The World Wide Web (or the “internets” as Bush puts it) is an amazing frontier– there are websites, homepages, blogs, and virtual storefronts for just about anything under the sun. Some of it of course is bizarre, unusual, different, and even obscure. But the best part about it is that anyone can use it, and anyone can claim their corner of cyberspace– from the billionaire in his secluded, exclusive neighborhood to the homeless guy who signs up for a half-hour or so at the public library, from the career woman writing about her latest endeavors to the ex-con blogging about prison reform. What’s satisfying is that it puts all of us on equal footing. All you need is the use of a computer and the ability to type, and a virtual library opens its worlds to the rest of us.

The Web has at times been called “the last frontier,” and I agree; sometimes certain spots are orderly, regulated, and based upon real-life counterparts; other corners of various cyberworlds are as wild and wooly as anything any writer of old-time Westerns could imagine. Thanks to personal exploration and one legal online research course eons ago, I’ve been a participant in and purveyor of the internet for more than ten years now.

But the news coming out of Capitol Hill these days is somewhat alarming: in its zeal to overhaul the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress is considering creating a regulated internet where Goliath can triumph over, and squash, David. Just yesterday, an amendment was defeated that would have prohibited telecommunications companies from charging fees for ensuring speedy delivery of materials that require high bandwith (see here as well). Further consideration of such efforts in favor of instituting charges for internet use will continue, and could result in a two-tiered or multi-tiered system where companies with money and power squeeze others out of the picture.

What’s wrong with that, you say? Nothing, if you’re merely talking about charges for downloading movies and music– that will happen eventually, I’m sure. But what the real danger here is that certain companies/sites could end up becoming “preferred” vendors, thus allowing telecommunications companies with the cash and political savvy to block out or slow connections to other websites. Instead of a “neutral Net,” we could conceivably end up with a handful of companies acting as gatekeepers, determining just how YOU use the internet, instead of the other way around.

As a new website, Save the Internet, says, “Your local library shouldn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to have its Web site open quickly on your computer.” That may be slightly simplistic, but given government regulation of communications in the past , I’m not so sure I want to put all my faith in our legislators.

Speaking of libraries, that’s the general principle here: we pay taxes to support libraries that provide access to all. We pay a fee to a company for dial-up or broadband and pay taxes to our local governments that provide connections to computers that provide access to all. Our libraries don’t charge us a higher fee for using certain books, and the internet (so far!) doesn’t charge us mixed fees for accessing certain websites (commercial sites are a whole ‘nother realm in themselves).

If you have *any* interest in preserving the web as it is, unfettered and theoretically free to all, then I suggest you educate yourselves on the topic and contact your Congressional representatives now. You may not believe it, but you DO have a voice, and if you’re reading this right now, then you’re a user of the Web, and you DO have a stake in what happens.