U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley holds town meeting in Iowa, April 2017. Issues raised by constituents included the affordable health care act, bio diesel fuel credits, immigration, and net neutrality, and members of Congress actually working together to do things for the American people and not just for specific parties or special interests. Jerry Mennenga\/Press Association. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n
On a cold Thursday morning in January, a small
\ngroup of advocates gathered outside the imposing edifice of the Federal
\nCommunications Commission in Washington, DC. They opened the trunk of a red
\nFord Fusion parked nearby and began unloading more than twenty white banker\u2019s
\nboxes. Within minutes, they had assembled a makeshift cardboard podium. Inside
\nthe boxes were more than a million signatures collected in just two weeks from
\npeople across the country.<\/p>\n
Each person had signed on to an online letter
\ndemanding the FCC protect net neutrality, the democratic principle that
\nensures that the internet remains open and free from blocking or throttling of
\ncontent by the large phone and cable companies that control high-speed internet
\naccess. Maintaining an open internet is as
\nfundamental to functioning democracies as protecting free speech rights. <\/p>\n
After delivering a few speeches standing behind
\nthe podium, net neutrality advocates carried the boxes across the building\u2019s
\nthreshold and delivered the petitions to the federal agency.<\/p>\n
This petition delivery at the FCC was just one
\nsmall moment in years of activism both online and in the streets. Over the past
\ndecade, the once obscure issue of net neutrality has grown to draw popular
\nattention from tens of millions of people of every ideological stripe. It\u2019s an
\nexplosive issue that at the grassroots level bridges political differences. And
\nwhile net neutrality protections are currently under threat in Washington\u00a0 \u2013 where too many politicians cater to the
\nneeds of the cash-rich phone and cable industry lobby \u2013 people beyond the reach
\nof the capital\u2019s influence industry remain united.<\/p>\n
\nAt a very basic level everyone agrees that the companies that provide access to
\nthe internet shouldn\u2019t be in the business of controlling the types of
\ninformation that flows across the network onto the screens of our cellphones,
\ntablets, laptops or home computers. Maintaining an open internet is as
\nfundamental to functioning democracies as protecting free speech rights. <\/p>\n
Public polling in the United States shows
\nstrong support for net neutrality protections from both Democratic and
\nRepublican Party voters: a University of Delaware survey found that 85
\npercent of Republicans and 81 percent of Democrats opposed allowing their
\ninternet access provider to prioritize some web content over others. A similar
\npoll from the Internet Freedom Business Alliance found a
\nlarge majority of self-identified Republicans and conservatives support net
\nneutrality rules, and are willing to stand alongside Democrats in support of an
\nopen internet.<\/p>\n
Net neutrality as an idea is but one part of a
\nlarger global movement of people fighting for internet freedom. It is a
\nmovement that includes democracy activists in Eastern Europe, Arab Spring
\nprotesters in the Middle East and North Africa, and dissident bloggers and
\n\u201chacktivists\u201d across Asia. In early 2012, more than ten million people of
\ndiffering political views mobilized online and off to defeat the SOPA\/PIPA Web
\ncensorship legislation in the United States. In early 2012, more than
\nten million people of differing political views mobilized online and off to
\ndefeat the SOPA\/PIPA Web censorship legislation in the United States.<\/p>\n
Activists on the right and left are using the
\nopen internet to fight unchecked spying and surveillance by the NSA and demand
\nonline privacy and free speech rights. The internet was designed to be an
\nengine of disintermediation, free speech, and inclusion \u2013 a means by which
\nanyone could route around the gatekeepers, build online communities, and share
\ninformation.<\/p>\n
It opened the door for new forms of grassroots
\npolitical organizing and gave smart online activists an impressive means to
\ncreate diverse coalitions, influence policies and shame bad actors in
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n
With only a tiny fraction of the financial
\nresources of our opponents, internet freedom advocates struggle every day to
\npreserve this online openness. The very latest threat to net neutrality in the
\nUnited States comes from the Trump administration, which is determined to
\nunwind the protections won under former President Obama. <\/p>\n
As politics across the world become even more divisive \u2013 as evidenced by recent
\nelections in the United States and Europe \u2013 the key to advancing policies is to
\nbuild diverse political support at the grassroots level, and to leverage that
\nsupport against policymakers in government who have a tendency to put party
\nloyalty before the needs and demands of their constituents.<\/p>\n
This is certainly the case with net neutrality in
\nthe United States. When we started organizing people around the issue more than
\nten years ago we focused on building a coalition of strange political
\nbedfellows.<\/p>\n
While the socially conservative group Christian These two groups had never teamed up on anything The Christian Coalition and MoveOn formed the In turn, these groups mobilized their members to \nMore than 20 million people commented as part of the most recent net neutrality \nThe unprecedented growth in grassroots support for net neutrality policies was \nThe election of Donald Trump in 2016 set wheels in motion to take away the online Whether working for internet freedom in the United States or abroad, advocates U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley holds town meeting in Iowa, April 2017. Issues raised by constituents included the affordable health care act, bio diesel fuel credits, immigration, and net neutrality, and members of Congress actually working together to do things for the American people and not just for specific parties or special interests. Jerry Mennenga\/Press Association….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCoalition opposes almost every position taken by the progressive activists at
\nMoveOn they linked arms in support of the open internet\u00a0 \u2013 so much so that they took out a full page
\nad in the New York Times<\/em> declaring
\ntheir shared view. \u201cWhen it comes to protecting Internet freedom, the Christian
\nCoalition and MoveOn respectfully agree,\u201d the ad read. When
\nwe started organizing people around the issue more than ten years ago we
\nfocused on building a coalition of strange political bedfellows.<\/p>\n
\nbefore. Their new alliance on net neutrality surprised so many people in
\nWashington that one lawmaker remarked: \u201cIf you can get these two groups to
\nagree on an issue, how can it be wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nmultifaceted backbone of a net neutrality coalition that included more than a
\nhundred organizations. Librarians joined with gun owners, musicians with
\ngardening clubs, racial justice advocates with video gamers, and libertarians
\nwith lefties to demand protections for the open internet.<\/p>\n
\nact. People picked up their phones and called elected representatives in
\nCongress; they submitted comments into public dockets at the FCC, they
\norganized house parties to talk about the issue and spoke out at local town
\nhall meetings; they wrote songs and created online videos in support of
\nprotecting the open internet.<\/p>\n
\nproceeding before the FCC, breaking all records for public participation in any
\nmatter before the agency. On a few occasions this year, the agency\u2019s online
\ncommenting engine crashed unable to manage the flood of comments.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nBuilding
\nfrom the bottom up<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nso rapid and overwhelming that it has caught Washington politicians off guard.
\nMany were left scrambling to alter their positions on the issue \u2013 from one of
\nalignment with the powerful phone and cable lobby to positions that favored net
\nneutrality as a concept but differed on the recommended policy solution.
\nAfter ten years of organizing on the issue, the grassroots managed to shift
\nenough DC policymakers to win landmark net neutrality protections at the FCC.
\nOn February 26, 2015, the agency voted to prohibit phone and cable
\ncompanies from blocking and throttling internet content or giving priority
\nonline access to rich companies while relegating the rest of the internet\u00a0 to slow lanes.
\nIt would be hard to overstate just how important this 2015 decision was for
\ninternet users. But nothing in Washington, not even a public-interest win of
\nsuch magnitude, is final. The ink had barely dried on the FCC\u2019s Open Internet
\nOrder before phone and cable companies shifted into overdrive. \u201cIt falls to
\nCongress to step in,\u201d said the head of the phone and cable industry\u2019s chief
\nlobbying group. \u201cThe FCC has taken us in a distressing direction. We must now
\nlook to other branches of government for a more balanced resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nfreedoms won by a well organized coalition of internet users. Net neutrality
\nlaws put on the books in Brazil, Chile, India and across the European Union
\nface similar threats from powerful business interests. The
\nonly way to counter these threats is by creating an international, popular
\nmovement for internet freedom.The only way to counter these threats is by creating an international,
\npopular movement for internet freedom. To mobilize this movement, advocates
\nmust welcome people of all political persuasions. They must be mobilized
\nthrough direct outreach at the grassroots, in the personal places where people
\nformulate their opinions beyond the influences of powerful special interests.
\nThis robust field strategy must be combined with the expert ability to compel
\npolicymakers to side with the public interest. <\/p>\n
\nwon\u2019t win the right policies without a symbiosis of fieldwork and policy
\nintelligence. While the fight for net neutrality is far from over, the best
\nlong-term strategy for saving the internet will be to reach across ideological
\ndifferences and build from the bottom up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"