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Free Press Action Praises Bill Restoring FCC Authority to Protect Internet Users
WASHINGTON
On Thursday, Sens. Ed Markey (Massachusetts) and Ron Wyden (Oregon) and Rep. Doris Matsui (California) introduced the Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act, which would confirm the legal classification of broadband internet-access service as a telecommunications service under the Communications Act.
Clarifying the legal treatment of broadband in this way is key to restoring the Federal Communications Commission's authority to oversee this vital industry. The legislation would protect internet users by affirming the FCC's role in ensuring that resilient and reliable high-speed internet access is offered on just, reasonable, affordable and nondiscriminatory terms to everyone in the United States.
The FCC has the ability to clarify this legal question for itself. Courts have repeatedly upheld the agency's authority to determine the status of internet-access service under the law. Due to the Senate's protracted failure to confirm President Biden's FCC nominee, Gigi Sohn, the Commission hasn't been able to take on this and other important tasks. Sohn would be the tie-breaking vote at the agency on issues like the regulatory treatment of broadband and restoration of Net Neutrality rules the Trump FCC repealed in 2017.
Free Press Action Co-CEO Jessica J. Gonzalez said:
"The Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act is the obvious solution to several questions that are easy to answer, at least outside of the cynical world of corporate lobbying. Is equitable internet access essential to modern life? Is it important enough to protect with a strong set of rights? And can we count on giant phone and cable companies to offer it on just and reasonable terms to poor people, communities of color and other underserved constituencies -- or do we need a federal agency capable of defending those rights?
"This bill offers a resounding affirmation of the FCC's mandate to ensure that the 21st century's essential telecommunications service is reliable, resilient and affordable for everyone. Public-opinion polling shows that voters across the political spectrum support measures like this important legislation, which would treat broadband like the utility service it has become and provide the platform for putting Net Neutrality safeguards back in place.
"We didn't really need the pandemic to prove just how crucial internet access is, just how vast the digital divide is or just how much people need a strong legal framework protecting their ability to get online and stay connected during times of crisis and times in between. But that experience drove home the need to support broadband deployment and affordability with serious public investments like the ones Congress made in 2021's bipartisan infrastructure act. Now it's time to secure those investments and restore the FCC's ability to steward them. This important bill would let the agency use its full authority under the law to promote broadband adoption and prohibit abusive practices by internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.
"The broken politics of Washington, D.C., have kept the FCC and Congress from taking this type of obvious step. Democratic leadership's delays in getting the agency to full strength by seating Gigi Sohn have become intolerable -- and Republican leadership's blatant obstructionism of such a highly qualified nominee serves no one but the broadband and broadcast industries the FCC is supposed to regulate. But cynicism about the political path to restoring internet users' rights can't detract from the urgent need to do so.
"Free Press Action thanks Senators Markey and Wyden and Representative Matsui for their leadership in putting those rights front and center. We also commend the nearly 60 senators and representatives who've already joined them to sponsor this bill at its introduction today."
LATEST NEWS
'Weaponization of Data': Trump Admin Gives ICE Personal Info of 79 Million Medicaid Recipients
"Trump said he would go after the 'worst of the worst' immigrants, yet now is giving ICE EVERYONE's Medicaid data, even as ICE targets U.S. citizens," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Jul 17, 2025
The Trump administration is handing over the personal data of every Medicaid enrollee to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
According to The Associated Press Thursday, all 79 million people currently receiving the government health insurance benefit will have information shared with ICE by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS):
The database will reveal to ICE officials the names, addresses, birth dates, ethnic and racial information, as well as Social Security numbers for all people enrolled in Medicaid. The state and federally funded program provides healthcare coverage... for the poorest of people, including millions of children.
The "extraordinary" agreement was struck Monday with CMS and not meant to be publicized, according to the AP. The memo states that its intention is to help ICE find the "location of aliens" across the country.
As one unnamed CMS employee told the AP, "They are trying to turn us into immigration agents."
Republicans have often raised the specter of undocumented immigrants claiming benefits in order to justify cutting the government health insurance program.
However, undocumented immigrants are barred from receiving federally funded Medicaid coverage.
The only exception is emergency Medicaid, which covers lifesaving services and which the government requires to be extended to anyone who needs it regardless of status—though this makes up just 1% of overall Medicaid spending.
Some states have also expanded Medicaid to include noncitizens not covered by the federal program. However, that money comes from state budgets rather than the federal one.
Last month, President Donald Trump demanded that CMS hand over the personal data of the millions of Medicaid enrollees in the seven states that allow noncitizens to apply, a move that dozens of states sued to prevent.
At the time, the government justified it as a measure to simply root out fraud and abuse. But under Monday's agreement, the AP says, the Department of Homeland Security "will use the data to identify, for deportation purposes, people who [are] in the country illegally."
However, nearly everyone enrolled in Medicaid is either an American citizen or other legal resident.
Given that the president has made very clear his intent to begin denaturalizing and deporting American citizens, the handing of tens of millions of people's sensitive information to ICE is causing widespread alarm.
"Trump is letting ICE track Americans using their personal and private Medicaid health data. Undocumented immigrants aren't eligible to receive Medicaid, but other people they want to target and track are," said Melanie D'Arrigo, the executive director of the the Campaign for New York Health. "They're not going to stop at immigrants."
"The massive transfer of the personal data of millions of Medicaid recipients should alarm every American," Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told the AP. "This massive violation of our privacy laws must be halted immediately. It will harm families across the nation and only cause more citizens to forego lifesaving access to healthcare."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote in a post on X that, "This is about the weaponization of data, full stop. Trump said he would go after the 'worst of the worst' immigrants, yet now is giving ICE EVERYONE's Medicaid data, even as ICE targets U.S. citizens."
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'Horror Story': Flight Logs Reveal Dozens Disappeared on El Salvador Deportation Trips
"This further demonstrates the callousness and lack of due process involved and is further evidence that the U.S. government is disappearing people," said one immigrant rights advocate.
Jul 17, 2025
"These were disappearances," said one immigrant rights expert of the revelation that dozens of people who have never been acknowledged by the Trump administration were listed on flight manifests for three deportation flights from Texas to El Salvador in March.
404 Media reported Thursday that in May, a hacker targeted the airline that operated the flights, which have been challenged in court by groups including the ACLU and Democracy Forward.
The data retrieved by the hacker showed that in addition to people whose names had been previously included on a list of deported migrants deported to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), published by CBS News, more than 40 men and women were listed on flight manifests for planes that the Trump administration sent on March 15
The CBS News story reported on 238 people who had been sent to CECOT without due process, under a $6 million deal with far-right President Nayib Bukele, but the list compiled from the flight manifests puts the total number at at least 281.
The flights landed in El Salvador despite a federal judge blocking them, and now, Michelle Brané of the immigrant rights group Together and Free told 404 Media, "we have this list of people that the U.S. government has not formally acknowledged in any real way and we pretty much have no idea if they are in CECOT or someplace else, or whether they received due process."
"I think this further demonstrates the callousness and lack of due process involved and is further evidence that the U.S. government is disappearing people," said Brané. "For almost all of these people, there's no records whatsoever. No court records, nothing."
It is unclear whether all the people on the flight manifests were actually on the planes, but if "they were indeed on the flights, it is unknown where they currently are," 404 Media reported.
The outlet reported that the family of one of the men who is listed on the flight manifests but whose name has never been reported or acknowledged by the Trump administration, has been protesting his disappearance in his home country of Venezuela.
Keider Alexander Flores Navas' mother, Ana Navas, said in a TikTok video in March that she suddenly stopped hearing from him the day the deportation flights took off—and then saw him in a photo of prisoners at CECOT.
@diariovea 🔵 Ana Navas: Mi hijo no figura en la lista de secuestrados, sé que está en El Salvador por una foto. 🔵 Keider Flores Navas es uno de los venezolanos trasladados a El Salvador. Su madre sabe que está allá por una fotografía en la que lo reconoció. 🔵 Señaló que tiene más de dos semanas y media sin poder hablar con su hijo. #elsalvador #eeuu #venezuela #migrantes #fyp ♬ sonido original - Diario VEA
"He was not on any list. But this photo is from El Salvador," Navas told the Venezuelan outlet Diario VEA.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called the news of the flight manifests "a horror story."
404 Media's story "provides the first public confirmation of the identity of some of the people who were disappeared by the Trump administration on March 15," said Reichlin-Melnick.
"Many of the people we sent to CECOT entered the U.S. legally at ports of entry after fully identifying themselves to the government," he added. "But if they did enter illegally, nothing justifies disappearing people to life imprisonment without trial. It's un-American."
The news of the flight manifests comes days after a court filing revealed that Salvadoran officials said the U.S. has jurisdiction over the people being held in CECOT, in response to a United Nations Human Rights Office inquiry about the "involuntary disappearances" of four Venezuelans.
The Trump administration has denied having the power to return CECOT detainees to the United States, as has Bukele.
Lee Gelernt, lead counsel in the ACLU's case regarding the deportation flights, told 404 Media that it is "critical" for the public to know who was on the March 15 flights.
"These individuals were sent to a gulag-type prison without any due process, possibly for the remainder of their lives, yet the government has provided no meaningful information about them, much less the evidence against them," said Gelernt. "Transparency at a time like this is essential."
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Bill Would Subject Lawmakers to Same Work Reporting Mandates GOP Just Imposed on Medicaid, SNAP Recipients
"If congressional Republicans think these burdens are appropriate for struggling families, then members of Congress should shoulder them too," said BURDEN Act sponsor Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi.
Jul 17, 2025
In response to Republicans' new law giving tax breaks to the rich while gutting the social safety net, U.S. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi on Thursday introduced legislation that would force members of Congress "to personally comply with the same burdensome work requirement paperwork they imposed on low-income Americans."
Under the Illinois Democrat's Bringing Unfair Reporting Duties to Electeds Now (BURDEN) Act, federal lawmakers "would be barred from enrolling in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program unless they submit monthly proof of 'community engagement,' the same bureaucratic reporting required of Medicaid recipients," his office said.
Krishnamoorthi's two-page bill would also force members of Congress to file the same paperwork as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients to verify eligibility, employment, and income. The proposal comes less than two weeks after President Donald Trump signed congressional Republicans' budget reconciliation package.
During the debate over the GOP megabill, Matt Bruenig, founder of the People's Policy Project, argued in The New York Times that "refusing medical care to people in their time of need based on how much they happened to work the month before is a cruel and pointless policy."
The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act is expected to leave 17 million Americans without health insurance, and, according to an Urban Institute analysis, an estimated 22.3 million families are projected to lose some or all of their SNAP benefits.
"President Trump's reckless 'Large Lousy Law' forces millions of vulnerable Americans to jump through hoops just to keep food on the table or get the medical care they need," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. "If congressional Republicans think these burdens are appropriate for struggling families, then members of Congress should shoulder them too. The BURDEN Act simply says, if you want taxpayer-funded health coverage, prove you meet the same standards you're imposing on the American people."
Krishnamoorthi's bill is unlikely to go anywhere in either the House of Representatives or the Senate, both controlled by the GOP, but it sends a message to the public. His office said that "by exposing the double standard in how burdensome requirements are applied, the BURDEN Act seeks to restore basic fairness and highlight the real-world consequences of Republican policies that target working families."
He introduced the bill amid intense debates among Democratic politicians and their supporters about how to battle Trump and the GOP's agenda and prepare for the 2026 midterm elections, following devastating losses for Democrats in the last cycle.
On Wednesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus—of which Krishnamoorthi is not a member—announced four task forces as part of an effort to "reclaim the House majority in 2026—with a sharp, populist, pro-working-class agenda that meets the moment."
Similarly but separately, a coalition of labor groups and other progressive organizations on Wednesday launched the Battleground Alliance PAC, a political action committee that plans to pour at least $50 million into flipping the lower chamber for Democrats.
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