Verizon got caught
blocking pro-choice text messages on Wednesday. The phone company
backpedaled on Thursday and lifted the ban. It was a simple glitch a
Verizon spokesman declared, and they felt really, really bad about it.

Today, Verizon is in full damage control, hoping this cloud will blow over in time for its next assault on free speech.

But apologies aren’t cutting it anymore. Verizon’s censorship of the
national pro-choice organization NARAL is just the latest example in a
laundry list of phone company efforts to block, filter or interfere
with the free flow of information on cell phones and the Internet.

Rep. Dingell: Verizon must stop discriminating

In August, AT&T censored a live webcast
of a Pearl Jam concert just as lead singer Eddie Vedder criticized
President Bush. AT&T said this was a glitch and then scrambled to
cover their tracks.

Earlier in the year, both Verizon and AT&T were caught handing
over private customer phone records to the National Security Agency.
The phone companies first denied it and then started a secret campaign with the White House to gain immunity from any lawsuits.

Getting Our Message Through

This pattern of abuse shows that powerful phone companies cannot be
trusted to safeguard our basic freedoms. The democratic principles of
free speech and open communication are too important to be entrusted to
corporate gatekeepers. Whether it’s liberal or conservative, Democrat
or Republican, pro-choice or pro-gun, the phone companies can’t pick
and choose what messages get through.

Thankfully, a few leaders in Congress have had it with phony
apologies from phone companies. Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee, reacted to Verizon’s ban
– and reversal – with strong words: “I am particularly concerned by
[Verizon’s] ability and apparent willingness to interfere when
customers choose to receive legitimate and legal communications from an
organization…I ask Verizon to decisively state that it will no longer
discriminate against any legal content its customers request from any
organization.”

Sen. Dorgan: Protect network neutrality

Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts said that consumers not phone
companies elect to receive wireless text messages, “so the blocking of
such messages by a corporate gatekeeper was deeply concerning.” Markey urged Verizon
and other phone companies “to ensure that their company policies do not
interfere with the delivery of any lawful content, nor discriminate on
the basis of who the sender of such messages may be.”

“Verizon may have reversed its initial decision in this case, and
I’m glad they did. But the fact that they were willing and able to take
their initial action is very troublesome,” Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota told eWeek.
“The network service providers often claim that the effort to ensure
network neutrality is a solution in search of a problem, but this is
fresh evidence that the problem is real and with us now,” Dorgan said.
“We need to protect network neutrality by law.”

We Need Policies Not Apologies

Indeed, the blocking of text messages and interfering with Web
traffic is perfectly legal under the current rules – a regulatory
offspring of some of the most intense phone company lobbying in history.

Censorship by AT&T and Verizon shows us what we can expect in a
future if these lobbyists are successful – and network gatekeepers lock
up their full control of both Internet and wireless markets.

Much is at stake. This week, Verizon squelched free speech. Before
they’re forced to apologize for another glitch, we need to put in place
laws that protect our rights not only to speak out on the streets, but
on the Internet, on cell phones — everywhere.