Lessons about the new media ecosystem works were learned all around during the violent crackdown on protestors after Iran's contested presidential election this summer. That includes a education for political forces in Iran that control over a nation's telecommunications network is a nice thing to have when you're attempting to quash political resistance being organized on the fly, through cell phone, Twitter, text messaging, and the like. During the uprising, Tehran's mobile network was shut down again and again. Silencing the opposition in the future just got somewhat more straightforward for some in Iranian politics: this weekend, a group connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard purchased 50% plus one share of the previously-state run Telecommunication Company of Iran -- giving the military-affiliated backers monopoly control over the state's telephone network, mobile network, and major ISP. Nipping the next "Twitter Revolution" in the bud just got a little easier.

Here's the full text of what Federal Communications Commission chair Julius Genechowski had to say at Brookings this morning, as he both announced the FCC's more aggressive approach to keeping the Internet open and provided a sketch of his ambitions for his tenure at the head of the commission...

Right at this very moment, Federal Communications chair Julius Genachowski is appearing at Brookings to announce that the Obama-era FCC will be taking a more aggressive approach to defending net neutrality principles. "The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads," reads Genachowski's scripted remarks. The Obama-era agency's first substantive move on neutrality will be to codify former chair Michael Powell's "Four Freedoms" as commission rules, as well as to add a two-part Genachowski addendum: Internet service providers will be prevented from discriminating against particular content or applications other than for the purpose of reasonable network management, and they must be fully transparent about whatever it is they do do that falls under the "network management" loophole. And what's a revolution in telecom policy without a micro-site to commemorate the event? Nothing, that's what. And so the FCC is also announcing today the launch of OpenInternet.gov as a hub for push for a free and open Internet.

What's amazing, on this day, is to take a look back at what a coup the mainstreaming of "net neutrality" as a political virtue truly is for the online left -- the netroots, if you will. Whatever the constructive equivalent of a "blog scalp" is, this is it...

There might be one silver lining in Apple's shut-out of Google Voice from its iTunes store.
(A development we'll have more on in a bit.) On Friday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) and other net neutrality advocates reintroduced legislation to prohibit network discrimination. This is Markey's third pass at a net neutrality bill. This time, though, he has in hand -- and on the front pages -- a clear example of what happens when them that runs the networks decides what runs on those networks. Our wireless space doesn't operate under principles of neutrality. So if providers (AT&T) and phone manufactures (Apple) decide they don't like something (Google Voice), that's in many ways the beginning and the end of it.

H.R. 3458 seeks to spare the Internet from the wireless world's fate...

The answer: yep, kinda, and not really -- depending on your read of the situation. We have the final language of the bill, and Free Press policy director Ben Scott emails to say it's a combination of the House's language on abidance by the FCC's four principles on Internet openness and the Senate's draft on non-discrimination. But that's not, at least as far as I understand it, not exactly network neutrality.

Obama reaches 2 million donors, BarelyPolitical barely keeps my attention, McCain's tech policy review, techPresident is honored with a nomination, Obama and McCain's YouTube channels

I'm at the 18th annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, being held at Yale this week, and this morning's opening session on "Presidential Technology Policy: Priorities for the Next Executive" featured representatives from the Obama and McCain campaigns. The Obama camp sent the co-director of MIT's decentralized information group. The McCain camp sent the former chief patent lawyer for Time Warner. The two seemed almost hand-picked as embodiments of the two very different ways a President Obama and a President McCain would handled tech policy.

Perhaps the most influential technology-focused blog, TechCrunch, will host a series of podcasts with Presidential candidates. First up on the plate, Mitt Romney.

Let's geek out after the jump...

John Edwards has just issued a strong statement in support of net neutrality today, writing a letter to the FCC stating that the issue "goes to the heart and soul of democracy."

The Web on the Candidates

John Edwards advisor Joe Trippi is in the U.K., telling British politicians that "Internet activism is spelling the end for the age of spin." In an interview with the Guardian, Trippi talked about the always-on nature of online campaigning. "Before TV, what mattered was how your voice sounded. Then with TV it matters what your candidate looks like ... We are now moving to a medium where authenticity is king, from what things look like to what's real ... You have to be 'on' 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Trippi said. He describes the new world of politics in the "peer-to-peer social network world," in which the opinion of peers is worth more than a top-down campaign message. While no candidates in the U.S. - including Edwards -- are completely running this kind of campaign, David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party in the U.K., continues his engaged web presence with multiple videos a week and an active community blog.

The FEC has produced a very cool map showing most campaign contributions to presidential candidates (PAC money and contributions under $200 aren't represented). A bunch of bubbles are overlaid over a map of the U.S., and when you click on the name of a candidate (listed to the left) you'll see the areas that have donated to them; click on the bubbles and you'll get a close-up view of that region; click on them again and you'll see a list of individual donors and the amount they contributed. (hat tip: Hotline)