The idea of net neutrality comes from the concept of Common Carrier in the Communications Act of 1934: carriers cannot block communications between any two pa

The idea of net neutrality comes from the concept of Common Carrier in the Communications Act of 1934: carriers cannot block communications between any two parties (such as favoring their subscribers over those of another carrier). In exchange the carriers are not liable for the content of the communications. Another thing that seems to totally ignored by Boehner et. al. is that you sometimes need regulation to protect basic rights, the Civil Rights Act for example. Net neutrality (hacker view) is the right to communicate whatever with whomever. The FCC has actually been protecting the Internet, bu ever since Powell the child's term as FCC chairman, the waters have been considerably muddied. (In order to give my rant some measure of verisimilitude, I attempted to vet it against Common Carrier and Communications Act of 1934 over at Wikipedia. I found two of the worst and most incomplete articles that I have ever encountered. The Act itself is a 333 page PDF. tl;dnr So please be kind. :-)