U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley holds town meeting in Iowa, April 2017. Issues raised by constituents included the affordable health care act, bio diesel fuel credits, immigration, and net neutrality, and members of Congress actually working together to do things for the American people and not just for specific parties or special interests. Jerry Mennenga/Press Association. All rights reserved.
On a cold Thursday morning in January, a small group of advocates gathered outside the imposing edifice of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, DC. They opened the trunk of a red Ford Fusion parked nearby and began unloading more than twenty white banker’s boxes. Within minutes, they had assembled a makeshift cardboard podium. Inside the boxes were more than a million signatures collected in just two weeks from people across the country.
Each person had signed on to an online letter demanding the FCC protect net neutrality, the democratic principle that ensures that the internet remains open and free from blocking or throttling of content by the large phone and cable companies that control high-speed internet access. Maintaining an open internet is as fundamental to functioning democracies as protecting free speech rights.
