FCC to take over the internet, Free Speech in Jeopardy.

[shagdrum]

The FCC grabs power unlawfully to appease a fringe movement

The FCC grabs power unlawfully to appease a fringe movement
Posted by Neil Stevens

I’ve been ill but please bear with me. Today brought some huge news for anyone who conducts business or pleasure on the Internet: The FCC has announced its plans to deem and pass Net Neutrality. Specifically, The FCC will defy a court order to stop regulating the Internet by nonsensically deeming the Internet not to be an information service, and regulate it under Title II of the Communications Act.

That sounds mild but it has disastrous consequences.

Title II of the Communications Act gives the FCC strong and broad powers. If the FCC is allowed to put the Internet in the US under those powers, then the Obama administration will have total power to tax Internet users, regulate content on Internet servers, and even institute price controls on Internet services. Does this sound like it has anything to do with “restoring” anything? I don’t think so.

The fact is, the idea that this “Net Neutrality” plan is anything but a power grab was always a lie being pushed by a couple of sources. The first is Google, which has had ties with the administration from Eric Schmidt himself advising Barack Obama, to Andrew McLaughlin who’s been lobbying for Google from his job as Deputy White House CTO. Google stands to benefit when the FCC passes regulations which favor Internet firms like Google over ISPs.

Part of Google’s drive has been in funding Free Press, a radical fringe group dedicated to the nationalization of all mass media in America. Their neo-Marxist vision is to have people’s state commissars dictating all the news you read in the newspaper, watch on television, and see on the Internet. Obviously, they’ve been pushing hard for deem-and-pass “reclassification” of the Internet under FCC total control

However they’re gradually letting slip how much of a fringe group they really are, despite their “Save the Internet” front group having a long list of names. They can’t even decide how many supporters they want to lie and say they have! Is it 1.7 million, or is it 1.6 million? Oops, maybe it’s just 1.0 million. But now the radically pro-Net Neutrality Cecilia Kang, who runs with stories clearly pushed by Google and Free Press without fact checking them first as seen in the updates, claims Free Press is nowhere near a million, and sits at only half that.

Should the tens of millions of Americans on the Internet, we who make a living or keep in touch with friends and family, have our fate determined by a small band of fringe neo-Marxist radicals, or self-seeking lobbyists at Google? I say no. This matter should be decided in the Congress, where the power is legitimately held to tell the FCC what it can and can’t regulate. And problems people have with their ISPs should be handled in the state legislatures, who have oversight of the local franchise monopolies that govern most cable and DSL Internet in America.

Hands off our Internet, FCC. End the power grab now.

 

[Calabrio]

The FCC Goes for the Nuclear Option

If FCC Chairman Genachowski announces his intention to reclassify the Internet as a telephone system, he will be reversing 30 years of precedent

As I have repeatedly warned and noted on www.ObamaChart.com, when Congress blocks the Obama administration, the White House always finds a way to get around the normal policy-making process and pursue its agenda by other means. Today’s reclassification assault on the Internet is the latest—and perhaps the most egregious—example.

In its effort to imposing crippling net neutrality regulations on the Internet—an idea with very little support from the American public or Congress—the Obama administration first turned to the FCC simply to pretend Congress has given it authority to regulate.

That effort suffered a major setback when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals emphatically smacked down the FCC’s regulatory proposals in Comcast v. FCC. President Obama and his close friend and FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, however, refuse to back down. Instead they’re escalating to the regulatory equivalent of a nuclear attack on the free-market Internet: Chairman Genachowski will announce today his intention to reclassify broadband Internet as an old-fashioned telephone system as a pretext for pervasive regulatory control.

Broadband Internet service has never been regulated like old-fashioned telephone lines -- classified as “Title II” under the Telecommunications Act. The FCC settled the matter definitively in 1998, when Clinton-appointed FCC Chairman William Kennard demolished the same reclassification arguments being made today in that year’s Report to Congress:

Our findings in this regard are reinforced by the negative policy consequences of a conclusion that Internet access services should be classed as “telecommunications” … Classifying Internet access services as telecommunications services could have significant consequences for the global development of the Internet. We recognize the unique qualities of the Internet, and do not presume that legacy regulatory frameworks are appropriately applied to it.

If Chairman Genachowski announces, as expected, his intention to reclassify the Internet as a telephone system, he will be reversing 30 years of precedent starting with the Carter administration FCC’s “Computer II” decision and definitively settled with respect to broadband Internet access by the Clinton FCC in 1998. Turning sharply left from Carter and Clinton indicates a pretty extreme shift beyond the mainstream of American politics.

Such a shift is unjustified, because free-market Internet policy has been a tremendous success. The Internet -- in the absence of regulation -- has flourished into a remarkable engine of economic growth, innovation, competition, and free expression. Such triumph argues in favor of continuing existing successful policies, but with today’s announcement the FCC shows it is more interested in satisfying a left-wing political constituency than continuing sound policy.

Consider the words of one of the leading advocates of Internet regulation, Robert McChesney, founder of the left-wing group Free Press. McChesney said to SocialistProject.ca: “What we want to have in the U.S. and in every society is an Internet that is not private property, but a public utility.”

He went on to explain: “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

Not surprisingly, Free Press put out a statement yesterday just minutes after the story leaked that the FCC would pursue reclassification. Remarkably, they openly stated that even the nuclear option of total regulatory control under a utility-type model is not enough for them, saying: “This is extremely welcome news. We reserve judgment, however, on whether the FCC has gone far enough.”

The communications industry is, like health care, roughly one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Unlike health care, however, the FCC seems to believe it can take over the communications system with just three votes at the Commission. If they insist on trying, Congress needs to step in and stop them.

Phil Kerpen is vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity and director of its www.NoInternetTakeover.com project. He can be reached on Twitter, Facebook, and through www.PhilKerpen.com.

 

[Calabrio]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...authority-over-internet-access-providers.html

 

[fossten]

Government trying to take over another private sector element?

Say it ain't so!

 

[Mechanicboy]

Free Speech in Jeopardy.

That is nothing new. That is exactly what they and obama want to do.

 

[Calabrio]

That is nothing new. That is exactly what they and obama want to do.

The idea isn't new.
They've made previous attempts that have been blocked.
But right now, it's immenent.

And the internet is the future of communication, and more importantly, dissent. For example, you wouldn't get the Tea Parties if not for the internet. And more importantly, the increased networking and communication that has come about since like-minded patriots started getting in touch with each other and realizing that they aren't the minority. The dominant voice in media IS NOT the majority.

 

[Calabrio]

Go visit http://www.freepress.net/ is you doubt the radical left agenda of freepress.