Former FCC Commissioner Requests Urgent Meeting with President on Net Neutrality

Former FCC Commissioner Requests Urgent Meeting with President on Net Neutrality

Common Cause and Free Press warn FCC actions could imperil Internet’s future

WASHINGTON — In a letter sent Wednesday to the White House seeking a meeting with the president, former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps and Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron warn that rules pending before the Federal Communications Commission “undermine Net Neutrality and imperil the future of the open Internet.”

The letter praises President Obama’s recent remarks in favor of strong Net Neutrality protections but explains that the rules proposed at the independent agency by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, an Obama appointee, would create “fast lanes for the few who can pay and slow lanes for the rest of us.”

Common Cause and Free Press ask the president to support reclassifying broadband as a common carrier under Title II of the Communications Act as the best way to “guarantee basic consumer protections and free expression on broadband networks — the infrastructure that you have done so much to encourage throughout your administration.”

Copps, who heads the Media & Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause, served at the FCC from 2001–2011 and was interim chairman of the agency under President Obama. He is also a member of the Free Press Board of Directors.

Read the full text of the letter