Media Center

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s announced today that he would attempt to roll back the agency’s Open Internet (“net neutrality”) rules.

It is unnecessary and harmful for Chairman Pai to replace the FCC's Diversity Advisory Committee, which for years drew on the expertise of diversity experts to generate valuable and vetted proposals to advance important diversity initiatives. Commission leadership from both parties too-often ignored that committee's proposals. But instead of reconstituting that committee and finally acting on its many extant recommendations, Chairman Pai has chosen to ignore it and create a new committee which will take months or longer to organize, meet, and come up with proposals. Given the Trump Administration’s track record of business friendly appointments, Pai is likely to select committee members who put corporate interests ahead of diversity. Shameful. It is decades beyond time for serious action to help minorities and women in media ownership. Pai's announcement is a serious step backwards.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission dealt a body blow to the public interest by votingvoted to entrench monopoly in broadcasting and business broadband, Common Cause said. The FCC majority eliminated price restraints on Business Data Services (BDS), allowing incumbent carriers to charge exorbitant rates on small businesses across the country. In a separate proceeding, the same majority voted to reinstate a legal loophole that broadcasters exploit to monopolize ever more of the airwaves.

Privacy goes the way of populism as Trump rolls over again for big business. Despite a campaign filled with rhetoric about the plight of forgotten Americans, Trump has once again come down on the side of corporate profiteering at the expense of Americans who don't sit on corporate boards and can't afford a $200,000 membership at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. Trump has flip-flipped on his own campaign promises and handed over Americans' right to privacy to those with the deepest pockets.

Congress has knuckled under to Big Telecom and Big Cable on internet privacy. If the bill passed today is signed by the president, broadband providers will have free rein to sell user data to the highest bidder - without ever informing consumers.”

The President rails against “fake news,” but in eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting his budget plan would sever the financial lifeline of scores of public TV and radio stations that are among the most reliable, trusted sources of real news for millions of Americans.