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Summary

The FCC’s Open Internet Order, which reclassified the commercial Internet as a Title II utility, is very likely (80%) in the end, to be overturned in court – for a third time.

The FCC’s legal theory and many core assumptions are so aggressive, it’s clear that the FCC expects, and needs, continual and maximal deference from the court to prevail. The FCC also requires the courts to view the FCC’s most aggressive assertion of unbounded authority ever, as a mere administrative interpretation of ambiguous law, and not a political bypass of Congress and the 1996 Telecom Act.       

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                           

February 26, 2015

Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

Strike Three in Court? FCC’s Rube Goldberg Legal Theory is Contrived, Arbitrary & Unbounded

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed – “The FCC’s Predictable Fiasco of Internet Utility Regulation.”

• For the first time, it lays out the top ten predictable messes that the FCC will cause with its abrupt Internet policy U-turn to Title II utility regulation of the Internet.

This Internet policy foundation U-turn predictably will set in motion a chaotic cascade of other supporting policy U-turns over time.

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FCC Open Internet Order Series

Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]

Last November, President Obama effectively abandoned America’s longstanding free trade Internet policy established by President Clinton, in favor of a protectionist Internet industrial policy to benefit America’s national champions, Silicon Valley, under the guise of “net neutrality” policy.

Flipping U.S. Internet policy from global digital free trade to maximal national Internet regulation could end up hurting Silicon Valley the most, because they most benefit from, and depend on, the current free flow of information globally on the Internet.

Ironically, America also is forfeiting the digital free trade policy high ground by leading the world toward a “Splinternet” vision of more nationalistic maximal utility regulation of the Internet and its content.

In particular, it will be much harder for the U.S. to credibly object that the EU’s: creation of a European Digital Single Market (DSM), tightening of the EU-U.S. Data Protection Safe Harbor, and its aggressive enforcement of EU antitrust, privacy, and tax laws against Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple, is protectionist, when America’s new FCC utility regulation of the Internet is a transparently protectionist American industrial policy to advantage America’s national champions in Silicon Valley. 

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed “The FCC Is Not Neutral.”

• It explains why the FCC’s partisan arbitrariness may be the downfall of its Title II net neutrality rules in court.

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FCC Open Internet Order Series

Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed “FCC Internet Utility Regulation Is a Really Stupid Idea”

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FCC Open Internet Order Series

Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]

Part 2: Why FCC proposed net neutrality regs unconstitutional, NPR Online Op-ed [9-24-09]

To hear the ~hour KQED Forum Radio Show today on the FCC’s Title II plans, here is the NPR link. (Note the button to hear the show is under the date of the NPR article you will see.)

NPR’s digital culture correspondent Robin Sydell opened the show with an FCC-sympathetic overview and introduction of what the FCC is planning to do and praised the FCC’s process as “democracy in action.” I rebutted that notion by reminding listeners that the unelected FCC to date has totally rebuffed  any help from America’s duly elected Congress to pass lasting FCC net neutrality authority, and that the FCC is trying a third time to impose rules where courts have twice overturned the FCC.

The pro-FCC voice was Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

We had a good discussion where I had the opportunity to make the case in detail why Title II was unnecessary, unwarranted, and highly-politicized, regulatory overkill.

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed “Net Neutrality Bait & Switch to Title II.”

• It shows how net neutrality and Title II are not the same.

***

FCC Open Internet Order Series 

Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]

Part 2: Why FCC proposed net neutrality regs unconstitutional, NPR Online Op-ed [9-24-09]

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed “Testing the FCC’s Net Neutrality Political Calculus.”

• It explains how the FCC is risking the proverbial “bird in the hand” to grasp for the elusive “two birds in the bush,” and in doing so is very likely to end up with no net neutrality authority long term.    

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FCC Open Internet Order Series 

Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed “The FCC’s De-Americanization of the Internet.”

It explains how the FCC’s expected U-turn on Title II affects digital free trade by contrasting the very different Clinton-Net and Obama-Net visions for the Internet.  

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FCC Open Internet Order Series 

Part 1: The Many Vulnerabilities of an Open Internet [9-24-09]