Oakland-Members of Media Alliance, PUEBLO, First Voice Media Action, Mujeres Unidas Y Activas and others are meeting with Representative Barbara Lee’s office today at 11:00am to urge her to demand that any net neutrality orders presented to the Federal Communications Commission for a vote next week provide the same consumer protections to users of wireless and mobile broadband services.

Members of the delegation will use the opportunity to highlight the need for broadband equity and small business job development and creation in urban communities.

The groups say the recent midterm elections highlighted jobs and the economy as the number one issues for Americans and an online level playing field is a path to prosperity for poor and low-income communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the recession.

Tracy Rosenberg, director of Media Alliance, says “Partial net neutrality means the promise of the Internet for economic revitalization and increased civic participation can be held hostage by the profit motives of a few big service providers. The Internet needs to be the same for all participants: regardless of their mode of getting online”.

According to recent studies, about 1/3 of Americans still do not have consistent affordable access to the Internet and the skills to use it to make their lives better.

Media Alliance was founded with the belief that in order to ensure the free and unfettered flow of information and ideas necessary to maintain a truly Democratic society, media must be accessible, accountable, decentralized, representative of society’s diversity and free from covert or overt government control and corporate dominance. MA dedicates itself to fostering a genuine diversity of media voices, holding media accountable for their impact on society and protecting freedom of speech.

The Media Action Grassroots Network (Mag-Net) is a local-to-local advocacy network of grassroots social justice, media and cultural organizations working together to shift power relations for social change through the critical use and transformation of media and communications systems.