Dana Floberg

A demolition team rolled in to 9 Broadcast Plaza in early June, tearing down Northern New Jersey’s only broadcast television studio.

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a package of fatally flawed plans that would fundamentally undercut Lifeline. May 15's FCC oversight hearing is an opportunity for Congress to hold the agency accountable for its disastrous proposals. 

People actually need Title II and all of the protections it provides for internet users. Here’s why.

Initial Free Press research shows that of the nearly 100 new House members, 70 percent of first-term Democratic Reps have already publicly stated their support for real network neutrality. Some of them fought for net neutrality in previous elected positions — like Rep Anthony Brindisi (D-NY), who as an assemblyman in New York pushed for a state bill to restore open-internet protections after the FCC’s misguided repeal. 

In 2016, Free Press released Digital Denied, which showed that disparities in broadband adoption — commonly known as the digital divide —stem not only from income inequality, but from systemic racial discrimination. The report found that nearly half of all people in the country without home-internet access were people of color. Much of that gap was indeed the result of income inequality.

There’s still a small chance we could stop the upcoming network neutrality vote — but if we lose the rules, what’s next? First of all, Free Press will take the Federal Communications Commission to court. Suing the FCC poses the best chance for us to win back strong Title II protections.

[Commentary] The path to victory for network neutrality supporters requires strong leadership from Capitol Hill — but it shouldn’t include a legislative “fix.” First of all, we have a good law already. It’s called Title II of the Communications Act.  What’s more, the Title II Net Neutrality rules have been upheld in court. And the existing law is immensely popular among Republican and Democratic voters, public advocates and businesses.

Last week, AT&T Senior Vice President Bob Quinn tried (and failed) to undercut Network Neutrality supporters by insisting that Free Press has been foretelling doom and gloom since 2010. That’s when the Federal Communications Commission adopted weak open-internet rules that didn’t cover mobile access. Quinn claims that none of Free Press’ predictions about carriers engaging in mobile blocking ever came true — but he conveniently overlooks how AT&T blocked FaceTime on its cellular networks in 2012 and 2013.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai claimed in a New York Times Op-Ed that his ill-conceived plans to overhaul media-ownership rules are in fact a long-overdue move to rescue the struggling newspaper industry. The chairman’s piece is rife with lies of omission that render his argument meaningless.

[Commentary] In essence, the GOP leaders and members voting the wrong way this week have accomplished an exquisitely dishonest trifecta. They gutted the Federal Communications Commission’s privacy rules based on a Title II statute while claiming that the Title II statute still protects you. Then they promised to gut the same Title II statute while claiming that the Federal Trade Commission still protects you. And it turns out they want to gut the FTC too — the very same agency they’re holding up as a champion of privacy protections. Last but not least, these lawmakers say the FTC’s approach to online privacy is superior because the agency analyzes each potential violation on a case-by-case basis while the FCC’s privacy protections are rooted in broad bright-line rules.

With the aid of their industry donors, the GOP has tried to frame this fight as a debate about complex legal authority and bureaucratic procedures. The reality is much simpler. They’re opposed to any regulations that put the interests of real people before the profit margins of monopoly Internet service providers, and they will take up whatever nonsensical procedural complaints are handy to chip away at strong consumer protections.