Digital Rights and Social Justice Groups Urge the House to Call Off Its Sneak Attack on Net Neutrality

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, more than 60 organizations sent a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Appropriations urging them to “remove from the Financial Services appropriations bill Sections 628-630 of that legislation, which threaten implementation of the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order.”  

Leading civil rights, free speech, social justice and public interest groups signed the letter to Chairman Harold Rogers of Kentucky and Ranking Member Nita M. Lowey of New York. Among the signers are the American Civil Liberties Union, ColorOfChange.org, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Press Action Fund, the Media Action Grassroots Network, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and Writers Guild of America West. Other signers include the American Library Association, the Association of Free Community Papers and Etsy.

Sections 628-630 of the House financial services subcommittee’s appropriations bill, which funds the FCC and other agencies, would impede the FCC’s enforcement of its Open Internet Order. These provisions would prevent the Net Neutrality protections from remaining in effect until after the current court cases challenging them have been decided. These passages would also interfere with the FCC’s rule-making process and undercut the agency’s ability to enforce the rules.

“These measures, buried in a spending bill that is 150 pages long, constitute a direct rebuke to the millions of people that asked for strong Net Neutrality rules,” reads the letter. “By eliminating the FCC’s ability to protect Net Neutrality, this appropriations bill would have a chilling effect on our First Amendment rights and our economy.”

The full text of the letter is available here: http://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/resources/Coalition_Letter_to_House_Appropriations_Committee_final.pdf

Free Press Action Fund Government Relations Manager Sandra Fulton made the following statement:

“This buried language is a sneak attack on Net Neutrality that would undermine the historic actions the FCC took in February. They would leave Internet users everywhere defenseless against the cable industry as its spurious legal challenges wind their way through the courts. Anyone who votes for this measure is taking the side of the phone and cable lobby against the Internet. Trying to hide such an important measure more than a hundred pages into an appropriations bill, to undo in secret a decision that the public overwhelmingly supports, shows why so many people are disgusted by business as usual in Washington.”