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Knox 'caused Kercher's fatal wound'
4/30/2014 8:08:58 AM
- NEW: "I am innocent," says Amanda Knox
- She was first convicted of murder in 2009
- Knox's former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was also convicted
- An appeals court overturned the convictions in 2011
Rome (CNN) -- An Italian court says it convicted Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend of murdering her onetime roommate in part because of evidence showing that more than one person killed the British student.
The Florence appeals court released its explanation Tuesday, less than three months after it convicted Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in Meredith Kercher's 2007 death in a retrial.
In the more than 300-page document, the court said that a third person convicted in the murder, Rudy Guede, did not act alone, and cited the nature of the victim's wounds.
Ruling Judge Alessandro Nencini, who presided over the second appeal in the case, said Kercher, 21, and Knox disagreed over the payment of the rent in the house they shared in Perugia and that "there was an argument, then an elevation and progression of aggression."
The Florence court in January said that Knox, who also was convicted of slander, was sentenced in absentia to 28½ years in prison. Sollecito's sentence was 25 years.
They were first convicted of murder in 2009, but the verdicts were overturned on appeal in 2011.
Through her attorney, Knox released a statement proclaiming her innocence.
"I have stated from the beginning of this long ordeal that I am innocent of the accusations against me. I was found innocent by the only court in Italy that retained independent forensic experts to review my case.
"I want to state again today what I have said throughout this process: I am innocent of the accusation against me, and the recent Motivation document does not -- and cannot -- change the fact of my innocence," she said.
Now that the explanation of the verdict has been released, defense lawyers have 90 days to appeal to Italy's high court.
In the document, Nencini focuses on the perceived errors of the appellate court that set Knox and Sollecito free, accusing it of the "absence of logic rigor" when evaluating evidence.
He wrote that some evidence, including a prison diary Knox wrote in the early days of her incarceration, was used to support her innocence when it was "convenient, but at the same time devalued when she incriminated herself."
The judge also reasoned that Knox's false accusation of her former boss, Patrick Lumumba, whom she accused of the killing the night she was arrested, proved her guilt.
Lumumba spent nearly two weeks in prison without Knox correcting her false accusation. He was released when Guede was arrested after his fingerprints were found in at the murder scene.
Nencini wrote that the accusation against Lumumba was "indispensable in understanding the crime" and that the accusation "cannot be separated from the murder."
Nencini also considered credible forensic testimony that the first appellate court dismissed, including traces of mixed blood and DNA belonging to both Knox and Kercher that were identified in the bathroom that the women shared.
"Guede, Knox and Sollecito left traces of their movements in the blood of the victim that was flowing profusely from her wounds," the judge wrote.
Nencini excluded the idea that Guede climbed into the apartment through a window after breaking it with a rock as the Knox and Sollecito defense teams presented in earlier trials.
He also excluded the idea put forth by Guede's defense that Kercher let him in for a prearranged meeting. Instead, he wrote: "The court accepts the position that only Amanda Knox was in possession of the other key to the apartment" and that she let him in.
Nencini dismissed all theories related to a sex game gone wrong. Prosecutors had argued Kercher was stabbed to death after she rejected attempts by Knox, Sollecito and Guede to involve her in a sex game.
Instead, Nencini wrote that the suspects did not need to "share a motive."
He said a knife with Knox's DNA on the handle found in Sollecito's apartment was the weapon that killed Kercher and that Knox left her DNA on the handle when she "plunged the knife into the left side of Kercher's neck, causing the fatal wound."
In the initial trial, a tiny spot of DNA identified on the blade of that knife was attributed to Kercher, but the sample was too small to double test. Nencini nonetheless considered it the primary weapon.
He reasoned that Sollecito used another knife and took it with him when he left. "The English girl was attacked by Amanda Marie Knox, by Raffaele Sollecito, who was backing up his girlfriend, and by Rudy Hermann Guede," Nencini wrote.
Guede is the only person in jail for the slaying, and many aspects of the crime remain unexplained.
Knox and Sollecito have maintained their innocence, and their 2009 convictions led to questions about the effectiveness of Italy's justice system. The trial revealed widespread doubts over the handling of the investigation and key pieces of evidence.
But in March 2013, Italy's Supreme Court overturned their acquittals and ordered a retrial. That proceeding resulted in the convictions being reinstated.
Knox's conviction has raised questions about her possible extradition to Italy to serve her sentence; she was in the United States and did not attend the retrial.
READ: Amanda Knox's ex finds her behavior odd, as appeals case looms
READ: Opinion: Why Knox verdict baffles us
CNN's Hada Messia, Jason Hanna and Marie-Louise Gumuchian contributed to this report
Actor Bob Hoskins dies at 71
4/30/2014 2:45:23 PM
- Bob Hoskins was known for "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Mona Lisa"
- Hoskins often played gangsters and working-class guys
- Actor first rose to fame in UK miniseries "Pennies From Heaven"
- Hoskins was straightforward, told paper he loved acting "and getting paid for it"
(CNN) -- Bob Hoskins, the pugnacious British actor known for playing gangsters, tough guys and working-class gentlemen in such films as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "The Long Good Friday" and "Mermaids," has died, publicist Clair Dobbs said Wednesday.
Hoskins was 71.
His passing comes nearly two years after he retired from acting following a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.
Hoskins was perhaps best known for 1988's live-action and animation hybrid "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." In the comedy, he played detective Eddie Valiant, who hates "toons" -- cartoon figures who live in a separate showbiz world bordering Valiant's 1940s Los Angeles -- and takes up the task of proving the innocence of the cartoon title character, accused of murder. The film was the second-highest grossing movie of 1988, after "Rain Man."
He followed the turn with performances in a variety of films, including 1991's "Hook" in which he played Smee, the pirate assistant of Captain Hook; 1995's "Nixon" as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover; and 2001's "Last Orders" as the gambler friend of protagonist Michael Caine, whose pals gather to spread his ashes after his death.
Hoskins was nominated for an Oscar for 1986's "Mona Lisa" as a cabdriver who establishes a relationship with a high-priced call girl. Caine was also in the film. Hoskins won both a BAFTA and Golden Globe for his performance.
Robert Hoskins was born on October 26, 1942, in Bury St. Edmunds, England, the only child of a bookkeeper and a cook. He dropped out of school at 15 and took jobs as a truck driver and window cleaner, among others, before falling into acting by accident: A friend was auditioning for a part and Hoskins, who was waiting nearby, was asked to try out. A natural, he got the role.
"I fit into this business like a sore foot into a soft shoe," he told the UK paper The Telegraph in 2009.
In Britain, he gained fame for his performance as a Depression-era song-plugger in Dennis Potter's miniseries "Pennies From Heaven," later turned into a 1980 movie starring Steve Martin.
Though he had a handful of recognizable roles in films after "Pennies" -- including 1980's "The Long Good Friday," 1982's "Pink Floyd the Wall" and 1985's "Brazil" (in which he played a gleefully malevolent repairman), it wasn't until "Roger Rabbit" that he broke through to mainstream American audiences.
That film drove him a bit nuts, he told The Telegraph.
"I think I went a bit mad while working on that. Lost my mind. The voice of the rabbit was there just behind the camera all the time," he recalled. "The trouble was, I had learnt how to hallucinate. My daughter had an invisible friend called Jeffrey and I played with her and this invisible friend until one day I actually saw the friend."
It was his daughter, however, who set him straight.
"My daughter, when I came back from filming in San Francisco, she said 'Dad, slow down, slow down. You're going barmy, mate.' And I was."
Always a steady and straightforward worker -- no "Method acting" for Hoskins -- he appeared in at least one production every year from 1972 until his retirement in 2012.
"There's two things I love about this business. One's acting and the other one's getting paid for it," he told the UK paper The Guardian in 2007. "The rest of it is a mystery to me."
In one of his last roles, he played the elf Muir in 2012's "Snow White and the Huntsman." In the 2011 TV miniseries and Peter Pan prequel "Neverland," he played Smee -- a character he had portrayed in "Hook."
But true to his working-class roots -- The Telegraph described his natural voice as "cockney as jellied eels" -- he hated to put on airs.
"I met a little old fella in Regent's Park when I was walking a character around. He said, 'You are who you are, ain't you?' and I said, 'Yeah, I am who I am.' And he said, 'That's good. I grow roses,' " Hoskins recalled. "And we sat talking about roses all afternoon. It was wonderful."
Hoskins is survived by his wife, Linda Banwell, and four children.
People we lost in 2014
CNN's Lindsay Isaac and Jason Hanna contributed to this report.
Why NATO is such a thorn for Russia
4/30/2014 7:32:31 PM
- In cadet school, Russian pupils have questions for NATO
- They ask: why do you need to be on our border
- Putin used strategic military reasoning to annexe Crimea
- Among general public, there's a feeling that Russia is at last standing up for its rights
Moscow (CNN) -- In a telephone call Monday between Russia's Defense Minister General Sergei Shoigu and the U.S. Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel, Shoigu described the activity of U.S. and NATO troops near Russia's border as "unprecedented."
According to the official Russian version of the call, his American counterpart assured him the alliance did not have "provocative or expansionist" intentions -- and that Russia should know this.
But it hardly seems to matter how often NATO makes these assurances. The Kremlin will never trust them. Fear of the Western military alliance's steady march east is deep-rooted. It strikes at the very heart of Russia's national sense of security, a relic of Cold War enmity which has seeped down to post-Soviet generations.
Ilya Saraev is a 15-year-old pupil at the First Moscow cadet school in Moscow. He thinks long and hard when I ask him about NATO. "I think NATO might be a friend to Russia but there's one point I don't understand: Why it needs to approach the border with Russia more and more," he says.
Cadet school is an education in patriotism, like something from a bygone era. Besides the regular classes, there are lessons in ballroom dancing. Teenage cadets proudly leading local beauties through the waltz while outside their classmates rehearse the goosestep.
After the takeover of Crimea, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of behaving in a 19th century fashion in the 21st century. In some ways it's an epithet that seems to ring true here. The children are immaculately mannered and thoughtful. They write to their fellow cadets in Crimea. They say they feel sad there's this tension between brother nations -- Russia and Ukraine.
"People still don't realize that war means despair and grief," says 16-year-old Vlad Voinakov. "They can't find a compromise because people's interests become involved and that's where the problem lies."
Russia and NATO have never been able to find much of a compromise. Russia's repeated stance is that after German reunification, promises were made that NATO would never expand eastward -- and were promptly broken. NATO says this is simply not true. "No such pledge was made, and no evidence to back up Russia's claims has ever been produced," the alliance wrote in an April fact sheet entitled "Russia's accusations -- setting the record straight."
NATO says it has tried hard to make Russia a "privileged partner." It has worked together with Russia on a range of issues from counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics to submarine rescue and emergency planning. NATO says that fundamentally Russia's anti-NATO rhetoric is an attempt to "divert attention away from its actions" in Ukraine. Now all cooperation is off the table.
"From the Russian side, that NATO-Russian cooperation was just a camouflage," says Vladimir Batyuk of Russian think tank, the Institute of USA and Canada Studies. "After the Cold War Russia tried several times to become a member and the Americans always said, 'it's not going to happen.'" He quotes Lord Ismay, NATO's first Secretary General, on the object of NATO's existence: "To keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down."
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared at his annual direct call with the Russian people that part of his reasoning for annexing Crimea was to protect Sevastopol, home of Russia's Black Sea fleet, from ever falling into NATO's hands. "If we don't do anything, Ukraine will be drawn into NATO sometime in the future. We'll be told: "This doesn't concern you," and NATO ships will dock in Sevastopol, the city of Russia's naval glory," he said.
Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yetsenyuk has said Ukrainian accession to NATO is not a priority. The nation is currently in such a state of disarray that NATO membership seems unimaginable. But a membership action plan was discussed for both Ukraine and Georgia at the Bucharest Summit in 2008. It was put on hold. But Putin does not forget.
"Ever since (former Ukraine President Viktor) Yanukovych fled his country and a pro-Western government took power in his country, of course this is something [Putin] couldn't stop thinking about," says Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "So for him, to prevent Ukraine from becoming part of the western orbit if not of NATO, was something he absolutely cannot afford."
This is why the rotation of 600 U.S. troops, small as it is, through the Baltic states and Poland for joint-training exercises is such an affront for Russia. This is why it is perhaps not strictly fair to accuse Russia of just engaging in propaganda when it declares its mistrust of NATO.
Batyuk says he feels that the general public's attitude to the alliance has worsened since the end of the Cold War. Then, people were able to dismiss the Kremlin's line towards NATO as Soviet propaganda, he says. Now it's different. "A store of unsuccessful mishaps in relations between Russia and the West after the end of the Cold War has contributed to a rise in suspicions on the Russian side to Western policy in general and NATO in particular."
That's one of the reasons Putin's popularity has soared since the annexation of Crimea. There is a feeling among the general public that, at last, Russia is standing up for its rights in the post-Soviet space where it has sat maligned for decades. Much as the Kremlin likes to nurture that narrative, it is also easy to see why it resonates with the Russian public.
Will CAR Muslims ever return home?
4/30/2014 4:47:52 PM
- One million people in Central African Republic have fled their homes to avoid ethnic violence
- Muslim rebel group's ousting of Christian president last year plunged CAR into chaos
- Rebel group's leader seized power briefly, but stepped down after failing to halt violence
- Mayor of capital city Bangui is now interim President, but situation remains tense
Editor's note: Tammi Sharpe is the deputy representative for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Central African Republic. Follow her on Twitter here.
Bangui, Central African Republic (CNN) -- In two days I will leave the Central African Republic (CAR), concluding a four-month assignment here for the U.N. Refugee Agency. But today, instead of packing, I'm assisting with the relocation of 1,259 people facing death threats in the PK12 neighborhood of Bangui, the capital city. I arrived here on New Year's Day for an emergency humanitarian mission and quickly became a witness to the formation of enclaves like this one, where residents fear for their lives.
Since December, nearly one million people in CAR have fled their homes amid brutal attacks and reprisals by warring factions -- chiefly the Seleka and anti-Balaka militias. More than half the country's 4.6 million people are now in need of humanitarian help. But few are in graver danger than the people trapped in numerous neighborhoods like PK12.
I first visited one of these enclaves in late January, when I travelled to Bozoum in the country's northwest. Passing through MISCA peacekeepers, I entered a corner of the town where several thousand people had sought refuge. Their fear was palpable. I could see it in their eyes, in their posture and most of all in their alertness to everything happening around them. In PK12 I hear similar stories of people displaced from their homes and then trapped during their flight to safety.
The humanitarian community is aware of 15 places where entire communities are currently at risk, though their numbers and locations are in continuous flux.
Some have been evacuated, as with Bozoum. Some have fled on their own, taking enormous risks in becoming refugees in neighboring countries. And some have fled into the bush, like the people from Boboua, midway between the capital and Bozoum. When I met them in mid-February, they were in a desperate state, fearing for their lives after a month in the bush. Still others, as in Boda, west of Bangui, have become imprisoned in their own homes.
Each of these besieged communities faces distinct circumstances, and holds its own views. The people in Boda want to stay in Boda, where many of them were born and raised. But they also demand freedom of movement: the right to go outside their neighborhood, a small area that would fill only a few city blocks. They're not just seeking a sense of normalcy and human dignity -- this is about pure survival. A couple weeks ago, anti-Balaka fighters killed two women from Boda when they went beyond the bounds of their neighborhood to gather food in a nearby forest.
Some members of the Boboua community have returned, while others have fled to different enclaves. A fragile agreement there allows for coexistence, but there is a constant threat of outside interference from anti-Balaka groups in neighboring villages. But despite the harrowing conditions in Boda, there is also reason for hope. Vulnerable members of the Boda community -- as well as those who have not been targeted but are also living under a constant threat of the anti-Balaka and have been displaced from their homes -- are trying to neutralize a minority of spoilers to open up room for discussions.
But hope is harder to find in other enclaves, each of which has its own dynamics and characteristics. The humanitarian community looks at each situation separately, and for months we have been fervently trying to identify the best way to protect these individuals' fundamental rights to physical security and to provide the means for their basic survival. The international forces have been critical, but we have also been grappling with a steadily ticking clock and the stark reality that people can only survive so long in such conditions, both physically and psychologically. We also need to defer to the views of the community. In the case of PK12 this past weekend, people were demanding assistance to safely leave for more peaceful parts of the country.
As I interact with members of the community, many of them frighteningly frail, I ask myself: Did we wait too long in accepting relocation, a measure of last resort? And I wonder: Will they ever be able to return to their former homes in and around Bangui? Right after the convoy departs, belligerents pillage the mosque in PK12, underscoring the enormous challenges for future returns. But even more revealing, perhaps, is an exchange with three young children. As they follow me after leaving one of the trucks, I encourage them to return to their mothers. They respond, "Madame, we are Central Africans, not Muslims."
READ: U.N. approves peacekeepers for Central African Republic
READ: U.N. chief warns against repeat of Rwanda in Central African Republic
Israel, Kerry is one of your allies
5/1/2014 1:35:50 AM
- Jeremy Ben-Ami: John Kerry used the word apartheid about Israel, setting off a firestorm
- He says we need that passion devoted to policies to protect Israel's Jewish democracy
- Ben-Ami: Non-Jews will outnumber Jews, which will hurt Israel without two-state solution
- He says the word apartheid has been used by Israeli politicians: Kerry is a friend to Israel
Editor's note: Jeremy Ben-Ami is the president and founder of J Street, the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.
(CNN) -- Pro-Israel advocates and politicians, breathe easy.
Israel is safe once more from the threat of "apartheid" -- the word, that is. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has clarified comments made in a closed-door meeting last week, and he stated clearly that Israel is not an apartheid state.
But Kerry's dire warning, and the future the secretary was predicting for Israel, lingers. That point seems lost amid this week's onslaught against Kerry, as members of Congress and Israel advocates raced to prove their pro-Israel credentials with their outrage.
The histrionics over the secretary's remarks are yet one more sign of how fundamentally broken American politics are when it comes to Israel. Vast energy is poured into defending Israel from an inappropriate word. Yet nowhere near enough energy is devoted to promoting policies that will actually protect and save Israel's Jewish democracy in the long run.
Labels aside, Israel is maintaining the longest military occupation in the world. In the territory occupied in 1967, Jewish residents enjoy all of the benefits of Israeli democracy, while Palestinian residents in the same territory lack basic rights of citizenship.
Many predict the number of non-Jews in the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River soon will be greater than the number of Jews, and everyone from President Barack Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come to understand what this means.
Without a two-state solution to this conflict, Israel draws ever closer to an unfathomable choice: Forsake its democracy by establishing rule of a Jewish minority over a non-Jewish majority, or forsake its Jewish character by granting equal rights to all residents under its control.
That's the future that former Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak warned about when they invoked the specter of apartheid, and it's that future that Kerry has been working tirelessly to avert with his Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative. It's a choice that draws sadly closer, now that Kerry's efforts have passed their initial nine-month deadline, and the parties have resumed the familiar cycle of provocation and retaliation.
To question Kerry's commitment to Israel over a word, after everything that he's done to help Israel, is absurd. No U.S. leader has done more to help Israel gain acceptance in the international community and ensure its long-term peace and security.
What friends of Israel should really be asking themselves is not whether they are doing everything they can to protect Israel from being called certain names, but whether they are doing everything possible to secure its future as the democratic home of the Jewish people by bringing about a two-state peace.
Sadly, this question is conspicuously absent from our politics.
Many politicians' reflexive defense posture at times like this allows our friends and family in Israel to continue believing that the root of their problems is anti-Israel bias rather than the expansionist policies a right-wing minority is foisting on their country. They need to hear that the policies of that minority are out of sync with the values and the interests of the United States, and that staying the present course risks the foundations of the relationship between the two countries.
Shooting the messenger does Israel no favors.
Friends of Israel should start by thanking Kerry for his commitment to Israel and supporting him as he seeks to break the present impasse in negotiations.
And if we can channel as much passion and energy into ending the conflict as we do into protecting Israel from painful words, Israel may yet stand a chance.
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Opinion: Race rant owner a victim?
4/30/2014 11:43:04 PM
- Marc J. Randazza: Donald Sterling's First Amendment rights weren't violated in scandal
- Government isn't punishing speech, he says, but Sterling's ideas failed in marketplace
- He says problem was recording of Sterling may have been illegal, leaking it morally wrong
- Randazza: This could happen to any of our private conversations today and it's chilling
Editor's note: Marc J. Randazza is a Las Vegas-based First Amendment attorney and is the managing partner of the Randazza Legal Group. He is licensed to practice in Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts and Nevada. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- This past week, my inbox blew up with e-mails asking whether Donald Sterling's First Amendment rights were violated in the uproar over the Los Angeles Clippers owner's racist remarks about black people. After all, he was simply expressing his views, however unpopular.
While he did have some rights violated, his First Amendment rights remain intact.
The First Amendment protects you from the government punishing you because of your speech. The NBA is a private club, and it can discipline Sterling all it wants.
What about the chorus of criticism? Are we all violating his First Amendment rights by criticizing him? We are punishing him for his speech.
Nope. The First Amendment does not insulate you from criticism. In fact, that's the First Amendment in action. That is how the marketplace of ideas works. We float our ideas in the marketplace, and we see which idea sells.
Most everyone would agree that Sterling's ideas fail in the marketplace of ideas. Nevertheless, I reluctantly stand on Sterling's side today. What happened to him may have been illegal and was morally wrong.
Start with illegal. In California, you can't record a conversation without the knowledge or consent of both parties. The recording featuring Sterling and V. Stiviano may be the result of a crime. Once she gathered this information, someone leaked it (she denies it was her) -- and it went viral. This is where I think things went morally wrong.
We all say things in private that we might not say in public. Sometimes we have ideas that are not fully developed -- we try them out with our closest friends. Consider it our test-marketplace of ideas. As our ideas develop, we consider whether to make them public. Should we not all have the freedom to make that choice on our own?
The Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy made his own stupid and bigoted statements, and he's been nationally pilloried, too -- but he chose to make those statements to the world. He deserves every ounce of obloquy heaped upon him.
But does Sterling? Think about what his public character execution means. It means that we now live in a world where if you have any views that are unpopular, you now not only need to fear saying them in public, but you need to fear saying them at all -- even to your intimate friends. They might be recording you, and then that recording may be spread across the Internet for everyone to hear.
Isn't it bad enough that the National Security Agency can spy on all of us? How can we complain when we condone giving our closest friends the ability to do worse -- perhaps just to try and destroy us.
In the novel "1984," George Orwell wrote of the Telescreen, a device that beamed information into the home but that also spied on people constantly. Even if we were to stop the NSA in its tracks, would we still now live in a world where the Telescreen watches us? Only instead of an oppressive government installing it in our apartments, it is conveniently placed in the hands of our dear friends.
The Sterling story is not that we found a bigot and dragged him to the gallows in the middle of the marketplace of ideas. The Sterling story is about how there is no more privacy. We live in a world where you can share your intimate photos with your lover, and they will wind up on a "revenge porn" website.
We live in a world where our intimate conversations will be recorded and blasted to billions of listeners. We live in a world where, say a gold digger can spy on her sugar daddy, and the world says that the creepy old guy is the bad guy.
Don't get me wrong. Sterling does seem to be a bad person. But sometimes the bad person is also the victim, and he stands in for us. As you applaud Stiviano for bringing the racist old man's views to light, consider if it were you speaking to a woman friend in what you thought was a private conversation.
Do we now live in a world where we can trust nobody? Where there is no privacy?
In this story, there are two villains. Sterling represents the bad old days. But Stiviano's behavior represents the horrifying future. Shouldn't we condemn the complete breakdown of privacy and trust at least as loudly as we condemn some old man's racist blathering?
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Why you'll hate Internet 'fast lane'
5/1/2014 12:04:47 AM
- The FCC might allow Internet service providers to charge more for a "fast lane"
- Corynne McSherry: High costs will go to customers; Internet competition will be stifled
- She says other advanced countries pay far less and get faster service than Americans
- McSherry: On May 15, the public can weigh in on FCC's decision and voice concerns
Editor's note: Corynne McSherry is the intellectual property director at Electronic Frontier Foundation. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Recently, Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, came under fire for reportedly proposing exceedingly weak "open Internet rules." If the reports are correct, the FCC will allow broadband providers like Comcast to make special deals that give some companies preferential treatment, as long as those deals are "commercially reasonable."
In other words, rather then requiring broadband providers to treat all Internet traffic more or less equally, the FCC will permit them to create an Internet "fast lane" and shake down content providers like Netflix, Google and Amazon for the right to travel in it.
Guess who will really end up paying for the fast lane? Yep -- you, the customers.
The price will be higher than you think. Not only will you have to pay more for the services you already use, but you will also lose out on emerging services that will be crushed by the new costs.
YouTube and Netflix may be able to "pay to play." But innovative competitors -- the next Facebook, Twitter or YouTube being dreamed up in someone's garage right now -- may not.
The proposed rules aren't all bad. The FCC will also require ISPs to be more transparent about the deals they make so customers will know what they are getting. The FCC will also caution ISPs against making deals that favor their own affiliated businesses (we're looking at you, Comcast -- no special favors for your friends at NBC Universal).
Unfortunately, even "transparency" is tougher to enforce than many might think, because so much of our connectivity depends on secret agreements between various kinds of Internet service providers.
The devil is in the details. The good news is that we will have a chance to look at those details in a few weeks and tell the FCC what we think. The FCC will be voting on the new rules at its May 15 meeting. If it votes to adopt them, it must publish the proposed rules in advance and respond to public concerns about them. The problem is that most people don't know how this process works, and so they don't participate. (The Electronic Frontier Foundation is building a tool that will make that easier; visit our site next month at www.eff.org)
The Internet is too important to leave to bureaucrats who seem more beholden to the ISPs than the public. We need to let the FCC know we will not tolerate rules that let ISPs pick and choose how well Internet users can connect to one another.
If we really want to stop net discrimination, we need to foster a genuinely competitive market for Internet access. Right now, subscribers have few ISP options in many markets. If subscribers and customers had adequate information about their options and could vote with their feet -- i.e., switch providers -- ISPs would have strong incentives to treat all network traffic fairly.
Moreover, they would also have an incentive to improve our Internet speeds. Most Americans don't realize it, but the United States is falling behind when it comes to high-speed Internet. We pay much more for much less than subscribers in other developed countries like Sweden, South Korea and Japan.
Subscribers in those countries are getting Internet service that is 100 times faster than the fastest connection in the United States -- for a fraction of the average U.S. cable bill. That's appalling. We can do better, but only if we start demanding more from ISPs.
Already, our lagging Internet speeds are likely to have serious consequences. "What's at stake is whether the new jobs, new ideas, new services of the 21st century will come from the United States or they'll come from Stockholm, Seoul, Beijing, where kids are already playing in the virtual sandboxes of these very high capacity networks," noted Susan Crawford, a legal scholar who has served on President Obama's science and tech team.
Our ISPs have no incentive to invest in building powerful, competitive, networks. Why should they? It's not like their customers are going anywhere.
Fortunately, efforts are under way to address this. For example, all around the country, cities are investing in their own broadband networks, some successfully. Fostering strong alternatives in high-speed Internet access won't be easy, and community broadband alone won't be the panacea. But it's a start, and a movement the FCC should support.
We'll need more experiments like these if we want the Internet to continue to be an extraordinary platform for free expression, innovation and commerce. So let's make sure the FCC hears us loud and clear: Reject "pay to play" and resist monopolies so that everyone benefits, not just the powerful Internet service providers.
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