To the Federal Communications Commission:

When you repealed Title II Net Neutrality protections for internet users, you unleashed chaos.

Your decision undercut the FCC’s authority to ensure that the public and first responders have open and reliable communications networks, which are critical for public safety, especially during and after disasters. You also undermined the legal foundation that supports the FCC’s broadband Lifeline program, which is aimed at alleviating the high costs of communications services for poor people. You even gave up any authority to stop ISPs from disconnecting internet service during pandemics. Instead, Chairman Pai has had to rely on promises and voluntary pledges from corporations, which they immediately started breaking.

The consequences of your reckless actions have never been more clear or more dire. The humanitarian and economic crises caused by COVID-19 have made it impossible to deny our nation’s deep systemic inequalities — including the lack of affordable high-speed internet and other essential communications services.

During this national emergency, the FCC should be leading efforts to get and keep people online — especially poor people and people of color, who are disproportionately on the wrong side of the digital divide. But without the legal authority under Title II that your agency threw away, your options are limited. To say that this is unacceptable is a gross understatement.

For the past decade, the public has overwhelmingly demanded that the FCC protect a free and open internet. Instead people got stuck with this mess.

The repeal of Net Neutrality is unjust and potentially disastrous for public safety and broadband policy. Reinstate Net Neutrality and Title II authority now and protect our access to lifesaving communications services.

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    Demand that the FCC reinstate Net Neutrality and Title II authority now and protect our access to lifesaving communication services.

    Tell the FCC: Protect Our Access to Lifesaving Communications

    In times of emergency, like the COVID-19 pandemic, our ability to access lifesaving information and communicate with each other is essential — yet without Title II Net Neutrality, it is by no means guaranteed. Less than one month after Trump’s FCC repealed Net Neutrality, this became shockingly clear — when Verizon was caught throttling firefighters’ data during a massive wildfire in California.

    When the FCC scrapped Net Neutrality and its legal foundation, Title II, it gave big ISPs like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon free rein to tamper with the communications networks we rely on — with nothing more than voluntary pledges to hold them back.

    Abandoning Title II didn’t just give ISPs the ability to throttle our traffic, block our content and engage in paid prioritization. The decision also stripped the FCC of its ability to protect our privacy online, promote the broadband competition we need for affordable service options, ensure that ISPs disclose hidden fees, guarantee reasonable broadband access for people with disabilities, and much more.

    To say that this is unacceptable is a gross understatement.

    Demand that the FCC reinstate Net Neutrality and Title II authority now and protect our access to lifesaving communications services.