The January 2014 court decision by the D.C. U.S. Court of Appeals that gutted the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules has given internet service providers (ISPs) the ability to not only slow, but also to legally block websites, content, and applications however they see fit.

Think of it. ISPs can now – legally – slow down or block Daily Kos, Huffingtonpost, and Blog for Iowa. They can make deals to chop it all up and divvy it back out in packages that they own and that you pay extra for, like cable TV. More people see Fox News than MSNBC because Fox is included in everyone’s basic cable package, while MSNBC is not. It’s not because Fox is so popular on its own. It’s the rigged delivery system.   Same with talk radio. Clear Channel ensures that every community in Iowa and beyond gets multiple hours every day of conservative talk radio, whether they want it or not. And virtually no progressive programming.

Can you imagine the internet like this? Not having access to everything on the web? It seems unthinkable because we’ve come to take for granted the free and open nature of the internet where you can go to any website, anywhere, any time, and so can everyone else. How amazing is that? The free and open internet is truly a wonderful thing.

Since the January court decision, that could go away. ISPs are now in charge. They have been lobbying hard for this moment. They are not going to waste time before they start parsing out the internet to those who can pay.

This issue is important to Iowans, particularly in rural areas, because the telecom giants are already backing away from their promise to provide nationwide broadband service. This makes the loss of a free and open internet a double whammy for Iowa and rural citizens everywhere who will have fewer choices than everyone else, if they have internet at all.

Being blocked from websites that you haven’t purchased in your internet package – and other horrors – are a very real possibility if net neutrality is not restored. I’m not worried about myself and my inconveniences. I’m worried about the consequences to democracy when millions of people soon have better, advantaged access to right-wing propaganda online, with less and less access to reality being available anywhere.

The free and open internet is where progressive political activism occurs:  Howard Dean’s ground-breaking grassroots presidential campaign, the Occupy movement, 360.org, MoveOn.org, The Arab Spring. These are only a few examples of movements that were internet-based.  We need the internet, and we need every last website on the internet to remain equally accessible to everyone.

Marv Ammori, a respected authority on internet issues, said, “The internet is now, and will likely remain for some time, a free-fire zone for AT&T, Verizon, and others to block blogs, superimpose any content (including ads) over the existing content on any webpage, cut deals making Bing or Google the ‘exclusive’ search provider in our homes, and much more.”

This is what can be expected to occur unless informed people get involved and make sure it doesn’t.

How do we restore net neutrality?

According to Ammori, “At the time, those of us involved in fighting for net neutrality knew two things when we read the court’s decision.

(1) The FCC needed to adopt rules, rather than accept legal complaints based merely on an Open Internet press statement; and (2) Those rules needed a solid jurisdictional theory that was not Title I. We even knew what that jurisdictional theory was:  Title II, or reclassification.”

“Reclassification means that the FCC can put AT&T and Comcast in the same regulatory bucket that landline and mobile phone companies have been in since 1910, that dial-up internet access is in, and that DSL Internet access was in until 2005. This bucket is Title II of the Communications Act, a legal category that has forbidden blocking of phone calls and discriminating amongst users for a century. By classifying the carriers as subject to Title II for internet access, the FCC would have clear jurisdiction to stop blocking and discriminating, instead of merely requiring cable and phone companies to disclose when they are doing so. The FCC has the power to do this.”

In Iowa, Congressmen Dave Loebsack and Bruce Braley both are on record as supporting a free and open internet. That is no longer enough. We all need to ask our representatives, even if we know they already support net neutrality, to go one step further. We need to ask them specifically to go on record in support of directing the FCC to reclassify ISPs (internet service providers) as common carriers, allowing them to be regulated. If the FCC does this, which is in its power to do, it will save the free and open internet. Contact your member of Congress today!

Reprinted with permission from the April 2014 issue of  The Prairie Progressive, Iowa’s oldest progressive newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr.!!  Send check to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244.