Yesterday was a big day for independent media. We saw the release of gun camera footage, which showed how US troops killed an Iraqi journalist after mistaking a camera for an assault weapon.

Today was a big day for the mainstream media, as the US Court of appeals dissolved some FCC internet regulations protecting peer to peer networking.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1U2jZF/www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/04/fcc_net_neutrality_ruling.html?ft=1&f=103943429/r:t
and

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/06/net-neutrality-us-court-r_n_526972.html

Is it just a coincidence that yesterday’s leak on P2P preceded today’s legal loss for P2P users? Of course not.

Let’s look at the legal decision.
The particular problem for Comcast is that Bittorrent users were using the network. That is, they were filling up the tubes with stuff that made comcast no money at all. Comcast then shut off the downloads (secretly, they wouldn’t admit to it) Later on, users petitioned the FCC to stop Comcast from shutting down peer to peer networking, in particular, bittorrent downloads. Today’s Court ruling by the US court of appeals says that the FCC has no authority to regulate Comcast in these instances. A big loss for anyone who wants to download peer to peer. Like Wikileaks users.

After the ruling, we can expect Comcast to slow or shut off bittorrent. As of right now, the Collateral Murder site has video hosted by youtube and other video hosts. But if you want the source footage, your only option is bittorrent. Effecively the courts have let Comcast turn the internet into a private lake, where non-profits like wikileaks aren’t allowed.

Read the US Appeals court case:

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/201004/08-1291-1238302.pdf

Watch the gun camera footage:
http://collateralmurder.com/