Congressional Democrats aren't letting up on pressuring the FCC to preserve real net neutrality. Sen. Patrick Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch, Vermont Democrats, held a standing-room-only field hearing on the issue last week, in which everyone who spoke opposed FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's two-tiered internet approach. That includes Leahy and Welch. And on Tuesday, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) spoke at a Free Press event and made sure the audience understands what's at stake in his fight.
“It is absolutely the First Amendment issue of our time,” Franken said at a Capitol Hill forum sponsored by the advocacy group Free Press.
“Do we want deep-pocketed corporations controlling what information you get at what speed?” he added. […]
“This has been the architecture of the Internet from the beginning, and everyone should understand that,” he said.
“Some of my colleagues in the Congress don’t understand that. ... You just want to go ‘Oh, come on,’ ” Franken said. “'Really, don’t get up and talk unless you know something.'”
(I suspect that's the reaction Franken has to his Republican colleagues, on
every issue.) The FCC has now received
more than 625,000 emails and comments about net neutrality. Public comment on the current proposal by Wheeler for a two-tiered, pay-for-play internet ends next week, but the commission will accept responses on comments already made through mid-September, and won't decide on the issue before the end of the year.
If you haven't already, send your comments supporting net neutrality. You can use the FCC comments page; the inbox they set up specifically for this issue, openinternet@fcc.gov; and with Daily Kos's petition.