Industriefreundliche Politiker schrecken vor nichts zur\u00fcck, um ihren Geldgebern aus der Wirtschaft zu helfen, selbst wenn sie damit den Willen der amerikanischen \u00d6ffentlichkeit ignorieren.<\/p>
On Wednesday, every Republican on the House Appropriations Committee (and one Democrat, Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar) voted to block implementation of the FCC's historic net neutrality rules. Those rules, which went into effect last Friday, keep the Internet free and open for all Americans. The Internet is the town square of 21st-century democracy, not a playground for deep-pocketed corporations, and the rules ensure that it will stay that way.<\/p>
Tucked more than 100 pages into the bill is a rider that hamstrings the agency’s ability to \"implement, administer, or enforce\" any of those rules until (and this is a big until) pending net neutrality litigation against the FCC is resolved. The rider's language, as Representative Jose Serrano, D-NY, noted, throws the door wide open for corporate lawyers to stall implementation of the FCC's rules, possibly indefinitely.<\/p>
Serrano said that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit refused last week to delay implementation of the FCC's rules. Decisions on whether the rules should stand should come from the judicial system, Serrano argued; the rider just gave unhappy Republicans a way to circumvent the judicial process.<\/p>
Common Cause agrees. The FCC’s Open Internet rules reflect the views of more than 4 million Americans who submitted comments to the agency. The Court of Appeals had a chance to intervene but chose not to. It's not Congress’s job to undercut the judicial branch or defy the will of the public, but the committee’s vote does just that.<\/p>
\u201eDas Volkshaus sollte den Willen des Volkes vertreten\u201c, sagte Michael Copps, Sonderberater von Common Cause und ehemaliger FCC-Kommissar. \u201eDie Mehrheitsentscheidung des Ausschusses gegen das offene Internet steht in keinerlei Einklang mit den Millionen, die sich an die FCC gewandt haben, um einen historischen Online-Wettbewerb und Garantien f\u00fcr freie Meinungs\u00e4u\u00dferung zu fordern \u2013 und durchzusetzen.\u201c<\/p>
Die Amerikaner wollen, dass das Internet frei und offen bleibt. Die Mehrheit im Haushaltsausschuss hat gezeigt, wie wenig sie den Bezug zur Nation verloren hat.<\/p>