CCAGW: Net Neutrality Bill Means Eight Sideshows and One Useless Study

WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today
condemned the introduction of the misnamed Internet Freedom
Preservation Act, H.R. 5353, by House Subcommittee on
Telecommunication and the Internet Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.)
and Rep. Charles Pickering (R-Miss.). The bill would mandate eight
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearings and a study of
applying net neutrality regulations to high-speed Internet access
services.

"Both the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have
addressed the issues that H.R. 5353 proposes to study; it is unclear
what is to be gained from an expensive government study. More
importantly, during the FCC and FTC deliberations more than a quarter
of a million public comments were submitted; there is no way to tell
how much money will be wasted on eight summits but what is clear is
that after two years of debate the public has spoken," said David E.
Williams, Vice President of CCAGW.

Net neutrality would mandate that Internet service providers carry
every single piece of content and every service available, regardless
of cost or need. Content providers have expressed concern that the
ISPs would either block content or create different tiers of online
services. Such differential pricing occurs in virtually all forms of
commerce, such as charging more for faster delivery of packages by UPS
or Federal Express. Should net neutrality become law and traffic on
the Internet continue to skyrocket, the delivery of important content,
such as medical information, will receive the same treatment as spam.

"The introduction of the bill appears to be just another move to
provide taxpayer-funded megaphones for the special interests groups
promoting so-called net neutrality," concluded Williams.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying
arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement in government.

Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW)
Leslie K. Paige, 202-467-5334
or
Alexa Moutevelis, 202-467-5318

Copyright Business Wire 2008