Matt Wood

Policy Director

Matt helps shape our policy team’s efforts to protect the open Internet, prevent media concentration, promote affordable broadband deployment and prioritize a revitalized public media. Before joining Free Press, he worked at the public interest law firm Media Access Project and in the communications practice groups of two private law firms in Washington, D.C. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, worked for PBS, and spent time at several professional and college radio and television stations. Matt earned his B.A. in film studies from Columbia University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Blog Posts

Recent Press Statements

  • Free Press Blasts Wireless Companies' Plan to Favor Some Traffic

    May 15, 2013
    WASHINGTON -- On Wednesday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told a group of investors that he expects content providers and app developers to pay him to keep their traffic from counting against mobile data caps. This follows earlier news that Verizon Wireless was in talks with ESPN to get the sports network paying the carrier so that ESPN content would not count against monthly limits.
  • Free Press Action Fund Praises 'Unlocking Technology Act'

    May 9, 2013

    WASHINGTON -- On Thursday, California Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced a bill to restore wireless users' ability to “unlock” their phones, tablets or other mobile devices. The "Unlocking Technology Act" is co-sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie, Anna Eshoo and Jared Polis. In March, Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Mike Lee and Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill to allow users to unlock their phones. Sen. Ron Wyden also introduced his own bill, as did the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

  • Dangerous Cybersecurity Bill Passes House, Despite Opposition from White House and Civil Liberties Groups

    April 18, 2013
    WASHINGTON -- On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to pass its privacy-threatening cybersecurity bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The White House indicated on Tuesday that it would veto the bill in its current form given CISPA's failure to safeguard privacy and civil liberties.

In the News

  • Consumer Groups Angered Over ESPN Plan to Subsidize Cellphone Data Plans

    The Hill
    May 14, 2013

    Consumer groups are outraged about a potential plan for ESPN to subsidize smartphone data usage, saying it would violate the principle of Net Neutrality.

  • Controversial CISPA Security Bill Passes in the House

    San Francisco Chronicle
    April 19, 2013

    The threat of a White House veto and denunciation of dozens of civil liberties groups wasn’t enough. The House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a dangerously broad effort to fortify the nation’s cyber defenses by allowing private and public entities to share data. Because of the way the bill is written that can include the private communications of consumers.

  • FaceTime on AT&T Extended to 3G Users -- But Still Not Everyone

    NBC News
    January 17, 2013

    When Apple's FaceTime was made available to iPhone users on AT&T, the carrier only allowed the video-chatting service to be used over Wi-Fi, severely reducing its usefulness. After opening it up to 4G users late last year, they're now letting 3G, tiered-data customers have FaceTime as well -- but a few are still left out in the cold.

People + Policy

= Positive Change for the Public Good

people + policy = Positive Change for the Public Good