INTERNET REGULATION ALERT! The FCC Has Become Unstable. Abort, Retry, Fail?

You’ve heard rumors for years. You’ve never fallen for it yet.

This time, it’s real. The Internet is about to be regulated.

We know it’s true because the Federal Communications Commissioners themselves are talking about it. The Democrat Chair wants us to know how fab it’s going to be, and Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai is trying to get the word out that, when it comes to free online expression, we are now at Defcon One. The air raid sirens are screaming. The missiles are in the silos.

It’s time to call, email, tweet, and otherwise badger your elected representatives and let them know they need emergency legislation to ban this type of nonsense forever.

On 2/26/2015, unless something monumental happens, the FCC will vote to adopt a 332-page blueprint for the regulation of the Internet in accordance with their White House master’s wishes. They are seeking–in a rule that the public cannot even read before the vote–to bring the Internet under the control of the Telecommunications Act as a public utility. Just like the railroads. Just like telephones. With rules and limits and taxes and all the bells and whistles that inevitably drag along the ground when the government comes in and takes over something it hitherto couldn’t get its paws on.

Obama voters who ran gleefully to the ballot box when their phones buzzed or beeped or chimed to let them know the President had sent yet another email telling them to–who gave him his twice-warmed-over mandate—better use the Internet while they still have it for the next few weeks. Because it’s about to explode in their faces, driving up Internet bills, making hitherto non-existent rules about how this “utility” can be used in starting and growing businesses, slapping the same taxes on Internet bills that we now pay on cell phone bills. The Universal Service Charge—the ludicrous slush fund that went from providing emergency home phones to the homebound to handing out cell phones to anyone claiming to be poor and providing better plans than many hard-working taxpayers can afford to buy for themselves—is about to park its fat butt on our Internet bills, too.

Despite the secrecy of the proposed rule, Commissioner Pai, is doing his best to warn us of the tsunami bearing down on every Internet-using American, by giving us as much information as he can. There are 5 members on the FCC (one of whom is the daughter of Congressman Clyburn—I’m sure that appointment was deserved and that commissioner is a balanced arbiter of the people’s needs), 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans. This is why regulatory agencies are anathema to our form of government, and why whom you elect matters long past the president’s expiration date.

Although all legislation is now run exclusively by Republicans (as requested by the populace, through the midterm elections), there is still an inordinate amount of quasi-legislative mischief the president can perform through his minions at agencies throughout the government. Congress has not regulated the Internet, but His Extraconstitutional Majesty on his high horse wants it done, for our own good, because we are so stupid that we are likely to make choices he does not favor. Therefore, since he knows so much better than we do (having exactly no expertise in the Internet, business, telecommunications, or anything other than community organizing and running for office), Obama must prod “his” Federal Communications Commission to Make It So.

The Communications Act of of 1934, like so much progressive legislation, claimed that the nation needed to monitor and regulate communications as an interstate good. Never content to let that which is good stay in the hands of those who are doing quite well using it, the government had to step in. By 1982, the result of this rule-making–the behemoth Bell telephone system–had to be broken up after being sued by the Justice Department’s anti-trust division since 1974 as a monopoly. The resulting divestiture led to competition and choice, and the perceived need for a revisiting of the 1934 rules.

In 1996, following the Republican “revolution” in Congress, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, updating the old legislation for the expectations of the coming new millennium. It was aimed at de-regulating the industry, and included the Internet among those actors that were entitled to compete in the marketplace across platforms.

Hmm. What happened between 1996 and now?

Oh, right. Almost everyone on the planet got access to the unregulated Internet, and liked it just fine. Unfortunately, some people on the Internet have the gall to use it in ways the current regime doesn’t approve of—and (imagine!) doesn’t have to give approval for! This, in the hyper-controlled progressive paradise we are rapidly becoming, will never do. The government, in the eyes of Obama and his ilk, must step in now, to make sure the Internet is free and open—even though it already is. By declaring the Internet a public utility, the wise and benevolent government can be sure no silly individuals ever freely contract together to do anything unapproved.

This is a clear and present danger to all of us. Tell your neighbors it is happening. Tell your legislators to make it stop. Tell Obama you’ve had enough.

Don’t let the apparatchiks of Alinskyite Obamunism ruin the greatest invention of the 20th century!