easier to see the slippery slope of government using such power haphazardly.

Egan Orion, writing about Germany’s censorship law summed it up best:

The worst fear, of course, is that once the German government has an Internet censorship apparatus in place, it will be deployed by authoritarian elements of the government, political parties or security agencies to repress freedom of political expression, dissent and free access to information.

Free Press’ inflamed rhetoric says ISPs “could decide to block or delay content on the Internet”, and charges that they “have done it before” and will try to do it again.

Anyone who would parrot Free Press’ argument that government will protect us from those big, bad Internet providers should spend a few minutes Google surfing “government Internet censorship” or the keywords “anonymous blogger.”  You’ll be amazed at what you find, and you will quickly see that the ISPs aren’t the ones with a long history of trying to regulate content, and stifle free speech, on the ‘net.