The United States Senate today will consider the bill to "save Internet radio", HR.5469. It's a bill which does nothing for education, religious, non-profit or hobbyist radio. Many webcasters were stunned when the bill morphed from a two paragraph "stay of execution" into an alternative royalty scheme after a splinter group decided to negotiate a closed-door deal with the Recording Industry Association of America, the RIAA.

I had extensive discussions with my own Congressperson's staff in DC (Jennifer Dunn) from early on the Monday morning after the weekend of those negotiations. Dunn was one of the cosigners on the bill - I had a feeling they were not aware of the meetings that took the bill from one paragraph to 28 pages; in fact when I mentioned that to the aide he said they would not accept anything different than the one paragraph. He indicated that as far as they knew the bill would come up at 6:30pm as scheduled and that there were no changes. I called back when I saw the first copy of the bill as 28 pages - they still did not have a copy so I emailed him one. He was looking at it when I told him it was up on the floor - by the time he had tuned it in, the bill had been passed. I suspect there was nobody in the chamber when it passed.

So as far as I can determine, the Congressperson who had signed on as a cosigner did not see the new bill at all - it would appear that she was hoodwinked by Sensenbrenner.