Rare News Desk
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Videos by Rare
Kurt Wallace: This is Kurt Wallace and our guest today on Rare is Kevin Zeese with popularresistance.org. Kevin thanks for being with us today
Kevin Zeese: Happy to do it. Thanks for having me on.
Kurt Wallace: We’re dealing with a very serious standoff. You are on the front lines with this fight and when you were giving your grievances the other day they removed you peacefully speaking about net neutrality.
Kevin Zeese: That’s right. This was the FCC Federal Communications Commission’s open meeting and they were discussing the future of the internet and the key issue is whether or not the internet will be open and equal to all, or whether it will be discrimination based on how much money people pay, more like a cable TV where you get more service if you pay more money. So we’re advocating for equality on the internet so that it continues to be a service that encourages creativity and entrepreneurship in the country.
Kurt Wallace: Please explain for the average American what these FCC regulations would do to them when they go online.
Kevin Zeese: Well if the current proposal that they’re talking about exists, you see much more of a cable TV situation where some corporations will be paying for faster service. So, big corporations let’s say NBC news or ABC news will pay for one kind of service while Democracy Now will get another kind of service that will end democratizing the media.
What will happen will be that the high paying corporations will get instantaneous internet–you’ll go on NBC and it will immediately be there. The rest of us will be on the slower internet which we currently have which we’ll be waiting for 3,4,5 seconds for the website to come up. Believe me that would be slow enough to destroy the smaller non-profits and citizen media outlets because people will stop waiting 3 or 4 seconds. You may remember in the old days that dial up used to seem really quick, now dial up has disappeared because it’s so slow. That’s how it’ll look in the future when you see the big corporations having instantaneous internet and the rest of us having a slower internet.
Kurt Wallace: How would this effect free speech?
Kevin Zeese: It would totally undermine free speech to have that kind of a tiered system based on money. The internet is the free speech environment for the 21st century this is where free speech takes place. There should be no price on free speech, there shouldn’t be based on whether you’re wealthy or whether you’re not wealthy. It should be based on equal access to all without any discrimination.
Unfortunately, now we have a situation where the FCC has to take two steps: First, it has to reclassify the internet as a common carrier like a telephone, a telephone you can call anywhere. That’s what the internet should be, you get on the internet and you can go anywhere, all equal access to everybody. The second thing is they put in place laws, once you reclassify it, then the FCC will have the authority to put in place laws that require net neutrality. These rules would put into law the fact that there would be no discrimination on the internet in the future and that’s what we need to see, is that kind of put into place where free speech can be protected for the 21st century.
Kurt Wallace: Who’s behind this push for the FCC to create these so called internet fast lanes?
Kevin Zeese: Big corporations the telecom companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T are the ones that support this. It’s interesting those corporations want a tiered, money-based system while others like Google ads, Facebook and Yahoo and Netflix, and small start ups, all wrote letters to the FCC saying that we believe in net neutrality that we don’t want to see a tiered system based on money.
So, there’s a corporate divide on this and there’s also in the public interest a really strong super majority of support among Americans for a neutral internet.
Kurt Wallace: Now, would this limit peoples ability to have access to free speech and independent media?
Kevin Zeese: Well, that’s the goal, well the access would not under these tiered rules, but what would happen would be that the access to the citizen media and the independent media would be much slower and the result of that is that people would just stop bothering to go to the websites. They won’t want to waste the time, it will be a few seconds but it will seem like forever compared to what the big corporations can do.
So, it’s goes forward with this tiered system based on money we’ll see the citizen media and the independent media, which is begun to really democratize the media in this country, we’ll see that start to disappear.
Kurt Wallace: Now the FCC chairman Tom Wheeler says their proposal will preserve net neutrality?
Kevin Zeese: Well he says he’s trying to preserve net neutrality but the approach he’s taking has been tried by the FCC twice before and twice before the courts have thrown it out. And the reason is because right now the internet is classified as an information service and an information service the FCC has less power to regulate in the public interest. So twice now the courts have thrown out net neutrality rules as it’s an information service. That’s why the first step has to be to reclassify the internet as a common carrier when you do that then the internet the FCC has greater authority to regulate in the public interest and can put in place real net neutrality.
Kurt Wallace: How can folks get involved in helping your cause?
Kevin Zeese: Well this is now in the public commentary for the next 60 days. The first phase will be public comment then the rebuttal commentary for 45 days. So this will be a time when people can send comments into the FCC. Just go to FCC.gov and you can find it.
We will also be putting a link on our website which is PopularResistence.org to help people go on the website and make comments. We also need another action, while we work inside the parameters of the law as far as public comments and lobbying and such. We also go beyond that. We think we have to do some more as far as protest to show that the people are really serious about this and want to see the net remain neutral. So, we’ll be doing some actions if you go to popularresistance.org you’ll be kept informed about what’s going to be planned to help protect the internet.
Kurt Wallace: How much support have you had so far?
Kevin Zeese: We’ve had a big impact so far. When we started our work on this after the plan for the tiered system were leaked, we decided to camp outside the FCC’s doors and we were there for about a week. As a result we energized a lot of people. Hundreds of thousands of people sent in emails to the FCC and thousands have made phone calls, tremendous impact. And as a result the rule making that was started includes asking the people do you want common carrier status from the FCC? Do you want net neutrality? Those were not on the agenda before.
As a result of the actions taken before the rules were announced the FCC moved in our direction. Now we have to keep them moving our way and we want to keep that pressure on. So, popularresistance.org is an opportunity for you to get involved in the common approach, but also in a broader approach to let the FCC know what the people think.
Kurt Wallace: Kevin Zeese, thanks for being with us today on Rare.
Kevin Zeese: Thanks a lot appreciate you taking the time.
