In the flurry of activity yesterday surrounding the FCC’s comment deadline on the net neutrality debate, members of Congress are quietly trying to slip through a bill that will block the development of real alternatives for high-speed Internet.
Representative Marsha Blackburn introduced an amendment late last night that aims to limit FCC authority to preempt state laws that restrict or prohibit municipal and community high-speed Internet projects or investment.
Blackburn’s amendment will go up for a vote today, so we must act now to tell our representatives how important it is that cities and communities maintain their right to build their own communications infrastructure.
It's a constant, folks. We must be ever vigilant.
Obviously not the best idea, but the title's a little misleading. Rep. Blackburn's amendment doesn't make such projects illegal, it just takes the power to preempt future state laws that will make them illegal away from the FCC. And to be fair, the US was intended to be federalist - see the 10th amendment to the Constitution.