State Assembly Hearing: 10/17

Last Wednesday a state assembly hearing was held on the topic of net neutrality. It was pretty intense for a government process. I attribute this to the recent Verizon-NARAL scandal which prompted both parties to testify at last week’s hearing.

The legislators were particularly tough on the Verizon representatives and especially infuriated with how the content-based decision was made. Likewise, they were rightfully dubious to the assumption that the public should just “trust Verizon” to not discriminate based on content in the future, rather than concede to a regulation against it. What Verizon had to say for itself was disapointing, but not surprising. Of course, Verizon evaded most questions with indirect and off-topic answers (Q: Who made the decision to reject NARAL’s text messaging application? Was it subjective? A: We reversed the decision already! It won’t happen again, trust us!) The critical questioning, which continued through the testimony of a local cable representative, was a good sign that net neutrality issues were important to the legislators. The written testimony of Josh Breitbart being used in the questioning of that cable representative was another good sign that the government is taking notice and considering suggestions on the other way the state can influence policy to help ensure net neutrality.