Funferal

Telecoms rewrite passes Senate in Illinois

Free Press today pointed to a Chicago Indymedia story about the passage of the Telecoms rewrite bill in the Illinois senate. The bill still needs to pass in the House. For those who haven’t been following this my colleague Sascha Meinrath has (powerpoint) [see also here and scroll down to Illinois]. This bill, as he explains, would remove most of the public interest protections in existing Illinois telecoms law. Why? Well, because the bill was drafted by SBC staffers. This bill – which matches a national pattern of industry-driven gutting of consumer, public and citizen protections – is definitely bad news for the public (you’ve got to see the details, as reported by Sascha and others, to believe them).