Activists Seek FCC Field Hearings on Network Neutrality

The ACLU, Common Cause, Consumers Union and more than two dozen other groups have asked Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to "get out of DC." They want him to get outside Washington and hold some public hearings on the network neutrality rules he is preparing.

In a letter to Chairman Wheeler, the groups said they are concerned that the proposed new rules, which would disallow commercially unreasonable discrimination, leave room for "discrimination in favor of wealthy companies." But the groups are also concerned about a future FCC making those commercially reasonable judgment calls. “An often invisible agency is about to decide the future of our news and information ecosystem. It must not make an invisible decision,” said former FCC Chairman Michael Copps, a special adviser to Common Cause. “The Commission hears more than enough from inside-the-Beltway lobbyists. Now it needs to hear from the people who will have to live with its decisions.”