Net neutrality, the principle that broadband companies like Comcast and AT&T shouldn’t pick winners and losers on the Internet, is under attack in Washington, DC. The Trump Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is proposing to repeal the strong 2015 net neutrality rules, which are overwhelmingly popular with Americans all across the country, regardless of political affiliation. At the same time, some members of Congress are pushing to put a weaker form of net neutrality into law and at the same time free broadband companies from FCC oversight.
Mozilla and the Internet Archive will host a discussion featuring former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler; Representative Ro Khanna; Mozilla Chief Legal and Business Officer Denelle Dixon; Amy Aniobi, Supervising Producer, Insecure (HBO); Luisa Leschin, Co-Executive Producer/Head Writer, Just Add Magic (Amazon); and Malkia Cyril, Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice. The panel will be moderated by Gigi Sohn, Mozilla Fellow and former Counselor to Chairman Wheeler, and will discuss how net neutrality promotes democratic values, social justice and economic opportunity, what the current threats are, and what the public can do to preserve it.
Doors open at 6:00pm. A reception will precede the discussion from 6:30-7:15, and the discussion (followed by audience Q&A) will run from 7:30-9:00.
Please RSVP here.
What: The Battle to Save Net Neutrality
When: Monday, September 18th, 2017
6:30pm Reception
7:30 pm Discussion & Q&A
Where: Internet Archive Headquarters
300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94118
Totally with you! Good luck there!
First of all, I’m totally on the complete net neutrality side. But…
This is an _administrative rule-making_ in an _independent commission_, the FCC. Administrative law is an arcane branch of the law dominated by practitioners who understand its complexities and its magic tricks. I only had one graduate course in AdminLaw, and used that in my later jobs, along with years of hard-knocks experience in just one branch – environmental regulation. Despite being guilty of sitting on a board to approve a state environ. reg, I still feel I was just barely able to keep my head far enough above water to teach people how to comply with regs. I wouldn’t care to try to influence rule-making without a specialist attorney with knowledge of administrative procedure *as practiced in the agency in question*, and *technical expertise* in the subject matter of the proceeding.
Nevertheless, the challenge has to be met. It may be more expensive, and take more time and money, than you believed possible going into it, but someone’s got to do it! (Saying which, I have to plead incompetence because of age [80] and disability: Sorry ¡¯\_(ツ)_/¯!)
Only got to know about this issue through John Oliver’s show but I completely support the cause. People like you, who are fighting for net neutrality are the ones who deserve our support.