Freedom Watch
Fighting Off Power Grabs
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is threatening to intervene in the maintenance of the very architecture of the Internet.
Much of the Washington debate over health care reform has revealed that when health care decisions are shifted to Washington’s bureaucracies, the consumer’s freedom to tend to his own care is eroded. As the Department of Health and Human Services asserts a manifest destiny over health care choices in America, President Obama’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is assigning itself similarly dubious authority over anyone who wants to innovate online. Much as HHS believes its regulations are needed to protect Americans from insurance companies, the FCC has set up a false choice between consumers and allegedly monopolistic high tech providers. Congress must defend the online entrepreneur, job creator, and consumer with a vigor equal to that spent protecting the doctor-patient relationship.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is threatening to intervene in the maintenance of the very architecture of the Internet, the wireless communication of every American, and even companies’ pricing for the privilege of constant connectivity. The consequence of these three bureaucratic power-grabs is a dispirited innovator, a consumer deprived of choice, and a free enterprise system hobbled by federal bureaucrats convinced they know what is best for all of us.
“Net neutrality” is the most prominent of these power-grabs. According to the FCC, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can’t resist engaging in such bad behaviors as slowing a competitor’s sites to direct traffic to their own profit centers. Though they cannot cite a single case where federal intervention was needed to avert this behavior, the FCC proposes to take over the very Internet architecture that ISPs invest 60 billion job-creating dollars a year developing. It will insist that no information can be prioritized by the ISPs, transferring that power to federal authorities instead. ISPs are left asking obvious questions. Why invest in making a network more efficient, why collaborate to build new technologies, if ISPs will not be allowed to profit from them? In rushing to defend a consumer who has no need of its help, the FCC threatens to cripple the greatest platform for the expansion of freedom and prosperity since Jefferson put quill to parchment.
FCC arguments over data roaming are equally spurious. Wireless companies spend billions to build efficient international communications networks. If I travel beyond my carrier’s service area and still want to make a call, my carrier must use the infrastructure built out by another company. The second company is due compensation for the use of its network. The FCC doesn’t believe that market forces are adequate to find a fair equilibrium. It intends to intervene, depriving the entrepreneur of the ability to profit from his investment. Once again, the consumer will be the poorer for big brother’s misguided advocacy on his behalf.
The unelected bureaucrats at the FCC have also taken it upon themselves to intervene in cell phone billing. It seems that one in six Americans experience a new phenomenon of the information age: “bill shock,” those heart palpitations resulting from higher-than-expected wireless bills. The Today show recently profiled a young couple who were stunned to learn that international charges ran up their bill. Never mind that the couple were able to complain and get the bill reduced. Never mind that most of us can check our balance at any time, night or day. According to Chairman Genachowski, this is not enough. Now the FCC proposes to intervene with all the blunt force of federal regulation to make your wireless carrier warn you about your bill. Visions of the bespectacled Verizon guy spouting, “Can you pay me now?” come to mind.
The cost of supplanting the consumer’s common sense with federal authority is high. It will slow innovation and hobble the new creative economy — a force that has enhanced both our prosperity and our freedom. The House has begun pushing back against the FCC’s overreach. In March we began to turn back the “net neutrality” order, and my legislation to forever restrict the FCC from Internet regulation is gaining support. Our next move may need to clarify that while the FCC’s regulatory jurisdiction rests on the authority granted by Congress, not an arrogant assumption that, like the Department of Health and Human Services, Washington always has the consumers’ best interest at heart.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (44) | Leave a comment
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Melvin| 5.17.11 @ 7:23AM
You don't push back against vermin, you kill it, you crush it, you destroy it so that it cannot raise it's ugly head again.
Congress needs to stop playing handsies and footsies with Comrade Jules, and slap him so hard, it will take the nest two years to pick himself up off the floor and figure out what the hell smacked him. .
Purpleguy| 5.17.11 @ 1:29PM
Good luck when the companies (ISPs) rule and you are rationed your allotment of Gigabytes and that's it. The Internet belongs to the public, like the airwaves do and companies must be regulated because their only mission is profit and the bottom line. If they can kill competition, they will. When that happens you WILL pay what they ask or you will be rationed out of the Internet.
Did you not learn anything from the financial meltdown when all regulations where removed or were not even in place regarding derivatives?
Patrick in AZ| 5.17.11 @ 2:01PM
@purplefool, you sound like an SEIU drone filled with envy and an entitlement mentality
Occam's Tool| 5.17.11 @ 3:23PM
I seem to recall all improvement on the Internet speed and access being driven by profit, Purpleguy.
Ground Control| 5.17.11 @ 6:30PM
I think Mr. Purple has been watching too many "Terminator" and "Matrix" movies, where the "machines" take over (you can be "Neo," Purple.) As for the "financial meltdown," in the first place if the economy really went through a "melt down" we would all be foraging for berries right now. And secondly, the very real economic difficulties we find ourselves in are certainly not because of "removed" regulations. They are CAUSED by government, with too much regulation and too much market manipulation by Washington (Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae).
victor| 5.18.11 @ 2:47AM
PurpleHaze:
"The Internet belongs to the public, like the airwaves do and companies must be regulated because their only mission is profit and the bottom line. If they can kill competition, they will. When that happens you WILL pay what they ask or you will be rationed out of the Internet."
Let's change just one little word in your defense of Government Takeover, shall we?
The Oil belongs to the public, like the electricity do and companies must be regulated because their only mission is profit and the bottom line. If they can kill competition, they will. When that happens you WILL pay what they ask or you will be rationed out of the Gas Station.
Much better, eh?
NJK| 5.18.11 @ 8:07PM
I am so glad you said this victor. I was thinking to myself yesterday, this is our oil. Who do they think they are blocking our access to our oil? George Washington would not be putting up with this. I went to his home last week in Mount Vernon, VA. It was almost a religious experience. I wish we could mount our horses, grab our guns, and be on with it.
They are stealing our property for themselves.
Dee See| 5.17.11 @ 7:34AM
---Super article.
BTW---speaking of the deliberate, many decades
old 'take down' of culture ----DO SEE:
ALAN WATT 'Fabian War Survival Abolished'
pt 2 and 3 --new on youtube.
Holy smoke!
YOU'LL SEE!
"Understand, the 'decadence' ALWAYS
comes from the top down. ALWAYS.
It's ALLLLL funded and directed from the
top, just as ALLLL porno films are made
by regular cameramen at night. They 'Big
Boys' know about it. Of course they do.
If they wanted the 40's culture back or
the 50's culture back --they could have it
back over night ----and they would, believe
you me---"
-ALAN WATT
BELIEVE YOU HIM
Pecos Pete| 5.17.11 @ 8:24AM
Dear Ms. Blackburn, keep on plugging. The Internet is doing just fine without the help of the FCC. Thanks for your work in Congress.
SonOfSam| 5.17.11 @ 12:44PM
The FCC is to the Internet what the typical public school administrator is to computer science classes: a clueless "liberal arts" dumba$$ who knows NOTHING about how the technology was created, or the possible uses for it that are being developed even now by people who DO know what they're doing. All they're good for is being completely envious of the people who make things happen.
They may not have killed the goose that lays the golden eggs, but they're chasing it around the barnyard with an axe
Petronius| 5.17.11 @ 8:36AM
And just how often will the FCC interfere with my connection to This site?
Michael Tomlinson| 5.17.11 @ 8:40AM
Barack Obama isn't happy with destroying millions of construction and manufacturing jobs now he has to go after the hi-tech industry. How many more Americans does he want to be without jobs?
What is going to make this guy happy? He's doubled the price of gas in 2 years, caused food prices to skyrocket, doubled the debt and deficit, turned the dollar into toilet paper, turned a housing correction into a depression, obliterated over 5 million jobs that will never come back, made America a laughing stock in the world, involved America in Libya to save European oil and turn the country over to al Qaeda supporters, encouraged a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan lowering troop morale and turned our ally Egypt over to the Muslim Brotherhood (the inspiration for al Qaeda).
Pecos Pete| 5.17.11 @ 8:46AM
Michael: Quoting you, "How many more Americans does he want to be without jobs?"
Answer: All of us. The goal (The Hope) is To Change the USA to the Communist States of America.
Younger Soldier| 5.17.11 @ 9:31AM
You must be smoking that stuff Peyote Pete.
Dan Hirsch| 5.17.11 @ 11:18AM
Wow! What insightful commentary, 'Younger.' You crushed Pecos like a ton of syllogisms!
Why don't you same something, rather than waste time and bandwidth on such trivial, stupid comments?
Have point, please!
SonOfSam| 5.17.11 @ 12:48PM
it beats trying to pay for food and gasoline with worthless confetti "money". Oh that's right: food and gasoline aren't part of that "core inflation"
Your mommy's calling, younger "soldier"...time to put away your army men and your plastic guns and go have some pb and j with the crusts trimmed
PolishKnight| 5.17.11 @ 9:35AM
I was amused when The Professor tried to lecture companies to start hiring. So there is a non-communist economy after all and it's not working the way he likes. He'll stomp his widdle feet and tell them to do what he says!
Kind of reminds me of the Nixonian era's WIN buttons...
That said, I think wireless carriers can be abusive and try to take advantage of naive consumers. I enabled a mobile phone and bought an international calling card but when my wife used it, the mobile carrier dropped the call to the card and when my wife dialed an international number (thinking it was on the card), she was actually on the mobile service. A 30 minute call that usually costs $3.00 cost us $60.00. Ouch!
So I called them and had them turn off international dialing and paid the bill. Lesson learned.
But it terrifies me what else can happen. If a spammer sends me a 2MB text, am I liable? I get phone spam and it's mainly a nuisance and a slight cost (an extra buck a month) but I wonder if the mobile carriers like this behavior because it raises people's bills.
Then there's the poor sap who doesn't realize that the great feature they advertise, watching movies on a 2 inch screen, can easily cost them hundreds and even thousands of dollars if they're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This is how they're making money in a post ma-bell era when long distance went from 25 cents a minute (not inflation adjusted, that's in 1970's dollars) down to 1 cent or even free and international is commonly 10 cents a minute or even little more than domestic. They need another way to get those hundred dollar bills and this is it and they know many people don't intentionally want them. So they try to find ways to trick people.
I don't want the FCC going after them but surely some kind of consumer agency should be able to set some reasonable standards in at least notification of costs. OK, if a cableTV provider wants to provide their own OnDemand programming at 10MB/s burst speed while the regular content from netflix goes at your standard subscription rate, I think that's fair. However, if I paid for a particular service and they hide in 10 pages of legalese that they can slow down my connection for outside carriers, I will balk. I agree this happened yet so the FCC is making a power grab in that regard.
Dan Hirsch| 5.17.11 @ 11:19AM
Polish,
Those were Gerry Ford's WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons! Credit where credit is due, hunh?
Melvin| 5.17.11 @ 1:16PM
I've got dibs for first in the toilet paper line. Who wants to trade something for a pair of government issue D cell batteries? Oh, they're dead, I didn't have enough government credits to get the solar charger that charges them.
Occam's Tool| 5.17.11 @ 3:28PM
Like I've said, Pecos, you are entirely too rare a type in New Mexico.
Occam's Tool| 5.17.11 @ 3:24PM
Dear Michael:
he hates and despises us.
George S| 5.17.11 @ 10:26AM
Look upon the internet as a plate of steak and potatoes sitting on your kitchen table and the government as a starving thief looking through the window.
SonOfSam| 5.17.11 @ 12:49PM
who says he's "starving"??? Government at all levels is a fat bloated disgusting pig that needs to be stuck
Jack London| 5.17.11 @ 11:17AM
Never mind trying to protect freedom on the Internet - let's sell access to the highest sponsor and rename the Internet McNet. Never mind rip-off roaming charges set by price-gouging operators acting as one - let's ignore the fact that Europe has had to regulate on behalf of users to promote business and wider use of technology. Never mind AmSpec idiots...
Dan Hirsch| 5.17.11 @ 11:25AM
You betcha, Jack!
The geniuses in Washington know which websites are good and which are evil, far better than the hapless American who can't decide for himself whether he's being robbed or not.
Your view of some benign over arching power power is as simple and childish as thinking that central planning is better than people deciding how they want to spend their own money and time.
Are you a useful idiot or an evil communist: which is it?
They may look like idiots to you, but then to you people speaking with an accent probably look smart to you, too.
Use your brain, a little! Just a little!
Jack London| 5.17.11 @ 11:38AM
Are you on some kind of medication? The idea of net neutrality is to keep the net free and open, and in this camp are people like Tim Berners-Lee, who, er, invented the web. Rather him than some addle-brained McNut like you - I think you should go to Iran or somewhere where you can experience what it's like to shut down choice.
Pecos Pete| 5.17.11 @ 12:16PM
Jack: I thought Al "the world is ending" Gore invented the Internet. Well, he said he did and I know you believe him. Right?
And if you think "net neutrality is to keep the net free and open" then I have some nice lake front property for sale at White Sands, New Mexico.
Occam's Tool| 5.19.11 @ 2:21AM
I never got to the "Blue Hole," Pecos. Is it worth going to?
Occam's Tool| 5.17.11 @ 3:27PM
Jack London was a rampaging socialist, who also wrote a fascinating group of stories about plagues killing mankind, as well as the weakest of the famous dystopias. Nobody quotes "The Iron Heel," unlike the much more realistic "1984."
London should have stuck to sea stories and Alaskan stories. He was happy to take the capitalist money, though.
Jack London| 5.17.11 @ 10:40PM
I support the president because he is so much more intelligent than the rest of us, he is on a higher plane. I need his guidance to make the correct life choices. Anyone who believes they can function without the government needs to be placed in some sort of special camp.
victor| 5.18.11 @ 3:07AM
Jack London:
"he is on a higher plane."
And better for us if it should never land, eh?
Speaking of planes, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner were on a plane and it developed engine problems and crashed in the Rockies. There were no survivors.
Who was saved?
The American People!
Occam's Tool| 5.19.11 @ 2:22AM
This is you, right, Jack? I mean, no one is spoofing you?
Oh my goodness, you have fallen victim to "The Unparalleled Invasion." Be careful of "The Iron heel."
Tjeff101| 5.19.11 @ 8:36AM
LOL, that is a bizarre statement. Alright quit joking around Jack.
voted against carter| 5.17.11 @ 12:07PM
"Net Neutrality" never was about neutrality at all. It HAS always been about NET CONTROL by the Odumba Administration. PERIOD.
FUN- Du- MENTALY change America.
And the Progressive School system is ALMOST completed that task.
Nunya| 5.17.11 @ 2:04PM
Ms. Blackburn, thank you for the article. I have a simple question: Why do we still need the FCC at this time?
It is my observation of most government bureaucracies that they need to justify their continuing existence, and the only way they can typically do that is to create a perceived need for their services. The FCC is doing exactly this by what you described in your article. Frankly, I don't know that we actually need the FCC (nor most of the other "alphabet" agencies in the government), can someone justify to me why we don't just disband them?
Richard Baker| 5.17.11 @ 3:05PM
Dan Hirsch:
Regarding Younger Soldier, it's easy to be stupid and anonymous on-line, I suppose.
Nite| 5.17.11 @ 9:52PM
Wow, another one of Obama's unconfirmed idiots wanting to control every aspect of citizen's lives. When is this jerk going to be tossed out of office? Congress needs to pass laws regarding recess appointment personnel and their powers.
suzy000| 5.17.11 @ 9:54PM
Rep. Blackburn has nailed it. But in reality, what has Obama "not" touched that his administration hasn't consumed? He just does not brush over something... he has to control it, dissect it, turn it inside out until it is no longer recognizable or worthy of value. (Taxpayers are still waiting for their GM money) This president does NOTHING in moderation.
Osamas Pajamas| 5.18.11 @ 2:42AM
Smash the FCC and by that I mean forget about the legality of it and just do it. After all, the FCC routinely acts illegally. By the way, I'm in favor of gun control. Disarm the government. Arm the people. And order a pizza. Justice is comin' to town! ~:
NJK| 5.18.11 @ 8:09PM
There is a very simple solution. Shut them down and put Julius Cesar in the unemployment line. It's very easy. Give them no money. Starve the beast. We can do that you know. If the entire country just said no more taxes from us. You're cut off. What are they going to do, kill us all. We'll just tell them we're on strike. It will be music to a liberal's ears.
NJK| 5.18.11 @ 8:12PM
Why do these people complain to us? Why don't they shut these departments down. Just defund them. Obama shuts things down all of the time. SHUT THE FCC, EPA, DEPT OF NO ENERGY, DEPT OF INDOCTRINATION, NLRB, AND PROBABLY NUMEROUS OTHERS DOWN.
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