FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                           

March 12, 2015    Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

History Will Judge the FCC’s Regulation of the Internet as the FCC’s Biggest Mistake Ever

The FCC’s Order is Unlawful, Unconstitutional, Unwarranted, Unnecessary & Unworkable

WASHINGTON D.C. – The following may be attributed to Scott Cleland, Chairman of NetCompetition:

On February 26^th, the FCC executed President Obama’s call to “implement the strongest possible rules” to regulate the Internet as a telephone utility under “Title II” of the Telecommunications Act.

Legally, the result of this “reclassification” was for President Obama and the FCC to assert regulatory jurisdiction over the Internet ecosystem, creating a de facto American “Digital [Internet] Single Market” industrial policy, like the European Commission is in the process of creating for the European Union.

Legally, America now has a single digital telecommunications/Internet market/ecosystem because the FCC is effectively reclassifying Internet traffic as Title II telecommunications and Title II is a holistic, end-to-end, 1934 regulatory regime designed for the FCC to decide most everything in the assumed monopoly telecommunications ecosystem from originating and terminating local access, long distance, phone and network equipment manufacturing, directories, etc.

Please don’t miss my Daily Caller  op-ed: “How America Protects National Champion Google in the EU”

• It spotlights the facts of how exceptionally integrated Google has become with the U.S. Government on most all of the commercial matters most critical to Google’s business success.

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Google Unaccountability Series

Part 0: Google's Poor & Defiant Settlement Record [5-1-12]

Part 1: Why Google Thinks It Is Above the Law [4-17-12]

Link to full White Paper -- here.

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.       

I was asked to speak at CPAC 2015 on a February 28^thpanel at National Harbor on Google entitled: “The United States of Google: Big Brother & Big Data” with Seton Motley of Less Government and Erik Telford of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

My power point presentation, “Google’s Anti-Conservative Values,” for the first time contrasted the traditional conservative values of the American Conservative Union with Google’s values.

Below is an outline of my remarks:

Google Has Anti-Conservative Values

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]

Google’s recent bullying and intimidating behavior in Mississippi looks terrible and smells bad.

Consider for yourself if Google’s corporate behavior in Mississippi is how innocent people or a responsible corporation act, if they have: a clear conscience, done nothing wrong, or nothing to hide?

What is going on in Mississippi that warrants close outside attention?

Google has filed an highly-unusual, and hyper-aggressive lawsuit in federal court to try and quash a Mississippi Attorney General’s subpoena investigating Google’s alleged willful, continued, aiding and abetting of many criminal activities via advertising, given that it has found initial evidence to indicate that the criminal behavior that Google admitted to in a 2011 $500m DOJ Non-Prosecution Agreement may be continuing to this day.