For Immediate Release                                    Contact:  Leslie K. Paige 202-467-5334
February 13, 2008                                                      Alexa Moutevelis 202-467-5318  

CCAGW: Net Neutrality Bill Means Eight Sideshows
and One Useless Study 

Washington, D.C. - The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today condemned the introduction of the misnamed Internet Freedom Preservation Act, H.R. 5353, by House Subcommittee on Telecommunication and the Internet Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Charles Pickering (R-Miss.).  The bill would mandate eight Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearings and a study of applying net neutrality regulations to high-speed Internet access services.   

“Both the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have addressed the issues that H.R. 5353 proposes to study; it is unclear what is to be gained from an expensive government study.  More importantly, during the FCC and FTC deliberations more than a quarter of a million public comments were submitted; there is no way to tell how much money will be wasted on eight summits but what is clear is that after two years of debate the public has spoken,” said David E. Williams, Vice President of CCAGW.

Net neutrality would mandate that Internet service providers carry every single piece of content and every service available, regardless of cost or need.  Content providers have expressed concern that the ISPs would either block content or create different tiers of online services.  Such differential pricing occurs in virtually all forms of commerce, such as charging more for faster delivery of packages by UPS or Federal Express.  Should net neutrality become law and traffic on the Internet continue to skyrocket, the delivery of important content, such as medical information, will receive the same treatment as spam.

“The introduction of the bill appears to be just another move to provide taxpayer-funded megaphones for the special interests groups promoting so-called net neutrality,” concluded Williams.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.

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