February, 25 2015, 08:45am EDT
Congressional Hearing a Last-Ditch Effort to Derail Net Neutrality
Free Press sets the record straight on impact of FCC rules
WASHINGTON
On Wednesday, the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee will convene a hearing to discuss the FCC's Feb. 26 Net Neutrality vote. The majority of the witnesses are phone and cable industry-funded spokespeople and pundits, called to appear at another hearing designed to spread fear about Net Neutrality and stop the FCC from protecting the rights of Internet users.
Earlier this month, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced his intention to reclassify broadband Internet access as a "telecommunications service" under Title II of the Communications Act. Using Title II would restore basic protections against blocking and unreasonable discrimination by broadband providers, grounding those protections in the proper part of the law for the first time in more than a decade.
In response, phone and cable lobbyists along with their allies at the FCC and in Congress have ratcheted up the rhetoric against Net Neutrality, going so far as to claim that the FCC action would embolden the world's dictators to crack down on free speech online.
To set the record straight, Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood made the following statements:
"Some of the most outrageous lies about Net Neutrality will be repeated at today's hearing. This overheated rhetoric can't withstand scrutiny, and bears no resemblance to the law and the facts. Title II isn't Internet regulation or 'Obamacare for the Internet,' and it won't turn the Internet into a weapon of mass destruction. Big cable and telecom companies have paid their lobbyists and public relations firms to deceive the public with these claims. But the public isn't buying it. That's why millions of people have urged the FCC to make strong rules and protect our rights to connect and communicate online. And it's why Chairman Wheeler has proposed protections built on Title II's solid legal footing."
On Internet Regulation
"One of Title II's many benefits is that it draws a bright line between our common-carrier communications networks and the speech that flows over them. Those who conflate the two are either confused or dead set on confusing others. Net Neutrality rules don't regulate what's on the Internet, just as the FCC's rules for phone networks don't regulate what people say on phone calls. We've always had these kinds of protections in place for our communications networks, and we still have them today for essential services like wireless voice and business-grade broadband services."
On Taxes
"Those who are in the pocket of the cable industry keep insisting that Title II will lead to billions in new Internet taxes. These claims have been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked. Senator Wyden, author of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, called the notion of billions in new taxes 'baloney.' The Washington Post said that the so-called research behind these claims is riddled with significant factual errors and obvious contradictions. A Free Press filing demolished these unsubstantiated arguments nearly two months ago."
On Investment
"Claims that Title II harms broadband investment have also been repeatedly debunked -- not just by independent advocates like Free Press, but by the CEOs and chief financial officers of Verizon, Comcast, Charter, Time Warner Cable and Sprint in their presentations to investors and, in the case of Sprint, to the FCC itself. And just last week T-Mobile's COO told the Wall Street Journal that he wasn't worried about rules based on Title II. No independent investment analyst gives any credence to these supposed harms, and neither does Wall Street. And as Free Press explained on Monday, U.S. wireless carriers invested more of their earnings back into their networks during the Title II era than they have since the FCC classified mobile broadband as a Title I service."
On Global Comparisons
"Industry representatives are sure to repeat their recent claims that Title II-style policies have hurt broadband investment overseas, or that U.S. wireless investment supposedly boomed after the FCC put mobile broadband outside of Title II. These claims are false and are based on shoddy analysis. A recent Free Press filing to the FCC reveals that despite the European Union's lower average standard of living, E.U. carriers on average reinvest the same amount of their earnings back into the network as U.S. companies do. The deployment, quality and adoption of broadband are virtually the same in Europe as they are in the United States. But there's actual competition in much of Europe, which is why consumers there spend half as much per capita on communications as U.S. consumers do, and why broadband prices are falling in Europe and rising here."
On the FCC Process
"Real open Internet protections must be based on Title II, which was updated with overwhelming bipartisan support in the 1996 Telecom Act. This wasn't a partisan issue then, and it shouldn't be one today. Support for real Net Neutrality is present across the political spectrum, and more than 80 percent of self-identified conservatives want strong rules. In fact, the reason the court twice overturned the FCC's previous open Internet protections is because the agency failed to root them in Title II. The threat of endless litigation is a red herring. Some broadband providers may still sue the FCC, but the agency has the best chance of winning on the rock-solid authority of Title II. The FCC is nearing the end of a year-long process that invited and attracted unprecedented public input. The claim that this process lacked all transparency is another ploy calculated to delay the FCC from making the decision that the public overwhelmingly supports."
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
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War, conflict, and environmental disasters displaced a record 75.9 million people from their homes at the end of 2023, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center reported Tuesday.
The vast majority of the displaced—68.3 million—were forced from their homes due to conflicts, the highest number since data became available 15 years ago.
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The IDMC publishes its Global Report on Internal Displacement every year, which is considered the definitive source for data on internal displacements worldwide. This year's report notes that the number of people displaced within their own countries increased by 51% in the last five years while the number displaced by conflict alone swelled by 49%, spiking in 2022 and 2023. The uptick was primarily due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as well as renewed or ongoing conflicts in Congo, Ethiopia, and Sudan.
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All told, conflict forced 13.5 million displacements in sub-Saharan Africa, the highest number for the region in 15 years.
Nearly 17% of total conflict displacements in 2023 were forced in Gaza, even though Israel only began its war on the enclave during the last quarter of the year. Although it was only home to around 2.3 million people at the start of the war, Gaza saw 3.4 million displacements, as many people were forced to move multiple times.
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A widely respected humanitarian law expert who has resisted using the term "genocide" for Israel's killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza—a word used "sparingly" in the international human rights movement, he noted—said Tuesday that he has concluded a genocide is indeed taking place, evidenced particularly by Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid.
Aryeh Neier, who co-founded Human Rights Watch in 1978, served as its executive director for 12 years, and also led the American Civil Liberties Union and the Open Society Foundations, noted in an essay in The New York Review of Books that his organizations have used the term "genocide" to describe few mass killings.
Neier was not convinced of South Africa's genocide claim against Israel when it argued its case with the International Court of Justice in January, even though he was "deeply distressed" by the human impact of Israel's relentless U.S.-backed bombing campaign in Gaza.
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Neier wrote that he believed at the time that Israel's retaliation against Hamas for the October 7 attack it led in southern Israel could "include an attempt to incapacitate" the Palestinian group, necessitating the wide-scale assault on Gaza, where it operates.
"I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza," wrote Neier, whose family escaped Nazi Germany as refugees when he was an infant. "What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory."
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"I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory."
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Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in response to Neier's essay that "no one has more authority among human rights advocates than" the author.
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Neier wrote that after working to protect human rights for more than six decades, "there is much about [Israel's attack on Gaza] that is deeply depressing, including how difficult it is to find a way to give victims any hope that justice will eventually be done."
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The ICJ is currently considering South Africa's claim that Israel is committing genocide, having issued a preliminary ruling in January that the case was "plausible" and that Israel must take steps to prevent genocidal acts.
Although the ICJ does not have jurisdiction to adjudicate war crimes or crimes against humanity charges, wrote Neier, "if it ultimately finds that Israel has committed genocide, that will be a resounding defeat for a state that was born in the aftermath of a genocide that many of its founders had barely survived."
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