Vicente Gonzalez: “first of all, the advocates for this amendment claim this amendment is about consumers, the little guy. Countless of…”

“first of all, the advocates for this amendment claim this amendment is about consumers, the little guy. Countless of bloggers have written all Members of Congress in fear if this amendment does not pass, they will no longer be free to express their opinions on the Internet and have their voices heard. Let me tell you as directly as I can to all the bloggers out there, to all of e- mailers out there, to all the households out there, to the average American, this Markey amendment is not about you. It is not about the consumer. So what is it? I will tell you what it is. First, it is a guarantee that the consumer will be the only one to finance the building, the maintenance and the improvement of the Internet highway. That is what the Markey amendment will do. It imposes and establishes, secondly, a massive Federal regulation by mandating and dictating conditions on how the Internet will evolve without any consideration for technological advances and emerging business practices and models. The Markey amendment does this. It picks sides. It creates inferior and superior stakeholders in the Internet. And lastly, this is the Markey amendment, in my own opinion. It is driven by a hostility against one particular business entity that is involved and is a stakeholder in the Internet. It is unfair when this body takes sides and does not allow the marketplace and innovation, imagination, creativity, technological and business practices to flourish in our society.…”