Ara Technica recently interviewed Senator Franken, one of the more vocal proponents of Net Neutrality in DC. The interview is brief, but I thought I’d pull out just one question…

Ars: You have called network neutrality the “First Amendment issue of our time.” We had a lot of push back on that from readers who are upset about other issues in the last decade such as warrantless wiretaps, Patriot Act misuse, the new COICA censorship legislation… why is net neutrality really that fundamental?

Sen. Franken: Well, because if you have a few ISPs essentially running the whole show and they’re charging for a fast lane, then really the information that people are going to get is going to be corporate information. People are getting more and more of their information on the Internet and this will mean that the speech will be controlled by big corporate interests. They’ll be the only ones able to pay for the faster access, and that essentially will be what people get. That’s why I call it the First Amendment issue of our time.

Although he has addressed the topic often, some readers may remember that Senator Franken spoke passionately about Net Neutrality at the FCC Public Hearing in Minneapolis last August