In September of 2014, hundreds of thousands of Americans took part in the “Battle for the Net” and stood their ground to Stop Internet Regulation.
Liberty News Now, Citizen Action and American Commitment . . . and those Americans . . . won the battle.
Over 800,000 comments were submitted to the Federal Communications Commission opposing Net Neutrality.
The opposition, which represented over FORTY THOUSAND organizations, submitted almost as many, but came up short.
We took on giants like Netflix, Meetup, Tumblr and the ACLU and according to a report by the Sunlight Foundation, we “dominated” the comment period.
While our opposition came up with the confusing name “Net Neutrality” we understood that means “government regulation” and we chose to stick with what we have.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced that the commission will make a decision in February.
No further comments were called for . . . that’s a good sign.
But the public still does not understand the issue.
One comical (or not) commenter in a Washington Post article summed up the position with clarity when responding to a Net Neutrality supporter:
ThanksForTheFish: Have you seen what Comcast wants to do to the Internet? They WILL nickel and dime the Internet to death.
Jack Foobar: Yea, but they won’t arrest you and shoot you in the face when you blog about Dear Leader. There’s a big difference between inconvenience (choosing another provider/moving) and being dead.
Yes, that’s an extreme response but the reality is we don’t know how far the government will take regulation of the Internet.
While we can all hope that no “face shootin” occurs anytime soon, we do know from very recent history that the government will use information against others for political reasons . . . just recall the IRS’s TEA Party discrimination, Hillary Clinton’s Filegate, etc.
By passing Net Neutrality, a green light is being given to the government that will eventually make the Internet look like a North Korean border crossing.
