One of the lesser-known implications of broadband reform includes major changes to the Universal Service Fund (USF), a program that collects a few dollars a month from every phone customer to help subsidize the costs of delivering service to rural America.  As traditional phone lines become ever less important, a proposal to begin applying USF charges to broadband service has gotten increasing attention from conservatives who oppose the program, calling it a new “tax on broadband.”

The need for USF subsidies on rural telephone service continues to decline along with the number of landline customers.  Over the history of the program, repeated abuses have been documented which have diverted funding into cell phones for school administrators, telecommunications services in decidedly non-poor or rural areas, and steering vendor contracts to providers that kick money, trips, or other gifts back to decision makers.  With the FCC increasing the USF subsidy rate to 15.3 percent for the second quarter of 2010, an enormous amount of money is at stake, available for qualified programs.

So much money is available, some companies are building USF funding into their business plans.  Independent rural telephone companies can make a killing on USF subsidies, which are targeted precisely at their service areas.  But now cell phone companies have begun riding the USF gravy train, and are now marketing products and services that would be impossible to provide without USF funding.

One of the most controversial programs is free cellphones for income-challenged Americans, a program that first appeared during the Bush Administration, made possible by the Universal Service Fund.

To qualify, subscribers must either have an income that is at or below 135% of the federal Poverty Guidelines, or participate in one of the following assistance programs:

• Medicaid,
• Food Stamps,
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI),
• Federal Public Housing Assistance (Section 8),
• Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP),
• Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), or
• The National School Lunch Program’s Free Lunch Program

An extension of Lifeline and Link-Up, the free cell phone program has been extended to more than a dozen states by providers like TracFone’s SafeLink Wireless or Sprint’s Assurance Wireless.

Safelink provides qualified customers with free ($50 value) Motorola cell phones and free calling with no contract requirement.  They also receive free texting, national/international calling, voicemail, caller ID, and call waiting.

“A telephone service, just in general, is not a privilege, it’s a right, and we feel it’s a corporate responsibility to provide it,” says José Fuentes, TracFone’s director of government relations. “Everyone should be in contact, should have the opportunity to get a phone call, especially if it’s an employer.”

Fuentes may be right, but TracFone’s altruism is made considerably easier when the federal government is picking up the majority of the tab every month.  USF funding contributes $10 of the estimated $13.50 the service actually costs to provide.

Traditional Lifeline landline service has been a part of American life for decades, but the prospect of welfare recipients getting free cell phones is ready-made for demagoguery in the media.  A common meme is that the program represents more “Obama socialism,” despite the fact the program began under the previous administration, and there may be nothing inherently wrong with extending Lifeline service to an increasingly wireless world.

What this really represents is the opportunity to consider different approaches to funding subsidy programs.  For example, would such programs like cell phone subsidies be better served if they were funded by the carriers themselves as part of spectrum auction proceeds?  Is the FCC trying to substantiate the need for continued USF spending by expanding the number of projects and programs qualified to receive funding?  Is 15.3 percent a fair amount to charge telephone ratepayers?

Under the FCC’s proposed Broadband Plan for America, USF fees would be collected from and largely diverted to broadband service.  Rural America would get broadband service at a price comparable to what big city residents pay, and providers could substantiate the return on investment to begin constructing such projects partly subsidized by USF funding.

But that means the price of your broadband service will increase and some consumers don’t like it.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WLOS Asheville Broadband Tax 4-28-10.flv[/flv]

WLOS-TV in Asheville, North Carolina reports on concerns about a forthcoming proposed broadband tax.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”451″ height=”260″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WGRZ Buffalo Free Cell Phones On Your Dime 4-8-10.flv[/flv]

WGRZ-TV in Buffalo covers the free cell phone angle as residents see ads from companies like Assurance Wireless that offer free cell phones to income-challenged Americans. (2 minutes)

NoNetBrutality characterizes itself as a "grassroots campaign," but new evidence suggests it's actually just another telecom industry-backed astroturf group pretending to represent consumer interests.

On April 12th, a new voice joined the opposition to Net Neutrality reforms.  That was the date someone registered the domain name NoNetBrutality.com.  Just a few short days later, the group launched a basic website with a mission:

NoNetBrutality.com is a grassroots campaign with a triple mission. It seeks:

(1) to raise public awareness for the imminent threat of government take-over of the internet,
(2) to bring all net neutrality opponents together under one common banner,
(3) to petition the FCC not to go ahead with its attempts to regulate the internet.

NoNetBrutality.com was initiated by six liberty-minded activists from six different countries who fear that the current attempts of the U.S. government to restrict access to the internet might soon be followed by other governments if we don’t fight these flawed and dangerous ideas now – before they take root elsewhere.

The NoNetBrutality.com campaign was created by Kristin McMurray (United States), Yolanda Talavera (Nicaragua), Vincent De Roeck (Belgium), David MacLean (Canada), Huafang Li (China) and Aykhan Nasibli (Azerbaidjan), and formally launched in Washington D.C. on April 14th, 2010.

The group’s talking points about Net Neutrality are eerily in lockstep with those distributed by large phone and cable interests who oppose net freedom:

Net neutrality will take away incentives to invest and innovate – that means the internet will stop improving. Do you really want an internet czar to run the worldwide web and bureaucrats in charge of cyberspace?

Net neutrality will literally put the internet in “neutral.” Demand for Youtube, Bittorrent and streaming will grow, but who will pay for additional bandwidth if they aren’t allowed to charge for it anymore? Less options and less freedom for the consumers will be the ultimate consequence of these flawed ideas.

The FCC and others aim to regulate the internet in the same way as they control the television… There’s the real censorship! What will be the next step? Once the government has the mechanism in place to restrict internet access and to set prices, it is only a tiny step towards content control and taxes on internet use.

Everybody agrees that the internet is a resounding free market success story. If it isn’t broken, why fix it?

You know what that means — that “grassroots campaign” is in reality yet another corporate-backed astroturf campaign desperately trying to hide its true backer — the telecommunications industry.

Here’s what NoNetBrutality left out of its “facts”:

1. YouTube is owned by Google, which is a strong believer in Net Neutrality.
2. No online service has suffered more at the hands of Internet Service Providers’ throttles than Bittorrent.  Net Neutrality would ban those throttles.
3. The group ignores the multi-billion dollars in profit the broadband industry earns today from Internet service that is increasing in price at the same time costs to provide it are rapidly falling.
4. The FCC proposes no content controls for broadband — only consumer protections to prohibit providers from manipulating broadband traffic for money.
5. Everyone does not agree that the Internet is a “resounding free market success story.”  In fact, the United States has lost its former lead on Internet speed and adoption, and today is still dropping.  We now have worse service than many Asian and East European countries, and providers are trying to test new Internet Overcharging schemes t0 limit consumption and increase prices even higher.  That’s success?  Only for them.

So who is NoNetBrutality.com and Kristin McMurray, the American creator of the campaign?

McMurray's day job is to develop and run social media campaigns for corporate interests seeking to build support for their public policy agenda

Kristin McMurray is a social media strategist — a hired gun for corporate interests that want social-network-street-cred but don’t exactly know how to create an authentic-looking campaign that fulfills their corporate agenda.

McMurray has a history with corporate-backed conservative think tanks, particularly Americans for Limited Government, a group the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity reports is 99 percent funded by three unnamed sources.  The group has routinely denied requests to identify where their backing comes from.  She also was hired to run a campaign for a climate change denial group.

McMurray tracks her site visitors carefully with Alterian’s SM2, a social media monitoring and analysis solution designed for PR and Marketing professionals. Alterian SM2 “helps you track conversations, review positive/negative sentiment for your brand, clients, competitors and partners across social media channels such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, social networks, video/photo sharing sites and real-time alerts.”

Grassroots this isn’t.

Accidental Evidence: The Consequences of An Exposed PowerPoint Presentation

Someone left their PowerPoint slides laying around for anyone to pick up and review.  That turned out to be about as foolish as the guy who left his field test version of Apple’s newest iPhone in a bar.

Now the truth can be told.

Think Progress managed to obtain a copy of the presentation, and it says quite a bit about just how much grassroots are actually growing at NoNetBrutality.com.  Let’s put it this way, if you were allergic to actual grass, you’d have no problems at all rolling around in NoNetBrutality’s astroturf.

It turns out NoNetBrutality is the creature of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, itself heavily backed by corporate interests.

And you thought it was “six liberty-minded activists from six different countries.”  Not so much.

Atlas, which counts among its proud moments a corporate strategy to protect Big Tobacco, helps corporations coordinate their front group strategies.  Norquist takes corporate agendas and spins them into grass roots efforts in return for money.  He was caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal when the disgraced lobbyist promised one of Norquist’s front groups $50,000 in exchange for “grassroots” support.

Of course, you aren’t supposed to know any of this.  Groups like NoNetBrutality are designed to hide their true ties and claim they are run by ordinary concerned citizens making their individual voices heard.  Too bad that PowerPoint presentation blew the lid off by telling a much different story.

One of the PowerPoint slides that wasn't supposed to become public knowledge

Net Neutrality is like what China does: “Putting policemen on every corner, on the street or on the Internet.” — Grover Norquist

Norquist’s bizarre interpretation of Net Neutrality shines through in NoNetBrutality’s own campaign.  On one of the PowerPoint slides, NoNetBrutality even cooks up a Chinese blog to underline Norquist’s world view that Net Neutrality can be compared with Chinese government censorship.

Every astroturf group has a target audience.  NoNetBrutality is no different:

Target Groups

• Libertarian like minded Internet users and video gamers
• Fiscal and Social Conservative Activists, Campaigners and Think Tanks
• Internet Service Providers and Communications companies
• Policy makers (Legislators, Regulators, Public officials)

For groups like NoNetBrutality, getting corporate and conservative support means being a cog in the wheel at Grover’s infamous Wednesday strategy sessions.  One of the PowerPoint slides calls attention to just how important these meetings are in the effort to coordinate opposition to consumer-friendly broadband reform.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, outraged consumers have invaded the group’s primary social media outlets.  Their Facebook page is now loaded with comments from those upset about the fact the entire effort is little more than another bought-and-paid-for deception effort from the telecom industry.  Twitter is now used more to expose the group than to promote it.

The ironic part is that the very group that seems so alarmed by the prospect of “government censorship of the Internet” has no problems censoring its own Facebook page to remove posts that it determines are “off topic” or “not polite.”

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[Update Wednesday 3:20pm — This “group” came out of the closet this morning as a “class project” funded by Atlas, and attacked Think Progress for overreaching as to the group’s own importance in the Net Neutrality debate.  You can read my extended thoughts on today’s developments in the Comments section.  In short, I think today’s revelations may actually do even more damage to their credibility than earlier thought.  What does it say about a group of people willing to attend a “school” (and the “school” itself) that actively teaches how to develop and launch highly-deceptive fake grassroots campaigns designed to fool consumers?  Today they are downplaying the entire affair as “funny,” but if you were a visitor to their website, would you be laughing to learn the group isn’t really run by “six liberty-minded activists from six different countries” but rather those budding to learn the craft of sock-puppetry?

I think it’s sad some people have a moral code that says intentional deception in a public policy fight is just fine.  When you lie to your supporters and opponents about who you really are, and then say it’s “funny” when you come clean later,  they are left with little more than to ponder whether you were lying to them then or lying to them now.]

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has gotten the message.  After a report earlier this week in the Washington Post that the chairman was contemplating leaving broadband unregulated, without Net Neutrality protections, thousands of calls and e-mail messages poured into FCC headquarters protesting the report and asking for action.  Many also called their members of Congress and the White House demanding the administration keep its word on broadband reform policies.

Late Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published news that Genachowski had apparently changed course:

In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.

The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.

Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt “net neutrality” rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally, and not to slow or block access to websites.

The Journal’s framing language about “decades-old rules” aside, the decision by the chairman to reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service” was the only way forward for an agency who had its authority cut from beneath it by a recent court decision.

The news that Genachowski was considering leaving things as-is, totally deregulated, met with opposition from both leaders of the House and Senate Commerce Committees which have jurisdiction over the FCC.  Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) wrote Genachowski urging the Commission to consider “all viable options” to regain authority over broadband.  When Congress speaks, the FCC listens.

The Commission had two choices — keeping broadband “regulated” under Title I of the Telecommunications Act under the now court-discredited “information service” paradigm, or reclassifying it under Title II as a “telecommunications service,” where the Commission enjoys the prospect of already court-tested and approved authority to regulate.  Either way assured legal challenges, but under Title II the Commission faced just a single lawsuit to reaffirm its authority to regulate such services.  Under Title I, every reform attempted by the Commission would face provider lawsuits, with precedent on the side of the cable and phone companies to win.

Net Neutrality opponents claim the policy would be ruinous to broadband providers, but when SBC and AT&T merged into a new super-sized AT&T, the company agreed to adhere to Net Neutrality guidelines for two years and didn't suffer any ill effects.

The telecommunications industry and their allies have attempted to frame such reclassification as a government takeover or regulation of the Internet.  Some of these companies even threaten to challenge any reclassification as a violation of their First Amendment rights, an absurd notion for a company that transports content from third parties to its customers.  Since when does a provider get to assert ownership over speech from someone else?  It’s overreach like this that helped fuel the demand for Net Neutrality in the first place.  The policies the FCC seeks to enact as part of the National Broadband Plan, including Net Neutrality, do not regulate or “take over” the Internet — it guarantees that providers can’t block or control that content for monetary gain.

Genachowski is signaling he’s intent on reclassifying broadband not to saddle broadband providers with 1940s telephone regulations, but to assure the Commission and the Administration it can bring the National Broadband Plan to reality without provider roadblocks thrown up along the way.

Sources have leaked details to the media that suggest Genachowski will propose a novel “third way” of broadband reclassification — asserting the right to regulate broadband under Title II, but exempting broadband providers from most of the regulatory provisions that were written to deal with Ma Bell.  In other words, the changes would turn the clock back, before the DC Circuit Court threw out the FCC’s regulatory authority to spank Comcast for throttling its customers’ broadband speeds.  With Title II authority in place, Genachowski hopes a court hearing the same case would have found for the FCC, not against it.

The telecommunications industry has already gone over the top suggesting Genachowski’s plan represents Broadband Armageddon.

One of the industry’s good friends is Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada).  He has their talking points down word for word:

“Using this heavy-handed approach to regulation … will jeopardize private investment and innovation in broadband and inject regulatory uncertainty throughout the entire Internet,” Ensign said in a statement.

“We would expect a profoundly negative impact on capital investment,” warned Stanford Bernstein analyst and lover of big cable Craig Moffett in a research note to clients Wednesday night titled “The FCC Goes Nuclear.”

“The only potential winners are the satellite providers, DirecTV and Dish Network, for whom incremental broadband regulation would dramatically reduce the risk of competitive foreclosure in the video business at the hands of bottleneck broadband providers,” he wrote.

The hue and cry over any broadband regulations or court decisions unfavorable to the industry always results in claims it will “dry up investment,” “retard growth,” or downright ruin the Internet for everyone.

Some in the business press even suggest today’s unveiling of Genachowski’s “third way” represents uncharted waters for America’s broadband story.

But how soon they forget.

When SBC and AT&T won approval to merge, one of the conditions was that the new super-sized AT&T respect Net Neutrality concepts for a period of two years.  They agreed:

Net Neutrality
1 . Effective on the Merger Closing Date, and continuing for 30 months thereafter, AT&T/BellSouth will conduct business in a manner that comports with the principles set forth in the Commission’s Policy Statement, issued September 23, 2005 (FCC 05-151).

2. AT&T/BellSouth also commits that it will maintain a neutral network and neutral routing in its wireline broadband Internet access service. 15 This’ commitment shall be satisfied by AT&T/BellSouth’s agreement not to provide or to sell to Internet content, application, or service providers, including those affiliated with AT&T/BellSouth, any service that privileges, degrades or prioritizes any packet transmitted over AT&T/BellSouth’s wireline broadband Internet access service based on its source, ownership or destination.

So for two years, AT&T lived under the same rules the FCC seeks to enforce nationwide for all broadband providers.  Did the company shut down?  No — it grew larger with additional mergers and acquisitions.  Did  broadband expansion stop?  No — AT&T has since unveiled its U-verse service and faster broadband in many cities across its service area.  Has it reduced investment in broadband?  What do you think AT&T is spending on deploying U-verse?

The sky never fell, the investment never disappeared, and there was no panic in the streets.  When consumer protections are enacted, the same companies that are currently proclaiming that such changes will ruin their businesses will be singing a different tune to their Wall Street investors once they are enacted.

Read Chairman Genachowski’s Full Statement Below the Jump!

… Continue Reading

Davey D

It’s gratifying to know we are not alone in recognizing the parade of minority interest groups on the dole of big telecom companies who are only too willing to parrot their talking points to strike down pro-consumer broadband reform.

Davey D, a journalist, educator, columnist and Hip Hop activist originally from the Bronx who now lives and works in Oakland where does a daily radio show – Hard Knock Radio (KPFA 94.1 FM) is pondering why so many groups are so willing to sell out their constituents:

One of the strategies used by AT&T was to go to communities of color, find Civil Rights organizations and in my humble opinion and pay for their silence or advocacy. The list ranged from LULAC to the Urban League which filed briefs siding with the FCC. It makes no sense why organizations which have long spoke about not having voice their voices heard and a seat at the table would go along with any sort of policy that strip that away from the average person who found such an opportunity via the Internet.

Was having sponsorship dollars for the next awards banquet payment enough? Or a some computers for an after school program payment enough? We’re talking about intelligent people here. It would be absolutely trifling to sell out for something that low and glaringly obvious.

Stop the Cap! exchanged views last week with one such “coalition of the willing to take the check” that claims to represent the interests of Latinos, but won’t answer basic questions about how much they got and from what phone or cable company.

Sylvia Aguilera, representing the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership, which itself is made up of several groups cashing AT&T’s checks, chided me for my earlier remarks, “HTTP supports reasoned dialogue on the issues and remains dismayed by those, like you, who stoop to categorizing esteemed minority organizations as “astro-turf’. You will gain no allies in our communities with this strategy.”

Our response was to ask Aguilera to come clean on whether HTTP was also getting AT&T money and how much.  No response.  That speaks volumes, of course.  Aguilera makes the mistaken assumption that groups that actually represent consumers are interested in allying themselves with “dollar a holler” advocacy groups like those that make up the HTTP.  Latino readers of Stop the Cap! wondered where HTTP was when Time Warner Cable was testing Internet Overcharging schemes on their Road Runner service in Austin and San Antonio, Texas.  Unlike so many Net Neutrality foes in the not-for-profit community, Stop the Cap! doesn’t take industry money and is 100 percent supported by individual consumers.

Our contention is reasonable dialogue is impossible on telecommunications issues when some of that speech is bought and paid for by AT&T.  In other words, HTTP and its coalition members’ views on this specific issue are nothing more than astroturf and won’t carry much legitimacy in the eyes of consumers as long as AT&T is still cutting them checks.  Return the money, refuse to accept contributions that represent a conflict of interest on public policy debates, and then the reasoned dialogue can actually begin.

Now does this mean these kinds of groups do no good?  Of course not.  I’m sure they have projects that are valuable and important to their respective community interests.  But having come from the non-profit sector myself, I am also well aware of what some groups are willing to do to raise funds, and they aren’t fooling me for a second, nor should they you.

Davey D sums it up:

Below is a list of Civil Rights orgs that submitted files to the FCC saying they wanted to have the internet DEREGULATED. When your s*it starts slowing down, your message filtered or censored, your music hard to access and more importantly your fees go up, give these esteemed organizations and people a call and ask them how they intend to correct what will go down as a egregious error. Maybe they can let you use their accounts cause I’m certain in exchange for siding with these big telecoms they got a few perks including unfettered and fast lane access.

Here are recent anti-Network Neutrality filings by organizations of color

(There are more and I will post them later.)

Urban League Chapter

Click to access 7020408309.pdf

Click to access 7020400790.pdf

Click to access 7020400568.pdf

Click to access 7020408157.pdf

Click to access 7020400510.pdf

National Lesbian and Gay Chamber of Commerce

Click to access 7020408718.pdf

Hispanic Federation

Click to access 7020408716.pdf

LISTA

Click to access 7020408720.pdf

Latino community Foundation in San Francisco

Click to access 7020408354.pdf

Native Americans

Click to access 7020408711.pdf

Click to access 7020408291.pdf

Click to access 7020408712.pdf

Click to access 7020408709.pdf

Click to access 7020408717.pdf

Click to access 7020408708.pdf

Click to access 7020408713.pdf

NAACP in California

Click to access 7020408307.pdf

Rainbow Push

Click to access 7020408211.pdf

Texas State Rep. Robert Alonzo

Click to access 7020408179.pdf

MANA, A National Latino Organization

Click to access 7020400566.pdf

100 Black Men of South Metro

Click to access 7020400798.pdf

100 Black Men of Mobile

Click to access 7020401015.pdf

100 Black Men of Greater Mobile

Click to access 7020401015.pdf

ASPIRA

Click to access 7020400339.pdf

100 Black Men of Tennessee

Click to access 7020400506.pdf

100 Black Men of Orlando

Click to access 7020400502.pdf

HTTP

Click to access 7020400970.pdf

Hispanic Interests Coalition of Alabama

Click to access 7020401020.pdf

SER: Jobs for Progress

http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7020400060

NAACP Mar-Saline Branch

Click to access 7020399888.pdf

Japanese American Citizens League

Click to access 7020399819.pdf

Organization of Chinese Americans

Click to access 7020399334.pdf

Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies

Rep. Yvette Clarke

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7020399667.pdf

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski wins the Cowardly Lion Award for reports he's set to sell out American consumers for corporate interests

The Washington Post this morning reports FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is preparing to sell out a free and open Internet by adopting a provider appeasement policy that would abandon consumers and broadband users to the whims of big telecom companies.

In an extraordinarily disappointing move by the Obama Administration, which promised to adopt Net Neutrality and better broadband service for consumers, political expediency and typical Democratic party cowardice are likely to derail any hope for adopting consumer protections for the Internet.

Three sources at the [FCC] said Genachowski has not made a final decision but has indicated in recent discussions that he is leaning toward keeping in place the current regulatory framework for broadband services but making some changes that would still bolster the FCC’s chances of overseeing some broadband policies.

The sources said Genachowski thinks “reclassifying” broadband to allow for more regulation would be overly burdensome on carriers and would deter investment. But they said he also thinks the current regulatory framework would lead to constant legal challenges to the FCC’s authority every time it attempted to pursue a broadband policy.

Genachowski is living in a dream world — the non-reality-based community — if he believes for a second the nice telecom industry will happily go along with his plans for better broadband while leaving the current anti-competitive duopolistic framework of deregulation in place.

Telling a multi-billion dollar broadband industry to keep their paws off content and preserve an open and free network would be burdensome… for Stalin.  It should not be for AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.  If it is, that is why we are supposed to have checks and balances to protect Americans from a corporate oligarchy.  But money talks, and despite all of the repeated promises from President Barack Obama to preserve an open Internet, once the political pressure gets applied and the Money Party of corporate contributions gets going, you can always count on these people to cave in the end. “What Net Neutrality promise?”

Stop the Cap! supporters, with the help of a few “get it done” elected officials and other consumers who stood up and said “no more” to Time Warner Cable and the North Carolina legislature, managed to beat back Internet Overcharging experiments and corporate-friendly legislation to ban municipal broadband networks.  We accomplished both in a matter of weeks last year.  What was our secret?  Integrity.  We’re not behest to corporate lobbyists and industry-funded think tanks who hold the keys to post-administration job opportunities with super-sized salaries.  The Obama Administration and its appointed FCC chairman seem utterly impotent to do what a regulatory agency is supposed to do — regulate.  We might as well have Neville Chamberlain as FCC Chairman, because consumers are starting to feel a bit like 1938 Czechoslovakia, about to be sold out for peace inside the Beltway.

Readers, we will not be Julius Genachowski’s Tylenol.  To the contrary.  Chairman Genachowski appears exceptionally naive to believe he can enact any of his broadband policies over lawsuit-happy big telecoms that will promptly have them tossed out in court rulings.  If you and I already know this, why doesn’t he?  We need bold action, not policy capitulation.  Perhaps it’s time to replace the chairman with someone who isn’t afraid to do the job.

It always shocks me when we elect an administration to lead on the issues it pursues during an election, and then cowers in fear and abandons the American people the moment some lobbyists turn up the heat and start handing out checks.  Even when the overwhelming majority of Americans want a free and open Internet, somehow a handful of bureaucrats in Washington are too afraid to actually get the job done.

“The telephone and cable companies will object to any path the chairman takes,” said Art Brodsky, a spokesman for Public Knowledge, told the Post. “He might as well take the one that best protects consumers and is most legally sound.”

It’s too bad that is considered the radical solution in a lobbyist-infested Washington.  It looks like we’re going to need to start counting the money and making it clear in no uncertain terms that abandoning consumers means we’ll abandon them at the next election.

Marvin Ammori, a CyberLaw Advocate:

If the Post story is predictive, there is almost no list of “horribles” that are not fair game. I’m listing ten. Most of these “horribles” have actually happened as business practices where the carriers got their way. And media companies are believed to refuse ads or stories that criticize them or oppose their position.

Comcast (or AT&T or Verizon or Time Warner Cable) could do any of the following and the FCC could do Big Fat Nothing:

(1) Block your tweets, if you criticize Comcast’s service or its merger, especially if you use the #ComcastSucks hashtag.

(2) Block your vote to the consumerist.com, when you vote Comcast the worst company in the nation. No need for such traffic to get through.

(3) Force every candidate for election to register their campaign-donations webpage and abide by the same weird rules that apply to donations by text message.

(4) Comcast could even require a “processing fee,” becoming the Ticketmaster of campaign contributions.

(5) Comcast could reserve the right to approve of every campaign online and every mass email to a political party’s or advocacy group’s list (as they do with text message short codes).

(6) If you create a small online business and hit it big, threaten to block your business unless you share 1/3 or more of all your revenues with them (apps on the iPhone app stores often are forced to give up a 1/3 or more; so are cable channels on cable TV).

(7) Block all peer to peer technologies, even those used for software developers to share software, distribute patches (world of warcraft), distribute open source software (Linux). In fact, Comcast has shown it would love to do this.

(8) Block Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Moveon.org (and its emails), because of an “exclusive” deal with other blogs. Or alternatively, block FoxNews.com because of a deal with NBC and MSNBC.

(9) Monitor everything you do online and sell it to advertisers, something else that some phone and cable have done, with the help of a shady spyware company.

(10) Lie to you about what they’re blocking and what they’re monitoring. Hell, the FCC wouldn’t have any authority to make them honest. The FCC couldn’t punish them.

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