Nation's Leading Press Freedom and Civil Liberties Groups Call on FCC to Abandon Its Attack on Net Neutrality

More than 30 press freedom, civil liberties and open government groups submitted a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to cancel the scheduled Dec. 14 vote to undermine the open-internet protections put in place in 2015. “You must not abandon Net Neutrality,” the letter to Chairman Pai reads. “The open internet is today our main conduit for expression and information. It is our library, our printing press, our delivery truck and our town square. Journalists, academics, governments and local communities depend on it to connect, communicate and collaborate every day. And as old models for news and information evolve or decline, the internet presents opportunities for new and independent media outlets to emerge.”

The letter was signed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, the Center for Media Justice, Civic Hall, Color Of Change, Defending Rights and Dissent, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, Free Press, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Globalvision, Inc., Local Independent Online News Publishers, Media Alliance, the Media Consortium, the Media Mobilizing Project, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Native Public Media, New Media Rights, New York Tech Alliance, the Online News Association, the Participatory Politics Foundation, PEN America, Personal Democracy Forum, Reporters Without Borders, the Society for Professional Journalists, the Student Press Law Center, the Sunlight Foundation, the Tully Center for Free Speech, the Wikimedia Foundation, WITNESS, the Writers Guild of America, East, and the Writers Guild of America, West.