Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is circulating a petition calling for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to scrap its proposed takeover of the Internet, a plan it will vote on Feb. 26.
"An unregulated Internet has been the single greatest catalyst in history for individual liberty and free markets on the planet. It has created the greatest revolution since Henry Ford invented the Model T,"
Paul said in a Monday email sponsored by the petitioning organization, Protect Internet Freedom.
"Let's get this straight — technology has progressed because it has been driven by a free and open Internet — not because of DC bureaucrats. This latest attempt to regulate the web threatens to interrupt that positive innovation, set the market back, and kill jobs."
Paul has long decried the FCC's attempts to impose so-called "net neutrality" by regulating the business of Internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast and AT&T.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the FCC's previous attempt to create net neutrality was thwarted by a federal judge in 2010. If passed, the new plan will also be challenged in court by ISPs.
"A barrage of litigation which could well wind up in the Supreme Court is sure to follow," Peter Karanjia, a former deputy general counsel at the FCC, told The Journal.
In its previous attempt, the FCC's rulemaking relied on Congress' 1996 overhaul of the Communications Act of 1934, whereas the current plan relies on the agency’s Title II authority for its legal underpinnings.
The new plan would classify the Internet as a public utility like railroads or water, however FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he won't enact strict provisions like price controls.
"These attempts to regulate the Internet are a direct attack on the freedom of information and an innovative market. The government needs to stay out of the way," Paul wrote Monday in response.
"We have to stop this aggressive, invasive, and harmful regulation."
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