FCC Commissioner McDowell, who was opposed to the reprimand against Comcast for their efforts to mess with BitTorrent traffic on their network, warns us that that may be the first step toward bringing the Fairness Doctrine to the Internet. As it currently stands, I think this is largely just partisan rhetoric on his part because the courts have not, to my knowledge, backed the FCC's reprimand of Comcast. This is important because the consensus seems to be that the FCC did not have the authority to reprimand Comcast, and if the courts uphold that line of thought, then there is not much to worry about from the FCC unless Congress gets in on the act.
It's true that a future administration and Congress might make things difficult for free speech online, but that's a constant threat for all liberties. Given where they stand, it just does not seem obvious to me that the FCC is much of a threat at present because of the lack of authority that they have under the law to make the sort of decisions that McDowell thinks they may make in the future.
It's true that a future administration and Congress might make things difficult for free speech online, but that's a constant threat for all liberties. Given where they stand, it just does not seem obvious to me that the FCC is much of a threat at present because of the lack of authority that they have under the law to make the sort of decisions that McDowell thinks they may make in the future.
but that's a constant threat for all liberties.
Exactly correct, but I suspect than when* they do it, it will not turn out to be terribly unpopular.
Especially if there is some kind of "emergency" going on...
* Yes, when.
I think there is a different perception of radio and TV with a lot of people. They're perceived as something that is limited to entrenched interests, whereas with the Internet anyone can buy more bandwidth; all that needs to happen, worst case scenario, is for the telecom to lay more line, which it'll happily do for a paying customer.