The FCC’s radical and foolish action today to reverse network neutrality protections means that we have lost an important battle in the war for an open internet. But that war is far from over.

Today’s FCC vote means that we will start to see the telecommunications companies intruding more on how we use the internet and becoming much more aggressive in their efforts to make money off their role as online gatekeepers. But nobody should think that network neutrality is dead. We at the ACLU and our allies will be fighting back — at the federal, state, and local level — to restore the protections that the FCC has now eviscerated. And there is plenty that citizens can do. But the clock is now ticking because Americans may soon begin to see negative changes in the internet they’ve always known.

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The fight now shifts to Congress, where pro-network neutrality members will press to use something called the Congressional Review Act to undo this hasty and misguided action. The CRA is a relatively new tool that allows Congress to reverse regulatory actions within 60 legislative days of their enactment. It was used for ill in March 2017 when Trump supporters in Congress voted to wipe out FCC privacy protections that prevented the telecoms from selling our browsing history and other private information about our internet usage. But now Congress can use this tool for good by similarly reversing the FCC's (in this case, bad) action. Every American should press their members of Congress to support such a reversal via the CRA.

If the push for reversal of the FCC’s action through the CRA doesn’t succeed, then the action will turn to the states. We’re already working with state and local leaders to find every possible means to keep pushing on this issue and signal that the country won’t roll over. We will be helping legislators figure out what protections they can enact at the state and local level, providing model legislation and resolutions, and working with our People Power organization to help Americans have a voice on this important issue.

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We're likely to see erosion of the open internet through three means: zero rating, discrimination, and paid prioritization. Below I describe each of those attacks on the open internet and how customers are likely to experience them.

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In short, the internet as we know it is not going to change overnight. But this terrible action by the FCC has torn down the barriers holding back the erosion of the open internet we have always known. We are not going to roll over for this catastrophic mistake, and neither should you.