We are quickly coming upon midterm elections here in the United States. I want to stress that it is absolutely imperative that everyone goes out to vote. You will find that these midterm elections sometimes have more impact on your life than presidential elections. It is your governor who decides what federal funding your state will accept. It is your governor, along with your local mayor, who decides what state programs will be funded, how tax revenue will be spent locally, and the income of state employees. Our congressmen and senators make decisions that affect our economy, our war efforts, health care, and gun safety. Voting is critical for those with state and federal jobs, for our crumbling public education system, and we can now add for the Internet.
It is important that we elect officials that are interested in maintaining net neutrality. It is important that we find individuals that are interested in preserving personal privacy on the internet. I think part of the problem is that too many of our elected officials have no clue about how the average American uses the internet.
Net neutrality means that no matter what internet service provider that you are using, no matter how you are using your internet (surfing the web, playing games, watching movies etc.) the data speed across providers and services are treated equal. If this is changed you would have situations wherein an ISP could provide certain customers with faster internet speeds to access certain content for a premium price while the speed is throttled for others. Let’s say you love Netflix. A system without net neutrality means that your ISP could charge Netflix more money to provide you access to their content, meaning their fees will increase to provide the service and those fees will most likely be passed to you. Net neutrality prevents companies from interfering with competition. An example of this would be allowing Netflix to stream with great speed and quality while throttling Amazon movies to make them stream slower. Another example could be your ISP allowing faster access to games provided by EA but throttle those provided by Blizzard.
It is common knowledge that pretty much everything and anything that you do online can be or will be tracked. Find out which elected officials are against government agencies prying into our personal online activity. We as Americans do not like it when companies embed back doors into software and we don’t appreciate government created malware.
We need to elect officials that are willing to ignore capitalism sometimes in order to make decisions that would help America; such as, increasing internet speeds across the nation, expanding internet infrastructure to less affluent and rural areas, and funneling more money into education to teach our kids science, mathematics, engineering and technology. I am absolutely sick of elected officials making decision about technology based on what some big company wants when these decisions never help the American people and only bolster the profit margin or asset acquisitions of big business.
It is important for us to vote and for us to learn the positions of those that we are voting for on particular issues. I will not tell you who to vote for, but I will say don’t vote against your own self-interest! Vote for whomever wants to do things that will help you, your family, and your community. Remember that people were beaten, jailed, and killed so that we could have the right to vote. If you do not vote you do not have the right to complain about our diminishing liberties.
