There are a number of online petitions in support of net neutrality out there today, including Sen Al Franken’s petition. There are several other similar petitions floating around the web these days. Sign as many of them as you want to. I would not discourage such behavior.

However, I personally feel that online petitions are increasingly easy for legislators and government officials to disregard because of the “ease” of getting lots of signatories and the difficulty of verifying how “valid” any given signatory’s opinion is. On the other hand, a more traditional method of communication, the good old letter, is much harder to ignore, especially in quantity. It is much harder to dismiss a pile of letters definitely from constituents than it is a petition that took somebody less than 30 seconds to add their name to.

With that in mind, I have prepared a form letter that you can download. Simply insert the name of the government official you are addressing at the top, sign at the bottom, and then send it. If you need information on who your representatives are, here’s where you can find your Federal Representative and Senator. For local legislators, check with Vote Smart. Also, here’s a way to send the letter to the President. (You can either copy and paste it into the form or snail mail it directly to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC 20500) The FCC is the actual agency responsible for regulating these kinds of issues, so contacting them wouldn’t hurt either.

Also, here’s the the form letter in pdf format. Granted, the .doc format will allow you to type in the addressee and not just fill in the blank on a printed copy. Ultimately, it’s your choice.