Who’d have thought that Verizon has a sense of humor?
The giant internet and telephone service provider issued a press release on the FCC’s seizure of the heretofore dynamic internet produced on a 1930s typewriter. No, Verizon wasn't being retro just for fun: the old typewriter dates to the same era as the outmoded regulatory law on which the FCC erected the seizure of the internet, which will mean that the internet is now regulated like a public utility. Originally, the press release was issued in Morse Code.
Verizon’s statement read:
“The FCC’s move is especially regrettable because it is wholly unnecessary. The FCC had targeted tools available to preserve an open Internet, but instead chose to use this order as an excuse to adopt 300-plus pages of broad and open-ended regulatory arcana that will have unintended negative consequences for consumers and various parts of the Internet ecosystem for years to come,” Verizon said.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, an Obama appointee, spearheaded this move to put government in control of one more aspect of our lives.
The Washington Post reported on the FCC vote this way:
The Federal Communications Commission for the first time classified Internet providers as public utilities Thursday, a landmark vote that officials said will prevent cable and telecommunications companies from controlling what people see on the Web.
The move, approved 3 to 2 along party lines, was part of a sweeping set of new “net neutrality” rules aimed at banning providers of high-speed Internet access such as Verizon and Time Warner Cable from blocking Web sites they don’t like or auctioning off faster traffic speeds to the highest bidders.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler argued that the agency needed to take a dramatic step to preserve a “fast, fair and open Internet.” Broadband Internet providers will now face some of the same heavy regulations that the federal government imposes on telephone companies.
“The Internet has replaced the functions of the telephone,” Wheeler said during the commission vote. “The Internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules.”
What Wheeler was saying is simply that the internet is too big and too important not to be regulated by the government. This regulation will make the internet more expensive for average users. It will provide no benefits for the everyday person.
Net neutrality, far from being neutral, will empower government and bureaucracy, and the power grab comes at a time when the president’s disastrous health care reform has shown most Americans—but not those working for the Obama administration—how incompetent and cumbersome government is.
The FCC vote will trigger lawsuits and protests and so this is not over. In fact, given Mr. Wheeler’s refusal to share the proposal with the public until after the vote, you can say that this is just the beginning of a new phase.