Obama's regs will make Internet slow as in Europe, warn FCC, FEC commissioners
Obama's regs will make Internet slow as in Europe, warn
FCC, FEC commissioners
By Paul Bedard |
February 23, 2015 | 2:14 pm
As the Federal Communications Commission and Federal
Election Commission toy with regulating aspects of the Internet, critics on
those agencies are warning that speed and freedom of speech are in jeopardy.
In a joint column, Federal Communications Commission
member Ajit Pai and Federal Election Commission member Lee Goodman, leveled the
boom on the Obama-favored regulations, essentially charging that it will muck
up the freedom the nation has come to expect from the Internet.
In one key passage of the column published in Politico,
the duo wrote Monday that heavy-handed FCC regulations like those imposed in
Europe will significantly slow down Internet speech.
“These Internet regulations will deter broadband
deployment, depress network investment and slow broadband speeds. How do we
know? Compare Europe, which has long had utility-style regulations, with the United
States, which has embraced a light-touch regulatory model. Broadband speeds in
the United States, both wired and wireless, are significantly faster than those
in Europe. Broadband investment in the United States is several multiples that
of Europe. And broadband’s reach is much wider in the United States, despite
its much lower population density,” the two wrote.
They also joined to warn about the Democrat-chaired
Federal Election Commission eyeing regulation of political speech on the
Internet.
Noting recent votes on the issue that ended in a
political deadlock, the two wrote, “these close votes and the risk of
idiosyncratic case-by-case enforcement inevitably discourage citizens and
groups from speaking freely online about politics.”
Bottom line, they warned: “Internet freedom works. It is
difficult to imagine where we would be today had the government micromanaged
the Internet for the past two decades as it does Amtrak and the U.S. Postal
Service. Neither of us wants to find out where the Internet will be two decades
from now if the federal government tightens its regulatory grip. We don’t need
to shift control of the Internet to bureaucracies in Washington. Let’s leave the
power where it belongs — with the American people. When it comes to Americans’
ability to access online content or offer political speech online, there isn’t
anything broken for the government to “fix.” To paraphrase President Ronald
Reagan, Internet regulation isn’t the solution to a problem. Internet
regulation is the problem.”
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