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We are firefighters and net neutrality experts. Verizon was caught throttling the Santa Clara Fire Department's unlimited Internet connection during one of California’s biggest wildfires. We're here to answer your questions about it, or net neutra...
Hey Reddit,
This summer, firefighters in California have been risking their lives battling the worst wildfire in the state’s history. And in the midst of this emergency, Verizon was just caught throttling their Internet connections, endangering public safety just to make a few extra bucks.
This is incredibly dangerous, and shows why big Internet service providers can’t be trusted to control what we see and do online. This is exactly the kind of abuse we warned about when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to end net neutrality.
To push back, we’ve organized an open letter from first responders asking Congress to restore federal net neutrality rules and other key protections that were lost when the FCC voted to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order. If you’re a first responder, please add your name here.
In California, the state legislature is considering a state-level net neutrality bill known as Senate Bill 822 (SB822) that would restore strong protections. Ask your assemblymembers to support SB822 using the tools here. California lawmakers are also holding a hearing TODAY on Verizon’s throttling in the Select Committee on Natural Disaster Response, Recovery and Rebuilding.
We are firefighters, net neutrality experts and digital rights advocates here to answer your questions about net neutrality, so ask us anything! We'll be answering your questions from 10:30am PT till about 1:30pm PT.
Who we are:
- Adam Cosner (California Professional Firefighters) - /u/AdamCosner
- Laila Abdelaziz (Campaigner at Fight for the Future) - /u/labdel
- Ernesto Falcon (Legislative Counsel at Electronic Frontier Foundation) - /u/EFFfalcon
- Harold Feld (Senior VP at Public Knowledge) - /u/HaroldFeld
- Mark Stanley (Director of Communications and Operations at Demand Progress) - /u/MarkStanley
- Josh Tabish (Tech Exchange Fellow at Fight for the Future) - /u/jdtabish
No matter where you live, head over to BattleForTheNet.com or call (202) 759-7766 to take action and tell your Representatives in Congress to support the net neutrality Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, which if passed would overturn the repeal. The CRA resolution has already passed in the Senate. Now, we need 218 representatives to sign the discharge petition (177 have already signed it) to force a vote on the measure in the House where congressional leadership is blocking it from advancing.
UPDATE: So, why should this be considered a net neutrality issue? TL;DR: The repealed 2015 Open Internet Order could have prevented fiascos like what happened with Verizon's throttling of the Santa Clara County fire department. More info: here and here.