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Civil Rights Activists Protest AT&T, Demand Internet Freedom

Champaign, IL – Despite the snow storm, a crowd of civil rights activists and supporters gathered outside of AT&T store today, demanding the company and other Internet service providers (ISPs) nationwide #DontBlockMyInternet.

In the countdown for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to pass new net neutrality rules on February 26 that will keep the Internet fair, fast, and open for generations to come, local groups Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (UCIMC) and CU Citizens for Peace and Justice —in partnership with the Media Action Grassroots Network, Color of Change, Presente, Free Press, and other partners — gathered to lift up the voices of communities of color and low-income Internet users who won’t stand for corporate gatekeepers interfering with First Amendment rights.

Aaron Ammons on the bullhorn.
Aaron Ammons on the bullhorn.

Attendees, drank hot chocolate and danced to stay warm, while chanting “Listen Listen AT & T the Internet Belongs to Me!” and singing “Freedom. Freedom. We want Internet freedom.”

Speakers included Aaron Ammons Urbana City Council Member and President of SEIU Local 37, Brandon Bowersox, chair of UCB2 the local public broadband system, Amanda Hwu of the Prison Justice Project at the University of Illinois, Martel Miller, board member of Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center and member of CU Citizens for Peace and Justice, Mark Enslin, teacher and composer, Gus Wood, President of the Graduate Employees Organization, and Kate McDowell, Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois.

“Net neutrality is a life and death issue for black Americans,“ said Martel Miller a board member of Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. “For example, in 2011, police officers here in Champaign, Illinois choked and pepper sprayed a young African American man as he was handcuffed in the back of a squad car. The public had no knowledge this happened until months later when I leaked the squad car video and put it on our news site. It was seen by over 30,000 outraged viewers in a few days. The Chief of Police, who had overseen police abuse of our community for a decade, was gone within a month. We now have a new Chief we can work with. None of that would have been possible without net neutrality,”

See photos from the protest here:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/ucimc/sets/72157650947346252/
Photo Credit: Jeffrey Putney

Amanda Hwu.
Amanda Hwu.

Incumbent ISPs like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are engaged in last ditch desperate attempts to derail the democratic process in motion. Instead of expanding their networks to rural and low-income communities, ISPs have spent millions of dollars lobbying congress and the legacy civil rights community to kill the open Internet.

But after years of organizing, the democratic process worked. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has put forward the strongest protections for the Internet ever by proposing rules that would reclassify the Internet as a Title II communications service.

More than 7 million people raised their voices for real net neutrality including decentralized, democratic movements like #BlackLivesMatter,  #Not1More, and #Fightfor15. The FCC listened; it’s time ISPs do the same. This rally was part of a series throughout the country focused on the ISPs.

Other Quotes from the Rally:

“The Internet has been key to the work that we do as the Prison Justice Project because it allows us the raise the politically and economically disenfranchised voices that the prison industrial complex intends to silence. We strongly oppose fast and slow lanes because it is it specifically aimed at creating a hierarchy of individuals that are deserving and not deserving of accessing information. Moreover, a stratification of lanes will absolutely result in the exploitation of individuals that are already exploited, neglected, and segregated in our society.”
Amanda Hwu, Prison Justice Project of the University of Illinois

“The slogans, pictures and messages being sent to the people over the net encourages the participatory Democracy all Americans should strive to achieve. Nothing reveals our power to influence policy like seeing other dedicated humans across the globe engaged in similar struggles. The ability to share our lessons and ideas is right, just and needed. The days of suppressing the vote and the voice of the people are over!”
Aaron Ammons, Urbana City Council Member and President of SEIU Local 37

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