Free Press Action Fund Calls Out Rep Blackburn for Putting Industry Lobbyists Before the Interests of Ordinary Americans

The House Commerce Committee selected Rep Marsha Blackburn (R–TN) to chair the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Rep Blackburn, who will take over the subcommittee from incoming full Committee Chairman Rep Greg Walden (R–OR), has long sided with the phone, cable and entertainment industries against ordinary Americans:

In 2011, she supported the ill-fated SOPA bill, which would have allowed the film and recording industries to black out large tracts of internet content without due process.
In 2013, she co-authored a letter to the FCC opposing the agency’s Lifeline Program, which helps low-income households gain access to high-speed internet services. She continued her opposition to the program throughout 2016, criticizing the FCC decision to help subsidize broadband in addition to traditional phone service.
In 2014, she introduced an amendment to appropriations legislation that would have blocked federal efforts to protect world-class municipal-broadband initiatives local residents and governments have launched in towns and communities across the country, including in her home state of Tennessee.
She has repeatedly opposed Net Neutrality protections and in 2015 introduced the “Internet Freedom Act,” which would have stripped the FCC of its clear authority to prohibit online discrimination and protect the open internet.
In 2015, she joined with other House Republicans against the FCC proposal to protect broadband users’ privacy by requiring internet service providers to seek consumers’ permission before exploiting their online data for their own monetary gain.