Slashdot: Internet Activists Urge Congress to Fire Trump's FCC Chief Ajit Pai

Internet Activists Urge Congress to Fire Trump’s FCC Chief Ajit Pai
Published on September 29, 2017 at 01:25PM
Open internet advocates and Democratic lawmakers are mounting a last-ditch effort to remove Federal Communications Commission chief Ajit Pai over his anti-net neutrality stance, just days before Pai is set to be approved by the Senate for a new term. From a report: Since being elevated by President Trump to lead the FCC in January, Pai has become the bete noire of open internet advocates for a variety of anti-consumer actions, but none more so than his crusade to kill federal rules protecting net neutrality, the principle that all internet content should be equally accessible to consumers. […] During a blistering floor speech on Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, portrayed Pai, a Republican former Verizon lawyer, as an industry stooge who has worked relentlessly to deliver gift after gift to the nation’s largest broadband companies. “Mr. Pai has a long track record of putting big cable before consumers, big corporations above small businesses, and pay-to-play over the free and open internet,” Wyden wrote in a blog post accompanying his speech. Free Press, a DC-based public interest group, has also launched a campaign to pressure the Senate to “fire Pai,” citing his proposal to kill the FCC’s net neutrality policy and other anti-consumer actions. But if reconfirmed, Pai is expected to try to ram through his plan to torpedo the FCC’s net neutrality rules before the end of the year. “Rehiring Pai to head the agency that oversees US communications policies would be a boon for the phone and cable companies he eagerly serves,” Tim Karr, Free Press Senior Director of Strategy, wrote in a blog post.