Orga­nized mon­ey may be an increas­ing­ly pow­er­ful force in Amer­i­ca and Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, but today, orga­nized peo­ple beat orga­nized mon­ey to secure a his­toric, vital vic­to­ry for Inter­net free­dom in the Unit­ed States of America.

Just min­utes ago, the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty vot­ed to adopt strong net neu­tral­i­ty rules that will keep the Inter­net open and free for years to come. The FCC’s order emphat­i­cal­ly cod­i­fies into law the prin­ci­ples that the Inter­net was found­ed upon many years ago.

The new rules, which clas­si­fy broad­band like the pub­lic util­i­ty it is, explic­it­ly bar ser­vice providers like Com­cast and Ver­i­zon from block­ing, throt­tling, or pri­or­i­tiz­ing Inter­net traf­fic in exchange for mon­ey or con­sid­er­a­tion of any kind.

• No Block­ing: Broad­band providers may not block access to legal con­tent, appli­ca­tions, ser­vices, or non-harm­ful devices.
• No Throt­tling: Providers may not impair or degrade law­ful Inter­net traf­fic on the basis of con­tent, appli­ca­tions, ser­vices, or non-harm­ful devices.
• No Paid Pri­or­i­ti­za­tion: Broad­band providers may not favor some law­ful Inter­net traf­fic over oth­er law­ful traf­fic in exchange for con­sid­er­a­tion of any kind—in oth­er words, no “fast lanes.” 

The Com­mis­sion’s two Repub­li­can mem­bers pre­dictably vot­ed no, after voic­ing their dis­sent on behalf of the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s cor­po­rate masters.

But they were sound­ly rebuffed by Demo­c­ra­t­ic FCC Chair­man Tom Wheeler.

“I am incred­i­bly proud of the process the Com­mis­sion has run in devel­op­ing today’s his­toric open Inter­net pro­tec­tions,” Wheel­er said in his state­ment. “I say that not just as the head of this agency, but as a U.S. cit­i­zen. Today’s Open Inter­net Order is a shin­ing exam­ple of Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy at work.” 

Acknowl­edg­ing the more than four mil­lion Amer­i­cans who wrote in to the FCC — near­ly all of whom called for strong net neu­tral­i­ty rules — he added, “It should not be sur­pris­ing the pub­lic engaged like nev­er before, because the stakes of the debate before the Com­mis­sion have nev­er been higher.”

“Today, we bet­ter enable mil­lions to tell their sto­ries, reach their poten­tial and real­ize their Amer­i­can ideals,” said Com­mis­sion­er Mignon Clyburn, who stressed that reclas­si­fy­ing broad­band as a util­i­ty will not cause prob­lems for ISPs.

“Lest we for­get, over sev­en hun­dred small broad­band providers in rur­al Amer­i­ca offer broad­band Inter­net access pur­suant to the full panoply of Title II reg­u­la­tion,” she remind­ed her col­leagues. “They con­tribute to uni­ver­sal ser­vice and, amaz­ing­ly, the sky has not fall­en and things are okay. We have not reg­u­lat­ed their rates, and I am unaware of any stream of class action law­suits. Even so, the item does assert pri­ma­ry juris­dic­tion to reduce such concerns.”

“Sus­tain­ing what has made us inno­v­a­tive, fierce, and cre­ative should not be a choice — it should be an oblig­a­tion,” agreed Com­mis­sion­er Jes­si­ca Rosen­wor­cel.

“We also have a duty—a duty to pro­tect what has made the Inter­net the most dynam­ic plat­form for free speech ever invent­ed. It is our print­ing press. It is our town square. It is our indi­vid­ual soap­box — and our shared plat­form for oppor­tu­ni­ty. That is why open Inter­net poli­cies mat­ter. That is why I sup­port net­work neutrality.” 

“We can­not have a two-tiered Inter­net with fast lanes that speed the traf­fic of the priv­i­leged and leave the rest of us lag­ging behind. We can­not have gate­keep­ers who tell us what we can and can­not do and where we can and can­not go online.” 

“And we do not need block­ing, throt­tling, and paid pri­or­i­ti­za­tion schemes that under­mine the Inter­net as we know it.” 

As expect­ed, the FCC’s vote was imme­di­ate­ly met with the promise of a legal chal­lenge from the lob­by­ists and lawyers who rep­re­sent the likes of Ver­i­zon and Com­cast. Pub­licly, the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions lob­by is sug­gest­ing it is ready to go to court again, and con­fi­dent that the courts will over­turn the rules.

Pri­vate­ly, the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions lob­by is seething. After all, this was­n’t sup­posed to hap­pen. The FCC’s pre­vi­ous attempts to pro­tect the Inter­net, which pro­duced weak net neu­tral­i­ty rules, end­ed in fail­ure because Ver­i­zon con­test­ed them in fed­er­al court and won. The courts made it clear to the FCC that if it want­ed to use its author­i­ty to pro­tect the Inter­net, it need­ed to adopt a sound reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work. And that’s just what the FCC has now done.

The deli­cious irony is, Ver­i­zon, AT&T, and Com­cast’s greed helped pave the way for today’s great vic­to­ry. They did­n’t want even weak net neu­tral­i­ty rules on the books, so they took the FCC to court and got the rules cham­pi­oned by pre­vi­ous Chair­man Julius Gena­chows­ki thrown out. That forced the FCC to recon­sid­er its approach.

Gena­cows­ki blew an oppor­tu­ni­ty to stand up to the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions lob­by and adopt strong net neu­tral­i­ty rules dur­ing his tenure as Chairman.

That lega­cy will instead belong to Tom Wheel­er, who sum­moned the courage to stand up to the very lob­by he used to work for. (Wheel­er pre­vi­ous­ly served as Pres­i­dent of the Nation­al Cable & Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Asso­ci­a­tion and CEO of the Cel­lu­lar Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions & Inter­net Asso­ci­a­tion.)

Thanks to Wheel­er, who lis­tened to the voic­es of the Amer­i­can peo­ple (ably chan­neled by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma last Novem­ber), we have stronger rules in place… rules that have a much bet­ter chance of sur­viv­ing legal scrutiny.

Words can’t describe what a huge vic­to­ry this is. Oth­er cham­pi­ons for net neu­tral­i­ty have called it unthink­able and unimag­in­able. The FCC has been on the wrong path for so long that it seemed like strong net neu­tral­i­ty rules were an impos­si­ble dream. But we’ve got them. They’re here. They’re real.

This vic­to­ry belongs to those who nev­er gave up — to those who were deter­mined to make what seemed impos­si­ble possible.

We at NPI are can-do peo­ple; we always have been and we always will be. We reject cyn­i­cism. Neg­a­tiv­i­ty and bit­ter­ness do not yield mean­ing­ful pro­gres­sive change. We have always believed that strong net neu­tral­i­ty could hap­pen and need­ed to hap­pen. And now that is has, we rejoice in our suc­cess along with the many oth­er won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tions that have worked on this noble cause for so long.

We are par­tic­u­lar­ly grate­ful for the work and advo­ca­cy of Sir Tim Bern­ers-Lee, John Oliv­er and the writ­ers of Last Week Tonight, Tim Karr, Craig Aaron and the team at FreeP­ress, Fight for the Future, Becky Bond and the team at CREDO, Democ­ra­cy for Amer­i­ca, the Pro­gres­sive Change Cam­paign Com­mit­tee, MoveOn, Mozil­la, Red­dit, Tum­blr, Dai­ly Kos, and Col­or of Change. All those peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions had a hand in this vic­to­ry and we are very appre­cia­tive of their efforts.

Inter­net Free­dom Day is here… let’s celebrate!