The Battle For Net Neutrality Continues

Above Photo: A 2017 “Protect Net Neutrality” rally in San Francisco. (Credo Action / Wikimedia)

Popular Resistance is part of the Red Alert For Net Neutrality. Please take action now as a vote in the US Senate on a resolution overturning the FCC decision is likely to be voted on this Wednesday. Take action here and share this article and urge everyone you know to take action.

Our allies at Fight For The Future sent out an email with the following suggestions:

First, check to see where your House members stand as well, and call them. If we win in the Senate, we’ll have to get the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution passed in the House as well to restore net neutrality.

Then, do this: There are a handful of senators who are on the fence and the most likely swing votes. But calling them yourself won’t really help unless you live in their state. We need to get as many of their constituents to call as possible. Here’s how:

1. Contact your friends in these states, and tell them to call their senators using the tool at BattleForTheNet.com/call.
2. You can use Facebook Graph search to pull up lists of your friends who live in the key states, and then message them one by one. It’s pretty quick if you get into it. Use the list below. You have to be logged in for it to work.
3. Here’s a quick suggested message: “Hey! The Senate is about to vote on net neutrality and your senator is key. Can you call? This site makes it super easy: https://www.battleforthenet.com/call”

Here’s the list:

• ALASKA | Click to find your friends | Tell them to call Sen Lisa Murkowski
• LOUISIANA | Click to find your friends | Tell them to call Sen Kennedy
• COLORADO | Click to find your friends | Tell them call Sen Cory Gardner
• UTAH | Click to find your friends | Tell them to call Sen Hatch and Lee
• FLORIDA | Click to find your friends | Tell them to call Senator Rubio
• NEVADA | Click to find your friends | Tell them to call Sen Dean Heller
• ARIZONA | Click to find your friends | Tell them to call Sen Jeff Flake
• SO. CAROLINA | Click to find your friends | Tell them to call Sen Graham

Please share this email and urge people you now to join the campaign to save net neutrality. KZ

“Net neutrality” laws are set to expire June 11, the Federal Communications Commission announced Thursday, and now a number of senators, mainly Democrats, are staging a last-ditch effort to save them.

The Obama-era rules, enacted in 2015, aimed to create a free and open internet by preventing telecommunications companies from charging more for faster internet service, or otherwise privileging their own material or that of their advertisers online. If the rules are allowed to expire, companies will have “broad new power over how consumers can access the internet,” Reuters notes.

In repealing the rules, the government is favoring the interests of giant telecoms over those of American consumers, effectively limiting the information they can consume based on their ability to pay for it.

Multiple state and federal officials have spoken against repeal. Barbara Underwood, the acting attorney general for New York, told Reuters that “the repeal of net neutrality would allow internet service providers to put their profits before the consumers they serve and control what we see, do, and say online.”

New York is leading a group of 22 states in suing to block the changes from taking effect.

On Wednesday, the Senate Democrats announced they are calling for the reinstatement of what they see as critical consumer protections and are moving to force a vote on the proposal, as CNN reports. “This is the fight for the internet,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told reporters, saying that the group’s efforts put net neutrality rules “back on the books.”

Advocates, however, are not hopeful that this last-ditch action will work, despite its likelihood of passing the Senate.

Michael Fauscette, an expert in net neutrality and chief research officer of G2 Crowd, a software and services review company, said in a statement, “There is some momentum in the Senate, with two Republicans already defecting and promising to vote for the bill when it comes in the floor next week, which is only 1 vote shy of the simple majority required to pass.”

“Unfortunately,” he continues, “the attempt seems doomed either in the House or with the President, who would most certainly refuse to sign the bill.”

The best-case scenario, as Fauscette sees it, is that the bill “will at least serve as a roll call to put the representatives on record about their stance on net neutrality, something that could have repercussions in the upcoming midterm elections.”