I don’t believe that money is speech, but I’ve seen that money motivates dishonest speech, much of it uttered by paid “experts.” This kind of dishonesty comes up with many issues, including the important and misunderstood matter of Net Neutrality.

As I recently wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I am concerned about the long-term prospects for Net Neutrality, the guiding principle preserving the free and open Internet. Telecommunications companies want to assume the role of Internet gatekeeper, but as for-profit entities, their instinct is to manipulate our Internet choices to make ever-greater piles of money. Telecoms want to control how we use the Internet just as cable TV companies shove users into programming packages to maximize profit.

Not long after my letter on Net Neutrality appeared, the Post-Dispatch published an opposing letter from Stephen DeMaura, president of Americans for Job Security.

According to its website, “Americans for Job Security” supports “free markets and pro-paycheck public policy,” and its “members are businesses, business leaders and entrepreneurs from around the country.” However, “AJS does not disclose or discuss its membership further than this.”

Clearly AJS is a front for business organizations that lack the honesty and decency to take responsibility for their propaganda.

According to AJS, Net Neutrality will hurt the economy. More specifically, AJS claims that America will hemorrhage jobs if Internet users continue to freely access Web content using legal software and legal devices of their choice. Where does AJS come up with this laughable claim? It’s likely this 2010 study — published before the FCC issued its Net Neutrality rules, and often cited by conservatives.

The study claims that telecommunications companies will be economically strangled if they are forced to abide by the FCC’s Fifth Principle (only partially addressed in the FCC’s rules, and even so, not applicable to wireless Internet). This principle states, “Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service must treat lawful content, applications and services in a nondiscriminatory manner.”

The study concludes the Fifth Principle is bad for business, but this conclusion hinges on disregarding a central tenet of the Fifth Principle: Internet providers will always have the right to manage their networks. Therefore, the study’s suggestion that the FCC seeks “unfettered implementation” of the Fifth Principle is false. 

(The economic arguments of this study are thoroughly harpooned here.)

I was motivated to write my letter to the editor specifically because these flawed arguments are gathering steam in anticipation of the Resolution of Disapproval pending in the Senate. This resolution would strip the FCC of the ability to enforce its Net Neutrality rules and deny it the authority to make any rules protecting online users from ISP abuse without specific authorization from Congress.

I’m not thrilled with the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules. They are, in several ways, terrible. For instance, the current rules propose that the FCC maintain a hands-off approach to the wireless Internet, the fastest-growing aspect of the Internet. This hands-off status is a huge problem. To the extent that the FCC is not enforcing Net Neutrality, this means that we are entrusting the telecoms to enforce this principle. But it is not in their economic interest to maintain a level playing field.

Despite the flaws in the current FCC rules, I would much rather have this not-for-profit agency serving as the Internet gatekeeper than allow for-profit telecoms to take on that role.

If the gatekeeping function falls into the unfettered hands of the telecoms, they can be expected to run what amounts to a protection racket: “If you want to run on the speedy Internet highway, you’ll need to pay a special toll.” Or: “Sorry, Skype, our technicians tell us that your free voiceover-Internet phone service clogs our pipes, so we can’t give you any more access. Perhaps you’d like to sell your company to us, though … ” If we can’t enforce Net Neutrality, we can expect to hear the huge sucking sound of investment leaving sites run by the self-employed and small-business programmers, because they will no longer have guarantees of cheap Internet access.

Net Neutrality doesn’t kill jobs. Nor does it kill legitimate profits. Rather, it keeps the big telecoms from trading our freedom to use the Internet for higher profits gained through coercion, not competition.

If faced with breaking the law, telecoms would rather change the law. And they can literally rewrite federal laws, since they have hundreds of lobbyists flooding the halls of Congress. I fear that the telecoms’ lies will work and that we could lose Net Neutrality, given that politicians are under massive pressure to vote for “jobs.”

Compounding matters, everyday consumers are not sufficiently organized to speak as one coherent voice on Net Neutrality. And worst of all, our political system is thoroughly corrupted because our representatives are financially motivated to do the bidding of big business to get reelected. But we should never give up this fight because the stakes are too high.

Please spend time acquainting yourself with this critically important issue. It’s important to you and to our democracy. Then call your senators and urge a NO vote on the upcoming Resolution of Disapproval. Tell your senators that you don’t want for-profit companies dictating how we use our Internet. And tell them to ignore the dishonest puppets who work for the telecoms.