FCC Net Neutrality Order Reads Like Passages from ‘1984,’ Senior House Telecom Aide Says
LAS VEGAS -- The net neutrality rules adopted by the FCC last month read like something out of George Orwell’s 1984, full of “doublethink and newspeak,” said Neil Fried, chief counsel to the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. On a panel late Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show about the order, he cast FCC in the position of the novel’s Ministry of Truth, tasked with determining what actions of network operators will be deemed reasonable. “We don’t want to anyone to decide who has permission to innovate, so instead we're going to have to go to the government for permission,” he said. “It’s very troubling."
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If Republicans succeed in moving a resolution of disapproval through the House and Senate under the Congressional Review Act, President Barack Obama could face pressure to sign it, Fried said. “I'm not sure the president wants this to be a national fight.” A veto by Obama could be politically unpopular heading into the 2012 election cycle, he said. Democrats are bracing for a two to three month period of “theater” in Congress as House Republicans hold hearings on the FCC rules, before Obama ultimately vetoes the measure, said Roger Sherman, chief telecom counsel to Democrats on the House Commerce Committee. “I don’t know what will happen in the Senate, but I'm pretty confident based on what the president has said about the open Internet and the open Internet order specifically that it’s likely to meet a presidential veto."
At that point, some company or party that feels aggrieved by the rules will probably challenge it in court, Sherman said. Verizon, which has been critical of the rules, seems the likeliest candidate, some have said (CD Dec 23 p1). Executive Vice President Tom Tauke declined to discuss his company’s legal strategy during the panel. “We are studying the order carefully to determine what course of action we might take when the time comes, but I'm not in a position to say what we may or may not do,” he said.
The commission exercised regulatory humility in the order by declining to regulate wireless broadband networks to the same extent as wireline networks, said Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus. “We thought the prudent thing to do was take this measured step to address some of the issues we saw in the marketplace and see whether or not additional steps might be necessary in the future.” The order also issues a caution that the agency will be watching for troubling behavior by network operators, he said.
The significance of the FCC order is that it managed to avoid messing up the industry, said AT&T Senior Executive Vice President James Cicconi. “We're back here” discussing the rules in a remote room of the Las Vegas Convention Center, while the main attractions of CES play out on the showroom floor, he said. “That’s where the action is, out there, and there’s a tremendous number of new devices … services and ideas.”