The principle behind net neutrality is quite simple and straightforward. It’s that all internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent transfer speeds regardless of content, website, application, platform, type of equipment, source address, destination address, or method of communication and without price discrimination. In our digital world, we can’t have fast lanes and slow lanes when it comes to the ability of people to access something as important as the internet.
This is why both under President Obama and President Biden, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to reclassify broadband as a public utility, such as water and electricity. Because the government deems internet access an essential service, the FCC has promised oversight as if broadband were a public utility. In doing so, the government aims to make providers more accountable for outages, require more robust network security, protect fast speeds, and require greater protections for consumer data.
But the Big Telecomms have consistently fought net neutrality going back to the first FCC vote in 2015. Cox Enterprises, the nation’s third-largest cable company, called the FCC’s action “unnecessary government overreach.” According to www.opensecrets.org, over Sen. Fischer’s entire Senate career, Cox Enterprises has ponied up $59,500 in campaign cash for her elections, making them her ninth-largest donor.
Comcast Corp., America’s second-largest internet provider, has also been generous to Fischer, forking over $42,760 in campaign contributions for her career, placing them 16th on her list of top 20 corporate special interest donors. According to The Verge, Comcast “was caught injecting its own commands into users’ internet traffic, stalling peer-to-peer applications like BitTorrent and Gnutella. Comcast wasn’t outright blocking these tools, but it was making them basically unusable.”
In May 2018, the Senate voted on a resolution “Restoring Internet Freedom,” that put the net neutrality rules back in place, but Fischer voted against it. She issued a statement where she said “Like most Nebraskans, I support the principles of net neutrality. Broadband internet providers should be transparent and they should not block, slow, or discriminate against internet traffic. It is Congress’ role to work together on a bipartisan solution that will provide protections for all Americans online, and create lasting certainty for the modern internet. Instead, Senator Markey’s resolution was a political distraction from these important objectives, and that’s why I voted against it.” A “political distraction?” The only distraction is Fischer’s acceptance of more than $100,000 from the lobbyists and political action committees of the giant telecommunications firms that want to dominate the internet.
A year earlier, in March 2017, Fischer stuck it to consumers when she voted for a bill to gut the Federal Communications Commission’s internet privacy rules that prevent Internet Service Providers from selling their customer’s personal information without their consent.