Posted on 06/18/2010 7:43:56 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on Thursday to begin the formal process of bringing the Internet under greater federal control – a move sought by both President Barack Obama and FCC Chairnman Julius Genachowski--even though federal law calls for an Internet "unfettered by Federal or State regulation."
This step comes after the federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in April rebuked the FCC in its attempt to enforce a controversial regulatory doctrine called Net Neutrality, which would allow the government to prevent private Internet providers from deciding which applications to allow on their networks.
The court said that the FCC did not have the authority to prevent Comcast, specifically, from blocking certain peer-to-peer Web sites.
The FCC is now trying to reclassify the Internet to broaden its authority over the Web. Currently, the FCC only has “ancillary” authority, meaning it can regulate Internet access only in the process of regulating another service that it has direct authority over, such as television or cable.
The 3-2 party-line vote on Thursday at the FCC began the formal process of reclassifying the Internet as a telecommunications service instead of an information service – its current classification. This is necessary because, as an information service, the government has little power to regulate Internet networks.
As a telecommunications service, such as a telephone network, the Internet would fall under a much broader regulatory scope – giving the government the power to enforce universal service requirements, making them pay into a federal universal service fund used to provide communications services to poor areas.
The FCC will now begin the mandatory public comment period, where it will solicit input from private companies and citizens about whether it should reclassify the Internet and, if so, how it should do it.
The Commission has three options for going forward. First, it can decide not to reclassify the Internet at all, continuing to treat it as an information service. Second, the FCC can completely reclassify the Internet as a telecommunications service, granting the Commission broad powers over it. Third, it could seek a middle ground, reclassifying the Internet as a telecom service but exempting Internet providers from most of the regulations associated with other telecommunications services.
This last approach, presented at the hearing as the “third way,” is the preferred avenue of Genachowski, who unveiled the plan in May.
The “third way” approach would still allow the government the authority to heavily regulate the Internet because it would be classified as a telecom service. However, under this approach, the FCC claims it will exercise “forbearance,” a regulatory doctrine whereby the government promises not use its regulatory authority in most cases.
Commissioner Michael Copps, at the FCC, sought to frame the issue in terms of consumer protection, claiming that “consumers find themselves in quite a box” because government, he claimed, had been “all but shorn” of the authority to regulate Internet service.
Copps said he was “worried” about relying purely on the private sector for Internet-based innovation, saying that the problems of such an approach could be seen in the 2008 financial collapse and the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
“We need to reclaim our authority,” Copps said.
FCC seal Robert McDowell, the commission’s longest-serving Republican member, said the commission should preserve the free Internet of today, adding that more Internet freedom would be in the public interest.
“An open and freedom-enhancing Internet is what we have today,” McDowell said.
McDowell also said that reclassifying the Internet was “unnecessary” and that the FCC should wait for Congress to grant it explicit authority over the Web, saying, “We are not Congress.”
In fact, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which gave the government no explicit authority to regulate Internet service, states: “It is the policy of the United States … to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation.”
When asked whether the FCC’s plans violated this provision, Genachowski said that the “light touch” nature of his third way approach did not violate the Act’s explicit mandate to “preserve” a free and open market.
“We need to have a [regulatory] framework for broadband access that is a light touch framework,” he said. “That is what we had before – and what everyone assumed was the case – before the Comcast decision. To me, a central purpose of this process is to determine what is a framework that is available to us that restores the status quo.”
The republicans in congress have to do everything in their power to ban funding for the FCC as long as they(FCC)think they have the authority to control the Internet.
Congress controls their purse strings let’s see how far they get without funding.
“But it is impolite to ask the Marxist usurper to prove his citizenship.”
it’s more than impolite. It’s evil, racist, hateful, bigoted, intolerant, and virtually terroristic......did’t you know that?....
This was struck down not to long ago under the name of “Net Neutrality” not likely a go again. Same crap in a different wrapper.
Bring it on.
May as well get this on the agenda, so it can join the rest of the progressive liberals fantasy ideas on the slag-heap of history.
Words cannot convey how much I despise this administration.
Yes indeed, November is Coming! And the smell of scorched earth to follow.
C’mon November! (Hopefully the beginning of the end for every good-statist/bad-statist. If not, have contingency plans made.)
The excuse for airwaves being public, was that they were finite and subject to interefere with each other. The ONLY reason for regulating the net is to regulate the exchange of information.
Our right to freely communicate with each other over a private infrastructure is as important as the right to bear arms.
Our ability to quickly expose them, inform each other, and organize *terrifies* the revolutionaries who have seized our government. If they regulate the net, it is the same as confiscating guns,,, and all resistance becomes justified.
November is coming,,, they are frightened of us. They know our ability to organize must be stopped as quickly as they can do it.
Same here. But if I did verbalize how I feel I'd have the FBI knocking on my door!
Agree with you there. If I said what I really feel, there’d be a knock on my door.
Screw Comcast.
Verizon is my phone and DSL provider . I also have family that lives overseas. I can call Brazil on my land line for 1.59 a minute or I can use Google Voice for .04 cents a minute. Guess which one I use and guess which one Verizon is going to start blocking.
“the FCC claims it will exercise “forbearance,” a regulatory doctrine whereby the government promises not use its regulatory authority in most cases. “
Yea... right. I don’t believe this for an instant.
Do you really think there will still be a November?
“Same here. But if I did verbalize how I feel I’d have the FBI knocking on my door!”
That you even have to *think that* is proof that over the last 2 decades we have been headed into a totalitarian government. Obama is the final grab to consolidate. A government that makes a citizen afraid to say what he thinks is very close to triggering the “right and duty to abolish it” language in the declaration of independence.
Will be tied up in the courts for YEARS.
The seeds of a new civil war or revolution in the making.
In federal appeals court.
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