The sec­ond of three Seat­tle-area town halls orga­nized by U.S. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell’s office took place this morn­ing. Focused on net neu­tral­i­ty, it fea­tured a pan­el dis­cus­sion host­ed by Cantwell, who was joined by the FCC’s Mignon Clyburn and Michael Schut­zler, CEO of the Wash­ing­ton Tech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion. The trio took ques­tions relat­ed to the pro­posed roll­back of Title 2 reg­u­la­tions.

Com­mis­sion­er Clyburn, who was appoint­ed to the FCC by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, brought a lot to the dis­cus­sion, pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tive and poignant answers to dif­fi­cult ques­tions. Con­stituents offered ques­tions rang­ing from the abil­i­ty of local gov­ern­ments to be able to reg­u­late band­width in their regions, to the pos­si­ble pri­va­cy impli­ca­tions of FCC Chair­man Ajit Pai’s anti-inter­net pro­pos­als.

Both the Sen­a­tor and Com­mis­sion­er Clyburn start­ed off the event by stress­ing the impor­tance of inform­ing the pub­lic about pro­tect­ing net neutrality.

Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell, Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion­er Mignon Clyburn, and Michael Schut­zler, CEO of the Wash­ing­ton Tech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion at Town Hall (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

“We are build­ing an inter­net econ­o­my,” stat­ed Sen­a­tor Cantwell, who deemed the pos­si­ble roll­back of FCC reg­u­la­tions this August a grave threat to our “free and open inter­net.” Both the Com­mis­sion­er and the Sen­a­tor agreed that the inter­net is a essen­tial ser­vice that all Amer­i­cans should have access to.

In her open­ing remarks, Com­mis­sion­er Clyburn sug­gest­ed that this was an “oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to turn back the clock,” sug­gest­ing that with a large enough pub­lic out­cry, the FCC might aban­don Pai’s harm­ful tra­jec­to­ry and instead move one step clos­er to a com­plete­ly free and open internet.

Cantwell reit­er­at­ed her belief that “the inter­net is a pub­lic util­i­ty” dur­ing the Q&A, a view that appeared to be wide­ly shared among audi­ence members.

When asked about whether it was the government’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to build infra­struc­ture to enable free and open access to the inter­net, both Sen­a­tor Cantwell and Com­mis­sion­er Clyburn expressed strong inter­est in build­ing on the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s past work to fos­ter the deploy­ment of broadband.

Through­out the event, Com­mis­sion­er Clyburn stressed the impor­tance of pro­vid­ing sto­ries to the FCC with­in the pub­lic com­ment peri­od. She asked con­stituents to ask them­selves if the inter­net had made their lives better.

Nat­u­ral­ly, audi­ence mem­bers respond­ed that it had.

Clyburn not­ed that sto­ries have pow­er, and that the FCC real­ly need­ed to hear from small busi­ness­es that would be impact­ed by the repeal of net neutrality.

Cantwell described the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion at the FCC as a “reg­u­la­to­ry freeze”. Giant cable and tele­com com­pa­nies like Ver­i­zon and Com­cast have been lob­by­ing the FCC, demand­ing the roll­back of rules they don’t like. Pai has been car­ry­ing their water.

If Com­mis­sion­er Pai’s cur­rent plan were to pass, it would spur mas­sive changes to our inter­net-dri­ven econ­o­my and fur­ther infringe on dig­i­tal pri­va­cy rights, con­tribut­ing to a grand state of uncer­tain­ty, as Com­mis­sion­er Clyburn put it.

Per­haps the best moment of the town hall was when a young man asked the pan­el if inter­net should be a place that embraces the First Amend­ment. Cantwell’s reply con­sist­ed of just one word: Yes. The short, blunt answer was well received by the assem­bled crowd. Com­mis­sion­er Clyburn weighed in too, adding: “Net Neu­tral­i­ty is the First Amend­ment of the inter­net,” liken­ing the con­cept of a free and open inter­net to our founders’ vision of a free demo­c­ra­t­ic society.

Both the Sen­a­tor and Com­mis­sion­er urged the audi­ence to leave com­ments in oppo­si­tion to Pai’s plan through the FCC’s web­site, and urge fel­low activists to fol­low suit, so that the FCC receives a large, grass­roots-dri­ven groundswell in sup­port of keep­ing broad­band reg­u­lat­ed as pub­lic util­i­ty under Title II.

It is vital we all speak to the con­se­quences of the FCC’s pro­posed roll­back. But the voic­es of cyber entre­pre­neurs are espe­cial­ly need­ed because they could car­ry more weight with the Repub­li­can mem­bers of the FCC, Pai included.

“Busi­ness sto­ries,” Clyburn said, “are what we should focus on.”

The pan­el reflect­ed on the impact that Dai­ly Show alum John Oliv­er had on the FCC’s pro­ceed­ings back in 2014, when he urged view­ers of his pro­gram Last Week Tonight to con­tact the FCC in sup­port of net neu­tral­i­ty. Over five mil­lion com­ments were ulti­mate­ly sent, and those sig­nif­i­cant­ly influ­enced the FCC’s rule­mak­ing, help­ing pave the way for broad­band to be reg­u­lat­ed as a pub­lic utility.

(A few weeks ago, Oliv­er’s HBO show ran a fol­low-up seg­ment.)

That was a sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry, but those gains could be reversed if we don’t speak out now in defense of net neu­tral­i­ty. A mas­sive, wide-rang­ing day of action in sup­port of a free inter­net is planned for next Wednes­day, July 12th, and NPI will be tak­ing part, along with count­less oth­er organizations.

Cantwell will hold one more town hall tomor­row (Sat­ur­day, July 8th). It is a gen­er­al town hall open to a wide-rang­ing dis­cus­sion of all issues. The event is open to the pub­lic, but requires tick­ets. Vis­it the Senator’s web­site for more information.