Democrats are readying an all-out war to stop the FCC from killing net neutrality rules

[babylonsister]

https://www.recode.net/2017/5/18/15655012/congress-democrats-stop-trump-fcc-eliminating-net-neutrality-rules
Democrats are readying an all-out war to stop the FCC from killing net neutrality rules
Their hope: Generate enough backlash that Republicans cave.
by Tony Romm@TonyRomm May 18, 2017, 6:30am EDT



Rep. Frank Pallone is like many Democrats in the U.S. Congress: He’s itching for a fight over net neutrality.

To the New Jersey congressman, the Obama administration “did its job” when it acted in 2015 to stop internet providers from meddling with the way that consumers use the web. The telecom industry didn’t like the rules, of course, but Pallone saw them as the only way to prevent AT&T, Charter, Comcast* and Verizon from blocking or slowing down online content.

So when the Trump administration begins its work Thursday to kill the open-internet protections currently on the government’s books, Pallone and his allies intend to return fire. They’re already pledging to embark on a take-no-prisoners political crusade — one that also threatens to make the internet’s most intractable debate even louder and harder to solve.

“Nobody believes the Republicans who are saying they want strong net neutrality, or they’re going to come up with a better way,” said Pallone, the top Democrat on the House committee overseeing the FCC, during an interview with Recode. “I’m not interested in this nonsense.”

“It’ll be a campaign issue if they repeal it,” he added. “Our focus now is to say to the FCC, please don’t do this.”

In many ways, net neutrality is the internet’s longest war: So far, it has spanned two decades, four presidents, scores of court challenges and multiple, wonky rulemaking proceedings at the nation’s telecom regulator, the FCC. It has pitted the country’s cable and broadband giants, which abhor regulation, against the likes of Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter and a host of startups that firmly believe net neutrality rules are critical to their existence.

This time, the agency’s new Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, seeks to undo the work of his Democratic predecessor. In 2015, the Obama-era FCC subjected broadband providers to the same sort of utility-like regulations that long have applied to old-school telephone giants. The telecom industry vehemently opposed that approach, as did Pai, who then served as a commissioner. Now that he holds the reins to the FCC, he’s scheduled a vote to begin debating a repeal of the rules on Thursday.

more...

https://www.recode.net/2017/5/18/15655012/congress-democrats-stop-trump-fcc-eliminating-net-neutrality-rules