Photos: By Free Press.
Washington, DC – Today marks the first public hearing by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under the directorship of Chairman Ajit Pai, who was appointed by the Trump administration. A coalition of organizations, including Free Press, Fight for the Future, Demand Progress and the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, that fought to win net neutrality through reclassification as a common carrier gathered outside the FCC beforehand to deliver 200,000 ‘love letters’ to the chair calling for the protection of net neutrality. They also brought large valentines.
Upon their approach to the FCC door, the net neutrality protectors were met by the aggressive and angry head of FCC security backed up by several Department of Homeland Security SUVs filled with agents. The head of security demanded to see the contents of the red-wrapped boxes carrying the petitions and instructed the group to take their valentines off the premises. The net neutrality protectors complied after delivering the petitions and moved to an adjacent open grassy area.
These valentines, with their expressions of love for the Internet and net neutrality, were seen as a threat to the new leadership of the FCC.
Ajit Pai, a deregulator at heart, formerly worked as legal counsel for Verizon and as a telecommunications industry lobbyist for Jenner and Block. He is portrayed as the man who will gut net neutrality with a smile. He is a social and friendly person, but his ideology is fiercely at odds with the public interest.
In The American Prospect, Timothy Carr explains:
Ajit Pai, the president’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, was pilloried by The New York Times and Washington Post editorial boards last week after his agency released a rapid-fire series of rulings in a move that resembled Trump’s rush of executive orders. Chairman Pai’s directives, which he issued with zero public input, undermine the open internet and undercut the agency’s Lifeline program, which is designed to make the internet more affordable for families with low incomes.
Pai’s attack on Lifeline drew a swift response. A series of letters from dozens of Democrats on Capitol Hill asserted that Pai’s move to prevent nine internet service providers (ISPs) from serving Lifeline participants was “unfairly punishing” families in need.
Pai managed to draw criticism on the same Sunday from two of the nation’s most prominent and influential newspapers, even as members of Congress piled on. But the condemnation is justified: Pai has long served the interests of massive phone and cable companies, while shafting those ordinary Americans of whom Trump claims to be so fond.
“Many of Mr. Pai’s moves would hurt the people who have the least power,” wrote the Times’ editors. “Congress created the FCC to help all Americans obtain access to communication services without discrimination and at fair prices. Mr. Pai’s approach does exactly the opposite.”
The Post noted that Pai likes to talk the talk of bridging the digital divide—during his first speech as FCC chairman, he said it would be a top agency priority. But when the FCC released his anti-Lifeline action days later, “he opened another gap,” wrote the Post, “this time between his words and his actions.”
It’s the sort of head fake that’s familiar to those who’ve followed Pai’s career as a lead apologist for the phone companies he once worked for—and still serves.
This list of Pai’s miscues on key policy issues makes amply clear the many harmful directions the new FCC chairman will lead the agency through the Trump years.
Pai on the 2015 Net Neutrality Proceeding
“[The ruling is] President Obama’s plan to regulate the Internet. … Was this proceeding ‘one of the most open and transparent in Commission history’? Not in the least.”
While Pai has said he supports a free and open internet, he’s been one of the most vitriolic opponents of the rules that were put in place to keep it that way. Pai offered a lengthy dissent when an FCC majority passed the agency’s historic Open Internet Order in 2015. In subsequent statements, he claimed the ruling was part of an elaborate Obama conspiracy to “regulate the internet.”
In truth, the rules aren’t internet regulations but a set of regulations to govern broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon. And these companies no more constitute the Internet than a company like Georgia Pacific signifies the forest. The FCC’s decision reclassified broadband providers under an existing law that preserves the rights we’ve always had to defend ourselves against communications carriers bent on interfering with our speech.
Pai’s complaint about the FCC’s process is a smoking gun with no smoke and no gun. The agency made its legal decisions based on thousands of pages of public-record evidence, and took into account the nearly four million comments from Internet users, all to return to a foundation built on decades of solid law. All of those records are available to anyone with an Internet connection and the gumption to search the freely available archives at FCC.gov. [continue reading here]
The coalition that worked to win reclassification in 2014-2015 has reconvened again and is planning an ongoing campaign of actions. Our next day of action is on March 23 when the FCC holds its next public hearing. Click here for the Facebook Page.