national day of protest against the telcos May 12, 2006

Here in NYC we'll be at Verizon down on West Street May 24th - time
TBA. Maybe folks would be interested - have them contact us at MNN
(michael@mnn.org or jacob@mnn.org). Details
will go up on http://www.saveaccess.org tomorrow night.
MEDIA ACTIVISTS IN CHICAGO, NEW YORK AND BOSTON ARE ORGANIZING AN NATIONAL DAY OF OUTRAGE/OUTAGE ON WED MAY 24TH
**** For media activist organizers
- we want to do this action Wednesday may 24th
- below is an explanation. If enough folks sign-on we will have materials released this weekend****
Contact: Michael Eisenmenger, Michael@mayfirst.org
Lauren-Glenn Davitian, Davitian@cctv.org
We call on activists in communities across the United States to declare their telecommunications independence. We need to protest the efforts of the major telephone companies (AT&T, Verizon and Quest) to pass National Video Franchising legislation in Congress. Using telco resources to buy the votes of Congress people, pending legislation (House Bill 5252 and Senate Bill2686) will curb local control over video franchises, negatively impact thousands of local Public, Educational and Governmental Access channels, allow red-lining of low-income and rural communities and jeopardize the openness of the internet by removing open access provisions that designed to promote competition.
Since the telephone industry was Ňde-regulatedÓ in 1981, the number of Belloperating companies have shrunk from seven to three. Thousands of jobs have been lost or out-sourced and the number of independent internet service providers has declined. The telcos giants are corrupting the Congressional process to cash in on a network that has been funded by ratepayers and federal government subsidies for more than seventy years. Now they want a sweetheart deal from Congress and will stop at nothing. It is not too late to speak out on behalf of the public interest, electronic ŇgreenspaceÓ, open networks, consumer protections and access for all.
But more than 500,000 people have spoken on behalf of open networks.
Internet users, community activists and independent media producers, consumer groups, churches and are speaking out. The National Day of Out(r)age is an opportunity to echo their voices with political action.
HereŐs how you can organize a National Day of Action
- Organize your members
- Send out a Press Release
- Hold a Press Conference with Key StakeHolders
- Stage a Physical Demonstration at your local Verizon/AT&T office
- Cover the event Đ mainstream and independent press
- If you canŐt organize enough people/ or donŐt have enough time, you are encouraged to take small scale actions.
Use www.saveaccess.org
as an organizing vehicle. We will post information and document events as they occur. Become a partner! We will be organizing national conference calls for participating cites, get involved and participate by sending an email to info@saveaccess.org.
Michael Eisenmenger
Lauren-Glenn Davitian

Official Website: http://www.saveaccess.org/