Net Neutrality and the FCC

Going through the box of sharpest pencils you won’t find my name listed; this I admit up front when entering a discussion on who should control the internet along with the nuts and bolts of what constitutes a utility, public speech and the 1st Amendment. The talk shows were abuzz with today’s news out of Washington, FCC decision on network neutrality overturned by U.S. appeals court .


“A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a Federal Communications Commission ruling that forced cable giant Comcast Corp. to offer equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing through its network.


The decision strikes at the FCC's ability to force so-called network neutrality on telecommunications companies.”


I did a Google search on Net Neutrality, keeping in mind Google’s favored results tend to lean to the left on many issues, which took me to Wikipedia’s explanation of Net Neutrality . It didn’t surprise me to find Google listed as a proponent of forced Net Neutrality through efforts of the FCC. After reading the definition, FCC’s broadband policy statement and development of concept I still wasn’t sure what I’d been given.


I decided to use an old crutch, one that has served well over the years; look who is for or against a given policy, folks with a track record that I might gain a litmus test based on past performance. You can gain valuable insight regarding basics when you see who lines up on each side of the fence.


“In 2003 Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, published and popularized a proposal for a net neutrality rule, in his paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination.”


I did some more looking into Tim Wu; the name sounded familiar. Wu is the chair of media reform group Free Press, founded by Robert McChesney. These names kept bouncing around in my head; oh, that’s right, these are folks who advise the Obama administration regarding the free market system and how to dismantle it “brick by brick”.


There were some noted internet engineers lending their opposition to Net Neutrality, to include Robert Pepper former FCC chief of policy development. You get to be “former FCC chief of policy development” when you don’t go along with the Obama administration’s Marxist take over of all aspects of freedom and liberty; just a guess on my part.


“Opposition also comes from think tanks such as the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The Goldwater Institute and Americans for Tax Reform have also suggested that this principle may violate the First Amendment.”


The organizations who are against the FCC’s implementation of Net Neutrality happen to hold conservative pro constitutional views while those in favor of Net Neutrality have done their best to avoid mentioning the possibility of violating the 1st Amendment or whether the federal government has any business dictating how management of private enterprise operate in the free market system.


I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box; but it would seem Net Neutrality and the FCC’s intent is to have government take an ever increasing role in manipulating the use of the internet and those who have invested capital in the free market system to produce a product or service. Net Neutrality and the FCC’s design would inhibit the free market system and deny investors profit motives required to keep such a system healthy; no different than health care reform pushed through by the Obama administration. Each move taken under “Hope and Change”, all in the name of protecting the very citizens they are enslaving, should be carefully examined as the trend indicates a regular over stepping of constitutional restrictions placed on government.


This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal , a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.