What could possibly go wrong with a regulatory power grab by a government agency applying an 80-year-old law to the most dynamic and innovative aspect of the world’s economy? The Federal Communications Commission last week voted along partisan lines for passage of network neutrality regulations. The first two attempts were both defeated in U.S. Circuit Court, and one hopes this third try meets the same fate.
The latest strategy deployed by the FCC is reclassification of the internet from a Title I information service to a Title II communications service. Whereas Title I prescribes a light regulatory touch, Title II opens the floodgates for the agency to regulate as a utility all aspects of the internet under the 1934 Communications Act. The 1934 law was devised specifically to police landline phones as common carriers with the unfortunate unforeseen consequence of establishing a decades-long telephone monopoly by creating significant barriers of entry for start-ups and smaller companies.
Various faith-based groups have lined up in support of net neutrality in whatever form the FCC determines necessary to enforce it. These groups include the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Faithful Internet, a joint initiative of the Stanford Law School for Internet and Society and the United Church of Christ OC, Inc.
Roman Catholic Bishop John Charles Wester of Utah’s Salt Lake City Diocese, defends the FCC’s ham-fisted proposal: “The USCCB has long supported open internet, where neither the telephone or cable company providing access can tamper with access by consumers to any legal website or other web content.” For its part, Faithful Internet fretted: “Without an open internet protected by Title II of the Communications Act, faith leaders cannot effectively help their communities organize politically, access healthcare, vote, start businesses, or express themselves.”
While reasonable individuals can disagree on matters of public policy and the concomitant intersection with religious concerns, Faithful Internet and USCCB – as well three of the five FCC commissioners who voted in favor of passing Title II net neutrality – perceive a threat where little or none exists. According to the contrary view of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Everett Ehrlich, a former member of President Clinton’s administration, today’s consumers have several options for the internet service provider of choice: “Virtually every household in America now can receive broadband from three or four sources – from cable systems, from fiber or, when fiber isn’t there, from ever-improving DSL over the old phone lines, from mobile sources (in which we are the world’s leader), or from satellite, often the last alternative, but usually an acceptable one.” Title II reclassification, Ehrlich warns, will place the FCC in the position of limiting competition between these different platforms.
Less competition means less innovation and, ultimately, fewer choices for U.S. broadband consumers. (This may or may not be a good point to mention that the United Church of Christ’s coffers are stuffed to overflowing with funds from both George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation, which together have contributed $196 million to far-Left groups promoting net neutrality.)
There are many reasons – technical, ideological, and religious – to oppose net neutrality in general and Title II reclassification specifically. Among those reasons is the fact that no religious group has been denied equal access to the internet and, as noted by Jerry A. Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the National Religious Broadcasters trade group: “I am saddened that the FCC voted on partisan lines to dramatically expand federal power over the internet. Bigger government is not fertile ground for the flourishing of free speech and innovation. This is a power grab, and NRB opposes it.”
NRB issued a resolution that outlines its reasons for opposing what it identifies as “ill-advised” net neutrality, including U.S. Title II implementation which sends the message to every tin-pot dictator and third-world country that government control of the internet is preferable to the “successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the internet today.”
Any initiative that stifles innovation will also wreak economic havoc and result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in an industry that some economists estimate represents one-sixth of our nation’s economy. Certainly these real-world concerns take precedent over the unfounded perceptions of the USCCB and Faithful Internet.
