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"Obfuscation:"
Meaning #1: Confusion resulting from failure to understand.
Meaning #2: The activity of obscuring people's understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered.
Meaning #3: Darkening or obscuring the sight of something.
"Neutrality:"{*} This is but the latest in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski’s ongoing terrible interpretation of his self-appointed role as Captain Transparency. As we have much discussed, the FCC has decided to power grab Internet authority on December 21st. The Commission must seize said authority because it does not have it unless and until Congress writes a law saying so – which The Chairman himself admits Congress has not done. The Chairman will do so via a three unelected bureaucrat Democrat Party-line vote (that’s counting him). He intends to do so under cover of Christmas – slamming it through less than 96 hours before the Big Day.
{*}Meaning #1: The absence of declared bias. In an argument, a neutral person will not choose a side.
{*}Meaning #3: Is not synonymous with objectivity.
{*}Meaning #4: Implies not judging the validity of an opinion.{*}Meaning #2: Is not synonymous with indifference or ignorance.
The Chairman will do so by writing (and rewriting, and rewriting some more, and rewriting again) an 80-plus page “order” – which sounds an awful lot like he’s appropriating Congress’ job and writing law. (Because, again, Congress has never written a law that allows him to do this.) He is in perpetual revision mode to continue to capitulate to the demands – and induce the vote – of the FCC’s most Leftist member – Commissioner Michael Copps – driving this Web takeover to the outer limits of illegal usurpation. And the Chairman will do so after accepting over 2,000 pages of last minute document-dump filings, which no one on Planet Earth could properly pore over, get through and understand the ramifications of in time for the December 21st vote. If we could even access them – which for 60 of the last 88.5 hours before the vote we could not. For if you went to the FCC’s website on Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, or early Monday morning – the weekend before the Tuesday vote. The irony would be amusing, were the ramifications of this un-transparency from Captain Transparency – I mean Chairman Genachowski – not so dire. The timing of this “scheduled maintenance” is either incredibly unfortunate – or intentional.
If it is intentional, it means The Chairman never intended to be “fair, open and transparent” – or anything else but a stooge for the Media Marxists and the Net Neutrality campaign-promising White House. Which means The Chairman is either incredibly incompetent – or deceitfully secretive in every conceivable way about this extraordinarily important vote.
http://biggovernment.com/smotley/2010/12/20/right-before-it-tries-to-take-over-the-internet-the-fccs-websites-are-unavailable-due-to-scheduled-maintenance/
....more:
The FCC is poised to take a significant step today to regulate Internet providers in the name of so-called net neutrality. If it does, its action will say a lot about what’s wrong with an agency that was created in 1934 to regulate telephone and telegraph monopolies. I had always held out hope that the FCC wouldn’t really move to regulate the Internet, not until hell froze over. I guess the fact that the temperature here in Washington has been not much above freezing for about two weeks now is not a good sign.
[...]
Most important, the FCC’s new rules should require a showing of the Internet provider’s market power and a showing of consumer harm resulting from the provider’s practices as prerequisites to any finding of discrimination. In other words, absent a showing of dominant market power and consumer harm, the actions of Internet providers would be deemed presumptively reasonable. In this way, the commission could acknowledge, at least in some fashion, that it realizes the competitive, dynamic marketplace of today’s digital environment is different from the monopolistic marketplace that prevailed at the time the ’34 law was adopted. [....]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/255734/fcc-regulators-turn-their-eyes-internet-randolph-j-may
....and more:
Imagine a future where the Internet is governed by unelected bureaucrats in Washington, DC, who rule at their own whim, regardless of legislators’ demands or judicial rule. Sadly, that future is now. Today, the Federal Communications Commission is poised to make an unprecedented power grab and assert the authority to regulate the Internet, despite opposition from Congress and a contrary federal court ruling. And while it’s a story that has gone largely unnoticed amid Congress’ big-ticket lame duck decisions, it’s a tale of unchecked government expansion that must be told.
Meet FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a political appointee and Harvard Law classmate of President Barack Obama. Genachowski is leading the FCC’s charge for new powers over the Internet so it can enact a policy known as “net neutrality,” which would allow the commission to regulate how Internet providers like Comcast or Verizon offer their services. If you’re someone who is suspicious of big corporations, that sounds like a great idea. If you’re someone who is fearful of big government, take heed. In reality, the policy will limit consumer choice while granting the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet. As Heritage’s James Gattuso describes:
The net result [of net neutrality]— a slower and more congested Internet, and more frustration for users. Even worse, investment in expanding the Internet will be chilled, as FCC control of network management makes investment less inviting. The amounts at stake aren’t trivial, with tens of billions invested each year in Internet expansion.
There are those, too, who argue that those regulations are not even necessary. FCC commissioner Robert McDowell (who opposes the net neutrality policy) wrote in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal:
Nothing is broken that needs fixing, however. The Internet has been open and freedom-enhancing since it was spun off from a government research project in the early 1990s. Its nature as a diffuse and dynamic global network of networks defies top-down authority. Ample laws to protect consumers already exist.[....]
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/12/21/morning-bell-its-time-to-stop-the-fcc-internet-czars/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703395204576023452250748540.html
This should be enough to 'chew on' for a day or so!!
Til Nex'Time....
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