Levana Layendecker dot com

Net Neutrality Made Us Who We Are

(Cross posted from Blog For America.)

Back in 2004, I didn’t really get involved with partisan politics. I always voted for Democrats, but I never lifted a finger to help any candidate because I had no faith that they would ever listen to me. I voted more out of a sense of duty than anything else. I knew that I had no influence over the Democratic Party because I didn’t give them any money, and they didn’t ask. It seemed like they took my vote for granted.

Then, something changed. I got an email from a friend about a small donor fundraiser in Philadelphia for a presidential candidate from Vermont named Howard Dean. She forwarded something from his web site about health care and there was a link where I could make a small donation online to go to the event. It was really easy and I was thrilled to be invited to an event with a presidential candidate. I thought, “Really? I can only give $25. He probably won’t actually be there since the donation is so small, but if he gets anywhere with this health care stuff, it will be worth it.” A week later, I met Howard Dean, got hooked on Blog for America, joined a Meetup, and the rest is history.

Founded by Gov. Dean after his Presidential campaign ended, Democracy for America exists now because of the free and open Internet. My experience was replicated thousands and thousands of times all over the country and we are still here today. Since then we have worked together for countless other progressive candidates from school board to the President. We are connected to each other through email, blogs, (and now with Facebook, Twitter) and in countless other ways that keep our connections alive because of freedom of access to the sites and content of our own choosing. The Internet is the only place left to run a grassroots campaign without corporate influence. And we should keep it that way.

That’s why DFA has been part of the community of advocates and organizations to protect Net Neutrality for a long time. We understand that the power of the Internet comes from its openness, and consequently, our power comes from our ability to communicate with our supporters on our own terms. The power of democracy has only been enhanced by the Internet. Imagine if we had to pay extra to Verizon or Comcast for access to our own membership. Now imagine if the message we wanted to send was about corporate influence over politics. I think we know how that story will end.

Unfortunately, some Democrats are on the wrong side of this issue, siding with the telecom giants, ATT, Verizon, and Comcast over customers (i.e. voters). Telecom big-brother tries to disguise their position to grab more control over the Internet for profit by saying that they care about Internet access in poor and rural communities, but don’t let them fool you. Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes on the phone with customer service from any of these companies knows that they don’t care about us, and they certainly don’t care about poor and rural communities who can’t afford to pay what they intend to charge.

Recently, the telecom giants created a letter to the FCC opposing the FCC’s power to enforce Net Neutrality rules, the current existing rules that protect the free and open Internet, and 74 Democratic legislators signed on to it. This is really unfortunate, because either they don’t understand how critical this issue is to our Democracy – or they don’t care. Either way, the members of Democracy for America absolutely understand why free and open access to the Internet is essential to democracy because we live and breathe it every day. That’s why we signed on the Free Press letter to President Obama asking him to keep his promise to support the FCC and protect Net Neutrality. And, that’s why we hope you will sign on to our petition to show that we are 2 million strong for a free and open Internet – and forward it to all your friends. Because we can.