Will Mike McCurry be called as a witness for consumers in their class action lawsuit against Comcast for blocking and degrading its broadband customers' access to legal Internet content downloaded via BitTorrent?
Here's why I ask: in response to my earlier Huffington and SaveTheInternet blog post, Does Big Media's One-Two Punch Knock Out the Internet?, "Hands Off the Internet," the mega-bucks anti-Net Neutrality lobbying group co-chaired by McCurry and funded by Verizon, AT&T, etc., writes:
Jonathan Rintels writes this week at SaveTheInternet that Net Neutrality is "a requirement that broadband Internet consumers be permitted to access the lawful content of their choice." We agree. But if that's the definition, then this Net Neutrality fight is over since consumers already have that right.
But Comcast was caught red-handed blocking and degrading ALL content using the BitTorrent service, including a file containing the very legal, public domain, un-pirated King James Bible, as well as legit un-pirated legal video from Big Media stalwarts Viacom, Fox, Warners, and others.
It's not very comforting that McCurry's "Hands Off the Internet" now claims that consumers already have the right to access the lawful content of their choice over the broadband Internet, so that additional government consumer protection is not needed, when Comcast's actions so obviously demonstrate the very opposite. What Comcast did to BitTorrent proves that without further government action to mandate Net Neutrality, consumers are at the mercy of the broadband ISPs and do not have the right to access the lawful content of their choice over the broadband Internet.
So, if McCurry is called to testify on behalf of consumers' rights in their class action against Comcast, would he be what lawyers call a "hostile witness?"
