Obama directs FCC to adopt “Net Neutrality” (and write any new or revised regulations accordingly). This policy is a 180 from the Bush administration position that can be boiled down to “whatever the big companies want, the big companies get,” and these changes would, without a doubt, foster the sorts of innovations and game-changing uses that people tend to use the word “internet time” as a synonym for (e.g. rapid advance over short time periods and the ubiquitous availability of seemingly all human knowledge to relatively simple front-end tools on computers, and nowadays, mobile devices of all shapes and forms).
Naturally, today’s GOP, ever a friend to the Established Interests is categorically agin it. Kay Bailey Hutchison says:
I am deeply concerned by the direction the FCC appears to be heading.
Indeed, just take a look at these troubling developments:
new network neutrality rules that would require carriers to deliver broadband in a nondiscriminatory manner and to disclose their network management policies. Genachowski also said the FCC would explore the question of whether to extend network neutrality rules to mobile carriers.
[…]
“This means they cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, or pick winners by favoring some content or applications over others in the connection to subscribers’ homes,” [FCC chairman Julius] Genachowski said in an address before the Brookings Institute Sept. 21. “Nor can they disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider. The Internet must continue to allow users to decide what content and applications succeed.”
How can innovation possibly succeed in an environment that encourages open competition and a level playing field? It’s unpossible. The only way forward: Hutchison feels the monopolistic providers of net access as of today “should be unencumbered by consumer protections and basic Internet freedoms.” Indeed they should.Who could possibly want any of those things. According to the GOP, freedom is overrated anyway.
Net neutrality: clearly another example of Obama’s rampant Socialist, command-and-control agenda. By forcing the internet to remain open and free, unchained by secret access rules or “preferred” website providers and tiered service, he’s pursuing the Socialist takeover of said internet by lots of small, innovative, ideas-based companies that leverage terrifying Socialistic Free-Market principles at the expense of the moneyed interests and the various, ossified, copper-wire owning players of today. Why, that’s categorically un-American! Jon Ensign, in a remarkable bit of double-speak, clearly agrees:
In this struggling economy, any industry that is able to thrive should be allowed to do so without meddlesome government interference that could stifle innovation,“ Ensign said in a statement. "We must avoid burdensome government regulations that micromanage private businesses or that limit the ability of companies to provide what their customers want. The Internet has flourished in large part because of a lack of government interference; I see no need to change that now.
Truly, truly remarkable. No other word for it. By writing regulation that permanently opens the internet to competition from all comers, and any size company, by guaranteeing this access for both consumers and businesses we are, in fact "micromanag[ing] private business” and “limit[ing] the ability of companies to provide what their customers want.” Because we know what customers want, now and forever. So long as customers want tiered internet access, and a Comcast-approved network, that is. And, since that’s all they’re offered in most markets through built-in, city-wide monopolies, that must be what they want. Right? Right?
Lemkin 