The Day Internet Freedom Died

Forbes ^ | 9-22-2009 | Adam Thierer and Berin Szoka

[thouworm]

There was a time, not so long ago, when the term "Internet Freedom" actually meant what it implied: a cyberspace free from over-zealous legislators and bureaucrats....

Those days are now gone; the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of "Internet Freedom" would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom....

Here is the reality: Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real Internet Freedom--for all Internet operators and consumers, and for economic and speech rights alike--is about to start dying a death by a thousand regulatory cuts. Policymakers and activists groups are ramping up the FCC's regulatory machine for a massive assault on cyber liberty. This assault rests on the supposed superiority of common carriage regulation and "public interest" mandates over not just free markets and property rights, but over general individual liberties and freedom of speech in particular....

Over the last decade, a cabal of activist-minded cyber-law professors have successfully turned the world of Internet policy upside down by persuading an entire generation of law students, policymakers and a number of large Internet companies that "Internet Freedom" means the very opposite of what it used to mean. Borrowing tactics that would have made Orwell proud, they have convinced many in the public and the policymaking community that the old Internet Freedom is slavery, in that we are all just tools of Corporate Big Brother. Thus, they offer us a new Internet Freedom: Neutrality über alles! Their freedom, as in Orwell's Oceania, is not a freedom from the State, but a gleaming utopia that can only be created by the State.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Very fancy.

[gogogodzilla]

Skynet?

You are on the internet and don’t have the wherewithall to figure out how to find out what Skynet is?

I think I’ve that’s the funniest thing I’ve seen today.

[Chickensoup]

I think that you will be please to find out that I did look up the reference to something called Terminator. Evidently it is some sort of film or television program.