During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor, brand new Senator Al Franken (D-MN) used his questioning time to show that he will immediately be one of the most important allies we have in the Senate on Network Neutrality. It's worth noting that he used what is essentially his first act as a United States Senator to address this issue, suggesting that Network Neutrality will be front and center on his agenda in the coming months.

Franken gets directly to the heart of the matter of network neutrality. Here's just a snippet of what he said, but I'd urge you to listen to the entire 8-minute clip from the hearing above:

"You know that Brand X de-regulated internet access services, allowing service providers to act as gatekeepers to the Internet even though the Internet was originally government funded and built on the notion of common carriage and openness. In fact, we've already seen examples of these companies blocking access to the web and discriminating on certain uses of the Internet. This trend threatens to undermine the greatest engine of free speech and commerce since the printing press.....

...Internet connections use public resources: the public airwaves, the public rights of way. Doesn't the American public have a compelling first amendment interest in ensuring...that the Internet stays open and accessible. In other words, that the Internet stays the Internet."