February, 06 2019, 11:00pm EDT
Jessica J. Gonzalez Testifies Before Congress: Net Neutrality a Step Toward Remedying Structural Racism in Communications
What follows is the spoken testimony of Free Press Action Vice President of Strategy and Senior Counsel Jessica J. Gonzalez, which will be delivered today before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.
Gonzalez is testifying in support of restoring the Federal Communications Commission's Title II authority to prevent online blocking, throttling and discrimination by internet access providers.
WASHINGTON
What follows is the spoken testimony of Free Press Action Vice President of Strategy and Senior Counsel Jessica J. Gonzalez, which will be delivered today before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.
Gonzalez is testifying in support of restoring the Federal Communications Commission's Title II authority to prevent online blocking, throttling and discrimination by internet access providers.
Gonzalez' full written testimony is available here.
Regarding "Preserving an Open Internet for Consumers, Small Businesses, and Free Speech"
Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member Latta, and subcommittee members, thank you for having me.
I'm here today on behalf of Free Press' 1.4 million members who are calling for reinstatement of the FCC's 2015 Net Neutrality rules and the return of the FCC's legal authority to protect us from ISP discrimination and abuse.
I'm also here as a Mexican-American woman from a working class family. My father grew up in a Los Angeles suburb where there were no Mexicans allowed. I understand that millions of people who came before me, including members of this House past and present, have fought against discrimination and for other causes that enabled me to be here today.
I say this to underscore that what we're doing here has real-life impacts.
The U.S. government has a long history of discrimination and racism. Indeed it used the media system to legitimize the enslavement of Black people, and the genocide and displacement of Native peoples. And although it's taken some steps to reduce racism and discrimination in certain aspects of American life, like housing, it's done little to remedy structural racism in the communications sector.
The FCC's 2015 Net Neutrality Order is one exception. That order gave the FCC clear authority to prevent and investigate shady ISP practices, like, but not limited to, blocking, throttling and discriminating against lawful content.
The Trump FCC's 2017 decision to repeal the order was wildly unpopular. Recent polls show that 82 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats and 85 percent of Independents object.
And people of color have been some of the most vocal critics, in part because we have more at stake. Never before in history have barriers to entry been lower for us to reach a large audience with our own stories in our own words; to start small businesses; to organize for change.
This hits close to home for me because my best friend, Vanessa, is a blogger and small business owner. While she was pregnant, and in the midst of the Great Recession, she was laid off from her job. She began blogging from her apartment following her daughter's birth in 2010. It was a labor of love: Her intention was to fill the void of content designed for and by parents raising multiracial children.
She began writing love letters to her daughter to ensure that the beauty and power of Black and Brown women were front and center, even in a world that tries to subjugate us at every turn. Vanessa's blog, DeSuMama.com, underscores that mothers "are the storytellers, dream keepers, and legacy builders for the next generation!"
Today De Su Mama has a loyal following and is building understanding across cultures. It's also a successful business that has helped Vanessa supplement the family income while being at home with her children and even supported her family's journey to home ownership!
The end of Net Neutrality means that her voice might be drowned out by corporate media that can pay more to access her audience: some of the same corporate media that have failed spectacularly to represent us. This could impair her family's livelihood and the reach of her cultural influence.
Vanessa cares so deeply about this issue that she flew here from Long Beach, California, on her own dime to be here. She's sitting right behind me with her daughter, and I'm not going to look back there right now because I'll get emotional and forget the rest of my important lawyer nerd points that I saved for the end.
In my written testimony I go into detail about how ISPs abuse their power when Net Neutrality is not in place.
- Prior to the 2015 Net Neutrality Order, Comcast secretly blocked and slowed file-sharing apps;
- MetroPCS announced plans to block streaming video from all sources except YouTube;
- AT&T said it would disable use of FaceTime over cell connections unless customers subscribed to more expensive plans; and
- AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon deliberately limited the capacity at ISP interconnection points, throttling Netflix.
Just to name a few.
And since the 2017 repeal, we've seen some seriously suspect ISP behavior - even in the face of massive public scrutiny. A recent study shows that the largest ISPs appear to be slowing traffic from apps like YouTube, Netflix and Skype. But because the FCC has sworn off its authority to protect broadband consumers, it doesn't even have the power to investigate.
The real shame of this whole thing is that Net Neutrality was working, and Chairman Pai's justification for its repeal was built on a mountain of lies. Pai promised us that ISP investment and deployment declined under Net Neutrality and would expand following its repeal. We've seen the numbers, and the exact opposite is true. In reality, ISP investment and deployment trends relate little, if at all, to Net Neutrality regulations.
I hope this new Congress seizes the opportunity to right the wrongs of the Pai FCC and restore fundamental protections that Americans want and need.
Thank you.
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
(202) 265-1490LATEST NEWS
UN Warns of 'Catastrophic' Imminent Escalation in Sudan
Warring factions in North Darfur state must "avoid locating military installations within or near densely populated areas, including towns and camps for internally displaced people," said one U.N. official.
Apr 26, 2024
The United Nations' top humanitarian affairs officials on Friday called for an immediate deescalation of hostilities in Sudan, where rival factions in the military government have been fighting for a year and where an attack on the city of El Fasher is reportedly imminent.
About 800,000 people in the city, the capital of North Darfur state, are in "extreme and immediate danger," U.N. aid operations director, Edem Wosornu, told the U.N. Security Council earlier this week, as she reported that clashes between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are nearing El Fasher.
Fighting between the two groups has intensified in recent weeks, forcibly displacing an estimated 40,000 people.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday that the security situation in North Darfur has left more than a dozen aid trucks with relief supplies for 122,000 people stranded in neighboring Northern state, unable to proceed into the only capital city in Darfur that is not controlled by RSF.
"A patchwork of armed actors, including the Darfur Joint Protection Forces, the SAF, and the RSF control different parts of the El Fasher area," Human Rights Watch reported this week. "Tense calm alternating with episodic fighting has prevailed for months."
Since April 14, when RSF began to push into El Fasher, at least 43 people—including women and children—have been killed due to fighting between the SAF and RSF.
"Civilians are trapped in the city, afraid of being killed should they attempt to flee," said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk. "This dire situation is compounded by a severe shortage of essential supplies as deliveries of commercial goods and humanitarian aid have been heavily constrained by the fighting, and delivery trucks are unable to freely transit through RSF-controlled territory."
The lack of humanitarian aid in North Darfur has pushed the state toward a famine, with one child dying of starvation every two hours, according to a February report by Doctors Without Borders.
In December, the U.S. State Department announced an $85 million sale of radar and other military equipment to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which The New York Times reported last year has been covertly supporting the RSF.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) proposed a joint resolution to block arms sales to the UAE in January, in light of its support for the paramilitary group.
Omar was among several lawmakers who wrote to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week, urging them to "deliver urgently-needed humanitarian assistance" and to help end the hostilities.
Sudanese-Australian writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied urged Americans on Friday to pressure lawmakers and the White House to take more action.
"There is a tiny window of opportunity for us to find a way to get the UAE... to make the RSF to stop in their tracks," said Abdel-Magied. "Maybe there's a way that we can avoid this massacre."
OCHA called on the warring parties to "take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations."
"They must, to the extent possible, avoid locating military installations within or near densely populated areas, including towns and camps for internally displaced people," said the office. "It is also imperative that the parties allow safe passage for civilians to leave El Fasher for safer areas."
Keep ReadingShow Less
With US Workers on the March, Southern States Take Aim at Unions
GOP leaders in the region are "truly astonished that workers might not trust their corporate overlords with their working conditions, pay, health, and retirement," said one critic.
Apr 26, 2024
Since six Southern Republican governors last week showed "how scared they are" of the United Auto Workers' U.S. organizing drive, Tennessee Volkswagen employees have voted to join the UAW while GOP policymakers across the region have ramped up attacks on unions.
The UAW launched "the largest organizing drive in modern American history" after securing improved contracts last year with a strike targeting the Big Three automakers—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. The ongoing campaign led to the "landslide" victory in Chattanooga last week, which union president Shawn Fain pointed to as proof that "you can't win in the South" isn't true.
The Tennessee win "is breaking the brains of Republicans in that region. They're truly astonished that workers might not trust their corporate overlords with their working conditions, pay, health, and retirement," Thom Hartmann wrote in a Friday opinion piece.
"The problem for Republicans is that unions represent a form of democracy in the workplace, and the GOP hates democracy as a matter of principle."
"The problem for Republicans is that unions represent a form of democracy in the workplace, and the GOP hates democracy as a matter of principle," he argued. "Republicans appear committed to politically dying on a number of hills that time has passed by. Their commitment to gutting voting rolls and restricting voting rights, their obsession with women’s reproductive abilities, and their hatred of regulations and democracy in the workplace are increasingly seen by average American voters as out-of-touch and out-of-date."
Just before voting began in Chattanooga, GOP Govs. Kay Ivey of Alabama, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Bill Lee of Tennessee, and Greg Abbott of Texas claimed that "unionization would certainly put our states' jobs in jeopardy" and the UAW is "making big promises to our constituents that they can't deliver on."
The next nationally watched UAW vote is scheduled for May 13-17 at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama.
"Workers at our plant are ready for this moment," Mercedes employee Jeremy Kimbrell said last week. "We are ready to vote yes because we are ready to win our fair share. We are going to end the Alabama discount and replace it with what our state actually needs. Workers sticking together and sticking by our community."
As workers gear up for the election, the Alabama House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 72-30 for a bill that would withhold future economic incentive money from companies that voluntarily recognize unions rather than holding secret ballots. The state Senate previously passed a version of the legislation but now must consider it with the lower chamber's amendments.
The Associated Pressnoted that "Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed similar legislation on Monday" and that Tennessee already has one on the books.
With his signature on Senate Bill 362, "Kemp's aim is to thwart future organizing attempts by workers at automotive plants in Georgia, such as those operated by Hyundai Motor Group," according toThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
As the newspaper detailed:
Georgia has been a right-to-work state since 1947, when Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, allowing workers to refuse to join a union or pay dues, even though they may benefit from contracts negotiated by a union with their employer. Just 5.4% of workers in the state belonged to a union in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, protects the right for workers to form a union and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.
The new Georgia law is expected to be challenged in court, labor experts have said.
Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su told the AP on Thursday that she is not sure if the department will challenge the laws, given the National Labor Relations Board's responsibilities, but she stressed that "there are federal standards beneath which no worker should have to live and work."
In terms of joining a union, "that choice belongs to the worker, free from intervention, either by the employer or by politicians, free from retaliation and threats," Su said. "And what we are seeing is that workers who were thought to be too vulnerable to assert that right are doing it, and they're doing it here in the South."
The U.S. labor chief also slammed "unacceptable" union-busting efforts by companies and suggested that protecting the right to unionize is part of President Joe Biden's "promise to center workers in the economy."
"He has said he's the most pro-worker, pro-union president in history, and we are going to make good on that promise. And that includes making sure that workers have the right to join a union," Su said of the president.
Biden's commitment to workers and unionizing rights has caught the attention of GOP leaders. The governors' joint statement nodded to the UAW's January endorsement of the president, who is seeking reelection in November, and South Carolina's leader attacked the administration earlier this year.
During his January State of the State speech, McMaster declared that "we will not let our state's economy suffer or become collateral damage as labor unions seek to consume new jobs and conscript new dues-paying members. And we will not allow the Biden administration's pro-union policies to chip away at South Carolina's sovereign interests. We will fight. All the way to the gates of hell. And we will win."
News From the Statesreported Friday that "of all the foreign-owned automakers in South Carolina, BMW would be the most likely mark in the near term if enough of its workers show interest. The massive plant near Greer—the manufacturer's only U.S. production facility—employs some 11,000 people, twice the number of workers at Volkswagen in Tennessee and Mercedes in Alabama. It has operated in the Upstate for nearly 30 years and is in the process of adding electric vehicle lines."
However, a UAW spokesperson told the outlet that they don't yet have the numbers for the BMW and Volvo facilities in the state, and Marick Masters, a Wayne State University professor who studies the union, said: "I don't think they're writing anybody off but they know the history of unionization. And I would say South Carolina is a very inhospitable place for unions."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked USAID Document Concludes Israel Impeded Gaza Aid
"Biden is breaking the law and defying his own agencies to fund Israeli war crimes," said one observer.
Apr 26, 2024
Officials at the United States Agency for International Development concluded in a confidential memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel is violating a White House directive by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the besieged Gaza Strip during its ongoing genocidal assault on the Palestinian enclave, according to a report published Friday.
Devex's Colum Lynch reported that the confidential communication—entitled Famine Inevitable, Changes Could Reduce But Not Stop Widespread Civilian Deaths—states that USAID "assesses the government of Israel (GOI) does not currently demonstrate necessary compliance" with a February 8 White House memo requiring the secretary of state to obtain assurances from governments receiving U.S. military aid that such assistance is used in compliance with human rights law.
The USAID memo raises "serious concerns that the killing of nearly 32,000 people, of which the GOI itself assesses roughly two-thirds are civilians, may well amount to a violation of the international humanitarian law." That figure is now over 34,300 deaths, with at least 77,293 people injured and over 11,000 others missing and presumed buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings.
The document states that the "deterioration of food security and nutrition in Gaza is unprecedented in modern history, exponentially outpacing in six months the long-term declines that led to the only other two famine declarations in the 21st century: Somalia (2011) and South Sudan (2017)."
"Adequate health, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene... an immediate cessation of hostilities, and sustained humanitarian access will be required," the memo continues. "Absent these conditions, all available evidence indicates rising acute food insecurity, malnutrition, and disease will lead to a rapid increase in non-trauma deaths, particularly among women, children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities."
During congressional testimony earlier this month, USAID Administrator Samantha Power answered in the affirmative when U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) asked whether "famine is already occurring" in Gaza.
"Yes," she said. "In northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition prior to October 7 was almost zero, and it is now one in three—one in three kids."
Biden's February directive states that "the recipient country will facilitate and not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance."
Not only has Israel blocked aid from entering Gaza as children there die of malnutrition and dehydration and millions teeter on the brink of starvation, Israeli troops have attacked Palestinian and international humanitarian workers attempting to deliver aid and desperate Gazans trying to receive it.
Observers say these attacks—which include the infamous " Flour Massacre" and the drone strikes that killed seven World Central Kitchen staffers—were deliberate, which Israel denies.
The blocking of humanitarian aid is a key component of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by more than 30 nations. On January 26, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that found Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza and ordered it to prevent future genocidal acts. Critics argue Israel has ignored the order.
According to Lynch:
The paper was cleared by 10 USAID officials, underscoring its widespread backing of the findings. But Sonali Korde, the agency's deputy assistant administrator and head of the Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs, signed off on the document with the phrase INFO, bureaucratic shorthand for passing it up the chain of command without committing to its conclusions. Blinken is required to formally certify to Congress in the coming weeks whether Israel complies with the White House determination.
Last month, the Biden administration
said that Israel's use of U.S.-supplied weapons complies with international law, an assessment lambasted by many observers including Palestinian American political analyst Yousef Munayyer, who called it "absolutely scandalous."
Palestinian and human rights advocates and more than two dozen congressional Democrats have challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law, pointing to the use of 2,000-pound bombs—which can wipe out an entire city block—in densely populated areas and other potentially illegal actions. In December, Biden acknowledged that Israel's bombing was "indiscriminate."
Critics including progressive members of Congress have called for an arms embargo on Israel. However, Biden this week signed the biggest-ever U.S. aid package for Israel and has
repeatedly bypassed Congress to fast-track armed assistance to the key ally—which already receives nearly $4 billion in U.S. military aid annually. The Biden administration has also quietly approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel since October.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular