JayACLU

Being here in Washington I can tell you, when the people pay attention and show they care, it has a real effect. It's easy for politicians to please powerful companies in the shadows when nobody is watching, but when they start to feel that voters are watching and care, that doesn't always guarantee victory but at least it guarantees a fight. We saw this recently when Congress voted to overturn the FCC's broadband privacy protections (which are sort of the other side of the coin of the Net Neutrality protections). Voters were MAD, and a lot in Congress are running scared over that vote now.

So stand up, make some noise, file comments with the FCC, and let your representatives know what you think!

Well this debate has been going on for years because until 2015 the FCC a) did not put in place strongly grounded NN rules and b) the FCC did make clear that it would enforce NN. The debate was seemingly settled in 2015 and that should have been the end of it. Now Pai is not only undoing those rules, but he is taking the radical step of dislcaiming the FCC's intention to even enforce Network Neutrality principles, which goes far beyond what any Republican or Democratic commission has done before.

So first, we need to keep in place or restore the 2015 NN rules. And we need to create a strong consensus among the American people that these rules are necessary, so that future FCCs don't do what this one is doing and try to run away from their responsibility to protect the open Internet. The best way to make that happen is for politicians in DC to feel pain this time around. That means we the people have to make noise.

The FCC is an independent agency with 5 members, 3 of whom belong to the president's party at any given time. There is nothing you as a citizen can do directly to remove FCC commissioners, except work to elect a president who will appoint commissioners you agree with, and generally advocate that the current president appoint commissioners that you agree with.

Options include getting Congress to repeal the new rules within 60 days through a CRA resolution. (This is the same maneuver that Congress used for bad reasons earlier this year to repeal the FCC's privacy rules that prohibit your broadband provider from selling your browsing history. But if it wanted Congress could use the same CRA procedure to help the Internet here.) Otherwise, getting a new FCC that will actually do its job and protect the open Internet. That would probably take a new president, or at least a pretty big political upheaval.

Definitely keep pushing! They cannot formally affect the commissioners' votes next week, but they can certainly take a position, speak up, and exert political pressure. Even if it doesn't have an affect on this vote next week and we lose this battle, this is a larger war that is not going away, and we need their voice and power to help win the overall war.