FCC approves Internet-regulation plan

The Democrat majority on the Federal Communications Commission adopted sweeping new rules Thursday for the Internet that critics charge were pushed forward by pressure from President Obama and now most certainly will face legal challenges as well as possible intervention from a Congress unhappy with the takeover of yet another part of America's economy.

The controversy over the move and the politics that influenced it has been building for months. The last time such rules were initiated, the courts intervened and threw them out.

The Washington Examiner reported a legal challenge is expected to develop again. The FCC vote was 3-2, with the Democrats supporting the rules and Republicans opposing.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told the newspaper he will bring forward a "legislative solution" to what the Democrat majority on the FCC board adopted.

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"One way or another, I am committed to moving a legislative solution, preferably bipartisan, to stop monopoly era phone regulations that harm Internet consumers and innovation," he said.

The Internet as it existed until now with nominal government bureaucratic oversight has allowed the creation of billion-dollar companies like Google and Facebook and lets consumers even in remote parts of the landscape shop, watch videos and connect with others more or less instantly.

Just about anyone can set up a website, and it's one of the few places in America where the sky's the limit. Literally.

That, however, apparently was not good enough for Obama, with the FCC board adopting some 322 pages of rules to govern Web services. The rules were kept secret until the vote.

L. Gordon Crovitz at the Wall Street Journal said the so-called "net neutrality" campaign could be called "Obamacare for the Internet," but that would be "unfair to Obamacare."

Officials say the changes are based on a 1934 utility regulating plan, and unless Congress or the courts block the rules, "it will be the end of the Internet as we know it," Crovitz wrote.

Fox said the plan, "on it surface," is to stop service providers from creating paid "fast lanes" for rich interests.

"But the rules, more broadly, would put the Internet in the same regulatory camp as the telephone by classifying it like a public utility, meaning they'd have to act in the 'public interest' when providing a mobile connection to your home or phone."

That, critics charge, means the administration eventually could become involved in determining what is allowed, based on the "public interest" idea.

Fox reported Republican commissioner Ajit Pai is warning of the new "government control of the Internet."

It also were his comments that linked Obama's influence to the decision.

He had said the FCC was reversing course from previous positions because "President Obama told us to do so."

Pai also warned the plan "opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes. Read my lips: More new taxes are coming. It's just a matter of when."

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said in a Breitbart report that things will deteriorate quickly.

"That's the FCC, that's the Department of Internet that we're going to get," he said.

As late as this week, there was opposition even from within the FCC board, with two commissioners asking for a delay, and Congress asking that consumers be allowed to see the rules. The Hill even reported one of the three Democrats on the five-member FEC commission was so unhappy she was asking for changes.

The changes from Mignon Clyburn would have left in place the central and most controversial component of Chairman Tom Wheeler's rules, the Hill said, "the notion that broadband Internet service should be reclassified."

USA Today reported Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, also questioned whether the FCC has been "independent, fair and transparent" in making the new rules.

His letter to the FCC noted the process "was conducted without using many of the tools at the chairman's disposal to ensure transparency and public review."

The premise behind "net neutrality" is that the Web is a mess and large corporations are abusing consumers, manipulating their data, putting their Web needs behind those who pay more. The only solution, the thinking goes, is for the government to take control.

Supporters of the regulations are hard to find, but the far-left American Civil Liberties Union posted a list of the "abuses" it has found.

For example, it cited AT&T's "jamming" of a rock star's political protest, Comcast's "throttling" of online file-sharing, work by Verizon to cut off a program containing what it considered "unsavory" content and others.

But even the ACLU site noted that AT&T said its decision was a mistake and it would work to fix it, Comcast's fight continues in federal courts and Verizon reversed its censorship "after widespread public outrage."

The solutions in each case included public pressure.

The organization said "net neutrality" is just applying age-old rules regarding common resources, like canal systems, railroads, public highways and telephone and telephone networks, to the Web.

But Pai and Lee Goodman, two of the FCC commissioners, had written in Politico that the freedom that exists on the Internet right now "has given the American people unprecedented access to information and an amazing array of opportunities to speak, debate and connect with one another."

The real reason for the proposed rules, they wrote, is the perception on the part of some that freedom is "a vacuum in need of government control."

They warn it will start with regulation of rates for access.

"It will institutionalize innovation by permission – giving advisory opinions on prospective business plans or practices (and companies will ask before innovating for fear of what will happen if they don't)."

Online traffic will have to handled in prescribed manners, and trial lawyers will cash in with class-action lawsuits over the rules, they said.

They continued: "The purpose is control for control's sake. Digital dysfunction must be conjured into being to justify a public-sector power grab. Aside from being a bad deal for everyone who relies on the Internet, this Beltway-centric plan also distracts the FCC from what it should be focusing on: increasing broadband competition and giving consumers better broadband choices."

For examples of what government's micromanagement of the Internet might look like, some analysts said, people should look at Amtrak and the U.S. Postal Service.

At Techzone360, John Wind wrote: "The reason there are so many successful Internet companies such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc., is that they started with a blank slate and created a new and better way to create and deliver products and services."

He pointedly noted: "They didn't try to amend an 80-year-old FCC law. They had a fresh start."

He explained that the providers must be able to survive financially to have an effective Internet.

Regulated fees will come, the NSA will be watching and there will be taxation "at every level," he summarized.

"The FCC and net neutrality is not the right answer. Let's get it right this time," he said.

Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano expects the courts to dash the Obama administration's hopes and plans anyway.

In an interview conducted for WND by Radio America's Greg Corombos, he said: "People don't know the danger that is coming. The danger that is coming is a gaggle of bureaucrats here – three Democrats and two Republicans, the Republicans will probably dissent – claiming they have the power to regulate the Internet."

He said Congress has passed no statute authorizing new government controls on the Internet, and the First Amendment clearly states that neither Congress nor any government agency it created can make a law restricting the freedom of speech.

"They claim that the purpose of their regulation is to prevent the Internet from affording priority and faster service to certain preferred users," Napolitano explained. "Would we all like to have fast service? Yes. Do we all know how to get fast service? Yes, we do. Might that cost us something? Yes, it might, but at the present time it is free from government regulation."

He said the actual plan, however, is far different.

"If the government regulates the Internet and tells providers how fast they can move information, we will soon see the government regulating the cost of the Internet and we will eventually, just like with broadcast television, see the government regulating the content of the Internet," Napolitano said.