Nation, The

The future looks grim for digital privacy and the open Internet in the United States. Here are six ways you can get involved:
1. Call or e-mail your congressional representatives
2. Contact Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai
3. Check out digital-rights groups
4. Pressure tech companies to do the right thing
5. Know your rights and protect your communications
6. Stay engaged with cyber security developments

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has been an outspoken foe of network neutrality, the first amendment of the internet that guarantees the free flow of information without censorship or corporate favoritism. With President Trump’s backing, and that of a Congress whose Republican leaders never say no to telecom giants, Pai will have an FCC majority and plenty of leeway to go after net neutrality. Its “days are numbered,” he says.

Activists predict that he won’t stop there. Through formal actions by what will be a Republican-controlled FCC and by granting of waivers that allow corporations to get around cross-ownership and joint-sales rules that were designed to maintain competition in local television markets, the FCC could end up facilitating media mergers and monopolies at the national and local levels that will be devastating to competition and to the democratic discourse. At a time when the United States should be supercharging public and community media to prevent development of news deserts where the only “information” comes from partisan corporate outlets, Trump and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon are dusting off the playbooks of the 1990s. Schemes to weaken competition and diversity, to create one-size-fits-all “newsrooms,” to set-up digital fast lanes for subsidized content and slow lanes for democratic discourse—all were proposed back then.  “They’re coming for all of it,” Free Press president Craig Aaron says of the Trump administration’s agenda. “They’re coming for net neutrality. They’re coming for every protection for citizens and consumers. Our movements have to be bigger now. But if we could get four million for net neutrality under Obama, just imagine what we can get under Trump.”

[Commentary] Today, Amazon so dominates the marketplace that it feels free to bulldoze the competition, dictating terms to suppliers and customers alike. Antitrust issues are not only about price and market share, but also the antidemocratic implications for both competition and the larger culture.

When will the Justice Department wake up? We support Amazon's right to offer readers the widest array of books at the most reasonable price. But such a right is not to be exercised at the expense of the fragile and essential contributions of authors, editors and publishers to the general culture. Amazon ought no longer to be permitted to behave like a parasite that hollows out its host. A serious Justice Department investigation is past due.

[Commentary] Telecommunications conglomerates often prevail in debates about the future of media by pretending that the issues are too complicated for Americans to understand.

But there is nothing complicated about the current battle over the future of the Internet. Nor is there anything complicated about the need for citizens to rise up and defend net neutrality -- also known as the First Amendment of the Internet, because it provides the guarantee of free speech online for all.

If the Federal Communications Commission allows the “paid prioritization” of some websites and communications over others -- as has been proposed under a plan the commissioners recently voted 3 to 2 to consider -- the basic premise of a free and open Internet will be undermined.

In a digital age, this threatens a lot more than online shopping. “Profits and corporate disfavor of controversial viewpoints or competing services could change both what you can see on the Internet and the quality of your connection,” warns the ACLU. “And the need to monitor what you do online in order to play favorites means even more consumer privacy invasions piled on top of the NSA’s prying eyes.”

The threat is real. Public interest groups warn that under a plan developed by FCC chair Tom Wheeler, cable and telecom companies could shape a pay-to-play Internet, in which they charge cash-rich corporations and special-interest groups to provide high-speed service while consigning websites without billionaire benefactors to a digital dirt road.

FCC Chairman Wheeler’s plan comes in response to an appeals court ruling that scrapped a previous FCC attempt to preserve net neutrality. A Democrat, albeit one with a background as an industry lobbyist, Chairman Wheeler says he wants to maintain an open Internet. But he’s going about it the wrong way. His plan is much like the one the courts rejected: he envisions a complex set of rules that would require the FCC to constantly “scrutinize” these pay-for-priority schemes for certain websites, apps and online services.