“I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
- Will Rogers

The New York Times reported yesterday that more and more internet traffic is beginning to bypass the United States- and Big Brother isn’t happy.

Michael Hayden, director of the CIA and Elmer Fudd look-alike, has testified that retaining control of this traffic would give the US an “edge.” The edge he’s referring to isn’t a competitive or technological edge, but the type of edge one used to get in grade school when passing (and reading) someone else’s note, or the edge a mother feels she’s entitled to when snooping through her daughter’s diary. Acknowledging an established program with American telecom companies what he’s really talking about is spying.

Other countries are already beginning to realize that traffic produced by their own citizens for their own citizen really shouldn’t have to go through routers and switches in the US. China and India are two countries making large investments to keep their traffic from streaming under Elmer’s spy glass.

Proponents of net neutrality advocate for keeping the internet free from corporate restrictions, specifically those of local ISPs. I’d like to suggest they go a step further and define neutrality to include governments as well. The last thing we need is Washington regulating internet traffic. Otherwise this could be one hunt where Elmer really bags his wabbit.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 5:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.