WASHINGTON, D.C. - On August 20, 2018, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) filed a joint brief with petitioners seeking to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) decision to revoke 2015 Net Neutrality consumer protections.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition released the following statement from Francella Ochillo director, government and legal affairs:

"NHMC uncovered critical evidence during the FCC's repeal of Net Neutrality last year which documented consumer harms, further cementing the need to retain the 2015 open Internet rules. Despite several requests from NHMC, the FCC refused to consider relevant information uncovered through these FOIA requests. That was a fatal error in the FCC's administrative process, a vulnerability that will be exposed through litigation. The FCC chose to exclude evidence in its own possession from this proceeding, and for this reason alone the court should reverse the FCC's decision to repeal Net Neutrality protections."

Back in May 2017, NHMC sent a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the FCC and ultimately uncovered over 70,000 pages of documents, including over over 47,000 open Internet consumer complaints excluded from FCC's analysis in its repeal of the rules.

While the FCC continues to produce documents that were requested in May 2017, NHMC commissioned an independent expert report back in November 2017 focusing on the Net Neutrality consumer complaints. The report by Reza Rajabiun found that both consumers and their service providers appear to consider broadband access as a basic stand-alone telecommunications service. To read the full report, click here: http://bit.ly/2z4lFQe