Bush FTC Weighs in Against Congressional Net Neutrality Safeguards
The Bush Administration has come to the aid of GOP Hill leaders who are desperately working to derail network neutrality legislation. Federal Trade Commission Chair Deborah Majoras has just announced plans for her agency to explore the network neutrality issue. The message from the Bush White House via Ms. Majoras is clear: Congress shouldn’t be concerned about the need to restore the Internet’s neutrality, now that the so-called consumer watchdog FTC is on the case.
In a speech delivered at the annual tony confab of the Progress and Freedom Foundation (a Newt Gingrich co-founded group funded by industry that opposes net neutrality rules), Majoras questioned whether any Internet freedom rules were needed at all. The market, she noted, can protect us. But she also announced plans for her agency to convene an Internet “Task Force” to “evaluate Net Neutrality proposals in detail.” Her discussion of the issue ignored, of course, how the phone and cable giants purposefully lobbied to have the Bush FCC kill the U.S. Internet’s non-discriminatory governing principles in the first place (with cable in 2002 and with the phone network in 2005).
http://www.freepress.net/news/17248