DORGAN AND 10 OTHER SENATORS SUPPORT FCC IN EFFORT TO GUARANTEE A "FREE AND OPEN INTERNET"
Thursday, October 22, 2009
CONTACT: Justin Kitsch
or Brenden Timpe
PHONE: 202-224-2551
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) led a group of eleven Senators today supporting the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski’s efforts to write new rules to protect a free and open Internet through “network neutrality.”
In the letter sent to the FCC, Dorgan and the other Senators said they support restoring the non-discrimination rules that will ensure the Internet has an architecture that is free and open to everybody. The letter was signed by Senators Dorgan, Durbin (D-IL), Kerry (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), Dodd (D-CT), Wyden (D-OR), Harkin (D-IA), Begich (D-AK), Sanders (I-VT), Cantwell (D-WA), and Bill Nelson (D-FL).
“The Internet was developed and flourished under rules that included non-discrimination requirements,” said Dorgan, who has been the leading advocate for net neutrality in the Senate. “However, when the FCC ruled it to be an information service during the last Administration, all the non-discrimination rules disappeared.”
“We want to make sure that the Internet remains a level playing field where all consumers control all of their access to all of the content they send and receive on the Internet, without having gate keepers established by the bigger corporate interests,” Dorgan said.
“The Internet has been an engine of innovation, entrepreneurship, and commerce precisely because of its free and open nature,” wrote Dorgan and the other Senators in their letter to Chairman Genachowski. “But in recent years, the FCC’s removal of non-discrimination protections has drawn into question whether the openness and freedom of the Internet marketplace will continue.”
The Senators also wrote, “We support your approach and are pleased you are starting the process to develop rules, and we look forward to working with you to keep the Internet free and open.”
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