This is a wild overreach of the FCC’s original mandate. The FCC was originally created to manage a scare resource: the radio frequency spectrum. They allocated chunks of spectrum for different uses (TV, radio, maritime, law enforcement, air-traffic-control, etc). And since it’s a limited resource they can regulate over-the-air TV stations since they are only stewards of a scare resource. That is how the ‘family hour’ was mandated back in the 1970s, where all programming had to be kid-safe until at least 9 p.m. local time.
The Internet’s bandwidth is potentially infinite. Except for WiFi and cell phones (which use spectrum and thus can be legitimately regulated) there is absolutely NO justification for the FCC’s power grab of wired communication.
The FCC is using the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (amendment to 47 U.S.C. §151) is to “make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges... for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications.”
See how they slipped in ‘wire’ like that? (It’s to prevent discrimination, you see, /sarc)
Before 1996 wired communication was under the jurisdiction of Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which owned ICANN and ran the top-level Internet DNS servers as a benign agency with minimal interference.
But of course Obama is now in the process of transferring ICANN to an international body.
Nice post, but, yet again, we’re debating a moot point: I fail to find anything in the Constitution that even remotely authorizes ‘...to manage a scare resource: the radio frequency spectrum...’, let alone any other spectrum.
Next you’ll be hearing the scarce spectrum of LIGHT /s
The FCC, EPA, etc. are, and should, be null and void