Free Republic

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski last week used the release of a new report on the information needs of communities as an opportunity to focus attention on the link between universal broadband availability and "healthy online journalism." ... The focus of Genachowski’s speech was a new 478-page online report, "The Information Needs of Communities," authored by veteran reporter, editor and online publisher Steve Waldman and members of the FCC staff. ... Genachowski said the report identifies areas in which the government, the private sector and nonprofits “can help make success possible for journalists and entrepreneurs that are trying to seize the...

We're thankful to hear Chairman Julius Genachowski to make that promise. We'll certainly hold him to it. But you will pardon us if we remain skeptical (and, in advance, if you hear a constant stream of "I told you so" from us in the months and years to come). If the Chairman is "peeved" at the suggestion that the FCC might be angling to extend its reach to include the Internet and new media platforms and content, perhaps he should start taking a closer look at what his own agency is doing — and think about the precedents he's setting...

On the reason.com website, there is an article titled "Internet cop", which is 5 long pages. In it, it lists some interesting things that should be discussed on their own. Despite its relative newness and its radical ideas, Free Press has had an outsized influence on the net neutrality debate. It has a former staffer in the FCC chairman’s office: In June 2009, Jen Howard left her job as press director for Free Press to become Genachowski's press secretary. The group also benefited from its longstanding alliance with MoveOn.org, a netroots giant with massive influence on progressive politics. Free Press...

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. ......... For a man with such radical views, Mr. McChesney and his Free Press group have had astonishing influence. Mr. Genachowski’s press secretary at the FCC, Jen Howard, used to handle media relations at Free Press. The FCC’s chief diversity officer, Mark Lloyd, co-authored a Free Press report calling for regulation of political talk radio. ............... Considering how openly activist the Berkman Center has been on these issues,...

INTERNET GRABBERS House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa continues to demand answers from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski over why the head of a supposedly independent federal agency visited the White House 81 times between January 2009 and November 2010. It was during this time that Genachowski and his staff were developing a regulatory scheme that would ultimately place control of the Internet in the hands of the FCC. Of special interest to Issa is a meeting held September 17, 2009, which took place four days before Genachowski made a speech at the Brookings Institute laying out the broad...

7 minute Video and footnotes at link. Last night, NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm appeared on Fox Business Network to describe political favoritism by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) that benefited Harbinger Capital, a hedge fund headed by billionaire Phil Falcone. NLPC first accused the FCC of favoritism in a February 2 request for an investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). We pointed to large donations to Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, made the day after Falcone visited the White House, that appeared to be related to the FCC's fast track approval...

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is denying a charge that White House officials improperly influenced the commission’s net neutrality rules. In a November 2009 letter to Genachowski, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said media reports suggest “that Obama administration officials had knowledge of and potentially contributed to [the] crafting of” the controversial net neutrality rules. Specifically, Issa noted that a 2009 American Spectator article said a draft of the net neutrality rules had been circulated to Obama administration officials — and that Genachowski and President Barack Obama made suspiciously similar remarks about the rules on Sept. 21, 2009. Issa — then the...

President Obama on Tuesday used the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to impose government controls over the Internet. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's implementation of so-called "net neutrality" regulations offers a foretaste of the White House's shift to rule by unelected bureaucracy now that Republicans have regained control of the House of Representatives.For the first time ever, the FCC will regulate the way Internet companies are allowed to do business in the same way that the agency regulates 19th-century technologies such as the telephone. The red tape is being offered in the name of protecting Internet freedom and prohibiting companies from...

"For the first time, we'll have enforceable rules of the road to preserve Internet freedom and openness," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Tuesday morning. He said the rules offered "a strong and sensible framework—one that protects Internet freedom and openness and promotes robust innovation and investment." Republicans at the FCC and on Capitol Hill blasted the FCC's new rules, saying that they could stifle new investments in broadband networks and are unnecessary since there have been few complaints about Internet providers blocking or slowing web traffic. The FCC's action "is not motivated by a tangible competitive harm or market failure,"...

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, says Federal Communications Commission should be renamed the "Fabricating a Crisis Commission," following a vote by the panel's three Democrats to approve proposed rules that amount to a hostile takeover of the Internet by a government agency acting illegally. The proposal - misleadingly described by proponents as an attempt to insure "net neutrality" by guaranteeing equal access to the Internet - was introduced a year ago by Julius Genachowski, President Obama's appointee as FCC chairman. A federal court has ruled that the commission has no authority to regulate the Internet, and a bipartisan group of senators...

The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules that will govern how Internet providers treat Web traffic and services, a move that sets the stage for a heated political battle on Capitol Hill come January. Led by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Democrats on the panel voted on Tuesday to approve the first enforceable net neutrality rules, which will prohibit Internet service providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from blocking access to lawful content and websites. Adopting the net neutrality order is a much-needed win for Genachowski, who has been trying to find a compromise on the divisive issue for...

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday approved a plan to regulate the Internet despite warnings that it could strangle industry investment and damage an economy that is still struggling to recover. The 3-2 vote fell along partisan lines with Democrats capitalizing on their numerical advantage. The rules would prohibit phone and cable companies from abusing their control over broadband connections to discriminate against rival content or services, such as Internet phone calls or online video, or play favorites with Web traffic. Lawmakers in both parties have been arguing for months that Congress, not the Obama administration, should take...

(CNN) -- The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote Tuesday on a set of regulations designed to ensure that internet providers grant everyone equal access to the Web. The "net neutrality" rules, proposed by the Obama administration, would be the government's biggest foray yet into one of the Web's fiercest debates. In announcing the proposed rules earlier this month, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said they would require high-speed internet providers to treat all types of Web content equally.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is making progress in narrowing gaps with his two Democratic colleagues over his controversial plan to adopt sweeping new rules for the Internet, National Journal has learned. But with the talks very fluid, and differences remaining, there's still a possibility that the regulatory initiative could be pulled at the last minute from the agenda of Tuesday's commission meeting. An FCC source familiar with the negotiations said progress is being made in three key areas: addressing concerns about wireless carriers, limiting Internet toll lanes and adding protections for a new online pricing model.

POWER GRAB: FCC Commissioner Calls for Gov Run ‘Values Test’, Control Over Minority Characters, Programming & Scheduling of TV (full title)

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) pushed back on Monday against a contention by a Democratic FCC commissioner that the government should create new regulations to promote diversity in news programming. Barton was reacting to a proposal made last week by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who in a speech suggested that broadcasters be subject to a new "public values test" every four years. "I hope … that you do not mean to suggest that it is the job of the federal government, through the [FCC], to determine the content that is available for Americans to consume,” Barton wrote Monday in a letter...

The First Amendment forbids Congress from infringing on Americans' right to free speech. But the Federal Communications Commission is not Congress. And Michael Copps, one of four FCC commissioners reporting to Chairman Julius Genachowski, seems intent on ignoring that pesky part of the First Amendment about "abridging the freedom of speech" when that speech is sent out over the airwaves. In two American Thinker articles earlier this year, I discussed possible FCC attempts to force progressive programming into broadcast media. Now, in addition to a nasty Christmas present that Genachowski wants to give Americans on December 21 (Net Neutrality), Copps...

Insight On Freedom. Socialist Regime Moves For Control of The Internet FCC will take first steps to control the Internet It’s called “Net Neutrality.” Sounds fair, right? I mean -- that’s what the liberal-socialist democrats are all about, right? Fairness is their utmost priority, right? Why, they’d never do anything to limit the freedom of Americans … riiiiight? If you believe all that, then prepare yourself for a rude awakening. When a political movement intends to takeover a nation’s government, one of the very first things it absolutely MUST DO … is take control of that nation’s communications networks. It...

Here’s betting FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposal on “preserving Internet freedom and openness” doesn’t touch the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) and its offshoot the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). In Net Neutrality, Julius style, some animals are always more equal than others. While some tend to see the Internet as FoxNews.com on one side and HuffPo on the other, it’s really WorldWide Net versus IGC/APC. Plebes of the Net Unite. While citizen journalist bloggers pay Internet server fees and worry about bandwidth, for decades now IGC has been funded by the Tides Foundation.

It's time to close the Federal Communications Commission. This week, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski gave a speech outlining his push for net neutrality, the absurd notion that the Internet should be "open and free" when in fact it's quite expensive to build. Net neutrality will straitjacket the U.S. economy's single most important driver of productivity and transformation. Besides the obvious question of whether the FCC even has the authority to regulate the Web—in April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said it doesn't—the agency has a long history of restraining trade. Founded in 1934 partly to regulate...