Save the weather

Electronic Frontier Foundation is urging everyone to write their senators about the National Weather Services (NWS) Duties Act (S.786), which

would ban NWS from 'competing' with private entities by making it unlawful for the agency to publish user-friendly weather data and barring NWS experts from speaking one-on-one to news agencies. Why? Because Senator Santorum believes that companies like AccuWeather would make more money if they didn't have to compete with 'free.' That's right - he believes you should pay twice for your weather information in order to line the pockets of the private weather industry, which *already* benefits from repackaging the data that tax-funded agencies like NWS give away. That's not only unfair, it's a bad precedent for our national information resources. Help stop S.786 by sending a letter to your Senators today!

It is an interesting point. I like free markets, but in this case, the private corporation is using taxpayer funded information. Why not let that information go directly to those who pay for it, i.e., us.