Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Hillary Clinton and Net Neutrality

Adam Thierer of the Cato Institute expresses his bafflement over why people have such faith that instituting government regulations to enforce net neutrality will result in beneficial protection for free speech, when historically Congress has shown little support for the principle. He points out the irony of Hillary Clinton calling for net neutrality in the name of protecting free speech, when she has on multiple occasions called for and supported government restrictions on free speech, including on the Internet. She supported the Communications Decency Act, most of which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional. She supports regulation of video game content. She pushed the V-chip.

Does anyone really believe that the regulated Internet Hillary Clinton wants to see won't ultimately result in any new restrictions on freedom of speech? Especially since the net neutrality bills propose giving regulatory authority over the Internet to the FCC, the same agency that is more aggressive at fining broadcasters for "indecent" content than addressing telemarketing fraud?

1 comment:

voiploser said...

Jim - The thing that I try to remember when reading about politicians jumping into matters that they don't have any idea about, and yet speak definitely anyways is this....It's an election year. This is all about politics, not logic.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac