(Arlington, VA) — Consumer advocacy group CASE (Consumer Action for a Strong Economy) offered its sweeping praise for the FCC’s Open Meeting today to vote on a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) to free the internet from federal government control.

The NPRM was unveiled last month by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, aiming to roll back the Obama Administration’s 2015 Order putting Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile broadband under the regulatory control of Title II 1934 Communications Act.

Said CASE in a statement:

“For more than two decades, American consumers have increasingly come to depend on the freedom and innovation of the internet to do things once only imagined.  Americans have tapped into the internet’s transformational power in ways that have changed our lives, and changed our world.  We engage in online commerce to the tune of over $322 billion per year, are more connected to the things we care about most, while realizing and benefitting from an unprecedented revolution in innovation and new services.

“All of this was accomplished by a free and open internet that was single-handedly unplugged by the Obama Administration’s Order in 2015 to put internet providers and signal carriers under an 80-year old law that does nothing for consumers, but serves only to give politicians and regulatory bureaucrats control over the internet’s engine of innovation.  Chairman Pai brilliantly and courageously understands that leaving the internet under the yoke of government is the wrong path for our nation, our economy, our freedom, and our future.

“CASE and every consumer who values freedom of choice and freedom of voice stand with Chairman Pai and the FCC’s bold and unequivocal decision to free the net from government control, oversight and oppressive regulation.  The vast majority of Americans believe the right path forward is the one of we’ve been traveling all along: one paved by innovation and consumer choice, not an internet throttled by Washington.”

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