When the FCC announced plans to declare that ISPs are no longer information services, but are instead phone companies, the FCC claimed the authority to regulate content and prices on Internet service nationwide. And no matter how many times the neo-Marxists at Free Press (and their front group Save the Internet) claim that Net Neutrality is all about “preserving an open Internet,” the FCC’s actions are all about command and control.
Even Democrats see the problem, as 72 House members of the Democratic persuasion signed a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski urging him to slow down and let the Congress do its job, instead of taking matters into his own hands and defying the law and the courts to do so.
Update: It’d help if I link the right letter.
Quoth their letter (via The Hill), which is just crushing of Free Press, Google, and other Net Neutrality propagandists:
Like you, we believe in a transparent, data-driven process and stand ready to work with you on measures that will spur adoption and expand the use of broadband networks. But we remain suspicious of conclusions based on slogans rather than substance and of policies that restrict and inhibit the very innovation and growth that we all seek to achieve.
I could hardly say it better myself, seriously. Far be it from me to praise Democrats but on this issue, they’re right. It is up to the Congress to keep the Internet open and innovating, as was done back in the Clinton-Gingrich days when they joined up to pass the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a much-needed update to the Communications act that told the FCC to keep their hands off to begin with.
The FCC is trying to take it upon itself to roll back the 1996 law passed by Republicans and signed by a Democrat, and instead regulate the ISPs the way FDR wanted phone companies regulated back in 1934, all because it gives them more power than the Congress and the President gave them. We’ve got to stop them.
Moe Lane
Dan Spencer
Dan McLaughlin
Jeff Emanuel
Is the FCC position similar to Mass. v. EPA?
SoFiMil (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 12:54AM EDT (link)And if so, any chance the FCC will overreach, and a subsequent court challenge will lead to SCOTUS overturning Mass v. EPA?
www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com
Pretty similar
Neil Stevens (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 1:41AM EDT (link)The FCC is extending its authority far beyond statutory limits, much like the EPA did with CO2.
RS contributing editor and “a hardy variety of crabgrass.”
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Unlikely Voter: Poll Analysis, Election Projection.
“I rejoice that America has resisted.” – William Pitt, the Elder
Wait, I thought
cwilson (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 9:10AM EDT (link)the court actually ORDERED the EPA to go and regulate CO2 as a pollutant. In effect, Mass v. EPA said that the EPA refusing to regulate CO2 was a violation of its congressional mandate. That’s not “extending its authority beyond statutory limits”, that’s “refusing to perform its statutorily-mandated duties”.
If you accept Steven’s asinine ruling.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! –Samuel Adams
Oh also
Neil Stevens (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 1:58AM EDT (link)The DC Circuit already slapped them in Comcast v FCC, which is why they’re trying Deem and Pass. Declare ISPs to be phone companies and try again.
RS contributing editor and “a hardy variety of crabgrass.”
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Unlikely Voter: Poll Analysis, Election Projection.
“I rejoice that America has resisted.” – William Pitt, the Elder
And to what extent?
southeasttexas (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 1:51AM EDT (link)We already know President Obama would like nothing better than to abolish all sorts of Internet media such as public and private blogs, and a wide variety of social networks. And, (just ask FOX news) he apparently thinks he has some given obligation to control who in the news media receives news releases and has the right to report anything he doesn’t like. So, really, when it comes right down to it, can we not view this latest action by the FCC as little more than a continuing effort to destroy our freedom of speech, and place control over what people say, who they say it to and why they say it?
What’s next? Are we Americans to stand up and say, “hail the Republic of Socialized American States”?
http://nationalchat.wordpress.com
They won't be in power forever
Erick Brockway (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 2:07AM EDT (link)And the rules are a changing. We’re putting people into office with cajones (hopefully).
Note to lefties;
“Don’t be afraid to see what you see.” -Ronald Reagan
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Cass Sunstein has been a longtime advocate of this crapola
Adjoran (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 3:14AM EDT (link)Of course, he insists the initial “fairness” requirements will be “voluntary” and we’ll just “see how it goes,” which means if you please the Commissar in charge of blogs, you’ll be okay, but if you offend his sense of “fair play” you will be subject to enforced opposition sharing your bandwidth, and repeat violators get an all-expenses-paid vacation at a re-education camp near you!
Funny I hit him in a recent post
Neil Stevens (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 3:19AM EDT (link)http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2010/05/20/dont-let-them-tell-you-they-dont-want-to-censor-the-internet/
And he’s the chief Regulator in the white house… wheee.
RS contributing editor and “a hardy variety of crabgrass.”
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Unlikely Voter: Poll Analysis, Election Projection.
“I rejoice that America has resisted.” – William Pitt, the Elder
Where are the liberal librarians in this bit of censorship?
trutexan Tuesday, May 25th at 6:25AM EDT (link)Someone should tell them…I mean, they are all about freedom of anyone looking at anything up to and including kiddy porn. They’ve even been arrested for not turning over web traffic logs to authoritites to prosecute sex offenders. Why are they silent on this? Will someone wake up the ALA please? The end result is no different than book burning.
Ted Cruz (R) for Texas Senate.
Obama – Forward!
Proverbs 4:12-15
A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a forward mouth. He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers; Forwardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.
Mama Cass Sunstein and the lefties...
kyle8 (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 6:35AM EDT (link)have NEVER been about open ideas or free expression. Those are just code words for being able to spread their own propaganda.
Every Time the left gains power the FIRST impulse is to shut up their opponents.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Congressional Democrats are masochists
indyjohn Tuesday, May 25th at 9:58AM EDT (link)who secretly love getting whipped by their dominatrix, Nancy Pelosi, The Progressive Caucus and its supporters in the Democrat leadership are no doubt backstage, cheerng Genachowski on. Pelosi will allow this public display of concern and independence by an ostensibly disgruntled minortiy, but she will not permit anyone in the party stand in the way of her ultimate goal, which is control of all forms of media. When Nancy gets through flogging them, enough of these 72 Democrats will get their minds right that they won’t cause Nancy any trouble.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
Progressives?
zuckey6 (Diary) Tuesday, May 25th at 1:54PM EDT (link)everyone should call them Socialists or stateists; there is nothing progressive about Obamacare or Cap and Trade.