From Blair Levin, who was chief of staff at the FCC in the 1990s and who headed the agency’s 2010 National Broadband Plan, from The Wall Street Journal, 2/27/15, “FCC Sets New Era Of Net Oversight”:
“The blessing and the curse for the cable industry and the telcos is they have an infrastructure which is absolutely critical to the economy, to education, to health care—far beyond the original use for which they built those networks. The good news is when everybody needs it, the government plays a role.”
Why does the government now need to play a role? The Internet went from technical curiosity to absolutely critical infrastructure without much attention, assistance, or regulation from the government. Its success stems from the fact that the government kept its hands off it. Nothing government can do will “improve” the internet. It will destroy freedom and replace it with coercion; that’s how governments work! Regulations and orders will substitute for the free choices of producers and consumers, mutually beneficial exchange, and the constantly evolving demands of the market, which has propelled the development and innovation of the Internet to date. The regulatory change opens the door to new taxes and the eventual regulation or prohibition of content. The expanded role for government under net neutrality will serve the interests of the government, not Internet users or providers. If the Internet is absolutely critical, then it’s essential to keep it free.
