The State of California is leading 20 other states — and defending Silicon Valley’s interests — by suing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to stop its decision to repeal Net Neutrality rules.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed his 25th lawsuit against the Trump administration for the Republican-controlled FCC’s 3-2 December vote to dump the Obama administration’s Feb. 2015 decision — under a Democrat-controlled FCC — to regulate the Internet like the AT&T land-line telephone monopoly.
Breitbart News reported that just before the 2015 vote, Google and New America’s Open Technology Institute were uniquely given copies of the 332-page proposed document, and allowed to offer extraordinarily self-serving tweaks to a massive expansion of the federal regulatory state.
According to documents released by the ultra-liberal Naked Capitalism blog, Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt had spent the twelve weeks prior to the Net Neutrality approval as one of only 11 members on the “Democratic Victory Task Force.” Schmidt helped craft the “National Narrative Project” to serve as the key strategy for the Democratic Party’s 2016 election cycle “fight to reclaim state houses, win governorships, take back the House and Senate and protect the White House.” He was, and is, also a leading force behind fwd.US, a Silicon Valley effort to push open-borders immigration reform.
Becerra proclaimed in a Jan. 16 news release: “In repealing the Net Neutrality rules, the FCC ignored consumers’ strong support for a free and open internet.” The twenty mostly-Democrat attorney generals who are joining him in the lawsuit have declared the FCC’s regulatory rollback an arbitrary and capricious move.
After the Open Technology Institute filed for a “protective petition” with the federal D.C. Circuit, the Mozilla Foundation’s chief business and legal officer Denelle Dixon posted on the company’s blog, “We believe the recent FCC decision violates both federal law as well as harms internet users and innovators,” because it only benefits large Internet service providers.
But while voicing concerns that dumping Net Neutrality will hurt the little people, the Open Technology Institute’s major Silicon Valley corporate giant contributors include Apple, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Broadcom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla Foundation, and Netflix.
The Chicago Tribune reported on January 15 that a coalition of 49 Democrat Senators and Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine are just one vote short of the 51 needed to force a vote to overturn Net Neutrality. Democrat Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania announced that he has 82 Democrat co-sponsors for a similar bill in the House.
Breitbart News reported that California politicians, led by State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and State Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) are trying to push bills to re-regulate Internet providers at the state level under the so-called “People Power” rules.
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