Today, EFF is participating in a national Day of Action to push Congress to preserve the net neutrality rules the FCC repealed in December. With a simple majority, Congress can use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn the FCC’s new rule. We’re asking for members of the House and Senate to commit to doing so publicly.
On Thursday, February 22, the FCC’s so-called “Restoring Internet Freedom Order” was published in the Federal Register. Under the CRA, Congress has 60 working days to vote to overturn that Order. We’re asking representatives to publicly commit to doing just that. In the House of Representatives, that means supporting Representative Mike Doyle’s bill, which has 150 co-sponsors. In the Senate, Senator Ed Markey’s bill is just one vote away from passing.
Net neutrality means that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks fairly, without improperly discriminating in favor of particular apps, sites or services. For many years, net neutrality principles in various forms, have forbidden unfair practices like blocking or throttling particular services and sites, as well as paid prioritization, where an ISP charges content providers to get better or faster or more consistent access to the ISP's customer or prioritizes its own content over a competitor’s. Thanks to the hard work of millions of Internet users, these protections were enshrined in the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order. The new Order eviscerated those protections; Congress can use the CRA to bring them back.
Because net neutrality is so popular, politicians often say they support it – but lip service is not enough. A vote to restore the net neutrality protections in the 2015 Open Internet Order is a clear, concrete thing that you can ask your representatives to do to support real net neutrality.
For that reason, we’re launching Check Your Reps, a website that allows you to see whether or not your representatives are voting yes on bringing back the 2015 Open Internet Order, email them voicing your support for net neutrality, and share what you’ve learned.
The clock is ticking: make sure you tell your representatives to act.
Tell Your Representatives to Bring Back Net Neutrality Protections
