Tea Party Allies With Telecom Industry to Dump Net Neutrality

Telecom companies have been throwing cash around Congress like there's no tomorrow this election cycle, spending millions on lobbying and campaign contributions in the hopes of finally killing Network Neutrality. Now they're getting a boost from an unlikely ally -- the Tea Party movement.

Tea Party activists are doing their best to tip the scales toward the corporate behemoths, following conservative leaders' warnings that the Federal Communications Commission is plotting a government takeover of the Internet. Thirty-five Tea Party-affiliated groups recently signed on to a letter to the FCC in support of the telecom industry's top priority. Big-money conservative organizations active in the Tea Party, including billionaire David Koch's Americans for Prosperity and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's Freedomworks, are leading campaigns against Net Neutrality. Tea Party caucus founder Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) calls Net Neutrality "censorship of the Internet" while Rush Limbaugh slams it as "the fairness doctrine of the Internet."

Ironically, Net Neutrality supporters say, grassroots Tea Party groups, who often rely on simple amateur-run websites to organize their operations, are among those most likely to suffer from an Internet chopped into differently priced tiers.