The regulatory winds are shifting in the direction of deregulation, according to the Free State Foundation, which today released a paper that examines recent court decisions both for and against the cable industry. It concluded that the rapid expansion of video competition will spur the emergence of a “deregulatory First Amendment.”

It’s a busy day on the broadband beat. In addition to National Journal’s event on the subject, the Technology Policy Institute and Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy invited experts from industry, academia and government to the National Press Club to share their reaction to the plan.

National Journal is hosting a discussion about the future of broadband in America after the FCC last week released its national broadband plan. The panelists, including two members of Congress, also will tackle issues such as network neutrality and cyber security. Get live updates from the event here.

The next time you hear the FCC, the FTC and their allies in the “media reform” movement waxing eloquent about how government subsidies can save journalism and thus save democracy, remember the conflict of interest now plaguing the San Francisco Public Press.

The whole repressive world is watching to see whether the United States adopts network neutrality as law in the land of liberty, and then they will use it as an excuse to further curtail Internet freedom in their own countries. That’s the message between the diplomatic lines that a top State Department information policy official uttered this week.

If the FCC interprets the national broadband plan it sent to Congress today as an invitation to impose heavy burdens on the Internet, it will be against the better judgment of Commissioners Robert McDowell and Meredith Attwell Baker. They reminded the commission that the Internet has reshaped American business and society precisely because it has been allowed to thrive without interference from the government.

If the FCC doesn’t want the Internet to become a vast wasteland for “Gilligan’s Island” reruns, it had better start working with broadband providers now to reserve bandwidth for the transformative applications of the future. So said Internet entrepreneur Mark Cuban. He wants the Internet to be “a platform for amazing” and said that won’t happen if all of the video content now on TV is hogging Internet bandwidth.

The FCC today paved the way for Tuesday’s release of a national broadband plan by publicizing the executive summary for the plan. The good news is that aggressive regulatory burdens do not appear to be in the offing; the bad news is that the FCC did not rule out future intervention.

The FCC is set to deliver its national broadband plan to Congress on Wednesday, and YouTube will be interviewing Chairman Julius Genachowski about the plan and other topics a day before its release. Digital Society submitted a question on intellectual property enforcement in the digital economy.

Advocates of Internet regulation dream of a government-run utopia, but consumers have seen the yellow brick road on the other side of telecommunications law and are flocking to it. Dorothy wanted to go home after her fantastical journey through the “Wizard of Oz.” Information-age consumers have no interest in traveling back in time to the realm of telecom stagnation.