Founding NPI boardmember Gael Tarleton calls on the FCC to protect net neutrality

Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing is the text of found­ing NPI board­mem­ber Gael Tar­leton’s mes­sage to the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion urg­ing the Repub­li­can-con­trolled body not to scrap the rules that pro­tect Inter­net free­dom in the Unit­ed States — a move NPI strong­ly oppos­es. Gael has served on NPI’s Board of Direc­tors since its incep­tion in 2010; she rep­re­sents Wash­ing­ton’s 36th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict in the State House of Representatives. 

Dear FCC Chair­man and Commissioners:

Pro­tect Net Neu­tral­i­ty. Every pub­lic offi­cial has a clear-cut respon­si­bil­i­ty to the pub­lic mis­sion of a pub­lic agency. This deci­sion you are about to make is that clear-cut: pro­tect net neu­tral­i­ty to serve the pub­lic good.

Dur­ing the course of my pro­fes­sion­al career, I have had the rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to ana­lyze the U.S. com­mu­ni­ca­tions infra­struc­ture that was vul­ner­a­ble to Sovi­et strate­gic nuclear attacks. Then I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work for a large com­pa­ny that bought Net­work Solu­tions, which was the small com­pa­ny that worked for the U.S. gov­ern­ment to cre­ate domain names for the internet.

I learned about net neu­tral­i­ty from the civ­il ser­vants who cre­at­ed the Inter­net with fund­ing from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They built the iIter­net to sup­port uni­ver­si­ties, nation­al lab­o­ra­to­ries, and defense agen­cies con­duct­ing research and devel­op­ment with fed­er­al funding.

In the pri­vate sec­tor, I led research teams in the Unit­ed States, Rus­sia, Ukraine and Europe, using the Inter­net to imple­ment crit­i­cal U.S. gov­ern­ment research pro­grams. At one of the nation’s top pub­lic research uni­ver­si­ties, I worked with fac­ul­ty and stu­dents whose edu­ca­tion­al and research projects required online stud­ies, inter­na­tion­al research exchange pro­grams, and coor­di­na­tion with research part­ners through­out the U.S. fed­er­al government.

All of these edu­ca­tion­al and research endeav­ors depend­ed on equal access to the inter­net regard­less of time zone dif­fer­ences or days of the week.

I was an elect­ed Com­mis­sion­er of the largest air­port and sea­port in the Pacif­ic North­west, and know that glob­al trade, com­merce, and tourism are impos­si­ble with­out ubiq­ui­tous access to the inter­net. There is not a sin­gle busi­ness or secu­ri­ty oper­a­tion in Amer­i­ca — not an air­port, rail sys­tem, truck­ing oper­a­tion, or ship­ping enter­prise — that will func­tion with­out ²⁴⁄₇ access to the Inter­net to con­duct finan­cial trans­ac­tions and trans­mit vital secu­ri­ty infor­ma­tion glob­al­ly or locally.

Now I am a State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Wash­ing­ton State. I am the Vice Chair of the Tech­nol­o­gy and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Com­mit­tee and a mem­ber of the High­er Edu­ca­tion and Trans­porta­tion Com­mit­tees. Equal access to the inter­net is the sin­gle most impor­tant fac­tor deter­min­ing whether entre­pre­neurs, stu­dents, cor­po­rate behe­moths, and small busi­ness­es can func­tion in a mod­ern, glob­al econ­o­my. With­out equal access to the inter­net, there is no equality.

When inter­net access is dis­rupt­ed, local and glob­al economies, sup­ply chains, and edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions are crip­pled. Equal access to the inter­net is an imperative.

You are pub­lic ser­vants. Your respon­si­bil­i­ty is to pro­tect the invest­ments that the U.S. tax­pay­ers have made in build­ing and main­tain­ing crit­i­cal pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tions infrastructure.

You are appoint­ed to a posi­tion of extra­or­di­nary respon­si­bil­i­ty. The truth is this: you are account­able to the peo­ple you serve, and the peo­ple you serve are the Amer­i­can peo­ple. All future gen­er­a­tions will be affect­ed by the deci­sions you make dur­ing your terms of office.

The Inter­net is not a con­ve­nience. It is not some­thing for sale. It is not owned by pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions and it is not some­thing giv­en out as rewards. The Inter­net is the 21st cen­tu­ry’s equiv­a­lent of elec­tric­i­ty or clean water. It is an essen­tial pub­lic good for every indi­vid­ual, com­mu­ni­ty, state, and nation.

As pub­lic ser­vants, your mis­sion is to pro­tect the pub­lic resources entrust­ed to your care. The inter­net was cre­at­ed with pub­lic mon­ey. The Inter­net was designed to serve the pub­lic good. Noth­ing in the FCC’s char­ter gives your agency the author­i­ty to unrav­el the Inter­net and decide who gets access when.

Pro­tect net neu­tral­i­ty. Do the right thing.

WANT TO SEND YOUR OWN MESSAGE TO THE FCC?

Here are the email address­es for the Repub­li­can commissioners:

• ajit.pai (at) fcc (dot) gov
• mike.orielly (at) fcc (dot) gov
• brendan.carr (at) fcc (dot) gov

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic com­mis­sion­ers (Mignon Clyburn and Jes­si­ca Rosen­wor­cel) are on record in oppo­si­tion to the plan to gut net neu­tral­i­ty, but you can email them too.

• mignon.clyburn (at) fcc (dot) gov
• jessica.rosenworcel (at) fcc (dot) gov