Craig Aaron

When we set out three weeks ago with our partners at BattlefortheNet.com to launch protests nationwide ahead of the Federal Communications Commission’s Network Neutrality vote, we were confident we could pull off at least five of them and were going to shoot for 15. Dec 7, there were more than 700 protests in all 50 states. It was the largest public outpouring of support for Net Neutrality and internet freedom ever.

[Commentary] Congress doesn’t need to legislate on Net Neutrality. What it needs to do is rein in Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and the Trump FCC and get them to enforce the laws and rules already on the books. Of course, I’m not so naive to think that Pai isn’t going to go forward with a vote to take away Title II and probably erase the rules altogether as soon as December. But that won’t be the last word. Given the arbitrary and capricious way the agency has proceeded, I like our chances in court.

This is a lousy deal that would raise prices and give AT&T way too much power. The Justice Department should reject it. Making AT&T sell must-have content properties like the Turner Networks and CNN, or even divest a nationwide video-distribution platform like DIRECTV, could be legitimate ways to soften the concentration harms if the deal goes through. While there are plenty of good reasons to oppose AT&T’s Time Warner takeover, punishing CNN for trying to hold this administration accountable isn’t one of them.

Sprint and T-Mobile have begun preliminary talks to work toward a merger. The deal, if approved, would join the third- and fourth-largest US wireless companies, which together would serve 132 million subscribers.

Free Press' Craig Aaron said, “While we need more competition in the mobile-internet market, it's undeniable that these moves have given people more choice and fairer prices. That never would have happened had the Federal Communications Commission approved AT&T’s T-Mobile takeover or signaled to Sprint a willingness to approve a merger like this one in 2014. The competition between Sprint and T-Mobile is particularly important for lower-income families, many of whom rely on mobile as their only home-internet connection. If Sprint and T-Mobile merge, prices will spike and the digital divide will widen. The legal standard for approving giant mergers like this is not whether Wall Street likes it. Communications mergers must enhance competition and serve the public interest. This deal would do just the opposite: It would destroy competition and harm the public in numerous irreversible ways. So unless Ajit Pai wants his tenure at the FCC to go down as the worst for consumers in the agency’s 83-year history, the chairman should speak out and show us he’s willing to do more than rubber-stamp any harmful deal that crosses his desk.”

April 29 marked the end of the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Shortly after Donald Trump was elected, I wrote about how Free Press would approach this era: “This isn’t a time to tinker around the edges. There is no compromise or engagement strategy that can meet these serious threats. The only option is resistance.” We launched our 100 Days of Disruption campaign the day Trump was inaugurated. Thousands of you did something daily as part of this effort to resist Trumpism (which goes beyond the man to all those enabling him or exploiting this political moment).

ogether we’ve fought back, stood up for communities under attack, experimented with new forms of activism and built new alliances across the resistance. As we enter the next 100 days, the need to resist is no less urgent. And the attacks in Free Press’ corner of the world — at the intersection of media, technology and democracy — have only intensified. In the weeks ahead, you’ll see us resisting and refocusing on the issues and in the areas where we can make the greatest difference and our allies need us the most.

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai plans to fast-track a proposal for the agency’s May meeting that would undermine this strong legal standing and undo the network neutrality rules completely. Chairman Pai wants internet users to believe that he supports the “principle” of net neutrality, just not the Title II authority on which the rules rest. But that’s nonsense: It’s like saying you like free speech but just aren’t a fan of the First Amendment. Whether the issue is the environment, health care, or worker safety, President Donald Trump and his lackeys like Pai manufacture data and lie about the downsides to disguise their real goals: taking away crucial protections and successful policies. The attack on net neutrality is no different.

Consider Pai’s other justification for launching this attack on internet users: the utterly false and repeatedly debunked claim that the FCC rules are dampening investment. In the two years since the FCC's 2015 vote, the industry has actually seen an explosion in over-the-top video competition as well as a dramatic increase in next-generation broadband-network deployment. Nobody will be fooled by Pai’s destructive plan or the empty promises of telecom executives. But millions of people will have to rise up again to stop it.

[Craig Aaron has led Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund since 2011.]

While unveiling his plan to dismantle network neutrality and defang the Federal Communications Commission, Chairman Ajit Pai spent a good chunk of April 26’s speech defaming Free Press. Instead of making the case for his new policies, Chairman Pai recycled some out-of-context quotes to red-bait one of our co-founders and dismiss our decade-plus efforts to safeguard the open internet.

We’ve made no secret of our disdain for Chairman Pai’s policies and his fondness for falsehoods. And we’ve long sparred with him in the press and corrected his lies. But we’ve gotten some questions about what Chairman Pai said. So I thought I’d clear up the record.

Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron joined a press conference with Sens Ed Markey (D–MA), Richard Blumenthal (D–CT) and Ron Wyden (D–OR), as well as Evan Greer of Fight for the Future, to talk about the Trump Federal Communications Commission’s threats to network neutrality.

In his remarks, Aaron said, "In Ajit Pai’s fantasy world, all will be fine if the companies double-pinky-swear not to interfere with online pathways and portals — despite their long history of doing just that. His justification for launching this attack on internet users is the utterly false and repeatedly debunked claim that the FCC rules are dampening investment to build out and improve networks. Do not believe Pai’s alternative facts. The reality is that in the two years since the FCC's 2015 vote, we’ve actually seen an explosion in over-the-top video competition as well as a dramatic increase in next-generation broadband network deployment. Aggregate investments by publicly traded ISPs are up by more than 5 percent since the order came down....The public won’t be fooled by Chairman Pai’s laughable plan or the empty promises of telecom executives. The free and open internet is just too important to our ability to communicate, to organize and to innovate — and we will fight with everything we’ve got against those trying to take it away."

[Commentary] New Jersey auctioned off a public treasure - several of its public TV stations - for possibly hundreds of millions of dollars with little public debate or any idea what the governor plans to do with the money. This windfall has received shockingly little public attention. But here's the good news: It's not too late to seize this moment and use this money to transform New Jersey into the national leader in digital public media, local journalism, and civic technology.

Gov Chris Christie (R-NJ) isn't sharing his plans thus far, but the short-sighted solution is use it to plug some of the holes in the lame-duck governor's final budget. The much better idea is to take the revenue from selling off the remnants of 20th-century public media and invest it in building innovative 21st-century public-interest media that meets New Jersey residents' information needs.

[Craig Aaron is the president and CEO of Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund.]

Ajit Pai has been on the wrong side of just about every major issue that has come before the Federal Communications Commission during his tenure. He’s never met a mega-merger he didn’t like or a public safeguard he didn’t try to undermine. He’s been an inveterate opponent of Net Neutrality, expanded broadband access for low-income families, broadband privacy, prison-phone justice, media diversity and more. Pai has been an effective obstructionist who looks out for the corporate interests he used to represent in the private sector. If the new president really wanted an FCC chairman who’d stand up against the runaway media consolidation that Trump himself decried in the AT&T/Time Warner deal, Pai would have been his last choice — though corporate lobbyists across the capital are probably thrilled. Millions of Americans from across the political spectrum have looked to the FCC to protect their rights to connect and communicate and cheered decisions like the historic Net Neutrality ruling, and Pai threatens to undo all of that important work. Those millions will rise up again to oppose his reactionary agenda.