Rep. Loretta Sanchez is catching heat for essentially saying she opposes net neutrality “to protect Latinos.”
The Garden Grove Democrat has joined fellow Latino Members of Congress Albio Sires (D-New Jersey) and Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) in signing a letter penned by Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) to support the corporate dismemberment of the free and open Internet, according to Presente.org, which calls Green “one of AT&T's best friends in Congress.”
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Presente.org, which supports climate change policies, opposes private prisons and demands action on the humanitarian crisis at the border (among other issues import to Latino communities), also backs net neutrality.
They are among those who fear corporations are trying to establish a tiered Internet where those who pay the most will receive the fastest service. Think super high-speed Internet for those who can afford it and something akin to dial-up AOL for the rest of us.
“Big corporations like AT&T and Comcast are poised to rob the Internet of its incredible potential,” claims Presente.org, which credits the free Internet with having helped advance causes important to Latinos.
The letter Sanchez and the others signed “makes it sound like their position is meant to protect Latinos,” Presente.org claims. “The truth is that it would only disadvantage our communities while lining the pockets of the telecommunication giants that have donated tens of thousands of dollars to these representatives' campaign funds.”
Finding this “completely unacceptable,” Presente.org has mounted an online campaign to “Demand that Reps. Loretta Sanchez, Albio Sires and Henry Cuellar remove their names from the Green letter!”
That's probably not likely, based on Sanchez's own take on the Economy and Jobs on her congressional website, which indicates she “believes that maintaining a free and open Internet is important to enabling technology to grow to its fullest potential. She, however, believes that Congress can do more to expand broadband deployment to underserved areas and reduce costs for Internet service.”
Political double speak translator shows: Scratch my district's back, net neutrality foes, and I'll scratch a yes for your legislation.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.