Sorry I can't talk about this stuff more today (no time till the weekend), but I did want to make sure you saw this message from Move On about what happened Wednesday, June 4, 2003 between Congress and the FCC. Namely, that Congress basically told the FCC to not be so hasty. I'm still trying to understand completely how the power struggle will operate from here and I promise when I figure it out I'll let you know.

For know, here's the scoop on what you can do to take this to the next level:

Luckily, democracy's awful resilient. Congress has the power to
overturn these rule changes. More than 100 members of the House and
roughly 20 members of the Senate asked the FCC not to approve these
rule changes at this time. The members of Congress were right to be
concerned, and they have the authority to act on those concerns now by
introducing legislation that will undo these changes. Our friends at
Common Cause have made it easy to contact your Representatives and
Senators and let them know that you want the FCC's rules repealed.

You can take action now at:
http://causenet.commoncause.org/afr/issues/alert/?alertid=2446521

Link to above URL

Thus far, we've had a truly remarkable campaign. Here are some of the
highlights:

* The Stop Media Monopoly petition now has just under 200,000 signers
-- one of the largest public statements ever made on this issue.
Combined with comments from members of the NRA, Common Cause, the
Consumer Federation of America, and other groups, the FCC has
received over 700,000 comments on this issue. As of last count,
about 1 in 1,000 of these supported the rule change. So the FCC
clearly knows where the public stands.

* So many MoveOn and Common Cause members called and emailed the FCC
on Friday that their voicemail system and web site went down. CNN
covered the story.

* MoveOn members raised over $180,000 to pay for print and TV ads,
which we ran in partnership with Common Cause and Free Press. The
ads played an instrumental role in making newspapers and TV
stations cover the rule change: the day after they were launched,
the Washington Post discussed them in a front-page story. George
Stephanopoulos showed our TV ad to Michael Powell and Senator John
McCain on Sunday, and grilled them on the media issues. They also
attracted the attention of the New York Times, ABC World News
Tonight, CNN, MSNBC, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and even The
Guardian in the UK -- and that's only a partial list. Common Cause
President Chellie Pingree and I were both invited on to cable news
shows to debate the issue.

It's pretty clear where Americans stand on this issue: no one wants a
few big companies controlling their access to news and entertainment.
Thank you for being a part of the first stage of an incredible
campaign, and stay tuned for the next steps.

Sincerely,
--Carrie, Eli, Joan, Peter, Wes, and Zack