Where The Rubber Meets The Road

This is the year, friends.  The year when the battle for an Open Internet pits the three self-proclaimed wise men of the Federal Communications Commission against an overwhelming majority of the American people.  Every index I have seen—be it popular poll, volume of pleas to Congress, or expressions of anger toward the FCC—makes it crystal clear that we the people want an open internet and an end to ever-increasing monopoly control of our telecom and media markets.  Most Americans would agree with the great Justice Louis Brandeis: “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”  Nowhere is this so true as in the communications infrastructure upon which our civic dialogue depends. When government itself aids and abets this corporate grab for power, fueled by the outrageous money and the Washington influence of the companies themselves, it is time to call a halt. That’s what 2018 must be all about. [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. In 2012, former Commissioner Copps joined Common Cause to lead its Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.]