While the whole world is distracted with conflict the middle east, there's a plan for the FCC to take over all internet infrastructure in the United States. One of the FCC commissioners Brendan Carr has published this criticism of one of the most blatant power grabs in the last 90 years.
I am not a lawyer and don't really know what this really means but here are a few key points that got attention.
- President Biden’s plan hands the Administrative State effective control of all Internet services and infrastructure in the country. Never before, in the roughly 40-year history of the public Internet, has the FCC (or any federal agency for that matter) claimed this degree of control over it.
The text of the order expressly provides that the FCC would be empowered, for the first time, to regulate each and every ISP’s:
● “network infrastructure deployment, network reliability, network upgrades, network maintenance, customer-premises equipment, and installation”;
● “speeds, capacities, latency, data caps, throttling, pricing, promotional rates, imposition of late fees, opportunity for equipment rental, installation time, contract renewal terms, service termination terms, and use of customer credit and account history”;
● “mandatory arbitration clauses, pricing, deposits, discounts, customer service, language options, credit checks, marketing or advertising, contract renewal, upgrades, account termination, transfers to another covered entity, and service suspension.”
-
President Biden’s plan sweeps entire industries within the FCC’s jurisdiction for the first time in the agency’s 90-year history.
-
President Biden’s plan allows the FCC to impose unfunded build mandates on ISPs and unlimited monetary fines on every covered entity.
-
President Biden’s plan includes price controls.
-
President Biden’s plan adopts an expansive and disfavored theory of liability that Congress neither directed nor authorized the FCC to adopt
This goes to some sort of a vote on November 15th but I don't recall ever voting for any of these bureaucrats.
I know that bitcoin will survive on a global scale but this is bad for Bitcoin and internet freedom in the United States.