Jason Koebler

I’m a member of FOI-L, a listserv for serial Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requesters to discuss the intricacies of government sunshine laws. In the days after Donald Trump’s election, members of the listserv have been discussing what FOIA—which allows citizens to request specific government documents from federal agencies—will look like under President-elect Trump.

While we have no way of knowing what President-elect Trump will do for sure, open government and journalists are bracing for an administration that could be more obstructionist. One thing we’re very likely to see in the next administration is a flurry of new FOIA requests and lawsuits from reinvigorated liberal nonprofit groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which, to be fair, were active FOIA requesters during the Obama administration as well. You should also keep an eye on Judicial Watch, a conservative group dedicated to filing FOIAs to expose government misconduct that currently has more than 20 open lawsuits against Hillary Clinton and sued the Obama administration more than 300 times.

On, November 8, 26 separate Colorado communities will vote on whether their local governments should build high speed fiber Internet networks to compete with or replace big telecommunication Internet service providers. So-called municipal fiber ballot initiatives have become an annual tradition in Colorado, as roughly 100 communities have voted on measures that provide legal cover to governments who want to build new networks. The initiatives are required under a SB152, a law enacted in 2008 after several lobbying efforts by CenturyLink made it illegal for municipalities to provide fiber Internet to private premises without first obtaining permission in a ballot measure. In 2015, a record 47 communities passed similar referenda; no communities voted it down.

Not every city is going to become its own Internet service provider—the law requires cities to hold referenda even if they plan on partnering with companies on public-private fiber network initiatives. “The law uses broad definitions for what cities can and cannot do,” said Christopher Mitchell, director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative. “We only know of two that have failed in the last six years,” he added. “Many of these networks are tremendously successful.” Colorado is the only state in the country that has a ballot measure requirement for locally run networks; 22 other states have different laws that restrict local broadband efforts. With so many cities overwhelmingly voting in favor of local government-run broadband, Mitchell says that Colorado’s law hasn’t quite had the effect CenturyLink would have liked.

The “Chattanooga Choo Choo” sign over the old terminal station is purely decorative, a throwback. Since the Southern Railroad left town in the early 1970s, the southeastern Tennessee city has been looking for an identity that has nothing to do with a bygone big band song or an abandoned train. It’s finally found one in another huge infrastructure project: The Gig. At a time when small cities, towns, and rural areas are seeing an exodus of young people to large cities and a precipitous decline in solidly middle class jobs, the Gig has helped Chattanooga thrive and create a new identity for itself.

Chattanooga and many of the other 82 other cities and towns in the United States that have thus far built their own government-owned, fiber-based Internet are held up as examples for the rest of the country to follow. Like the presence of well-paved roads, good Internet access doesn’t guarantee that a city will be successful. But the lack of it guarantees that a community will get left behind as the economy increasingly demands that companies compete not just with their neighbors next door, but with the entire world. But not every rural community can just lay its own fiber. Cities and towns that build their own Internet have found themselves squarely in the crosshairs of telecommunication lobbyists and lawyers, who have managed to enact laws making it difficult or illegal to build government-owned networks. But the success of these networks is beginning to open eyes around the country: If we start treating the Internet not as a product sold by a company but as a necessary utility, can the economic prospects of rural America be saved?