Campaign Action
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai disregarded the voice of millions of American consumers, as well as state attorneys general and members of Congress to push the vote to end net neutrality. The Republican commissioners' argument is that they're just restoring the original framework of the internet, pre-open internet rule, before the heavy hand of government prevented internet service providers from holding us all up. It's all bullshit as expert Harold Feld details.
The FCC always maintained that it did consumer protection on broadband, particularly privacy—which was true in that magic year of 2014. Under the Pai Order, the FCC will not, under any circumstances, enforce any sort of consumer protection other than compliance with the now-weakened transparency rules—and especially not privacy, which for some reason Chairman Pai loathes above all other consumer protections despite it being a responsibility of the FCC since the Federal Radio Act of 1927.
This is far from the end of our work to restore net neutrality and an open and vibrant internet. Free Press is ready to file suit. Members of Congress are already demanding hearings and investigations into the possibility that Pai is making fraudulent rules through a corrupted public comment period. Other members are considering using the Congressional Review Act against Republicans for once—that’s a tricky one that they need to tread into very lightly, because it could prevent full restoration of the regulations because of what that statute allows.
We can definitely fight this back in Congress and we can win. We’ve done it before, we will do it again. Because we have the numbers. One Senate office alone, Sen. Michael Bennet’s (D-CO) has received more than 25,000 calls and letters from Coloradans in support of the open internet. That’s just one office. After this vote, we’re going to bury them—all of them, Republican and Democrat alike. And they’re going to know that what they do now will come back to visit them in November, 2018.
Trump's FCC and Big Cable just voted to destroy net neutrality—but we can stop them. Tell Congress to oppose Trump FCC's plan to destroy net neutrality and the open internet.