74 Democrats say no to FCC reclassification efforts
74 Democrats (in additional to 34 Republican senators) have sent a letter to FCC chairman Genochowski telling him to stop his efforts to reclassify broadband under Title II. This is actually two more Democrats than the 72 that previously asked chairman Genochowski to back off on his proposed Net Neutrality rules.
If the majority of Republicans and a significant portion of Democrats oppose the FCC’s Net Neutrality proposal, which is actually a watered down version of the House Net Neutrality proposal that went no where, it’s clear that there is no congressional mandate for Net Neutrality. The courts gives deference to the FCC based on powers that were clearly granted by congress and it doesn’t even except “policy statements” as a substitute because it would allow a regulatory agency to effectively create new laws. In this case, not only did the Congress not authorize the FCC to enact new far reaching regulations on the Internet but it is opposed to them.
The fact is that no ISPs are clamoring to flout the FCC and become public enemy number one on the Internet despite the DC Circuit ruling against the FCC. There is nothing standing in the way of the FCC to implement their national broadband plan and the courts have nothing to say about it unless someone brings a lawsuit against the FCC. Nothing in the national broadband plan indicates that it is a lawsuit magnet so there really is no problem that anyone can see.
The FCC’s proposed Net Neutrality rules will be problematic but that is because it defines “discrimination” in a way that violates accepted definitions of discrimination found in “economic literature and established communications jurisprudence”. By precluding broadband providers from offering enhanced or prioritized network access to content providers, it is engaging in industry favoritism. These over prescriptive rules will cause significant economic harm to the broadband providers and it will not be made up by any potential gains in other Internet industries. This is why congress opposes the FCC and the FCC should not act without a congressional mandate much less operate against the wishes of congress.
74 represents only 29% of the Democrats in the House. That leaves 180 (71%) that either have no opinion, or support the FCC. The 34 Senate Republicans is a given, they are anti-regulation under all circumstances and have opposed virtually everything the FCC has done or will do simply to obstruct business.
How much do you want to bet a majority of those House Democrats are Blue Dogs? Even a super majority?
Perhaps, but this letter has nothing to do with that. These people essentially oppose all regulation out of principle. They always think regulation will cost jobs.
Let the FCC do what it wants. If they are in the wrong, there will be no shortage of billion dollar corporations ready and waiting to challenge it in court.
The legal opinion that you reference on the economic definition of “discrimination” treats internet “content providers” as though they were commodities, like apples and oranges. In fact they are sources of information and ideas, and they are rapidly becoming the preferred medium in which public opinion is expressed. They are a modern form of the postal system, and the postal system is rapidly going out of business because of it. Restricting or charging for access to certain content providers is censorship and acts as a blatant violation of the right to free speech.
On the other hand, as industry lawyers will no doubt be quick to argue, private corporations are not bound by the Bill of Rights, nor do they have any legal compulsion to protect quaint notions like civil liberties. If they provide the venue for communication in the modern world, the rights of the public have no legal protections because these are not institutions of the Federal Government, they are multinational corporations. Ain’t privatization grand?
Once large ISPs are reasonably certain that no serious political roadblocks will be thrown in their way, they’ll start providing all sorts of tiered access schemes that will effectively prevent large parts of the country and the world from accessing certain types of information, while profiting heavily from their own artificial market restrictions, and they will do it in the name of providing “better service” to their subscribers. They won’t need to conspire with each other to do it either, it will just be good business sense. It may well be the only way for some of them to survive during hard economic times.
Regulatory bodies exist to protect the public from such blatant abuses of power, so regardless of what legal precedent in other markets may have to say on the matter, I feel that the FCC is acting properly under its obligations to protect the consumer from abusive communication practices.
Richard Bell: “The legal opinion that you reference on the economic definition of “discrimination” treats internet “content providers” as though they were commodities”
You misread Richard. George Ford’s paper wasn’t discussing content providers. It discussed discrimination of various grades of Internet service (which are commodities) that were not comparable and therefore justified differentiated pricing.
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