Oh Great – FCC to Enforce Net Neutrality

On the face of it ‘net neutrality’ doesn’t sound all that bad. Neutrality on the net… keeping the internet free… keeping big corporations from trampling the rights of the little people. Nothing wrong with that.

The Hill reports that Obama’s FCC will enforce net neutrality.

The Obama administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to keep the Internet free of increased user fees based on heavy Web traffic and slow downloads.  

Julius Genachowski, the FCC chairman, told The Hill that his agency will support “net neutrality” and go after anyone who violates its tenets.

“One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles,” Genachowski said when asked what he could do in his position to keep the Internet fair, free and open to all Americans.

The statement by Genachowski comes as the commission remains locked in litigation with Comcast. The cable provider is appealing a court decision by challenging the FCC’s authority to penalize the company for limiting Web traffic to its consumers.

That doesn’t sound so bad, right? I was about to close out the window when something started nagging at me. I did a google search and found a bunch of pro-Obama stories. I thought I’d search my own site and found this, which directed me to this article from the Business and Media Institute from a year ago. Then FCC Commissioner, Robert McDowell, sounded the alarm that net neutrality could be used to institute a Fairness Doctrine for the internet.

The commissioner, a 2006 President Bush appointee, told the Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?”

Well, that was 2008 and this is 2009, so I tweaked my search terms and came across this post at Newsbusters. It was noted that progressives were calling on the FCC to “lock in a progressive advantage in Internet communications, information sharing, and Netroots mobilizing.” NB’s Seton Motley had this to say:

[HuffPo's Joseph] Palermo so loathes the free market and the First Amendment free speech rights of his opponents that he wants to rig the rules to establish a permanent progressive advantage in all things media — even in areas where he admits his side already has the lead.

The Censorship Doctrine isn’t one particular regulatory beast, it is a state of mind. One that compels liberals — in fact makes them feel entitled — to silence the opposition by any means necessary.

All in the interest of “neutrality” and “fairness,” of course.

I also remembered this Andrew Klavan video that I posted back in April. Klavan explains how the left wants us to “Shut up!”

In summary, I’d say the news of enforcement of net neutrality is not something we should celebrate.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.