“Free the internet” campaign

HALT THE GOVERNMENT ASSAULT ON INTERNET FREEDOM.

The radical left, led by the Obama administration, is at war with free speech. When Senate Democrats voted to weaken the First Amendment in 2014, they were just cutting their teeth. Now, the left is attempting to seize control of the Internet – all part of a three-pronged assault on free speech by the Administration, the FEC, and the FCC.

In January, while on a trip to Cedar Falls, Iowa, President Obama advocated the Big Government idea of “community ownership” of broadband. In February, the FEC attempted to regulate political speech on the Internet. And in March, the FCC voted on the President’s plan for “net neutrality”: a secret order that imposes sweeping new Internet regulations.

If the radical left is successful, the free and open Internet as we now know it will cease to exist.

The Internet has flourished under a regulatory light touch – and has been indispensable in spreading liberty and opportunity throughout the world.

Now in a brazen power grab, the Obama administration and its ideological allies seek to give regulators unprecedented power over the Internet. The FEC will censor and punish political speech. More subtly but perhaps more troubling, the FCC’s unchecked discretion will give politicians vast leverage over the companies who host speech online. These new regulations will hamper innovation and decrease access to information necessary for a free society. And government ownership of broadband networks will make it easier for politicians to censor speech and invade our privacy.

If this three-pronged assault is allowed to succeed, it will trample fundamental constitutional freedoms.

We are asking for the media to report objectively on the assault on these basic American freedoms. We are calling on our elected officials to do their part and keep the Internet free.

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