ALEXANDRIA, VA – In letters sent today to the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), the Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) joined with more than 150 other organizations, state legislators and bloggers in urging the FCC to abandon its plans to regulate the Internet.

“Despite universal acknowledgement that Americans enjoy a free, open, and vibrant Internet, the FCC is relentlessly pursuing a massive regulatory regime that would stifle broadband expansion, create congestion, slow Internet speeds, jeopardize job retention and growth, and lead to higher prices for consumers,” one of the letters, organized by Americans for Tax Reform, reads.

“We oppose the FCC’s effort to regulate the Internet under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, which was written during the depression era to regulate telephone monopolies – 60 years before the
Internet was ever conceived. … This regulatory ‘reclassification’ would effectively turn innovative private Internet services into a public utility,” the letter continues.
 
“The already free and open Internet has sparked unprecedented growth and innovation over the last decade precisely because it hasn’t been burdened with unnecessary regulation and taxation,” said CFIF President Jeffrey Mazzella.  “The reckless desires of three unelected FCC commissioners and a few radical fringe groups on the left that wish to turn the Internet into a government-controlled public utility now threaten to grind those wheels of Internet growth and innovation to a halt.

“The Courts have spoken.  A rare bipartisan majority in Congress opposes the FCC’s plans.  And, the American people reject this unnecessary and job-killing regulatory regime sought by the FCC,” Mazzella continued.  “It’s past time for the FCC to listen and abandon its plans for a government takeover the Internet.”

To read the letters send to the FCC, click here and here.

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Founded in 1998, the Center for Individual Freedom ("CFIF") is a non-profit constitutional and free-market advocacy organization. Since its founding, CFIF has worked to oppose attempts to impose excessive regulation and taxation on the Internet and e-commerce.  CFIF runs the project StopNetRegulation.org.