Atticus - 4:09 pm on Jul 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

AT&T was given monopoly powers by the government early in the 20th century. Because of this, they were required to provide equal service to all via common carrier laws.

There is no freedom in letting a monopoly (which exists due to the goverment's squelching of competition) disavow its commitment to common carrier rules simply because telephone lines are now used for Internet traffic in addition to telephone calls.

If you truly want freedom in this area, get in a time machine, go back to 1917 and stop AT&T from gaining the monoploy status which they now want to use to overchange and/or silence their customers and their competition.