Cruz Promises End to Net Neutrality Order if Elected President

“That will end, and that will end immediately,” promised GOP presidential contender Ted Cruz of Communications Act Title II net neutrality rules, in a video unveiled last week by Protect Internet Freedom. “It’s been regulation-free,” the Republican Texas senator said of the Internet. “[President Barack] Obama is salivating to regulate the Internet.” He said the FCC now claims the authority to regulate pricing and terms of sale, despite FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler saying he has no intention to regulate broadband pricing. “If they succeed in this, anyone who wants to innovate has to go to government regulators to get permission to launch some new website, to do something novel on the Internet,” Cruz said. “That is lunacy.” He again blasted net neutrality as “Obamacare for the Internet” and called the order “a disaster.” Last month, Protect Internet Freedom posted videos of two other GOP presidential contenders -- Carly Fiorina and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. -- blasting the order (see 1512180046). The Obama administration is “trying to hand over control of the Internet to what they call an international body of stakeholders, such paragons of free speech as Russia and China,” Cruz said, referring to Internet governance. He compared the Internet governance transition to President Jimmy Carter's giving away, as Cruz phrased it, the Panama Canal. “We will keep the Internet entirely free of regulations, entirely free of taxes,” Cruz said of his possible presidency. “Leave the Internet free and open for the American people.”