Pro-net activist group Fight for the Future has put up a series of flyers urging Republican members of Congress to repeal the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules and the classification of broadband providers as carriers. common.
Billboards in state legislatures urge people to contact their elected officials and say that repealing a federal ordinance would lead to “slower, slower, and more expensive Internet.” The signs were paid for by hundreds of small gifts, the group said. Broadband providers Comcast, Verizon, and Charter took hits on the invitations as well.
“Voters from every political spectrum agree that they don’t want companies like Comcast and Verizon dictating what they can see and do online,” Fight for the Future campaign director Evan Greer said in a statement. declaration yesterday “No one is fooled by the efforts of corrupt lawmakers to push for bad legislation while they are robbing Internet users of protection at the FCC. Hundreds of people donate to make these billboards possible. When you come The Internet, the Internet is for you.”
Fighting for the Future also helped organize the recent Day of Action to Save Network Incompatibility.
The group said its flyers “feature some of the few members of Congress who have come out with early support for the FCC’s plan(s) to repeal net neutrality rules.” They include Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who chairs a communications committee and previously filed legislation called the “Internet Freedom Act” to change FCC rules. After FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed repealing the rules this year, Blackburn called it is a “positive step” that will ensure that the Internet is not “under heavy government control.”
A billboard depicts Senator John Thune (R.S.D.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who proposed ending the common-carry division while developing “a suitable legislative solution for net neutrality that would ban prohibition, grant , and payment processing of Internet traffic.”
There are also posters for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.), and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss).). As Fight for the Future notes, every of they in support efforts to change current net neutrality laws.
“The documents show increased scrutiny on Congress, (which has) significant oversight authority over the FCC,” Fight for the Future said. “Without viable legislation on the table, net neutrality supporters remain opposed to any attempt at legislation that would undermine the strong rules at the FCC, which millions of Americans have fought for.”
In May, group activists put such billboards featuring Republican members of Congress who voted to repeal broadcast privacy laws.
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