Anti-Net Neutrality Measures Kept Out of Must-Pass Budget Bill
WASHINGTON — Proposals to undercut the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet Order were left out of the must-pass omnibus congressional spending bill released in the early hours on Wednesday.
These anti-Net Neutrality and anti-Internet provisions passed through House and Senate appropriations committees over the summer, but open Internet champions in both chambers negotiated their removal from an earlier draft.
Over the past month, tens of thousands of Net Neutrality supporters from across the country called to urge Congress not to include any language that would prevent the FCC from protecting Internet users from blocking, discrimination and other abusive practices by broadband Internet access providers.
Free Press Action Fund Policy Director Matt Wood made the following statement:
“Thousands of Net Neutrality supporters called their members of Congress to say that this must-pass spending bill should not mess with the rights of Internet users. As has been the case so many times in the past year, people’s voices can still make a difference in Washington, especially when the open Internet is at stake.
“But this doesn't mean that Congress is done dabbling with ill-advised schemes to reverse the FCC’s Net Neutrality order. The phone and cable lobby is ramping up efforts to get its allies in Congress to do whatever they can to undermine the FCC rules, even as a federal court prepares to rule early next year. The public won’t stand for any industry scheme to legislate away our Internet freedoms.
“Unfortunately the open Internet didn’t emerge unscathed in the draft omnibus package. We’re dismayed by efforts to make a bad cybersecurity bill even worse while sneaking it through this budget-showdown process. The cybersecurity proposals back in play do nothing to make us safer; instead, they surrender important privacy protections meant to guard against unwarranted surveillance. They should be stripped from this bill before it passes.”
