So we already had the coming FCC battle over Verizon’s attempts to acquire the spectrum it needs, the Senate fight over ‘cybersecurity,’ and a possible Congressional fight over Internet sales taxation. But now there’s a new issue to keep track of: the FTC is taking it upon itself to regulate the Internet on the grounds of protecting privacy. Jim Harper seems thinks it’s nothing new, but under the Obama administration, I’m more concerned. Still Adam Thierer also says it could have been worse, though, but also mentions those dirty words ‘personal responsibility.’ Can’t have that.
Democrats are eager to empower the Obama administration, of course. That’s why we need a Republican Senate to go with a Republican House.
They’re not calling it Net Neutrality now that it’s all about restricting choice and empowering government to regulate the Internet, but the George Soros-funded Public Knowledge is called for Net Neut action against Comcast. On the Open Internet, your choices of Internet service are closed to what government decides you are allowed to have.
More FCC: the push continues for the FCC to continue to be a spectrum roadblock against Verizon, contrary to every goal of universal access it claims to have. That’s because universal access is supposed to be code for subsidies, not actual pro-growth, pro-investment policies that allow market signals to guide spectrum to the more efficient uses.
Naturally the White House opposes FCC reform which would return power back to legislators, not regulators. Can’t have that. Too much respect for the Constitution, which is over 100 years old.
I’ve actually been reading up on export controls lately, so when I see this seemingly-harmless plan to control export of censorship technology to unfree countries, I question whether it’s a good idea. We already have many cabinet-level departments doing export controls, plus a new directorate Obama created in 2010 which complicated the situation further. We might need simplification before we add more complication.
Apple and its publisher allies are probably about to get smacked hard as the agency pricing scandal comes out, where Amazon was pressured into taking the deal Apple wrote.
Support for the broad-based GOP alternative cybersecurity bill, SECURE IP, grows with NAM praising the proposal. SECURE IT’s light touch, and information sharing approach is much better than the massive power grab of the Lieberman-Collins bill.