Hitting Home on Net Neutrality?

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced last week that the Commission was rolling back Obama era regulations on Net Neutrality, which sought to expand the reach of the 1934 Federal Communications Act to the Internet towards an end of making the it a regulated media.  Net Neutrality critics, like Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), liken it as Obamacare for the Internet which promise to lower price and improve delivery but do the opposite and make Uncle Sam the undisputed middle man.

Proponents of Net Neutrality, which were protesting a repeal in May at FCC Headquarters moved their protests to Chairman Pai's suburban Virginia home and used signs which proclaimed "Dad murdered democracy in cold blood."

Such an in-your-face political protest calls to mind the 2012 stunt in which the SEIU used 14 buses to move 500 protesters on a bank executive's front lawn in suburban Maryland to denounce bank foreclosures.  This tactic seems straight out of Saul Alinky's Rules for Radicals (1971) playbook.

The Net Neutrality home invasion comes at the same time that Keith Olbermann is stepping down from giving the GQ daily podcasts for "The Resistance".

It is worth contemplating if this mark a divergence in tactics amongst Leftists, or if more entrenched progressives are getting out of activism while the getting is good.

Nonetheless, it is reprehensible to harass public officials living in private residences about policy disputes. Mob mentality following people home discourages civic minded civilians from serving a stint in office and needlessly involves innocent family members.

Net Neutrality may have legitimate public policy merits, but the fascistic manner which these progressive activists pursued their policy wins neither hearts nor minds. 

Ajit Pai on Federal Weed Whacking

Ajit Pai, who is poised to be named Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission by President Trump, will take a more free market approach to the FCC than his predecssor Tom Wheeler. 


This would involve whacking away at the unauthorized expansion of FCC regulatory authority, such as regulating the Internet through the guise of Net Neutrality.  Such a move, however, will be controversial, especially with those who favor the bureaucratic nanny state.

FCC Commissioner Scathes Net Neutrality Politics

Ajit Pai, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission, has become outspoken in his objections to the political imposition of Net Neutrality by what is supposed to be an independent Federal commission.

Commissioner Pai noted that: “It’s no wonder that net neutrality proponents are already bragging that it will turn the FCC into the “Department of the Internet. For that reason, if you like dealing with the IRS, you are going to love the President’s plan." 

Many progressives have rallied around the concept of Net Neutrality thinking that it is hurting corporations and encouraging competition.  What Commissioner Pai points out is that applying Title II regulation to the internet, which was designed for railroads and Ma Bell, will stifle competition and favor behemoth businesses because of the regulatory burdens.

Congressional critics such as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) have likened Net Neutrality as being Obamacare for the Internet, regulations sold to lower prices and improve delivery but which in reality do the opposite while making Uncle Sam the undisputed middle man.

Another alarming feature of such broad regulation by the FCC is the relative obscurity in which the rules are being cobbled together.  President Obama pressured the FCC in November 2014 about Net Neutrality.  Chairman Tom Wheeler, who had been a big Obama fundraiser, is complying but promises to make some changes in Title II to make it better.  Oh, so a regulatory schemata which was drawn up in 1934 can be tweaked to apply to the internet age.  Right. FCC Commissioner Mike O'Reilly warned the public about the dangers of forbearance as applied to Title II Common Carriers. 

There is the larger issue, however, about whether Congress ceded its legislative mantle to the FCC to strictly regulate the internet. If we hold fast to living in a constitutional democratic Republic, shouldn't our elected representatives, not bureaucrats who are unaccountable to the people (or for that matter Men in Black) be crafting such momentous law?

UPDATE 01/23/2017  President Trump is poised to name Ajit Pai as Chairman of the FCC, replacing Democrat activist FCC Chair Tom Wheeler.  Pai has been a critic of the Commission's impetus to impose net neutrality and thereby expand the FCC's role into regulating the Internet.