Join the Movement for Public Broadband in PDX

2 months 2 weeks ago

Did you know the City of Portland, Oregon, already owns and operates a fiber-optic broadband network? It's called IRNE (Integrated Regional Network Enterprise), and despite having it in place Portlanders are forced to pay through the nose for internet access because of a lack of meaningful competition. Even after 24 years of IRNE, too many in PDX struggle to afford and access fast internet service in their homes and small businesses.

EFF and local Electronic Frontier Alliance members, Personal TelCo Project and Community Broadband PDX, are calling on city council & mayoral candidates to sign a pledge to support an open-access business model, where the city owns and leases the "dark" fiber. That way services can be run by local non profits, local businesses, or community cooperatives. The hope is these local services can then grow to support retail service and meet the needs of more residents.

This change will only happen if we show our support, join the campaign today to stay up to date and find volunteer opportunities.  Also come out for fun and learning at The People’s Digital Safety Fair Saturday October 19th, for talks and workshops from the local coalition. Let’s break the private ISP monopoly power in Portland!

Leading this campaign is Community Broadband PDX, with the mission to ‘guide Portlanders to create a new option for fast internet access: Publicly owned and transparently operated, affordable, secure, fast and reliable broadband infrastructure that is always available to every neighborhood and community.’ According to Jennifer Redman, President, Board of Directors, and Campaign Manager of Community Broadband PDX, (who also formerly served as the Community Broadband Planning Manager in the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability with the City of Portland) when asked about the campaign to expand IRNE into affordable accessible internet for all Portlanders, she said:

“Expanding access to the Integrated Regional Network Enterprise (IRNE) is the current campaign focus because within municipal government it is often easier to expand existing programs rather than create entirely new ones - especially if there is a major capital investment required. IRNE is staffed, there are regional partners and the program is highly effective. Yes it is limited in scope but there are active expansion plans.   

Leveraging IRNE allows us to advocate for policies like “Dig Once Dig Smart” every time the ground is open for any type of development in the City of Portland - publicly owned-fiber conduit must be included. The current governmental structure has made implementing these policies extremely difficult because of the siloed nature of how the City is run. For example, the water bureau doesn’t want to be told what to do by the technology services bureau. This should significantly improve with our charter change. Currently the City of Portland really operates as a group of disparate systems that sometimes work together. I hope that under a real city manager, the City is run as one system.

IRNE already partners with Link Oregon - which provides the “retail” network services for many statewide educational and other non-profit institutions.  The City is comfortable with this model - IRNE builds and manages the dark fiber network while partners provide the retail or “lit" service. Let’s grow local ISPs that keep dollars in Portland as opposed to corporate out-of-state providers like Comcast and Century Link.”

The time is now to move Portland forward and make access to the publicly owned fiber optic network available to everyone. As explained by Russell Senior, President and member of the Board of Directors of Personal TelCo Project, this would bring major economic and workforce development advantages to Portland:

“Our private internet access providers exploit their power to gouge us all with arbitrary prices, because our only alternative to paying them whatever they ask is to do without. The funds we pay these companies ends up with far away investors, on the order of $500 million per year in Multnomah County alone. Much of that money could be staying in our pockets and circulating locally if we had access they couldn't choke off.

I learned most of my professional skills from information I found on the Internet. I got a good job, and have a successful career because of the open source software tools that I received from people who shared it on the internet. The internet is an immense store of human knowledge, and ready access to it is an essential part of developing into a fruitful, socially useful and fulfilled person.”

Portland is currently an island of expensive, privately owned internet service infrastructure, as every county surrounding Portland is building or operating affordable publicly owned and publicly available super-fast fiber-optic broadband networks. Fast internet access in Portland remains expensive and limited to neighborhoods that provide the highest profits for the few private internet service providers (ISPs). Individual prosperity and a robust local economy are driven by UNIVERSAL affordable access to fast internet service.  A climate resilient city needs robust publicly owned and available fiber-optic broadband infrastructure. Creating a digitally equitable and just city is dependent upon providing access to fast internet service at an affordable cost for everyone. That is why we are calling city officials to take the pledge that they will support open-access internet in Portland.


Join the campaign to make access to the city owned fiber optic network available to everyone. Let’s break the private ISP monopoly power in Portland!

Christopher Vines

【おすすめ本】船津 靖『聖書の同盟 アメリカはなぜユダヤ国家を支援するのか』―「特別な関係」を深掘り 白眉は米キリスト教の影響力を分析=池田 明史(前東洋英和女学院学長)

2 months 2 weeks ago
  1980年代だったか、「ユダヤがわかれば世界が見えてくる」というタイトルのトンデモ本がベストセラーとなって、国際的に物議を醸したことがあった。その後もユダヤ人問題やイスラエル国家に関する日本人の無知蒙昧が世界中に晒された。 これら偏見に満ちた極彩色の世迷言とは次元が異なるが、最近でも長崎での平和記念式典にイスラエル大使が招待されず、これに反発した米英など西側主要国大使も事実上式典をボイコットした。日本人の多くは、これを過剰反応とか政治利用とみなしたようだが、こうした解釈そ..
JCJ

Tell Oakland: End Contract with Dangerous ShotSpotter Tech

2 months 2 weeks ago

The Public Safety Committee of Oakland’s City Council will meet on October 8, 2024 to decide whether to renew its contract for ShotSpotter technology. This acoustic gunshot technology is flawed and highly controversial. It erroneously deploys armed officers expecting gunfire and thereby endangers innocent people. It listens in on marginalized neighborhoods that already receive the lion’s share of police harassment and surveillance.

ShotSpotter has received a tremendous amount of well-deserved bad press. The Mayor of Chicago recently called the technology “walkie-talkies on a pole,” because of their limited utility to a city that has been trying to find solutions to gun violence. A number of cities have let their contracts expire. The U.S. Department of Justice has been urged to investigate why this technology is put up predominantly in Black neighborhoods, even in places that have little history of gun violence. And earlier this year, police in Chicago alerted by ShotSpotter responded to what they believed might be gun violence–only to open fire on a child playing with fireworks.

Oakland has a chance to act now to cut ties with this dangerous technology. It does not address the root causes of gun violence, but instead adds another layer of surveillance on minority communities, which get the majority of (possibly incorrect) alerts. Tell the City Council now: end Oakland’s relationship with ShotSpotter!

Electronic Frontier Foundation

[B] 「デ・ミストラ国連特使が西サハラ難民キャンプ訪問」【西サハラ最新情報】  平田伊都子

2 months 2 weeks ago
2024年9月末日、久しぶりに<西サハラ>という言葉を、国連事務総長報道官が発しました。 が、記者陣の反応はゼロでした。 世界の関心は、イスラエルの暗殺に報復するイランと、お門違いの報復を繰り返すイスラエルに集中しています。
日刊ベリタ

[B] <61年目の農業記者>生物界が変だよ

2 months 2 weeks ago
昨日の東京新聞が動物界でこれまで当たり前だったことに異変が起こっていると報じていた。環境庁調査で、希少種ではないスズメやオナガ、チョウチョなど普通にみられた動物が急速に減っているというのだ。そういえば思い当たることが多い。棚田の田んぼでコメをつくったり、山の畑で雑穀を手がけたりしているが、ここ3,4年、スズメ除けの網掛けをしない。肝心のスズメが来ないのだ。(大野和興)
日刊ベリタ