Re. Steve:
The nightmare scenario for "after the end of net neutrality" is that the Bigs adopt _time-based_ or _QOS-based_ control of any content that isn't paying through the nose.
For example a typical small biz website's main page is about 2 meg. Under the new regime they find it takes 60 seconds to load (long enough to chase away customers), so they redo the site and now it's only 200K. But the 200K version of the page still takes 60 seconds to load. And if they slimmed it down to 20K it would still take 60 seconds to load.
Even easier, just assign the lowest QOS priorities to "commoner" traffic, so it's totally unreliable. Think call-drops in bad cell coverage areas, translated to the entirety of the internet over both wired and wireless media, so it becomes totally but randomly useless. The reason you hear people say they "don't like to talk on the phone" is because "the phone" has become crappy audio and unreliable connections compared to what it used to be. Translate that to the whole internet with the exception of the "preferred channels," Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and of course Fox News. "I don't go online any more except to buy stuff...." Right, exactly.
Either of the above would shut down internet broadcasting, and also shut down small business websites, for which reason Main Street USA ought to be up in arms about it, pitchforks & torches included.
If either of those censorship-by-"nudge" things happens, a huge explosion of pirate radio would not be unexpected, including deliberately stepping on big stations' signals to make the point. For that matter, revenge-jamming of the entire AM & FM broadcast bands by "outlaws" is a foreseeable consequence. Think of people running around dropping off disposable jamming transmitters all over a city, that kind of thing. Argh...
What I'm thinking is:
Make this THE issue of the 2014 Congressional elections. "The biggest free speech issue of the 21st century." Every candidate gets grilled on it: where do you stand on net neutrality? Anyone who isn't with us gets dragged through a nasty primary battle. And if they lie about supporting it, and get into office and do nothing or worse, then they get primaried in 2016, which will be a high-turnout year.
And of course, back up the electoral strategy with a barrage of lawsuits covering every possible angle, and with peaceful civil disobedience designed to generate more trials where these issues can be brought up again and again and again.
Re. CONELRAD:
I've read plenty of Civil Defense material from the Cold War era and it described the low-power broadcast scenario. That Wikipedia article is the first I've heard of anything like round-robin, and it would be difficult to manage a round-robin system in the middle of a nuclear attack.
But either scenario might be adaptable to "modern conditions." "Civil Disobedience IS Civil Defense!" Heh, may as well adopt the CO