Justice Department Should Explain Stand Against Net Neutrality Posted by Bob at 09/13/07 11:24 AM

The good folks over at Free Press want to know why the Justice Department has recently gone to extraordinary lengths to bash net neutrality.

Last week the Justice Department filed lengthy comments with the Federal Communications Commission attacking the concept of net neutrality-- the idea that Internet providers should not be allowed to speed up or slow down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

The Justice Department's criticisms of net neutrality were uncannily similar to those put forth by the phone and cable industries and Free Press wants to know why. (Consumers Union, the sponsor of this blog, often works together with Free Press on telecom and media issues.)

This week Free Press submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to uncover the underlying factors that led to the Justice Department’s Sept. 6 filing at the Federal Communications Commission — which came nearly two months after the FCC’s formal comment period had closed.

“We want to know what motivated the Department of Justice to oppose net neutrality this late in the process,” said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press and author of the request. “The filing lacks any evidence of serious investigation into this critical issue and fits into a pattern of politically motivated decisions coming out of the Justice Department. We want to know if the Bush administration’s lawyers reached out to any of the thousands of groups, businesses or individuals who support Net Neutrality — or if they only talked to industry lobbyists at AT&T and Verizon.”

Free Press notes the DoJ filing came during Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ last days at the helm of the Justice Department. It also followed recent revelations that the government and AT&T had conspired in far-reaching efforts to spy on Americans without legal warrants — efforts for which the Bush administration is now seeking to give immunity from prosecution to AT&T and other phone companies.

For consumers -- and just plain citizens for that matter -- we can see nothing but good flowing from a full public examination of the process employed by the Justice Department to draft this highly unusual set of comments.

If the folks at Justice felt strongly enough to make formal comments to the FCC slamming net neutrality, it's hard to imagine a legitimate reason they could offer for denying Free Press's information request.

After all, the Justice Department chose to take the unusual step of wading into this controversial issue with a set of comments that are suspiciously similar to the arguments against net neutrality offered by phone and cable industry lobbyists.

The Justice Department clearly has an obligation to tell the public why it took the unusual step it did in filing its comments against net neutrality.

Kudos to Free Press for asking the Justice Department to do so.

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