FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 1, 2019
NHMC CALLS ON LAWMAKERS TO REINSTATE NET NEUTRALITY IN WAKE OF STANDING FCC REPEAL
WASHINGTON, D.C.
– On October 1, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court upheld a majority of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) 2018 repeal of net neutrality in Mozilla v. FCC. Though the Court’s decision allows the repeal and attack on net neutrality to stand, it also prohibits the Commission from preempting individual states from passing net neutrality legislation to protect constituents at a more local level. In addition, the Court remanded pieces of the repeal back down to the FCC, including how the repeal puts the Lifeline program into question.
NHMC is deeply troubled with today’s Court decision that fails to reinstate net neutrality and protect Latino consumers online. It has been a decade since NHMC entered the fight for a free and open internet. It is because we are veterans in this fight that we knew regardless of how the Court decided today that the fight would continue on.
Marginalized communities, including our own Latino community, rely on the internet for everyday, essential tasks such as access to health care and potential employment. Just as important, the need to communicate, organize and share our narratives free of discrimination and gatekeepers has now been curtailed.
The time for lawmakers on the Hill and at the state level to act is now; we must now mobilize stronger than ever to continue this battle against those seeking to discriminate and harm our community.
The following can be attributed to Alex Nogales, NHMC President and CEO:
“Today’s Court decision is another injustice handed down by this Administration. The path to justice and civic discourse lives online. Today’s decision is an endorsement of the tools of suppression instead of an endorsement to the tools of modern democracy. And like our allies in other fights and alongside us in this one, we will not rest until the pillars of our democracy are restored and protected. NHMC calls on its friends on the Hill, community organizers, and every day Americans to remind the gatekeepers that net neutrality is the will of the people and must be restored.”# # #
