Blackburn Introduces House Bill To Block Network Neutrality

Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has introduced a House version of the bill introduced last week by Sen John McCain (R-AZ) that would block the Federal Communications Commission from passing any regulations "regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services." She argues the FCC would be making the Internet less neutral by regulating it "in the same way it regulates radio and television broadcasts." Rep Blackburn said the FCC has plenty to keep it busy regulating those media. "[L]et's not add to their workload by giving them authority over the Internet," she said in announcing the bill. "As conceived by the FCC, network neutrality is counterproductive," said Blackburn spokesman Claude Chafin. "It hurts the Internet and specifically for us, our constituent interest, is that it enables piracy by not allowing service providers to discriminate between sites that are transferring files illegally and those that are not."