Net Neutrality Delayed, Net Neutrality Denied

[Commentary] The Internet, grown beyond adolescence now, is still filled with the energy of youth and the power to continually reshape our lives. But wait! The home the adolescent grew up in is not the house into which the young adult is moving. Its new domicile is populated with gatekeepers and powerful interests intent on exchanging the open environment that nurtured so much innovation and so many consumer benefits for a constricted environment of walled gardens and monopoly toll booths. The Internet, raised for the most part in an atmosphere of openness and creativity, becomes each day more vulnerable to the control of rent-seeking landlords and hugely powerful sentinels. In 2009, following the election of Barack Obama, a new FCC came to town. Its majority embraced the concept of Internet freedom but was divided on how to guarantee it. This was the setting for the hearing in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals over Verizon’s suit contesting the Commission’s rules. Never shy, Verizon’s lawyers added a claim that not only does the FCC lack the power to enforce any Internet freedom rules, but that the company has a First Amendment right to block content on its system because it should enjoy freedom of speech—a ridiculous claim made more so because in other venues the company has argued it is merely a conduit and not a speaker. Lost in all the legal briefs is any concern for the speech rights of consumers. The Internet is an increasingly important resource for voters to inform themselves, activists to organize themselves, and everyday citizens to make themselves heard. Allowing Verizon or AT&T or Comcast to censor citizen speech is a direct threat to our democracy. As Senator Al Franken sagely forecast in 2010, “net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time.”

[Michael Copps served as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission from May 2001 to December 2011 and was the FCC's Acting Chairman from January to June 2009.]