Jeffrey Rosen penned this superb article for The New Republic explaining the stakes involved in the network neutrality fight.

The essence of net neutrality seems simple: Internet service providers should be required to treat all data equally and avoid blocking or delaying any sites or applications.

We now live in a world where the technology for watching what people do with their data packets is sophisticated enough to give a company like Comcast the ability to decide which packets can be shuffled into slower or faster traffic lanes, depending on what its business model dictates. And, in addition to having the technical ability to discriminate, Internet providers now have the legal authority to do so. In the 2005 Brand Xdecision, the Supreme Court ruled that cable broadband providers were not a "telecommunications service" but an "information service," and, therefore, were freer to keep competitors off the network.

Buying votes:

According to the OpenSecrets.org website, in 2008 the top 5 corporations in the communications industry contributed as follows to Congress:

1] AA&T $4,499,965 DEMS: 49% REPS: 50%
2] Microsoft $3,243,389 DEMS: 72% REPS: 27%
3] Comcast $2,920,952 DEMS: 64% REPS: 36%
4] Time $2,910,523 DEMS: 81% REPS: 19%
5] Verizon $2,501,869 DEMS: 50% REPS: 49%

In election cycles going back to 1990, the communications industry has contributed $776,513,166---$455,700,000 to Democrats and $315,900,000 to Republicans. Compare that to the $851,450,000 contributed by the healthcare industry.

Net neutrality is a critical issue and one that has the potential to impact our lives more than any other in the future from cost-of-living to our basic right to obtain unfiltered information.