And i dissent from the contempt this agency has shown our citizens in pursuing this path. Federalision puts the Communications Commission on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the american public. The future of the internet is the future of everything. Nothingbecause there is in our commercial, social, or civic lives that has been untouched by its influence or unmoved riots power. Its power. Ed by our internet economy is the envy of the world. This is because it rests on a foundation of openness. That openness is revolutionary. It means you can go where you want and do what you want without your provider hitting in the way were making choices for your provider getting in the way or making choices for you. Community beyond geography and organize without physical constraints, consume content when and where we wanted and share ideas across the globe. I believe it is essential we sustain this foundation of openness and that is why i support Net Neutrality. That has origins in Communications Law and history. In the era when communications meant telephony, every call went through and your phone company could not cut off your call or edit the content of your conversations. This guiding principle of nondiscrimination, meant you were in control. Continued as time advance, technology changed, and Internet Access became the dialtone of the digital age. So it was when george w. Bush was in the white house. That was when the Net Neutrality policies were first put on paper. In the decade that followed, the fcc revised its Net Neutrality rules, and seeking to keep them current and find a stable home in the law. In its 2015 order, the fcc succeeded, he cousin the following year, the agencys Net Neutrality rules were completely upheld in court. Our existing policies have passed court muster. , butare wildly popular today, we wipe away this work and destroy this progress and burn down values that have made our internet economy the and be of the world. Todays misguided action, our broadband providers will get extraordinary powers. They will have the power to block websites, the power to throttle services in the power to censor online content. They will have the right to discriminate in favor the internet traffic of those companies with whom they have a pay for play arrangement and the right to consign others to a slow and bumpy road. Broadband providers will take you they will never do these things. They say trust us. Know this. They have the technical ability and business incentive to discriminate and manipulate your internet traffic. This agency gives them the legal arena like to go ahead and do so. This is not good. This is not good for consumers, for businesses, for anyone who connects and creates online. Good for the democratizing force that depends on openness to thrive. Not good foris American Leadership on the global stage of our complex Digital World. Im not alone with these concerns. Everyone from the creator of the World Wide Web to religious leaders and governors to musicians to actors and academics and activists have registered their upset and anger. They are reeling at how this agency could make this kind of mistake. They are wondering how it could be so tone deaf and they are concerned that just a few unelected officials could make such a vast decision about the future of the internet. After erasing our Net Neutrality rules, what is left . What recourse do consumers have . We are told do not worry. Competition will save us. The data show our broadband markets are not competitive. Half the households have no choice of broadband provider. If your provider is blocking websites, you have nowhere to go. Were told do not worry. Ftc will save us. But it is not the Expert Agency for communications. It has authority over unfair practices. Review, all in the provider will need to do is add new provisions to the fine print in its terms of service. In addition, it is both costly and impractical to report activities. Gets around the ftc to addressing them in court actions, it is fair to assume that the start up and small withesses wrestling discriminatory treatment could be long gone. What little authority the ftc has is under question in the courts. Worry. Told, do not data authorities will save us. The ftc all but clears the field with sweeping preemptions of anything that resembles state or local consumer protection. It is the substance that got us to this point. The process is even worse. Talk about the public record. The public has been making noise, speaking up. We see it in the protests across this country. Those that are outside here how they have lit up jammed ourines and online comment system. That might be messy but whatever our disagreements are, i hope we can agree that is democracy in action and something we can support. Millionearly 24 comments have been filed in this proceeding. There is no record in the history of this agency that has attracted so many filings. There is something foul in this record. Featuren comments stolen identities. Half a million comments are from russian you mail addresses. 50,000 consumer complaints are in explicitly are inexplicably missing from the record. I think our record has been ofrupted and our process Public Participation lacks integrity. 19 state of attorney generals agree. They have written us, demanding we called our vote until we investigate and get to the bottom of this mess. Identity theft is a crime under state and federal law and while it is taking place, this agency has turned a blind eye to its a its victimsd to and has callously told us it will not help. This is not acceptable. It is a stain on this proceeding. The issue is not going away. It needs to be addressed. Finally, i worry that this decision and the process that brought us to this point is ugly. The disregard this agency has demonstrated to the public, the contempt it has shown for citizens who speak up has fordisdain it public opinion. Unlike its predecessors, this ftc has not held a single public hearing on Net Neutrality. There is a no shortage of people who believe washington is not listening to their concerns, their fears, and their desires. Add this agency to that list. Frustrated. Heres the twist. I hear you. Callers mywhat the office are saying. I read the individual emails, short and and the long letters. I am not going to give up. Neither should you. Is long,c of history were going to bend this towards a more just outcome, in courts, in congress, wherever we need to go to ensure that Net Neutrality stays the law of the land. If you are conservative or progressive, you benefit or am internet openness. If you come from a small town or a big city, you benefit. If you are a company or a nonprofit, you benefit from internet openness. If you are a startup or an established business, you benefit. If you are a consumer or a creator, you benefit rhumb internet openness from internet openness. And if you believe in democracy, you benefit. Ets persist lets fight. Lets not stop here or now. It is to important. The future depends on it here it depends on it. Thank you. Greatestnet is the freemarket innovation in history. It has changed the way we live, the way we learn. During my time at the fcc, ive met with entrepreneurs in south dakota who started businesses. In ohio. T with doctors ive met with teachers in alaska who educated their students. Ive met with farmers in missouri who of increased crop yield and i have met with many more who have succeeded because of the internet. The internet has enriched my own life. In the past few days alone, i have set up a facetime call with my parents and kids, downloaded interesting podcasts. Ive ordered a burrito. And as many of you might have seen, i tweeted. What is responsible for the Phenomenal Development of the internet . It was not heavyhanded government regulation. Quite the contrary. At the dawn of the internet, president clinton and the Republican Congress agreed it would be the policy of the united dates to preserve the vibrant and competitive free markets that currently exist or the internet unfettered by state and local regulation. This bipartisan policy works. Regulation,y such American Private sector invested over 1. 5 trillion to build up mobile networks throughout the united states. 28 k modems gave way to gigabyte fiber. Grewnet entrepreneurs startups into global giants and the American Economy became the envy of the world. This approach was good for consumers. Market is full of innovation and Online Services blossomed. Within a generation, we have gone from email to High Definition video streaming. Entrepreneurs and innovators ofded the clumsy hand government. In 2015, the fcc, under political pressure, jettisoned this successful approach. On express orders, the fcc scrapped the tried and true light touch regulation and replaced it with heavyhanded micromanagement. The decided to subject internet to utility style regulation, designed in the 1930s, to govern mall bell. This was a mistake. Or one thing, there was no problem to solve. The internet was not broken. We were not living in a digital dystopia where it to the contrary, the internet is one thing, perhaps the only thing we can all agree has been a stunning success or it not only were there no problems. The solution has not worked. The main complaint consumers have is not and has never been that their provider is blocking access to content. Do not havehey access at all or not enough competition. These regulations have taken us in the opposite direction from consumer preferences. Under title two, investment in highspeed networks has declined. This is the first Time Investment has declined outside of a recession in the internet era. When there is less investment, that means fewer generations of networks are built. That means less access and less competition here it that means fewer jobs for americans building those networks and that means more americans are stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide. Impact has been serious for smaller Internet Service providers. They do not have the time or the lawyers to navigate a thicket of rules and they do not get a lot of press, certainly not here in washington. Visited some of them i have personally spoken with oklahoma, from ohio to or it it is no surprise that the wireless Internet Service providers associations, which providers,small surveyed its members, and found to incurfound additional expense, or delayed and reduced services. Companies have told the fcc that these regulations have forced them to cancel, delay, or curtail Network Upgrades and nearly two dozen small providers cemented a letter saying that the heavyhanded rules affected their ability to find financing. These are not the big guys. These are the Small Companies the kind of companies that are a morel to providing competitive marketplace. These rules have also impeded innovation. One company put on hold the itsect to build out wireline project. They have told the fcc that they delay rolling out a service because they cannot anord to deal with enforcement action. None of this is good for consumers. We need to empower all americans with digital opportunities. Just thethat these are fx these rules have had on the internet today. Think about how they will affect the internet we need 10, 20 years from now. The Digital World bears no. Esemblance to an electric line the use of those pipes would be roughly constant over time. Say there has been innovation in these areas. By contrast, online traffic is exploding and we consume exponentially more traffic and data over time. With the dawn of the internet, with the development of high bit applications like virtual , we are imposing ever more demands on the network and over time, that means our networks will need to scale. We need to take a brief recess. I need everyone to leave. We will call everybody back in. Thank you. Sorry for the interruption. We can now reconvene. Where was i . Consider that these are just the effects that these rules have had on the internet of today. Think about how they will affect the internet we need 10, 20 years from now. Andne traffic is exploding with the dawn of the internet, and the development of high bit applications like Virtual Reality, with new activities we cannot fully grasp yet, like bitcoin, we are imposing ever more demand on the network and over time that means our networks will have to scale. They do not have to if our rules deter the investment we need your invention to, we will pay the price in terms of less innovation. Supportingese words my proposal. It is an extended quote. The question that must be grappled with is whether or not the internet is done. By that, i mean, that todays bandwidth is all we will ever need which means we can risk investment by the elimination of price signals that may spur infrastructure buildout. If we are done, then the potential harm of a title ii reclassification is lower. Isps will have to do more paperwork. What if we are not done . What if Virtual Reality with dual displays becomes something meaningful. What if those imagine remote medicine applications are developed . Beyond thisgs move messy experimentation phase and into realtime Value Generation question mark not just in homes but in all kinds of commercial application . I hope we will have the bandwidth to support that. Too. Post,put it in another there is no evidence that harm exists in the wave that justifies heavily regulating isps. The evidence does suggest that current regulatory structures handle bad actors well. The only future to fear is the one we never discover, because we gave up on the approach that has already brought us so far. Remember, networks do not have to be built or did risks do not have to be taken. Capital does not have to be raised. Title two may appear to be hidden at the consumers and innovators of tomorrow will pay a price. What is the fcc doing . Light touching the framework that has governed the framework or most of its existence. Were moving from title ii to title one. It cannot be. It is difficult to match that reality. On,hat debate has gone their claims have gotten more outlandish. Let us be clear. Returning to the legal ram work that govern the internet from 19962015 is not going to destroy the internet. It is not going to end the internet as we know appeared it is not going to kill democracy. It will not stifle Free Expression online. Stating these propositions does not demonstrate their absurdities, our internet experience before 2015 and tomorrow, will prove them so. By returning to the light touch framework, were helping consumers and promoting competition. Providers will have stronger incentives to build networks, especially in underserved areas. This means there will be more Competition Among providers. It also means more startups and giants can deliver more applications to users. In short, a freer, more open internet. Robust also promote more conspiracy among providers. To provideisps transparency. This will ensure consumers have toormation on what they need buy services. We empower the federal trade commission to ensure consumers and competition are protected. Does go years ago, the title ii order stripped the ftc of jurisdiction over title ii providers. Today, were putting the cop back on the beat. The ftc will once again have authority to take action against providers that take action in unfair acts. As the ftc chair once said, the ability to the tech consumers in the broadband industry is not new and farfetched. We have a longestablished role in preserving the values that consumers care about online. As president obamas first ftc chair put it yesterday, the plan to restore ftc jurisdiction is good for consumers. The sky is not falling. Consumers will remain protected and the internet will continue to thrive. Let us be clear. Following todays vote, americans will still be able to access the websites they want to visit. They will still be able to enjoy the services they want to enjoy. It will still be cops on the beat. This is the way things were prior to 2015. This is the way they will be, once again. Our decisions today will also return parity to the economy. Some Silicon Valley giants impose vyhanded favor imposing heavyhanded regulations. They do not practice what they preach. Hedge providers regularly rock block content they do not like. When you go online, do decide what news and search results you see . Perhaps not. They regularly decide what you see and what you do not. Many thrive on the business auto to place content in front of eyeballs. Worse, there is no transparency into how decisions that appear inconsistent with an open internet are made. How does a company decide to restrict someones account because of they think their views are inflammatory question decide to ds a monetize videos . How does a company decide to prevent dissident content on its platform . How does a company decide to believesapt because it it promotes tobacco use . You do not have any input into these decisions and neither do i. These are very real and actual threats, to an open internet ironic, coming from the very entities they claim to support it. Ironic that most Net Neutrality advocates have little to say about these threats. These are threats that a growing number of officials are beginning to take notice of. Perhaps Certain Companies support saddling broadband providers with heavyhanded regulations because it is to their advantage. I do not blame them. Im not saying the same rules should not be slapped on them too. Ofm saying it is not the job the government to be in the business of picking winners and losers in the internet economy. We should have a level Playing Field and let consumers decide who prevails. Many words have been spoken during this debate but the time has come for action. It is time for the