Congress Laughingly Accuses Popular Resistance of Working With the White House for Title II
“The only thing we did with the White House was protest Obama’s silence on the issue, before he finally spoke out”
The puppets of the telecom industry in Congress are desperate to find some way to discredit the decision to treat the Internet as a common carrier by reclassifying it under Title II under the Federal Telecommunications Act and putting in place net neutrality rules that ensure equal access and no discrimination. Today at the House Oversight and Government Reform Hearing, they are claiming that Popular Resistance was working with the White House in pressuring Tom Wheeler to enact rules in the public interest to protect the Internet.
Tom Wheeler is going to testify before Congress five times in the next 10 days at hearings intended to undermine net neutrality. If today’s hearing is typical of what is coming, everyone should make these bought and paid for puppets of the telecoms the butt of jokes. Congress is trying to find some way to undermine the rules, our prediction: they will fail and embarrass themselves in the process resulting in undermining any GOP support from the Internet.
Below are some tweets from people at the Republican hearing commenting on the tactic of Republicans commenting on Popular Resistance.
.@KBZeese They love you @GOPoversight … they’ve been playing all your greatest hits from the #NetNeutrality fight
— Craig Aaron (@notaaroncraig) March 17, 2015
Entering nonsensical phase of the hearing … the theory is @PopResistance — literally banned from @FCC meetings — was coordinating w WH? — Craig Aaron (@notaaroncraig) March 17, 2015
Omg #HouseOversight hearing suggesting @PopResistance protestors secret Obama agents. No words for this sort of ridiculous. #NetNeutrality
— Julia Graber (@blueskygraber) March 17, 2015
especially since those same protestors have protested AT the white house. #fcc #NetNeutrality — Future of Music (@future_of_music) March 17, 2015
I bet those protestors would find it HILARIOUS to suggest their protesting was coordinated with the white house. #fcc #netneutrality
— Future of Music (@future_of_music) March 17, 2015
.@jasoninthehouse really fishing. Does he really think 2 protesters in Wheeler’s driveway were Obama agents? #NetNeutrality #HouseOversight — Matt Wood (@mattfwood) March 17, 2015
#HouseOversight @notaaroncraig House committee misses that @PopResistance represented nearly 4 Million ppl who commented for #NetNeutrality
— Popular Resistance (@PopResistance) March 17, 2015
Conspiracies, Freud, dang… Internet opponents looking for any foothold to eliminate non-discrimination rules online. #netneutrality — malkia a. cyril (@culturejedi) March 17, 2015
Congress needs to put the facts before the conspiracy theories on #NetNeutrality: http://t.co/PUQ7US27As via @freepress
— TimKarr (@TimKarr) March 17, 2015
The basis for the conspiracy between Popular Resistance and the White House was an email sent by Tom Wheeler to people in the FCC noting the coincidence of our protest with Obama’s speech favoring reclassification of the Internet to Title II and strong net neutrality rules.
While we appreciate the attention, and are proud of the actions we took, the reality is that Popular Resistance was part of a broad coalition of organizations and individuals who pushed for Title II and net neutrality rules. We played our role in protesting at key points throughout the process, helping to develop strategy with the net neutrality coalition, urging people to submit comments as well as writing and reporting about the issue. Near the end of the process when we still thought the FCC was not going to reschedule, and President Obama had remained silent, we also protested at the White House and urged people to call the president and tell him to support Title II.
The truth is there were no secret instruction from the White House, this was a lengthy rule making process where the views of the FCC evolved for many reasons — hundreds of organizations urged reclassification, millions of people submitted comments with the vast majority favoring reclassification, scores of Internet-based corporations commented also supporting reclassification, lawyers commented explaining how reclassification was the only legal way for the FCC to implement net neutrality and scores of elected officials also commented in favor of the change. This is how the system is supposed to work. The FCC proposes a rule, seeks comments, listens, learns and evolves. Corporate interests are so used to the public being ignored that they, and their puppets in Congress, are startled that a federal agency actually acted in the public interest.
Help us defend this historic victory in the public interest.