Former chairman and a current commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, Lee E. Goodman, appeared Wednesday on
Newsmax TV in a last-ditch plea for the quashing of the controversial "net neutrality" bill.
The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote Thursday on rules that would govern Internet service providers as utilities — and Goodman told Newsmax's Steve Malzberg it could negatively change the web for Americans.
"The government will regulate the content, and specifically the political content, that the American people can both post online to express their own political opinions and the political content and information that people can access from the Internet," said Goodman, who was appointed to the FEC in 2013 by President Barack Obama.
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"The debate we've been having … is whether people who post political commentary for free on their own websites or YouTube or even Facebook must report who they are and all of their expenditures … so they can be tracked and … regulated.
"This could have a great chilling effect on people's willingness to post their political opinions on the Internet," Goodman said.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and fellow Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, who will vote on Thursday, have been feverishly lobbying against the rules. But they are outnumbered by the agency's three Democratic commissioners.
Recent polls has found only 9 percent of Americans support "net neutrality."
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