Federal Control of Information

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 describes a nightmarish world where books are illegal because they tell a history different than what the government wants you to know.  It was the Montag's job to burn books, and he enjoyed watching them burn, until he read one.  He never questioned the government's desire to control what information the public may be exposed to.  He never questioned anything until he learned of a time when people read books, without fear.

"And then Montag's hand closed like a mouth, crushed the book with wild devotion, with an insanity of mindlessness to his chest.  Montag had done nothing.  His hand had done it all. . . his hand, with a brain of its own, with a conscience and a curiosity in each trembling finger, had turned thief."

The Federal Communication's Commission (FCC) is not authorized to even exist, when it comes to the Constitution.  In fact, it flies in the face of the First Amendment, where speech, especially political speech, is supposed to be protected, and unobstructed by the federal government.  A Natural Right, the founders believed your freedom of speech to be.  I right given to you by God.

California Senator Feinstein believes the freedom of speech to be a mere privilege.  The FCC believes your speech, and access to information, must be regulated. . . controlled. . . restricted.

The FCC's hand may not be holding a brass nozzle, spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world.  Instead, they hold a keyboard, spitting their venomous regulatory control upon the world. It is a pleasure for them to control and restrict, to control the flow of information, and to ensure that only government approved data spits across your device's screen.  They live in a swarm of fireflies, lighted screens and blinking lights, watching as the truth of history and honest government die on the vine, wither in their grasp, blowing away on a wind turned dark by their regulatory whims.

The Internet has been the Wild West, where the freedom to relay information has been relatively untouched by government hands, save for a few taps here and there.  However, the FCC is ready to change all of that, thanks to a newly invented authority (created by themselves, not constitutional amendment) to regulate the Internet under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The watchers have figured out a way to play all of the symphonies of tyranny, to blaze and burn their way through the electronic media, despite Congress's intentions, and despite the rule of law.

According to the new rule, the FCC can adopt any rule the agency can possibly think of, in order, based on their definitions, to promote broadband deployment.  Or as Judge Laurence Silberman summarized in his dissent: “Presto, we have a new statute granting the FCC virtually unlimited power to regulate the Internet.”

The FCC claimed we needed Net Neutrality to protect the web from the mean ol' broadband providers, but in the end, the truth has surfaced, and now we learn it was not to protect us from the broadband providers, but to enslave us under the iron fist of government.  Net Neutrality died, but the federal government found another way to worm its way into regulating the Internet, and controlling the flow of information.

It may seem small, right now.  Some readers believe I am claiming that a beetle is a Tyrannosaurus.  But isn't that how tyranny begins?  With a whimper?  Creeping incrementalism.  Today, just a few controls over the web for your own good.  Tomorrow, so many people will be afraid of the firemen, who never even read the websites that they burn, but instead watch mesmerized, as the flames dance, and freedom becomes a black piece of charcoal, smoldering in the past.

First, the broadband providers will fall under regulatory control.  Then the social media.  Then the bloggers.  Then you and I.

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist.  Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me." -- Quote at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Remember all of those anti-bullying and hate crime stuff that's been percolating up from the horrible depths of political correctness?  Expect clever regulatory attorneys to fill the record with arguments that using this new found Section 706 authority of the FCC is needed to encourage broadband deployment, and to encourage fairness, and appropriate speech, on the Internet.

How long before, under these rules, the FCC begins to scrutinize, and forcibly guide the business decisions of companies like Netflix, YouTube, or Hulu?  When will they begin to decide who is allowed to have a website, who is allowed to comment Online, and finally where you are allowed to go on the worldwide web?  And then eventually, sites that don't tow the party line will be shut down.  Closed.  Bringing down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history, while the flapping pigeon-wings of freedom die on the porch and lawn of America.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

FCC's Grab for New Regulatory Power Could Go Beyond Broadband Providers - The Hill