The Republicans on the Federal Communications Commission announced their plan to eliminate the net neutrality rules on the day before Thanksgiving. Even with a clearly pre-determined 3-2 vote in favor of the roll back scheduled for Dec. 14, activists are doing what they can to avoid the end to net neutrality. While there have already been a historic 22 million comments made to the FCC on the issue -- the majority of which were opposed to its rollback -- Congressional representatives and the FCC got more calls and comments over the holiday weekend. Ars Technica reported that more than 180,000 people had made calls through the Battle for the Net activist site on Nov. 22. The calls may be helping, as a first Republican senator, Susan Collins from Maine, announced her opposition to the rollback, with Collins’ spokesperson Annie Clark saying she opposes ending net neutrality because it would allow internet providers to “manage their system in an anti-competitive way that limits consumers’ choices.” Protests at Verizon stores across the nation are being organized for Dec. 7 by Demand Progress, Fight For The Future, and the Free Press Action Fund (including one locally in Pittsfield, MA). "The company has been spending millions on lobbying and lawsuits to kill net neutrality so they can gouge us all for more money," the protest organizers write. "We’re calling on our lawmakers to do their job overseeing the FCC and speak out against Ajit Pai’s plan to gut Title II net neutrality protections." Plus, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the main force behind efforts to end net neutrality, used to work for Verizon as associate general counsel before moving to the Federal Communications Commission. Still, the phone calls and protests are tilting at windmills, as the FCC vote Dec. 14 is preordained. When the 2015 FCC passed the net neutrality rules, groups representing AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision unsuccessfully sued to stop them from being implemented. This time, activists will go to court to keep the net neutrality rules in place.