Today, the House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Task Force held a hearing on “Net Neutrality and free speech on the Internet.” The following response may be attributed to Christopher Wolf and Mike McCurry, co-chairs of the Hands Off the Internet coalition (HandsOff.org):

“Free speech is best protected through an unregulated Internet; an Internet where speech and ideas flow freely but also an Internet where more people can join the conversation.

“As we’ve noted before, Net Neutrality stops progress that makes Internet access widespread and affordable. When big companies like Amazon and Google try to push all of the costs to upgrade the Internet onto ordinary consumers the end result is whole classes of people will lose their voice on the Internet.”

The Hands Off the Internet coalition is a Washington, DC-based coalition of companies and nonprofit organizations that believes the Internet has flourished because government has not tried to regulate it. Members include Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Qwest, 3M, the National Association of Manufacturers, FiberControl, and Cinergy Communications. Nonprofit members include Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Conservative Union and the National Black Chamber of Commerce.