The Big Lie isn\u2019t called the Big Lie for nothing.\u00a0 It\u2019s put before the public by organizations with comfy-sounding names, repeated endlessly in ads and columns and blog posts and tweets by groups and politicians \u2013 many of whom receive support from those the Big Lie favors.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the current case in point.\u00a0 The government wants to takeover\/control\/regulate the Internet.<\/p>\n
Who was responsible for this?\u00a0 Start with Americans for Prosperity.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to quibble with a name for a group like \u201cAmericans for Prosperity.\u201d\u00a0 After all, who doesn\u2019t want Americans to be prosperous?\u00a0 Therefore, it\u2019s somewhat curious that a group that purports to have our well-being at heart is taking on the one institution that has been the greatest creator of wealth we have ever seen \u2013 the Internet.<\/p>\n
To be fair, the group is itself fairly prosperous.\u00a0 It announced the other day that it will spend the equivalent of a small public-interest group\u2019s budget, $1.4 million<\/a>, to buy TV ads in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, the Washington, D.C. area and on national cable.\u00a0 But then AFP has all the right connections<\/a> \u2013 big-time Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist, lots of conservative and corporate funding from the Koch family, a sister relationship with former House Majority Leader Dick Armey\u2019s Freedom Works\u00a0 and of course support from AT&T.\u00a0 Yes, the former Citizens for a Sound Economy is doing pretty, pretty well financially.<\/p>\n Factually, however, AFP is pretty much bankrupt. As we\u2019ve learned, bankruptcy loves company, so AFP is not the only one.\u00a0 There are many people out there who can\u2019t recognize what it is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to do to protect the Internet, and, more crucially, what it is that the FCC is actually doing.<\/p>\n The list of misbegotten souls includes many prominent conservative commentators. As well as includes the top Republicans in the House, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio and Eric Cantor of Virginia, the top Republican on the Communications Subcommittee, who wrote to the FCC protesting reclassification.\u00a0 Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida has introduced legislation<\/a> to stop the reclassification, and other Commerce Committee Republicans who voiced their opposition at a hearing on Thursday.<\/p>\n Undoubtedly some conservative Democrats will be added to the list of the misinformed in the coming weeks as the forces which want to smack down the FCC spread even more of their money around town and impress legislators, in Washington and around the country, in order to spread what are essentially unfounded and inaccurate characterizations about what the FCC is doing.\u00a0 Even now, AT&T is working Capitol Hill searching for signatures from rural Blue Dog members and minority members from the Congressional Black Caucus.\u00a0 They signed a letter last year opposing Net Neutrality as well.<\/p>\n The secret to the Big Lie, of course, is that if you repeat it sufficient times people will be accustomed to it and take it for truth.\u00a0 It will develop a ring of \u201ctruthiness,\u201d to use the Stephen Colbert formulation.<\/p>\n In this case, the Big Lie is that the FCC wants to \u201cregulate the Internet.\u201d\u00a0 Sound familiar?\u00a0 Everyone is singing from the same sheet. The AFP\u2019s plea <\/a>is to \u201cHelp Stop Washington\u2019s Takeover of the Internet.\u201d Glenn Beck talks about the FCC taking over<\/a> every aspect of the Internet.\u00a0 The Wall Street Journal said<\/a> the FCC wants to \u201cregulate the Web.\u201d<\/p>\n Boehner accused<\/a> the FCC of a \u201cgovernment takeover of the Internet.\u00a0 Boehner and Cantor followed that up with a May 12 letter<\/a> to President Obama that complained about \u201cyour administration\u2019s plan for federal regulation of the Internet.\u00a0 At a House subcommittee hearing May 13, Republicans complained about the \u201cpower grab\u201d over the Internet.<\/p>\n This would be tiresome and silly if it weren\u2019t so serious, if there weren\u2019t some serious money behind it and if we weren\u2019t going to be subjected to this nonsense nonstop for the next few weeks, if not months.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s see what FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski\u2019s Third Way<\/a> really does.\u00a0 First, it gives the FCC back the jurisdiction it once had over Internet access (aka broadband) services. While some posit this action to reassert jurisdiction as a \u201cradical\u201d move, it has only been five years since a previous FCC gave away the firm legal authority it should have kept.\u00a0 The FCC has had authority over all types of services since 1934, from simple telephone lines to the most sophisticated data lines that have evolved.\u00a0 Internet access is no different.\u00a0 It is the connection between your house and the Internet.\u00a0 It is a simple telecommunications service connecting you from Point A to Point B.\u00a0 It\u2019s the kind of thing the FCC has authority over when the traffic moves slowly, and is no different if the traffic moves along a little quicker.\u00a0 As of right now, the FCC has no jurisdiction over high-speed Internet access (aka broadband) because of the April 6 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 The court said that the way the FCC wanted to assert its authority, through a vaguely worded part of the communications law, wasn\u2019t proper.\u00a0 So the FCC will go back to the authority it once had.\u00a0 That\u2019s not radical.\u00a0 It\u2019s practical and it\u2019s legal.<\/p>\n Second, without that authority, universal service disappears, as do lots of other broadband-related programs.\u00a0 Those rural legislators being targeted by AT&T might take note.\u00a0 Their constituents will suffer if the FCC doesn\u2019t go through with its plan — not that logic ever had much bearing when a big-money company came to call.<\/p>\n Third, without that authority there would be no authority to examine and remedy consumer complaints.\u00a0 Remember that Comcast was throttling back one particular application being used by its customers?\u00a0 The FCC could take the complaint and tell Comcast to knock it off.\u00a0 If that same thing happened today, no one could stop Comcast from the throttling.\u00a0 In addition, anything the FCC wanted to do to protect consumer privacy, or in cybersecurity access by the disabled community to service would be jeopardized without proper legal authority.<\/p>\n Finally, the FCC could keep the telephone and cable companies from playing favorites, from making deals to slow down one Web site or service at the expense of another.<\/p>\n Where in there is anything about government taking over the Internet?\u00a0 Nowhere.\u00a0 Where in there is anything about regulating the Internet?\u00a0 Nowhere.\u00a0 Where in there is anything about government control over the Internet?\u00a0 Nowhere.<\/p>\n But wait.\u00a0 There\u2019s more.\u00a0 Not content with one false pretense, the phone and cable companies and their front groups want to compound the confusion by saying that if the FCC regulates\/takeover\/controls the Internet, then there will be \u201creduced broadband investment, less economic stimulation, and fewer jobs,\u201d as the letter AT&T is circulating forecast.<\/p>\n In other words, do it our way and nobody gets hurt.\u00a0 That\u2019s classic telephone company bullying, the things they have been doing for years.\u00a0 And it\u2019s nonsense.\u00a0 Start with the jobs.\u00a0 In 2008, AT&T said it would lay off 12,000 workers in 2009.\u00a0 That\u2019s smack dab in the middle of the regulatory environment AT&T wanted.\u00a0 Verizon, meantime, was cutting 16,000 jobs last year.\u00a0 It bought Alltel and started laying off workers.\u00a0 What does that have to do with an open Internet?\u00a0 Nothing.<\/p>\n You want economic stimulation?\u00a0 A free, open and creative Internet is what produces the greatest economic stimulation<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And finally, investment.\u00a0 In days gone by, state regulators could order telephone companies to build out their networks.\u00a0 Cable companies some times had that requirement under franchising agreements.\u00a0 Now, that power doesn\u2019t exist in telephone land and rarely in cable.\u00a0 No one can force big companies to invest.\u00a0 Even the growth in network traffic can\u2019t do it.\u00a0 They will invest as they want to, depending on economic conditions and the readings from the entrails of slaughtered chickens.\u00a0 Free Press did an admirable report <\/a>documenting the vagaries of telecom investment \u2013 and nothing in it shows any relationship to regulation.\u00a0 Verizon capped its FIOS residential fiber build-out at half of its customer base (about 18 million homes), just because it wanted to.\u00a0 No regulatory pressure was needed.<\/p>\n Fred Wilson, one of the country\u2019s premier venture capitalists, supports the FCC.\u00a0 He wrote, \u201cAnd without these rules, investors like me who invest in the \u2018open internet\u2019 will not be able to invest anymore. So you can choose between telcos saying they won\u2019t be able to invest under one set of rules vs VCs who say they won\u2019t be able to invest under another set of rules. But if you look at history, you can see that telcos have invested very heavily in their networks while under the threat of net neutrality regulation or even in instances when they were under direct net neutrality regulation. The argument is specious and their actions have show that.\u201d<\/p>\n However, there is a dirty secret lurking here that Boehner and Cantor and Beck and Norquist and all the others don\u2019t want you to know.\u00a0 There are people who support government taking over the Internet.\u00a0 Who?\u00a0 Start with Tom Tauke, Verizon\u2019s chief lobbyist.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Stearns, the Republican lawmaker who faithfully defends big industry.\u00a0 In his bill, Stearns specifically gives the FCC the authority to regulate \u201cservice providers, application providers, and content providers.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s hear the screams from AFP, Beck, AT&T and the rest now.<\/p>\n The silence is golden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Big Lie isn\u2019t called the Big Lie for nothing. It\u2019s put before the public by organizations with comfy-sounding names, repeated endlessly in ads and columns and blog posts and tweets by groups and politicians \u2013 many of whom receive support from those the Big Lie favors. Here\u2019s the current case in point. The government wants to takeover\/control\/regulate the Internet.<\/p>\n Who was responsible for this? Start with Americans for Prosperity. It\u2019s hard to quibble with a name for a group like \u201cAmericans for Prosperity.\u201d After all, who doesn\u2019t want Americans to be prosperous? Therefore, it\u2019s somewhat curious that a group that purports to have our well-being at heart is taking on the one institution that has been the greatest creator of wealth we have ever seen \u2013 the Internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-14480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","tag-net-neutrality"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n