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The government expansionists have had their eyes on the Internet ever since Al Gore claims he invented it. Of course, the Feds’ DARPA did help birth the Internet, but there is no reason why Washington now should imitate the Iranian mullahs or the Chinese and start restricting access and imposing financial or technical controls. It is not just because the technology is new that it has made such a huge contribution to our economy; it’s also because the new technology has been relatively unfettered by the government. The whole subject of federal regulation re-emerges in a major way in coming weeks. Watch this space. Meanwhile, Mark Landsbaum of the Orange County Register (in a column that I missed when it Read More ›

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution has a great article on the future of telecommunications in the state. The article prominently features Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder. Click here to read.

Recent decisions at Google are having an impact on people who try to manage transportation issues related to traffic flow, according to Bryan Mistele (a new Board Member of Discovery Institute.)

When it comes to technology, entrepreneur Jonathan Medved told George Gilder’s Telecosm 2009 conference in Tarrytown, New York this week, Israel is the world’s “startup nation,” now eclipsing everyone else in the world (even the U.S. on a per capita basis).
There was great enthusiasm for Medved and other speakers at this year’s Gilder show, which was built around The Israel Test, George’s new book. A video greeting from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the conference.

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The 31st annual Regulators’ Budget Report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University notes, among other things, that there was a 26 percent increase in regulatory spending during the Bush administration, and debunks the myth that lack of regulation caused the financial crisis. Separately, the New York Times reports that nobody was more surprised that the Securities and Exchange Commission did not discover Bernard L. Madoff’s enormous Ponzi scheme years ago than Mr. Madoff himself. Mr. Madoff said that the young investigators who pestered him over incidentals like e-mail messages should have just checked basics like his account with Wall Street’s central clearinghouse and his dealings with the firms that were supposedly handling his trades. “If you’re looking at Read More ›

Pre-release rumors and press reports were making it sound like the Obama administration let Rep. Ed Markey draft the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to “Preserve the Free and Open Internet.” Maybe there was a last-minute change of plan. There were rumors and/or reports that the NPRM would contain a “viewpoint diversity” mandate and only allow forms of network management which someone has managed to prove to the FCC satisfy a “strict scrutiny” test. In the Markey-Eshoo bill, the strict scrutiny test is defined as follows: [A] network management practice is a reasonable practice only if it furthers a critically important interest, is narrowly tailored to further that interest, and is the means of furthering that interest that is the Read More ›

Phil Kerpen observes If you thought Washington–which already took over banking and autos, and is fast-tracking attempts to take over health care and energy–would leave the Internet alone, you were dead wrong. The Internet (perhaps our greatest free market success story in recent years) is squarely in the cross-hairs of the administration and it’s not waiting for Congress to act. * * * * the agenda … is to transform access to the Internet into a government entitlement project, with all the necessary government intrusion and control in order guarantee it to everyone–in the world. * * * * We’ll have nowhere to go if the government turns out to be not quite as benevolent as some have hoped. One Read More ›

Tim Doyle at SNL Kagan has discovered that large telecom firms are not under investigation, as the Wall Street Journal reported in July they were for — and this choice of words was a surprise — “abusing the market power they have amassed in recent years.” See this. Doyle dug deeper and found that the WSJ got it wrong. Despite a previous report that indicated otherwise, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division has not undertaken an investigation of AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. The Department of Justice could not find any records of correspondence between the telecom giants and the Antitrust Division during 2009 regarding their market power and possible abuses of it, according to a Sept. 2 Read More ›

Julius Genachowski, the new FCC chairman, announced that the commission will begin a rulemaking process to formalize and supplement existing network neutrality policy. According to Genachowski,

This is not about government regulation of the Internet. It’s about fair rules of the road for companies that control access to the Internet. We will do as much as we need to, and no more, to ensure that the Internet remains an unfettered platform for competition, creativity, and entrepreneurial activity.

Of course it is about regulation. The formal rulemaking process Genachowski is planning is for the avowed purpose of enshrining network neutrality principles in the Code of Federal Regulations.
Regulation always starts out small, before it grows really big. It has to: Loopholes and other unintended consequences (and opportunities) are always discovered after the “product” launches.
Genachowski unfairly and innaccurately implies that network neutrality opponents want to “abandon the underlying values fostered by an open network, [and] the important goal of setting rules of the road to protect the free and open Internet.” In fact, the existing Internet Policy Statement that would serve as the foundation of a new network neutrality regulatory regime received 2 Republican votes and 2 Democrat votes.
Genachowski is attempting to present a false choice between letting minimally trained politicians and myopic bureaucrats get their hands all over the Internet to remake it as they see fit versus “doing nothing.”

Saying nothing — and doing nothing — would impose its own form of unacceptable cost. It would deprive innovators and investors of confidence that the free and open Internet we depend upon today will still be here tomorrow. It would deny the benefits of predictable rules of the road to all players in the Internet ecosystem. And it would be a dangerous retreat from the core principle of openness — the freedom to innovate without permission — that has been a hallmark of the Internet since its inception, and has made it so stunningly successful as a platform for innovation, opportunity, and prosperity.

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This observation by David Brooks in today’s New York Times By force of circumstances and by design, the president has promoted one policy after another that increases spending and centralizes power in Washington. The result is the Obama slide, the most important feature of the current moment. The number of Americans who trust President Obama to make the right decisions has fallen by roughly 17 percentage points. Obama’s job approval is down to about 50 percent. All presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but in the history of polling, no newly elected American president has fallen this far this fast. reminded me of the National Broadband Strategy the FCC is working to complete by February. I doubt it will be Read More ›