WyBlog

Abolish the FCC!

Yesterday the Federal Communications Commission chose to install a bureaucrat into every web browser. They call it "Net Neutrality" but there is nothing neutral about the heavy hand of regulation. The three Democrats on the Commission, egged on by the usual panoply of lefty-progressive freeloaders, enacted a sweeping regulatory initiative designed to combat an imaginary bogeyman.

There is no concrete evidence that Internet Service Providers are blocking access to web sites or interfering with users' downloads. That's the problem Net Neutrality pretends to solve — universal access.

Of course what they really mean is, Universal Access For Free. It sticks in their craw that a cable or phone company might make a profit off of your desire to watch Bonanza reruns.

"Information ought to be free, man" is their rallying cry. Infrastructure which required decades to create and billions of dollars to support is capriciously subjugated to their egalitarian desire to turn broadband access into a new civil right.

And so the same guys who bring you sonorous hearings into nipple slips and Howard Stern's use of toilet humor will now turn their anachronistic sights onto policing content on the World Wide Web. Can you say ".xxx"? Mandatory parental controls? Internet ID cards? Of course you can.

And taxes. I can guarantee they'll be taxes. The government has been itching to tax the Internet since the day after it was invented. Who really pays attention to all those FCC Subscriber Line Charges on their phone bills anyway? When one shows up on your Internet bill who you gonna complain to? Or what's to say a little nudge from the FCC isn't all it'll take for Amazon and other Internet retailers to drop their opposition to collecting sales taxes, especially if collecting them guarantees favorable treatment on connectivity disputes or search engine rankings?

You know that once the Feds put themselves into the business of deciding who can have access to content they're only a short hop away from deciding which content we're entitled to access. Think that the FCC will employ a "light touch" as Chairman Julius Genachowski promised? Think again. Have you ever met a government bureaucrat who desired less power for himself?

Me neither.

Senator Jim DeMint says he'll work to reverse this "hostile takeover" of the Internet. He also wants Congress to demand proof of "market failure before making new rules."

David Harsanyi has a better idea: Abolish the FCC.

Read the whole thing. And then you'll agree — the FCC is just about the worst possible thing that could happen to the Internet.

Posted at 15:31 by Chris Wysocki   [/tech]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
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