Home > posts > REPORTS: Obama’s FCC Will Revert to New Deal-Era Laws to Impose “Net Neutrality”
May 6th, 2010 8:11 am
REPORTS: Obama’s FCC Will Revert to New Deal-Era Laws to Impose “Net Neutrality”
Posted by Print

Just last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held unanimously that Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) doesn’t possess authority to nationalize the Internet via so-called “Net Neutrality.” And in the court of public opinion, the American electorate opposes this destructive scheme to dictate Internet traffic flow by a 2-to-1 margin.

So how is the hyper-politicized FCC choosing to respond?  By reverting to decades-old New Deal-era laws to shoehorn the Internet into statutes drafted for 1930s landline telephones. Since the advent of the Internet era in 1996, Congress, the courts and the FCC have rightfully designated the Internet an “information service,” and therefore subject to different rules than archaic early telephone lines.

But according to news reports, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce today his reckless “damn the torpedoes” approach.  Just as Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid reverted to every available scheme to impose ObamaCare on an unwilling public, the FCC will apparently adopt the same approach to federalize Internet service, one of the few sectors that has maintained its dynamism during the economic downturn.  With its humiliating Court of Appeals defeat to one side and looming November elections on the other, yet another Obama Administration arm thus prefers hyperpartisanship over compromise and reasonability.

As always, American consumers and our economy will pay the price for this component of the Obama Agenda, since it will stifle the private investment and broadband buildout necessary to keep pace with ever-increasing Internet use.  Fortunately, this scheme will ultimately meet the same result handed down by the Court of Appeals last month, but only after years of costly litigation, regulatory limbo and acrimony.

Justice will prevail and we will win this battle, but it’s going to take another good fight.  The stakes are too high to relent.

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