How Many Times Has Michael “Dr. Doom” Copps Forecast an Internet Apocalypse?

by Adam Thierer on August 31, 2010

How many times can FCC Commissioner Michael Copps declare the Internet dead? Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher bombastically bellowing sermons warning of the impending End Times, Commissioner Copps has made a hobby out of declaring the Internet dead and buried unless drastic steps are taken right now to save cyberspace! The problem is, he’s being saying this for the past decade and yet, despite generally laissez-faire policy in this arena, the Internet is still very much alive and well.

His biggest beef, of course, is Net Neutrality regulation—or the current lack thereof. He fears that without such a “Mother, May I” regulatory regime in place, the whole cyber-world is heading for eternal damnation. Echoing the fears of other Internet hyper-pessimists, Copps concocts grand conspiracy stories of nefarious corporate schemers hell-bent on quashing our digital liberties and foreclosing all Internet freedom.

Way back in 2003, for example, Comm. Copps delivered a doozy of a sermon at the New America Foundation entitled, “The Beginning of the End of the Internet.” In the speech, Copps lamented that the “Internet may be dying” and only immediate action by regulators can save the day. Copps laid on the sky-is-falling rhetoric fairly thick: “I think we are teetering on a precipice . . . we could be on the cusp of inflicting terrible damage on the Internet. If we embrace closed networks, if we turn a blind eye to discrimination, if we abandon the end-to-end principle and decide to empower only a few, we will have inflicted upon one of history’s most dynamic and potentially liberating technologies shackles that make a mockery of all the good things that might have been.”

But that’s hardly the only such fire-and-brimstone sermon that Rev. Comm. Copps has delivered about the death of the Internet. [click to continue…]

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Google / Verizon Proposal May Be Important Compromise, But Regulatory Trajectory Concerns Many

by Mike Wendy on August 31, 2010

Recently, the Washington Post opined that the best way for the FCC to “regulate the Internet” was through a moderate approach, one which places limited authority in the Commission to address behavior that violates long-standing Net Neutrality practices.

The paper notes that Net Neutrality has been “a rule tacitly understood by Internet users and providers alike” for more than a decade.  It then mildly rebukes the FCC’s proposal to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers – “a move [which] would be a serious step backwards,” in their view.

Within this context, the Post sees important compromise in the Google / Verizon legislative proposal, “especially its designation of the FCC as an adjudicatory body such as the Federal Trade Commission rather than one with intrusive regulatory authority.”

We have long been concerned about the FCC’s “intrusive regulatory authority.”  One might have surmised that post-Comcast, the Agency would have gotten the proverbial “4-11” on this:  If the FCC wants to regulate the Internet, it needs to get that authority from Congress; until then, nothing doing.  But it did not.  Instead, it has threatened to do indirectly what it could not do directly.  The result is the same – i.e., regulation of the Internet.  But the means are more nefarious – i.e., a Commission un-tethered to the rule of law. [click to continue…]

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Maybe Free Press Founder McChesney Should Reconsider Dictator Chavez Endorsement

by Mike Wendy on August 24, 2010

“Aggressive unqualified political dissent is alive and well in the Venezuelan mainstream media, in a manner few other democratic nations have ever known, including our own.”  So wrote Free Press Founder, neo-Marxist Robert McChesney, in June 2007.

Maybe he should reconsider.

In yesterday’s New York Times, the paper reports of Venezuela’s out-of-control murder rate, which has become an embarrassing national assembly election issue for the Venezuelan strongman, President Hugo Chavez.  Since Chavez was elected in 1998, the murder rate has ballooned nearly 400%, up from 4,550 then to an astonishingly sad 16,047 in 2009.  Consequently, Venezuela is more dangerous to live in than in a war-torn country like Iraq, which in 2009 had “only” 4,600 civilian deaths from violence.   

But what really gets under Chavez’s skin is not so much the murder rate itself.  Rather, it was the reporting on it. 

One picture in particular, published on the front page of an opposition newspaper, El Nacional, showed a gory scene at a Caracas morgue, littered with dead bodies from days of violence in the city.  Outraged, Chavez’s “12th Tribunal of Caracas” quickly banned the gruesome pictures, stating “(the print media) should abstain from publishing violent, bloody or grotesque images, whether of crime or not, that in one way or another threaten the moral and psychological state of children.” 

It’s all about the children (where have we seen that before?).  Not. 

According to this Reuters report, the Chavez government was upset because it felt the reporting “was part of campaign against President Hugo Chavez’s Socialist Party ahead of Sept. 26 legislative polls.”  Censorship seemed like a natural way to abate that uncomfortable criticism.

It’s part of the socialist tool bag, you see.  Notes Mary Anastasia O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal, “[Chavez] is capable of depriving his opponents of property rights, due process and free speech, and with this power he has effectively starved and gagged most dissent.  Some of his adversaries are in prison; many have been disqualified from running for office.”

What this starkly illustrates is that socialist dystopias like Venezuela, through their restrictions on economic freedoms, more often than not don’t stop there.  They end up profoundly affecting / perverting the civil liberties of all in order to further the socialist dreams of the few, the elite.  Sadly, in seeking to make outcomes “more fair” (i.e., flat), they crush civil liberties and the human will on the way.  

The Machesney’s of the world hail dictators like Chavez because, in their myopic view, they’re leading their people to a “truly just society.” Here in America, they urge policymakers to hog-tie U.S. media and infrastructure companies with Lilliputian rules, regulations and taxes so that public / government media will someday supplant “evil” corporate organizations and “better serve” Americans with approved “digital greens” and other needed information for self-governance. 

But media reform is small potatoes.  McChesney and his associates have higher aspirations.  Writes McChesney, “Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself.” 

It’s “reform” that even Hugo Chavez would be proud of – of course, the “starved and gagged most dissent” part can be added later when need be.

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Governments Privatizing Public Utilities Even As Some Want to Convert Internet Into One

by Adam Thierer on August 23, 2010

Two articles of interest in today’s Wall Street Journal with indirect impact on the debate over the future of Internet policy. First, there’s a front-page story (“Facing Budget Gaps, Cities Sell Parking, Airports, Zoo“) documenting how many cities are privatizing various services — including some considered “public utilities” — in order to help balance budgets. The article worries about “fire-sale” prices and the loss of long-term revenue because of the privatizations. But the author correctly notes that the more important rationale for privatization is that, “In many cases, the private takeover of government-controlled industry or services can result in more efficient and profitable operations.” Moreover, any concern about “fire-sale” prices and long-term revenue losses have to be stacked again the massive inefficiencies / costs associated with ongoing government management of resources /networks.

Of course, what’s so ironic about this latest privatization wave is that it comes at a time when some regulatory activists are clamoring for more regulation of the Internet and calling for broadband to be converted into a plain-vanilla public utility. For example, Free Press founder Robert McChesney has argued that “What we want to have in the U.S. and in every society is an Internet that is not private property, but a public utility.” That certainly doesn’t seem wise in light of the track record of past experiments with government-owned or regulated utilities. And the fact that we are talking about something as complex and fast-moving as the Internet and digital networks makes the task even more daunting.

Government mismanagement of complex technology projects was on display in a second article in today’s Journal (“U.S. Reviews Tech Spending.”) Amy Schatz notes that “Obama administration officials are considering overhauling 26 troubled federal technology projects valued at as much as $30 billion as part of a broader effort by White House budget officials to cut spending. Projects on the list are either over budget, haven’t worked as expected or both, say Office of Management and Budget officials.” I’m pleased to hear that the Administration is taking steps to rectify such waste and mismanagement, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is the same government that the Free Press folks want to run the Internet. Not smart.

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Net Neutrality, the Fake First Amendment – the Mob unto Free Speech

August 23, 2010

Make no mistake about it.  Al Franken’s Net Neutrality is a fake First Amendment, not the real one.  The real one bars our government from coercing private speech.  His is about controlling it, the complete opposite of that Right. Let me explain.  Al Franken laments that the biggest First Amendment issue of our time is [...]

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To Congress or FCC for Net Neutrality – Principles Do Not Constrain Free Press

August 19, 2010

Just four years ago the radical group Free Press wanted Congress to be involved in the Net Neutrality debate.  But since then, things have changed.  Realizing that they now have a stacked FCC – one which seems inclined to agree with much of their post-corporate viewpoints – well, who needs Congress anyway?  It only interferes.  [...]

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The Internet Cannot Be Corralled – Thank Goodness Google & Verizon Are Still Allowed to Work with Each Other

August 19, 2010

The Free Press is all exercised about the Google / Verizon proposal, which will, in its own paranoid estimation, amount to a “massive corporate takeover of the Internet.” (I can hear the black, corporate helicopters now, swooping down over the, er, entire Internet, absconding with the whole kit and caboodle.  Down to the last router.  [...]

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Net Neutrality, Banned Business Models & Price Controls

August 14, 2010

I continue to be mystified by the contention of some Net neutrality advocates that it is not a form of economic regulation. The reality, of course, is that Net neutrality would ban business models and necessitate price controls. If that ain’t regulation, I don’t know what is. As Robert Litan and Hal Singer note in [...]

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The Revolution Will Be Webcast – Professional Left to Descend on Google for Its Net Neturality Apostasy

August 13, 2010

The revolution will be webcast, as the Professional Left – led by Free Press and MoveOn.org (and aided and abetted by the fabulously wealthy, and stealthy, Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC) protest their dislike of the Google / Verizon Net Neutrality proposal at Google’s Bay Area corporate campus this morning. Wow.  This is a national [...]

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“Public Interest” Groups Revealed for Their True Selves – Hardcore, Entrenched Lobbyists

August 12, 2010

 The “public interest” lobby makes itself out to be the tireless, country-poor underdog for the downtrodden consumer.  But don’t be fooled.  In the technology space, three such groups – Public Knowledge, Media Access Project and Free Press – have few rivals.  Their humble appearance belies their take-no-prisoners, oftentimes shameless, below-the-belt approach to public policy formation [...]

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